How much is too much exercise?

So, I'm trying to figure out how much is too much exercise.  When I've been going to the gym lately I've been doing 2-3 hours of working out.  I usually spend a 1/2 hour on weights and than the rest on cardio.  I'm trying to speed up my results.  Do you think this is overkill?

That depends on alot of things:

What are your goals?  What types of cardio are you doing?  how intense is the cardio? 

If you're doing that much cardio each day the weight training is probably pointless and a waste of your time.  Its hard to get results from weight training when you do alot of cardio.

2-3 hours a day?

2-3 hours a day for a non-athlete is definitely overtraining. I hope you are eating appropriately and upping your calories. There is no quick fix to this and you could injur yourself by doing this. 

I train an hour of cardio a day 5 days a week - my trainer says I need atleast two rest days working out this hard.

If you are trying to burn fat, long duration steady-state cardio is probably the least efficient thing you can do.  Increase the amount and intensity of your weight lifting and add interval training to your cardio.  Also read this article:

http://www.t-nation.com/readArticle.do?id=152 6539

When I work out I do a 15 min warm-up on the treadmill than I lift weights for 30 mins.  switching days from arms to legs.  than I do an hour on the treadmill at 3.0 and every 5 mins I up the incline by 2.5 until I get to 15 and than I'll lower it to 0 and than jog for as long as I can and than I'll walk on 0 for 5 mins and than up it by 2.5 every 5 mins.  Than I do the stair master for 20 mins and than I do the machine that's like an eliptical but you push your legs out instead of forward and I do that for 20 mins and than I do the bike for like a half hour.  and than when I'm all nice and drippin sweat I call it a day.

I would say that's probably too much cardio.  You're going to get burned out very quickly qith a routine like.  How long have you been doing this for? 

For about the last week.  I'm a singer and so my career depends on me getting thin and looking hot as fast as possible.  The music industry is very shallow so I have no other choice.  I don't want to be skinny though.  I want to be toned w/ killer calves and 6 pack.

Killer calves and a 6 pack are going to require a lot of calf raises and hard ab workouts, not to mention losing any fat that happens to be hiding these muscles by working the rest of the body. I understand your goals coinciding with your career. You might consider upping the time that you spend on weights (say, to one hour). This is really the best way to accomplish the types of goals that you seem to be interested in. And let me just say, you aren't going to get all meaty and gross. I've had really nice success in working a different body part each day (well, 5 days a week) and, if you then add in 3-4 days a week of HIIT training (20-30 minutes as a time), then you'll be losing fat and developing muscle definition, whereas all the time that you spend doing cardio is just eating up your muscles (or, at least, could be, depending on your diet). You might also try some exercises that incorporate many muscles at once, such as the ones that are listed further down on the first link below. I've also included one (the second part to the first) on nutrition, because this is also has to be taken into consideration if you're trying to slim down and build some muscle definition. Do make sure that you give yourself one or even two rest days.

http://www.musclewithattitude.com/readArticle .do?id=1500416

http://www.musclewithattitude.com/readArticle .do;jsessionid=D9AD34790F9198EAC824DECC67E824 3F.hydra?id=1504047

And here's another one for good measure, which really explains why the weights are better than all the cardio:

http://www.t-nation.com/readArticle.do?id=152 6539&cr=

Good luck!

Edit: whoops, didn't see that floggingsully had already posted that last one - oh well, can't hurt to read it twice!

Yeah, that's a bit too much at once for your goals - try replacing all that cardio with some HIIT work or even Tabata intervals. 

 Personally, I do the Tabata Thrusters.

  In general, I'd encourage you to Step Away From the Treadmill and structure your workouts more around the article Sully linked to - there's room for a lot of cardio if you're careful managing your fatigue and build up to handling that volume, but just starting out it's excessive.

 If you want an effective workout, try Real Fast Fat Loss by Alwyn Cosgrove and Chad Waterbury. Using that workout plan and essentially nil cardio I dropped 17lbs in 11 weeks, which is about as fast as physically possible without losing muscle mass in the process. With a sensible cardio schedule - not your current overkill - you can probably go for the maximum safe loss rate of 1% of your current body weight a week. You do not want to exceed that loss rate or you'll lose muscle mass right along with the fat, which is very counterproductive for anyone who wants to get leaner. 

