Cardio to burn fat.............???

[Raaf]

Hey all,

I am currently on a cutting diet and do an hour of cardio a day. I am a total noob with all this and only read yesterday that if your heart rates is to high during ur cardio workout that you burn muscle and not fat??? How true is this seeing that I exceed my target heart rate all the time with the intensity of my training. My THR must be 126bpm but I go anything from 140 to 150 bpm.

Is it true that I will burn muscle at that heart rate??

[run_n_fool]

Each person's HR is different, and the HR guidelines are just that, guidelines. Moreover, higher impact, compound joint activities like running will elevate the HR more than lower impact activities like cycling, however the aerobic benefit between the two is about equal, even at different HRs.

If you are doing a full hour of cardio, you are certainly working within an aerobic HR range, rather than anaerobic, so that is good.

How do you feel after that hour? Do you feel spent, or do you feel like you could continue for another hour if you wanted to? If you are spent, or close to it, you should consider reducing the intensity somewhat.

note that the advice here is based on my experience training for longer distance running and triathlon events, not necessarily body building or fat loss, however I believe the conditioning principles are very similar.

[Raaf]

Thx for the reply. I am absolutely spent after my cardio workout. My target is to burn as close as possible to 1000cal in that hour.

[run_n_fool]

How much to you weigh and how fast are you running? I am assuming you are running b/c it would be hard to burn 1k kcal/hour doing anything else.

Regardless, unless you are quite heavy, I would think your intensity is too high to not jeopardize your muscle mass. Especially since it is wiping you out.

[Raaf]

I am 6"1 and weigh 260lbs with 12% body fat. I run for 20 min at 7.5mph. I then do 20 minutes on the stepper at a 12 setting and then 20 minutes on health walker at a 13 setting.