Andrew said it poetically: “Don’t be a fitness butterfly, flitting hither & thither on a whim.”
M said it politely: “My first reaction to this experiment is that a week seems like an awful short amount of time to try something.”
But Becky (via e-mail) got right to the point: “You’re a wimp.”
I’m a Wimp
It’s true. I called off an experiment after a measly five days. Any scientist will tell you that unless you are measuring bacteria growth (like, say, in my toilet that I am neglecting cleaning at this very moment) then five days is probably not long enough to tell much.
The way I see it, there are three variables to play around with in fitness: time, intensity & type. You can change up all three at a time – what I would describe as a fitness overhaul or major program change. Or you can change one at a time to see what is or isn’t working for you. During this last experiment, I only changed one thing: the length of time of my cardio. The intensity (high) remained the same as I kept all my interval/circuit sessions. The type of workout (4 days cardio, 3 days strength) also remained the same. Call it a program tweak, if you will. And I think that five days might just be long enough to see if a tweak is not trending in the way you were looking for.
I have to admit I was a little surprised by everyone’s reactions. Change is the one constant in fitness and I really didn’t change much this time around. I’m not saying that I’m giving up lifting entirely to embark upon a double-cardio binge. (Wish I could say that I’ve never done that before but hey, at least I know now that doesn’t work!) Perhaps I’m a little too quick to jump to conclusions but I’ve been burned before. I wasted six months doing BodyPump 3 days a week, gaining 4% bodyfat, before I realized that endurance weight lifting doesn’t work for me. (Again, to all of you that love bodypump, I’m not slamming the program. I’m glad it works for you – it just didn’t work for me.) So now when I see something isn’t working, I don’t mess around. I just fix it.
The New Experiment
So if I know that just cutting cardio time wasn’t helpful, then what do I tweak next? My personal trainer friend suggested cutting my intensity. Andrew suggested cutting out a couple of cardio workouts entirely. I’m not sure what I want to try next except so that’s why I decided to take a no-numbers break. Which all of you applauded – thank you for the support (and Mad Props, Lucas!).
I’m open to your suggestions as to what to tweak next. But I have to ask – do you all really think it is best to just find one program and stick with it indefinitely? Has that worked for you? What is your pet program? How long have you done it? Do you ever tweak it? Let me have it (again) in the comments!
The cardio diet did not work for Charlotte and I very well. We had to keep our cals below 600, at the most, (according to Charlotte’s watch) which was very hard considering her watch is very generous. We were only able to have our heart rate up for about a half hour and that just wasn’t fun for us, well it made me feel like crap. We actually never did keep it below 600 cals in 2 hours..and believe me, we tried to! So I guess since we didn’t technically follow the rules, we called it quits and might come back to it another time. Anyways though, what I am getting at is the cardio diet wasn’t very fun for us, and who wants to work out when its not fun anymore. Hopefully this “no numbers week” will help us out a lot and we’ll maybe be able to learn something from it! 🙂
My 2 cents is that flitting from program to program isn’t advisable, but neither is trying to force yourself to stick to something that you don’t enjoy.
And I promise, I’m not a wanna-be gangster, I just type like one.
gym buddy allison’s post confused me. Now I’m not sure exactly what you were trying. What do you mean you tried to keep your cals below 600? 600 burned? That has very little to do with cardio – you burn calories walking to get a weight and put it on the bar; weightlifting is a huge calorie burner. So I can’t figure out how keeping your cals burned low = cardio diet. No one said don’t burn calories. CrossFit usually has my heart rate up for the entire workout (for example) as I’d imagine MBG workouts do. It’s more about intense lifting and less obsession with long, more moderate cardio. Maybe I misunderstood.
I don’t think Mark (Daily Apple) or Art DeVany or Turbulence Training any “less cardio” program eliminates cardio or calorie burning – all include some kind of interval sessions and most suggest longer moderate intensity sessions on the “off” days like walking or something. I’m just not sure what was described fits into a cardio diet. It sounds more like “the less intense workout” experiment.
One week isn’t much and scales aren’t perfect (unless you have some kind of super duper scale!). But Lucas has a point – if you aren’t enjoying it, so be it. No numbers is a great break (I’ve done that experiment), but it doesn’t work forever. You “have” to be able to track something, even it it’s just weight, to make sure things aren’t getting out of hand.
AT22 – I love Turbulence Training! I haven’t thought of it in a while though. THanks for the reminder.
