how long should i do cardio hit?

[bluffmasta]

I usually do 20 min cardio hit after weight lifting thats about 4 and half mile distance. The question should I increased my cardio to 30 min or 40min? or 20 min is enough? btw I'm trying to lose my stomach fat and chest fat.

[Icedtea]

Depends on how hard the 20 minutes is and how hard you're lifting before the cardio.
If the 20 mins seems like it's getting easy, ramp up the resistance or the distance/length. I don't think there's a real general rule to follow, other than keeping it under an hour.

[Stangmaniak]

btw I'm trying to lose my stomach fat and chest fat.

How often are you running? If you feel you can go longer than 20 mins go for it. Focus on your diet more to lose the gut tho.

[Sim882]

I seriously have my doubts that 20 mins does that much.

I mean, that's probably 300 cals during the exercise, and the post metabolic effect in studies (cited by Tom Venuto at least) is not significant to transform this into a lot of exercise

I seem to get better results from 40-45.

However, 40 mins HIIT on the same exercise is too taxing.

So what I may do is 10 min treadmill HIIT; 10 mins elliptical; 10 mins strider; 10 mins bike, or bump one of these to 15.

BY using slightly different muscles, I can last 40-45 mins - I don't think you could do it effectively on same machine

[Sirjohns]

Your target time in gym should be 45mins. Stretching to an hour at max. Your cardio should be 5 mins to start and get your blood pumping. Then 30 mins of weight lifting. Followed by 15-20mins of cardio keeping your heart rate above 130ish. HIIT burns alot of calories but steady low intensity cardio burns fat. After your weight lifting you have used all of your bodies short term energy stores. That 15-20mins is all fat burn.

Concensus is that after an hour in the gym u start burning lean body mass.

[TheNormalMan]

Are we talking High Intensity Training (HIT) Cardio or High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) Cardio? There's a big difference. If you're in decent shape and push yourself, you can go quite a ways with HIT style cardio and burn a good load of calories. If you can do more than 20 minutes HIIT cardio, then you're not working hard enough. I'm ready to vomit after my 9th or 10th set of intervals.

[Sirjohns]

Im not talking about HIT or HIIT. If you want to burn you body fat you keep your heart rate over you target for a period of time. Spiking your heart rate while yes burning plenty of calories throws your body into survival mode pulling the needed energy from every source at its disposal. Most of which is not your stored body fat.

[TheNormalMan]

Im not talking about HIT or HIIT. If you want to burn you body fat you keep your heart rate over you target for a period of time. Spiking your heart rate while yes burning plenty of calories throws your body into survival mode pulling the needed energy from every source at its disposal. Most of which is not your stored body fat.

The idea behind HIIT isn't too burn a ton of calories in the gym. It does do that but it also spikes your EPOC (Post Exercise Oxygen Consumption) for many hours after the gym and similar to how a heavy weight workout increases it. Plus doing cardio for 15-20 minutes is sure a lot more appealing some days than spending 45+ minutes glued to an elliptical.

[Sirjohns]

I agree completely but as he stated he does his cardio after lifting. So his EPOC as you put it is already spiked. My point was simply if he wants to get rid of chest and belly fat a 20 minute high paced walk will burn more fat then a 20 min sprint. Well ok if you sprint for a full 20 mins you going to burn as much fat but you also just took a huge step back on muscle production as well as depleted some of what you have already gained.