Thanks for that last article, melkor, I'm going to start that next week.

Edit: and by next week, I mean tomorrow.

Melkor thanx for the advice.    I checked out the link for real fast fat loss and I definitely want to try it I have the feeling I need to try it at home first before I throw a dumbell into a mirror at the gym.  They look like some very difficult exercises.  I'm going to incorporate the squat to a lunge and some of the overhead squats.  I'm not sure if I'm strong enough yet but I'll for sure kick my own ass until I am.  I've never been able to do a pull up or anything that's required a lot of upper body strength.  So many of my goals rely on me getting stronger so I can do rock wall climbing and stuff.

Hey guys, thanks for introducing me to these Tabata Thrusters. I had never heard of them! All you need is a clock, two light dumbbells and 4 minutes. Crazy. It's hard to believe that 4 minutes can really do anything. Do you guys do Tabata Thrusters in addition to your normal workout? Everything I have read said that after 4 minutes you won't want to do anything...

Thanks so much for these great sites.  I'm going to start putting these exercise programs to work tonight.  Wish me luck!

I read through the articles that you all provided links to and they all discussed the HIIT programs and weight training.  Question though - I got a little confused by the one site that discussed "HIIT - Anaerobic; HIIT - Aerobic; and HIIT Steady State.  I got confused at to which is which.  Can anyone help explain it?  I looked on the site and while it listed doing them all, it didn't explain each of them and then when I googled them, they all produced the same results.  Are they all the same name for cardio intervals?  The way the one article broke them down, the author seemed to be referring to them as totally different types of training.

Can anyone help to explain them?  Thanks so much!!

HH

I feel like I did a set of these just watching the video, christ

DB Romanian Deadlift to Split Snatch (plus lunge)
Rest 60s between each set.

Original Post by hhaussler:

Thanks so much for these great sites.  I'm going to start putting these exercise programs to work tonight.  Wish me luck!

I read through the articles that you all provided links to and they all discussed the HIIT programs and weight training.  Question though - I got a little confused by the one site that discussed "HIIT - Anaerobic; HIIT - Aerobic; and HIIT Steady State.  I got confused at to which is which.  Can anyone help explain it?  I looked on the site and while it listed doing them all, it didn't explain each of them and then when I googled them, they all produced the same results.  Are they all the same name for cardio intervals?  The way the one article broke them down, the author seemed to be referring to them as totally different types of training.

Can anyone help to explain them?  Thanks so much!!

HH

 I'm sure someone else can futher clarify but what I do know is...

Anaerobic means an activity with weights

Aerobic is a pure cardio activity

Steady rate cardio is an aerobic activity where you stay at a constant speed.

I've never done HIIT so I won't explain that...someone else should though!

I found an article called Guerilla Cardio that talks about Tabata track sprints. Really cool!

Thanks mds86.  I guess that's why I'm a little confused.  I know that anaerobic would be weights, aerobic would be cardio and I know from reading the articles that steady state cardio is cardio at same pace for a period of time.  I guess that's why I'm so confused after reading the article on that same site that referred to them all as interval training programs.

Is the anaerobic interval training like circuit training (fast intervals of weight training at low weights - switching machines every 1 minute)?  If so then that still leaves me confused of the difference between aerobic intervals vs. steady state intervals.  They're both cardio intervals.

HH

P.S. I'm going to wait on trying the DB Romanian Deadlift to Split Snatch (plus lunge) until I've tried the others.  That one seems to be a break the ankle if not used to doing the split snatch kind of move.  Ha.

 

 

You're thinking of the Hierarchy of Fat loss article? Well, first off there's lifting at the top, then there's Anaerobic HIIT - Tabata interval training, basically. The next step down is aerobic HIIT - something like HIIT and Run where you aren't working in the anaerobic zone but still doing intervals. The step below that is regular old steady-state high intensity cardio - hard treadmill, elliptical or bike training where you don't vary the tempo as with interval training.

