For people whose primary fitness activity is lifting or sports: how much cardio do you do? Specifically, what do you do, for how long, and how often?
My primary fitness activity is a sport (recreational, 3x a week), with lifting 2-3x a week. I’m trying to do more LISS cardio outside of these for general cardiovascular health and possibly improved stamina.
Edit: Thanks for all the replies, y’all!
I try and hit the gym twice a week (where I exercise every muscle group on both occasions), and I try to run twice a week (a 5k and an 8k-10k). I don’t really have any goals, just trying to get and then stay healthy.
Thanks for sharing!
I have a dog, so I walk 1.5-2hrs a day to keep him happy. I was shocked at how well it improved my stamina in my sport.
Getting a dog is a real life-hack for how much it improves your life! Give your pup some pets from me.
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Every single day? That’s awesome!
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I run 3x/week, weight lift 2x/week, and if I have extra time and energy for it I’ll also do something just for fun like hiking or step aerobics. I enjoy cardio a lot more than weight lifting, but have accepted that I need to be doing some form of strength training to maintain my health as I age.
I’m a competitive powerlifter and have been doing CrossFit once a week or so for cardio.
Cool! I’m not familiar with crossfit, is the cardio like a weight training circuit?
Kind of! They usually throw together a mixture of activities for time. So the workout might be something like “20 wall balls, 10 dumbbell snatches, then a run around the building” with 1 minute rest in between rounds. They change up the workouts every time, and it’s in a big room where everyone else is doing the workout with loud music. It makes it motivating.
I see!
Mountain biking twice a week, lifting 3x a week.
Sounds like a fun way to get your cardio :)
I try to lift every other day. Every time I lift I do 15 minutes of exercise bike.
I also try to walk about 1 hour every day. I don’t aim for a step number just be outside and moving for an hour is good for me.
Thanks for sharing!
I run and I have a concept2 rower. Most of the time when I’m doing that stuff it’s low intensity steady state. I guess I try to get at least 1.5 hours a week of LISS in some variety. I also occasional ride a bike or go on a walks or other things. My job can be vaguely active as well. In terms of interval higher intensity stuff I do that less often but I will try to do interval stuff with kettlebells once a week usually. I’m not focusing my training on anything in particularly currently just working on increasing my squat and deadlift slowly.
Thanks for sharing! I love rowing too
sometimes I wish I had a fan bike/airdyne because I don’t want to put in the coordinated effort for the rowing, and a lot of my exercise is pull heavy so having something low-impact without pulling would be nice, but for the most part I enjoy it immensely. Being able to pace very precisely based on stroke rate and heart rate and speed or wattage is nice to keep me from overdoing it.
Primary exercise is lifting (before it was to be jacked and strong, but now it’s for health and fun) every other day. No cardio at the moment aside from walking my dog. I plan on adding in LISS via an indoor cardio machine of some type.
Thanks for sharing! Walking your dog is still plenty, though, and certainly better than nothing
Trail/mountain run once a week (2.5-4mi) just as maintenance, rest one day, which is always after that run because mountain runs kill your legs. Then I just lift everyday.
I primarily care about strength. I lift 2-3 times per week, but also do 2 conditioning sessions a week (that involve burpees, KB swings, sandbag work, carries, etc) and 1 LSS session a week (usually just an hour of incline walking on the treadmill)
Your conditioning sessions sound interesting! Would love to learn more about your particular routine if you’re comfortable with sharing. I’m comfortable with bodyweight stuff like burpees but I’m a bit intimidated by KB swings.
If you’re interested in conditioning from a lifting POV, I’d recommend the book Tactical Barbell II which covers conditioning in the Tactical Barbell system. Also good is Ross Enamait’s Infinite Intensity.
I don’t really do anything abnormal during my conditioning days. Just 15-20mins of moderate to high heart rate work
Thanks, I’ll check out those books!
I currently do a ppl split. I’ll lift five days a week, do cardio/core for one day, and then rest for one day.
I should probably just do six days of ppl ferda gains, but I really like the change of pace that comes from the core/cardio day.
That day is usually twenty minutes of dedicated core exercise followed by 45 - 60 minutes (depending on how much time I have that day) doing moderate effort work on a spin bike
Do you like the spin bike? Right now I alternate between the row erg and treadmill.
It’s good to do core and cardio at least once a week :)
Agreed on core and cardio. It’s just always felt like a missed opportunity to not get two full rotations of the ppl in each week, but this is working for me so far.
I like the spin bike. I bought a Sunny off Amazon and used two external wahoo sensors to get cadence and rpm measurements. I don’t use that data much though, tbh.
I chose the spin bike because I also just cycle normally for recreation. I have a knee injury from several years ago that keeps me away from running. I do like erg machines a lot, but my gym is a home gym in my garage and I don’t really have the floorspace for it.
Sounds good! I asked because my gym has a ton of cardio machines that I haven’t tried, so I will try the spin bike next :)
Also lol I do core 4-5x a week.
I play basketball twice a week for 4 ish hours total and get all my cardio through that, it’s fantastic.
Also lift 2-3 times a week. Peak I go 3 days consistently but most the times it’s just 2 I’m satisfied w the gains and #s I get.
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This sounds similar to what I do – a short warmup before lifting and then 20-30 minutes afterward. Thanks for sharing.
I walk at least 3-4 miles every day, often more. That’s usually a 30-45 minute walk, on top of the usual walking around in the apartment and such. Combined with lifting weights 4 days/week, it does the job.
Thanks for sharing!
