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I have done some weight machines and I use the dumb bells now and I don't get much cardio out of it. I do it to tone my upper body. I thought cardio was something that got your heart rate up and this doesn't do it for me.
Increase the intensity by lifting heavier weights, doing more repetitions, or shortening the rest between sets. If your heart rate hasn't gone up and you're not breathing harder after finishing a set, you haven't worked it to the max. You're quitting too early in the set...not doing enough reps or the weight is too light. Work each set to the max. If you can do another rep, do it! Don't quit until you've squeezed out every last rep. If you follow this simple principle, you WILL get a great cardio workout, even with bicep curls, but not to the same degree as squats, deadlifts, bench press and other heavy weight exercises.
Got it. Tried to rep but unable to. Thanks for your input.
If you are a blood type O and in relatively good health probably not. Running 6 miles a day is a lot though, do you have injuries? If not I wouldn't worry about it.
I was at a gym once and reps to the max. One time I was on my back on a bench with weights. My last rep was also a trap. I had to ask somebody to get the thing off my chest...
I was at a gym once and reps to the max. One time I was on my back on a bench with weights. My last rep was also a trap. I had to ask somebody to get the thing off my chest...
Yeah, you often see people bench pressing without a spot, but it's a bad idea to go it alone, all the more so if you're pushing it to the max.
Okay I do squats and lunges but I do them without weights so I can see now that doing those with weights would be cardio.
Usually cardio to me is doing an exercise video, climbing steep hills and whatever gets my heart rate going.
You want your cardio to be in intervals- high intensity and low intensity. This is what lifting weights accomplishes very well.
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I'm not a bodybuilder and never will be nor do I want to be or especially look like one.
You won't. You are female. Feel free to lift as heavy as you like- your genetics won't let you get bulky.
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I do the dumb bell for upper body to get toned and it seems to be working well except for the triceps. There's still some flab I'd like to get rid of and apparently for women, that's one of the hardest places to get rid of it.
Diet. "Toning" = building muscle and then shedding away fat. To build muscle you have to lift heavy. There is no way around it.
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Usually now when I do lunges or squats, it's when I'm walking just to add some oomph to it but I'll try it with weights without walking and see how it does.
Thanks for your input.
Bike riding is hardly cardio, especially if you take it easy on the bike. Cardio is about effort, and the best cardio you can do is weight lifting. Seriously.
Bike riding is hardly cardio? Hmm, OK. I am age 53, and bicycle commute every work day year round and use a bike for local errands. I've been bike commuting to my present job for the past 8 years. My daily round trip commute is about 30 miles, and the route is not flat, it has rolling hills that provide about 1200' vertical elevation gain each way, or 2400' round trip. My average speed is about 14.5 mph, and I am typically in motion on the bike for just over 2 hours per day, 5 days a week. Couple of times a month I take a non-commute bike ride along the coastline, maybe a 40 or 50 mile loop that takes a bit under 3 hours. Miles pedaled this year so far is about 3600. Should hit about 7500 at year end. Resting heart rate is low 40s. I try to maintain a steady heart rate around 120-135 most of the time while riding, and on long uphills it ticks in the 140s or low 150s. I try to keep my hr at moderate levels to avoid burnout - otherwise I would be toast by the time Friday rolls around. I purposely keep my hr pace under control even though I could push harder increase my average speed by maybe 1 mph. Who cares, I'm just commuting and besides I need to watch out for cars and other hazards.
I rarely see "big muscle" guys bike riding around here, the few I have seen were ones I blew by on the hills while they were struggling up with all the extra weight. Anybody that bike rides frequently for distances over 5 miles is doing good cardio that is good for your health. Moderate cardio is the a good thing to help maintain health. Intense eye popping cardio when sustained puts a lot of intense pressure on your system. It can cause blood pressure to go off the charts. Moderate cardio from brisk walking, hiking, jogging, or medium paced cycling or swimming is the type of cardio activity that humans are genetically designed for.
