When to start cardio on a cut
How Much Cardio Should I Do When Cutting
today I'm not only gonna tell you
exactly how much cardio that you should
do while cutting but I'm also going to
tell you which form of cardio will get
you the best results
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alright Monday I did a video covering
exactly how many calories you need to
adjust by while you're cutting so if you
missed that video I will link it at the
end of this one and make sure you check
it out afterwards but not until you
watch this one first but naturally when
it comes to how many calories you should
cut the next question is how much cardio
should you do as well but make sure you
stay to the end of the video because I'm
not only going to tell you how much
cardio to start with but how to make
adjustments as well as which form of
cardio you should be doing okay let's
start with what we know we know that we
need to create a calorie deficit to lose
weight and calorie deficit means eat
less calories than you burn so if
consuming fewer calories is going to
allow us to create a bigger deficit
adding more expenditure to create more
calories out is gonna create a bigger
deficit and cardio is the biggest factor
that we have control of to be able to
expend more calories now I'm not gonna
go into a big thing about strength
training versus cardio in this video
just know that you absolutely should be
doing strength training in your routine
if you want to create the best possible
results the difference is straight
training doesn't change whether you're
cutting or not cardio does now when it
comes to how much cardio to do to start
your diet you have to remember that
whatever you're currently doing is what
your body has been adapted to so say for
instance you're already doing three
hours of cardio per week before you even
start your diet that's gonna be your
baseline before you add on more cardio
so if you're just starting your cut
hopefully your cardio isn't that high so
much like I told you in the last video
that you want to be eating as many
calories as possible while still seeing
results you also want to within reason
be doing as little cardio as possible
while seeing results this is because the
metabolism is very adaptive and when you
do a low room for adjustments as things
stall you shouldn't necessarily do no
cardio if you're not cutting I do find
that there's some benefits to have a
little bit in not only for just general
health but also work capacity and things
like that so doing in 30 40 minutes of
cardio a week is certainly reasonable
you just don't want to do too much
unless you just really love cardio as
you lose more and more weight in your
body adapts or you're gonna have to do
more and more cardio so this is why you
don't want to start with a super-high
amount you want to be able to just make
some increases to get things going again
and leave room for down the road we're
gonna have to be more aggressive trust
me I know it's super tempting to just do
a ton of cardio right off the bat to try
to like jumpstart your diet but I'm
telling you it's a huge mistake do not
do it don't do what a lot of people do
and add like three or four hours of
cardio per week right off the bat just
to get things going that's a really big
increase and like I told you Monday if
you start losing weight too fast not
only you're gonna sacrifice more muscle
but your body's gonna fight you hard as
your metabolism adapts and it's gonna
make senior long-term goals much much
more difficult to happen I know it's not
a popular topic but slower weight-loss
will yield you better long-term results
than faster weight loss so anyway when
you start your cut I typically recommend
increasing your cardio by about forty to
sixty minutes per week and this is also
in conjunction with the calorie drop
that you're gonna make as well remember
that this is an increase from whatever
you were doing before so if you were
already doing an hour of cardio per week
and you add an hour of cardio you're now
doing two hours of cardio for the week
and you can break out this cardio into
smaller sessions if you'd like and
actually I typically recommend it so
maybe you'll only do 10 to 15 minutes of
cardio four to five days a week but if
you haven't currently been doing any
this is actually gonna be a pretty
significant change and be more
challenging than you think let me
explain why I think shorter sessions are
better say for instance you were doing
80 hours of cardio per week if you were
doing 240 minute sessions per week to
get it in you're still getting the 80
minutes of cardio but it's a lot harder
to push for 40 minutes than it is say 10
15 20 minutes so while you make it 80
minutes per week doing two 40 minute
sessions if you did say four 20-minute
sessions you're gonna be able to push
harder during those 20 minute sessions
than you would a 40 minute session and
therefore you're gonna get more calorie
burn by doing the same amount of cardio
but breaking it into shorter sessions of
course just because this is what's most
optimal doesn't mean it's necessarily
right for you and if you just prefer and
enjoy longer sessions of cardio by all
means do that I think we also have to
keep in mind what our schedules look
like it's just if you want to get the
most bang for your buck
you're probably better off doing shorter
sessions and maybe adding like 15
minutes of cardio at the end of your
training sessions one very overlooked
factor when it comes to all things
fitness related is how much we enjoy
what we're doing if you enjoy it you're
going to adhere better and if you adhere
better you're gonna see better results
we need to make sure whatever we can do
is something that we'll be able to do
more long-term rather than just short
bouts of something that we end up giving
anyway after you've made that initial
adjustment just like with the calories
you're gonna keep that the same until