 When doing the RFFL plan I didn't have an exercise bike to do the Tabata intervals that the plan called for, so I did Tabata thrusters instead - sometimes. I went with Tabata jump rope instead on the days that called for 3x15 lunge/shoulder press combos, 'coz that turned out to be 90 shoulder presses since one rep is one lunge per foot.

 The RDL/Split snatch/lunge is fun - it's also technically challenging so make sure you practice split snatches a bit. Last 5x5 workout I was using a pair of 38.5lbs dumbbells, but I started out using 28lbs DB's which was plenty.

Melkor.  Thanks so much!  Yes. That was the article that confused me a bit.  The way you explained it totally made sense.  I tried it for the first time tonight.  I could barely walk up the stairs of my house to take a shower when I got home!!  Ha!  At least I know that I must have pushed myself a lot harder than I would have if I had done normal weight training.

hey everyone,

i'm trying to sift through the information on this forum and am feeling like quite a novice.  i have been at the weight loss thing for about a year and have lost close to 60 pounds.  i was in the 300s though so i still have a ways to go -- i'm at 270 lbs.  i wanted to ask everyone about exercise though. 

i've dropped weight all at once when i've been doing the elliptical (5 hours a week of it) and then it has slowed down, my motivation has slowed down, and i've continued to maintain a healthy eating style but then pretty much given up on the gym.  2 months ago, i started up with the elliptical again and again lost "rapidly."  i lost 16 lbs in 2 months.  i then plateaued for a good 2 weeks and was getting bored of the elliptical so i decided to try dance classes. 

i have an unlimited dance pass that allows me to take up to 8 hours of dance per week.  i'm really enjoying the salsa and swing lessons in particular and also 2 of my classes that are more aerobic in nature.  these classes are 5 times a week.  on my "off" days i'll try to swim.  that being said, my calve muscles KILL from dance so i come home without any energy to swim/do the elliptical afterwards.  i know i should probably incorporate some upper body weights at the very least, even if i'm just doing small 3-5 lb weights in the comfort of my living room.  i'm also not seeing the scale drop much since starting (i started march 1st) though i'm fitting into my pants better and have lost another half inch on my hips. 

in light of the fact that only 2 of the 8 hours are aerobic dance and that the others are probably only burning about 350 calories per hour of dance class (i knock out 45 mins to discount for time when we're not moving), do you all have any suggestions?  should i cut down on dance and add in more elliptical?  how about swimming?  (we have an indoor pool in my apt building.)  we also have  stationary bikes but i don't seem to burn many calories on these -- they do tend to work my ab muscles really well though b/c of the way they make me sit.

i'd appreciate any help and advice.  i should also add that i have pcos meaning i'm insulin resistant and so my family practice doctor has said that other than cutting out white carbs, pcos patients have a harder time losing through diet modification given their horomonal issues but that they respond well to exercise and can burn the fat and build muscle just like anyone else.

I am a musical performer as well so I feel your pain. If you want the toned hot look, you gotta lift weights. You won't look like a man, we don't have the testosterone for that! woohoo!

All the cardio -STOP!!! You're body is probably eating itself!!!!!!!

Check out bodybuilding.com, you'll find a wealth of info there.

Try heavy weights 3x/week with cardio in between. if you MUST do cardio on weight days, it should be AFTER lifting and definitely not for an hour, no no.

Also, it's all in the DIET!!  Figure out your calorie burn/day - probably somewhere aroudn 1800-2000 and eat 500 cal/day below this, but no more than 500 cal below and no less than 1200 cal total. Try to focus on eating lean proteins (fish, lean red meats, chicken) lots of veggies, brown rice, sweet potatoes and whole grains.

 

You'll look fabulous for the stage in no time! and the great thing about weights is when you get off your diet or miss the gym, you still have all that muscle burning away and keeping the weight off. If you only do cardio, as soon as you get off the diet or miss a few days, it all comes rushing back because your body has been in starvation mode and will suck up anything it can get, boo.