Anyhow, to clear up the confusion, Allison and I suffer from a problem I call “cardio creep” meaning that since we both tend to really like cardio and not enjoy lifting as much, over time we will gradually keep increasing our cardio at the expense of other types of exercise. It had gotten to the point where we were doing sometimes two or more hours of cardio a day. Also, we would do the MBG routine but then add cardio to it by rewriting the WOD, to make it longer and harder.
By “cardio diet” I meant that we were going to stick ONLY to the MBG routine as written and focus more on the lifting. I was using cals burned as one measure to keep us from “creeping up” on the cardio again. Our main measure was just to keep our time spent in cardio activities limited. We kept our intensity (and heart rates) very high. We just cut the total time spent in cardio.
Does that help?
Can you guys talk a bit more about Turbulence Training? I went on a couple of websites, but they were mostly ads. Does it really work? Is it enjoyable? Is it worth the money? Does it only come in an e-book, or is it possible to get a hard copy and/or DVD?
Thanks!
Hi Charlotte and everyone! as far as sticking with a “program”, I don’t think you can really do the same thing for very long – not more than 4 months without going bored out of your mind. At least that’s been my experience. So I like to switch it up. Right now in an ideal week, I’ll do Monday and Wednesday MBG, Tuesday and Thursday interval “boot camp” class at the gym (or sometimes just MBG) and on Friday a kick-boxing cardio-focused class. On Saturday I’ll do a yoga/dance/pilates video that I LOVE called “Reach” with Kari Anderson. (seriously look into it – it feels wonderful, you get your stretch and you burn about 450 cals in an hour according to my watch- simply awesome for a yoga-type video and way more fun than power yoga.) Sunday is rest day. Anyway, right now this is working great for me. Not going on any numbers, I look like I’ve lost some body fat. And I don’t get bored! For me, the most important part.
Classes are a good way to stay interested, because the instructor switches it up for you but only to a certain extent – i.e., you’re doing a lot of the same movement but in different ways that challenge the brain. So I guess this is my “plan” if you can call it that. Sorry about the loooong comment – good luck with your experiment!
There is a HUGE margin of error in BF percentage measures, so I would hardly call such a small “increase” (if it even increased at all) a cause for concern. Do not panic! 🙂 And remember you are lovely!
To quit any workout plan so quickly hardly gives it a chance; the body does need to adjust. Body fat is largely a function of diet – macros, calories, in the right amounts – so it could be that you needed to adjust something with diet. It might even mean that you need to eat more – not less. Or that you need to change up your macros.
I would suggest that any BF increase (if it occurred at all) could be the particular book or plan you tried, or a function of diet – not the heavy lifting or lack of cardio. “Cardio Free Diet” just strikes me as silly; Cardio is a workout, while dieting is what you eat. There is no way for a diet to have cardio, so the title seems bizarre to me. And the diet plan sounds too restrictive for heavy lifting, at least as I understand your post. Restricting calories too much while lifting heavy can backfire in terms of results.
Try “The New Rules of Lifting” (the original one is best IMHO, but there is also one that came out for women – also fantastic) to really get results lifting heavy.
Lift heavy, do HIIT, eat the right macros and calories to nourish those muscles and allow them to recover, and you will see results. Some cardio mixed in is fine. There is no reason to cut it out completely. But do keep in mind that too much endurance cardio can backfire when trying to build muscle. And relying only on cardio can actually result in muscle loss – not good.
I find it terribly concerning that you were doing several hours of cardio a day. That spells exercise addiction and ED to me. I know you enjoy it, but several hours? That is simply too much. Given some of your recent posts, I strongly suggest seeking counseling regarding the compulsion to do that much cardio.
More is not necessarily better, OK? Quality, not quantity.
5 days on a plan is not long enough. And 1.5% percentage increase in bodyfat? Well within the margin of error. Bodyfat measures are notoriously inaccurate. In fact, I highly doubt it changed at all in that short amount of time. And even if it did increase a bit, who is to say it would not have again decreased when you built muscle?
Also, lifting heavy is not endurance lifting, so I would not compare heavy weight training to Body Pump.
Just some initial thoughts.
Best of luck with whatever you choose! 🙂
One final suggestion: I would focus on results, not calories burned. Results should also include health of your joints and tendons/ligaments, your energy levels, hormone health, strength, power, agility, and body image … Not just your BF percentage or an arbitrary number on the scale.