your body adapts and until you hit that
plateau and then you're gonna have to
make some different adjustments and I
think it's important to remind you that
we can't only look at scale weight make
sure you're also looking at body
composition measurements how clothes are
fitting things like that
now once thing is to have truly
plateaued and they always will
eventually there's nothing will ever
work forever basically have two choices
when it comes to making a change and
getting things going again actually you
have three you can either decrease your
calories you can increase your cardio or
some combination of the two which is
what I typically recommend so now maybe
you make a 30 40 minute increase in
cardio to your week and see if that gets
things going again if you're not making
a calorie drop you're gonna have to be a
little bit more aggressive with your
cardio if you want to go with more of a
calorie drop then maybe you only add 20
minutes or don't even add any cardio at
all just make a bigger calorie decrease
for what it's worth I actually find that
decreases in calories are typically more
effective than increases in cardio it's
just the body seems to be really good
and adapting to additional cardio so the
more cardio you do the less you get from
it so calorie decreases typically work a
little bit better but if you do a
combination that typically really gets
things going pretty well
then eventually the body's gonna adapt
this you're gonna have to make more
adjustments to get things going again
and so on and so on so you see why you
don't want to do too much cardio right
off the bat you need room to grow now
keep watching because I'm not only gonna
tell you what types of cardio should do
but I'm also gonna tell you at the end
of the video a very common mistake that
a lot of people fall into and I want to
make sure you don't do that but first
one more thing truthfully there isn't
necessarily an upper limit of how much
cardio you should do you have to keep in
mind what's gonna be realistic for you
and your schedule not only that but also
how you're gonna feel doing that much
cardio but everyone's different like
some people can reach their goals only
doing about an hour of cardio per week
other people are gonna have to do an
hour of cardio per day to reach their
goals so everyone's unique keep in mind
the more extreme their goals are the
more you're gonna have to push and
you're gonna have to embrace some extra
challenges that are going to come your
way alright so let's get into the types
of cardio and which ones I think are
best the first options we have to look
at is either steady state or hit cardio
honestly neither option is either right
or wrong it just kind of depends on what
you prefer but I do find that for the
majority of people they tend to do
better by prioritizing steady-state
cardio over hit cardio while hit cardio
will certainly burn more calories in the
amount
time that you do it it's also much more
fatiguing and harder to recover from so
if you end up doing a lot of hit cardio
other things are gonna start to suffer
such as your training performance and
your overall state and mood and how much
you move around during the day and
things like that so you could be
sacrificing additional calories burn in
other areas just to get a little bit
more out of a little bit less time but
some people just really enjoy hit cardio
and would much prefer to do that over
steady-state and there's nothing wrong
with that but if you haven't been doing
it I wouldn't recommend adding more than
one 20-minute session of hit doing about
maybe three to six intervals per 20
minutes so the trade-off here is if you
do more steady-state it's gonna require
more of your time but it's a lot easier
to recover from and it won't be so
fatiguing so you can do things like
incline walking or biking or elliptical
or light jogging without totally
crushing yourself and the longer your
diet and the more weight you lose and
the lower your calories going to get
energy is gonna be at a premium so
saving some of that with more
steady-state cardio instead of high
demand high intensity cardio is probably
going to be better plus there's the
added bonus that when you're doing
steady-state cardio you're actually
using fat as the primary source of fuel
now that's not to say that you're not
burning fat with hid I'm not saying that
at all but that's for a different video
altogether like I mentioned there is a
very common mistake that a lot of people
make when it comes to increase in their
cardio and I want to make sure you don't
fall for this what happens is they
increase their cardio but they don't see
better results and they can't figure out
what's happening especially when it
comes to doing more hit cardio and you
get really tired and fatigued you might
end up trading the calories from your
knee which is not exercise activity
thermogenesis for additional calories
from cardio burned so neat is basically
like your everyday activities so what
you do we like just kind of walking
around getting up sitting down getting
stuff out of cupboards and just your
overall general movement when you do a
lot of cardio and you get really tired a
lot of times your meat will suffer
because of this because you're so tired
you'll move around a lot less so even
though you increase your cardio and you
burn more calories through cardio you
burn less calories throughout the day
because you're lying around on the couch
more and you're not moving around and
you thus have basically traded calories
and your expenditure for the day it ends
up being the same which is one more big
reason why I typically prefer
steady-state cardio overhit now make
sure you check out this video I did on
how to adjust calories as you're cutting
and if you put that video together along
with this video you were on your way to
a very successful cut
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