Am I burning muscle?

[luxur]

Shouldnt the intensity be determined by your HR through out the cardio session? The machine says i should keep my HR at 120 for fat burning maximisation. But even at 140 i breath through the nose still. My point being; me waling at 3-4 miles an hour and an athlete there would be a huge diffrence in our percived intensity. Making any sense?

[Phate]

Shouldnt the intensity be determined by your HR through out the cardio session? The machine says i should keep my HR at 120 for fat burning maximisation. But even at 140 i breath through the nose still. My point being; me waling at 3-4 miles an hour and an athlete there would be a huge diffrence in our percived intensity. Making any sense?

there are three main types of cardio IMO,

low intensity aerobic, which means you are using oxygen and therefore burning more fat, you should be able to hold a conversation without having to gasp for air in this type of cardio, i walk at an incline to accomplish this

high intensity anaerobic, this is like running at a fast pace for 20-30 minutes and uses mostly glycogen for an energy source, you burn more calories than in aerobic, but the majority are from glycogen and you will be gasping for air and unable to hold a conversation during this

HIIT(high intensity interval training), this is a mix of the last two, personally i do a 5 minute warmup on an elliptical then do 30 seconds at 80-90% of my maximum effort by increasing resistance as well as increasing how fast i stride, then do 1 minute at 50% by decreasing resistance and decreasing stride, i do this for a total of 15-20 minutes then a 4-5 minute cool down, this cardio increases metabolic rate for 24 hours and has been shown to put the body in a more anabolic state, though it should only be utilized 3-4x a week at most as it is very tiring if you do it right