Yes, that helps a lot. And I was thinking I should have added to my post “if you are going to be at the gym for two hours anyway, might as well do some cardio!” 🙂
Turbulence Training is great, and the variety is built right in! It gives you several 4 week programs, and if you buy it and are a member, they keep adding workouts all the time (I’m not a “member” anymore). It’s based on supersets (i.e., Deadlift followed immediately by bench, 3 sets –> move on to next superset), it includese cardio intervals (HIIT), and it’s made to get you in and out of the gym fast. (I sound like an info-mercial.) It’s challenging – and you can vary the intensity based on the weight you choose.
I have an e-book; I don’t know if it comes in DVD or hard copy.
Azusmom – I read the turbulence training e-book. It has some great workouts and good explanation of HIIT. But beyond that, I wouldn’t bother buying it. There are plenty of free HIIT & strength programs out there that are comparable.
Rachel – I’ll have to check out Reach. I love yoga, dance & pilates so it’ll be right up my alley! I like classes too:) Something about working out in a big group always makes me push harder! My new fave is a hip-hop class. Thanks for the recommendations!
Anon – I’m not sure where you got the idea I was cutting calories. My nutrition has remained the same throughout. I don’t count cals or portions and just eat to hunger. Also, I said “cardio diet” meaning less cardio than what I was doing. I didn’t say “cardio free diet” – no cardio at all would just be silly:)
Thanks for the tip about overtraining/working out too much. I’m prone to overexercising so I appreciate you guys keeping an eye on me:)
Hey folks,
Thought I’d post my comments on sticking with and changing work out routines/programs. I am training for the Hammer throw, and that requires alot of stuff. Strength, balance, core, technique (for throwing) and agility.
The strength training entails me to do alot of olympic lifts 3 days a week. I do core (abdominal) every day except the days I rest. Balance is a key aspect I’ve overlooked before and now try to incorporate it whenever and where I get the time to squeeze in the work out for the day. Agility drills, like the ones you see football players, baseball players and sprinters do, are what I do on most days I don’t lift. To sum it up, I work out 6 days a week, one day off. I try to vary the intensity, so I don’t get burned out and mush through the final two days of my work out week. I work out for 3hours (sometimes 4 if I do the cardio) a day. It starts off with a good dose of stretching (15-20 minutes), followed by my agility drills for 40-45 minutes, then I break down for my technique (throwing hammer drills with the med ball). I then hit the treadmill for 30 minutes and then finish off with an abdominal workout for 15 -20 minutes. On this particular work out, I try to throw in some light upper body lifts between my treadmill and abdominal work out, not so intense but it keeps my heart rate up.
Where my agility drills are, I swap out with a good stair work out or a sprinters work out. All in all, by the time I am done, I lose a lot of water weight, up to 4-6lbs on the average (one day I actually dropped 11lbs of water weight, I was dilerious). I switch up the lifting part every 3-4 months or 6 weeks depending on what my body tells me. The agility drills and stair work outs fade in intesity when I lift, so I don’t over train (even though I have at times). Been doing this for one year and a week to the day. Lost 50lbs and I have never felt better, even in college. I watch what I eat, but considering how much I burn now, I just eat whatever I want. But I used to (at the beginning of this endeavor) watch my portions and cut out the soda and sugars. But after running into endurance and stamina issues, I have since increased my caloric intake and just limit my sweets. So, yes, ladies, I eat everything and still burn it all off. I haven’t gained weight at all over the year long course, and am quite happy that it works.
My lifting schemes are 3×5, 5×5, 6×5, 3×10 and pyramids 6,5,4,3,2,1. Right now, since the season is around the corner, I am doing 3×5 sets and trying to maintain my strength that I have gained. When the actually season starts, I will switch up to the 5×5 scheme while maintaining the other aspects of my routine.
IF it wasn’t for my goal of beating my personal best in the hammer, I wouldn’t be doing half the stuff I am doing now. Most likely would be doing cardio every day (as opposed to every other day now) and lift half as much. I wouldn’t even touch 2 hours, but as it were, I am here everyday 3-4 hours. I do admit, despite all the variety in my routine, my body finally has adjusted and adapted to the rigorous routine I put before it. But, in terms of changing my overall program, I don’t think I could, not until I accomplish my goal. Even then, this will be a 5 year program (I am shooting for the stars and hope I glimpse 2012 Olympics).
Mad Mike