How much cardio?

[cazzmania]

husband lifts weights 3 times a week, and jogs for 10 minutes afterward. I think he needs to get more cardiovascular exercise for his health (his dad just had a heart attack.) How much cardio should he get? Does weight-training "count" for any cardio?
Thanks for any help!

[sameey70]

Hi there,

Does your husband jog for only 10 minutes due to lack of conditioning or is his preference weight training? He may just need to build up his endurance. The recommendation for cardio exercise is 30min most days of the week. Weight training does have a small effect on cardiovascular health if exercises are done with short rests in between.

[Boss Man]

Yep around 30-40 minutes daily should be an upper limit. No more should be needed.

[swanso5]

this is from Alwyn Cosgrove:

[/quote] The only reason the body burns cals is because muscle tissue is working…it doesn’t matter what activity you are doing, it’s muscular demand that determines cal burn. If you can run a mile in 19mins and swim a mile in 20mins and after a yr of swimming everyday and not running you decrease your swim time to 16mins, without running your running time won’t improve. This is because you only have 1 cardiovascular system. The only reason your cardio system was involved was because of the demands from the muscular system. You adapted to specific muscular demands of swimming which by default involves the cardio system not the other way around as most think. Muscles don’t move because of cardio demand, cardio is elevated because of muscular demand. You need to program the body on the movements it’s going to do, not based on the cardio system. Steady state cardio is low int and burns fewer cals and as you get better at it, it burns less cals so most go for longer instead of harder

to sum up quickly, the body doesn't recognise what activity just the demands of it so if his wt training is with short rest and heavy wt he will be breathing rather heavily and his"cardiorespiratory fitness" will be taxed...running only for cardio fitness is just another myth of training and fitness work

[cazzmania]

Thanks for the replies. But, how does he know if he's lifting weights hard enough to receive cardiovascular benefit? He doesn't seem to breathe as hard lifting as he does running. Then, when he rests in between, of course his heart rate would go down, right? And what do you mean by "short rests" in between sets? Do you mean as opposed to long rests, or no rests at all? Hope I'm making sense here!
Thanks again, folks!

[sameey70]

Although there is some cardiovascular benefit in weight training, it is much more pronounced with aerobic exercise. There may be some whose disagree, but it's a fact.

[swanso5]

well if he's lifting heavy enough and using compound exercises that tax enough muscles at the one time, he'll be geting some cardio benefit...i don't any cardio at all and haven't for about 2yrs and resting heart rate high 50's / low 60's which isn't great but it's still better than most of the people i assess...short rest between sets is 30secs and under...if he's doing sets like that he'll be breathing

[cazzmania]

Thanks so much everyone! Very helpful.

[phate]

a good way for him to get cardio benefits from weightlifting is superseting, which is where you do opposing muscle groups back to back without rest, for example, on an arm day he could do a set of bicep curls followed immediately by tricep extension followed immediately by a set of crunches then back to biceps, doing opposing muscle groups like this, followed by abs, obliques, calves, traps, smaller muscle groups you dont work as often to give extra rest keeps the body working without resting but gives enough rest to do good sets because the muscles worked get rest while the others are worked, trust me, he'll be breathing hard if he does it right, just make sure he drinks water and keeps hydrated, they're also good on time, good luck