"Never exercise for over 45 minutes"

[BooneGA]

I had the opposite experience. I was at my lightest last december when I had been doing cardio involving 40-50 minutes each of running, biking, and swimming back to back one-two times a week.

Rick

[wild_wild_wes]

How is that opposite?

[BooneGA]

I should have gone into more depth. The cardio sessions were anywhere from 2-2.5 hours. My previous sesions over the course of the week added up to around that although shorter in length, but more frequent.

Rick

[chuckman]

I am my own study.

Well, not really. Your evidence is anecdotal, and you can't control for many variables. There are very few topics few topics, weight loss and fitness among them, where people get passionate about what works for them (and for good reason), but unless you subject hundreds or thousands of people to the same regimen and control variables, you can't really say "x works," only "x works for me."

Congratulations on your weight loss and increased fitness. It is hard work and worth the reward.

[jasonhgross]

Does it matter. Training hard, no gym grip and grin sessions with the gym dwellers, I can get a great hard workout in 45-60 min easily. On squat day (2 warm up sets, 3-4 hard work sets, one chill out set) I can do just those and some pull ups and be totally done.

[300WM]

If I worried about what every study came up with, I would not look like I do at 48yrs old. It takes a half hour to get warmed up good. Remember, people who study stupid shit need jobs, too.

[wild_wild_wes]

Came across another article:

"How much cardio exercise you should do, and when to do it, is a more complicated question. During extended bouts (over 45 minutes) of moderate to high intensity cardio exercise, your body will gradually increase the percentage of protein (stored in your body as muscle tissue) it uses for fuel. When exercise goes on for 90 minutes or more, the amount of energy provided by protein can be as high as 10-12%, compared to the normal 1-2%. So, doing cardio exercise for longer than 45 minutes at a time may be counterproductive if you are trying to increase muscle mass. The best bet for burning maximum calories without sacrificing muscle mass would be shorter, 20-40 minute bouts of higher intensity cardio exercise; interval training, or High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) would be ideal."

http://www.sparkpeople.com/resource/...id=1024&page=4

[panzerr]

So....how do you guys react to these studies?

Unless it is a peer-reviewed systematic review of many different studies it isn't worth getting your panties in a punch. Not that a guy should ignore singular studies. They just don't have that much power.

[Yojimbo]

Came across another article:

"How much cardio exercise you should do, and when to do it, is a more complicated question. During extended bouts (over 45 minutes) of moderate to high intensity cardio exercise, your body will gradually increase the percentage of protein (stored in your body as muscle tissue) it uses for fuel. When exercise goes on for 90 minutes or more, the amount of energy provided by protein can be as high as 10-12%, compared to the normal 1-2%. So, doing cardio exercise for longer than 45 minutes at a time may be counterproductive if you are trying to increase muscle mass. The best bet for burning maximum calories without sacrificing muscle mass would be shorter, 20-40 minute bouts of higher intensity cardio exercise; interval training, or High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) would be ideal."

http://www.sparkpeople.com/resource/...id=1024&page=4

You can easily beat that issue by...adding extra protein to your diet. Eat 1-2 grams( some people go higher than that) of protein per pound of body weight and you can limit the amount of muscle mass you loose. I find many of the recommended diets are way too low on protein and aren't geared for people are really training hard.

The muscle will only be used if you don't have a surplus of protein in your system. So eat up and train hard!

[panzerr]

You can easily beat that issue by...adding extra protein to your diet. Eat 1-2 grams( some people go higher than that) of protein per pound of body weight and you can limit the amount of muscle mass you loose.

I don't see your body catabolizing itself if the two primary energy sources are available -fat and carbs.

Protein is a very poor energy source. The body only uses about 5% of the protein it takes in as energy because it creates waste products which then must be expelled. You would have to be in poor shape nutirionwise for your body to dig into its muscle. You would have to go several days without eating.

I would be more worried about the prolonged effects of elevated cortisol levels due to stress. Increased basal levels of cortisol would mean you are constantly exposed to its catabolic effects. Unless you are swimming the English channel, stress is more likely to burn your muscle than a workout.