I was at a gym once and reps to the max. One time I was on my back on a bench with weights. My last rep was also a trap. I had to ask somebody to get the thing off my chest...
Reminds me of my high school days when I had weights in the basement. On more than one occassion, I had to call my mom down to lift the weight off my chest. Not so cool for a 17 yr old!
Currently, if I'm planning to max out with bench press, I always have a spotter. I rarely ever do bench presses with a barbell. I prefer dumbells, which allows me to bail out on my own if I'm unable to complete a rep.
recycled wrote:
I rarely see "big muscle" guys bike riding around here, the few I have seen were ones I blew by on the hills while they were struggling up with all the extra weight.
Same thing in this area. They're stuck in the gym working out! I just can't imagine carrying around all of that extra bodyweight even if it is muscle. That's gotta be hard on the organs.
Thanks TwiloMike,
I have dumb bells up to 8 pounds. I normally use the 5 and the 8 pounders. Sometimes I feel it and sometimes I'm not phased by it but should I be lifting heavier.
I normally do them until my arms start feeling like jello.
I have dumb bells up to 8 pounds. I normally use the 5 and the 8 pounders. Sometimes I feel it and sometimes I'm not phased by it but should I be lifting heavier.
Seems woefully light to me, but then I don't know your level of strength. Even if you are using weights mostly for the cardio benefit, I think it would be overkill to do any more than 20 repetitons per set ( your description leads me to believe that you are doing waaay more than 20 reps ). If you decide to make 20 reps your goal, use a weight that makes the 20th rep a real challenge. If you're consistently doing the last rep with ease, then you're not using enough weight.
If building strength is your goal, then I would suggest using an even heavier weight and doing around 8-12 repetitions. Same principle for any repetion goal...the last rep should be taking everything you got to complete it. If that last rep is consistently easy, then it's time to use more weight.
For myself, I like to work in the 8 rep range, so I choose my weight accordingly. Not all days are created equally however. On a very rare day, I might be able to get as many as 10 reps and on other days, just 6 or 7 with the same weight. Most days, it works out that 8 is my max.
Bike riding is hardly cardio? Hmm, OK. I am age 53, and bicycle commute every work day year round and use a bike for local errands. I've been bike commuting to my present job for the past 8 years. My daily round trip commute is about 30 miles, and the route is not flat, it has rolling hills that provide about 1200' vertical elevation gain each way, or 2400' round trip. My average speed is about 14.5 mph, and I am typically in motion on the bike for just over 2 hours per day, 5 days a week. Couple of times a month I take a non-commute bike ride along the coastline, maybe a 40 or 50 mile loop that takes a bit under 3 hours. Miles pedaled this year so far is about 3600. Should hit about 7500 at year end. Resting heart rate is low 40s. I try to maintain a steady heart rate around 120-135 most of the time while riding, and on long uphills it ticks in the 140s or low 150s. I try to keep my hr at moderate levels to avoid burnout - otherwise I would be toast by the time Friday rolls around. I purposely keep my hr pace under control even though I could push harder increase my average speed by maybe 1 mph. Who cares, I'm just commuting and besides I need to watch out for cars and other hazards.
I rarely see "big muscle" guys bike riding around here, the few I have seen were ones I blew by on the hills while they were struggling up with all the extra weight. Anybody that bike rides frequently for distances over 5 miles is doing good cardio that is good for your health. Moderate cardio is the a good thing to help maintain health. Intense eye popping cardio when sustained puts a lot of intense pressure on your system. It can cause blood pressure to go off the charts. Moderate cardio from brisk walking, hiking, jogging, or medium paced cycling or swimming is the type of cardio activity that humans are genetically designed for.
I'd hate to see a Less-filling!/Tastes great! flame war get going over what kind of exercise is best. The truth is that any physical activity is beneficial, but different exercises bring benefit in different ways. I agree that bicycling can be good cardio exercise. Anyone who thinks otherwise might want to tell that to Lance Armstrong! How good a conditioning effect it has will depend on both the duration and the intensity, but it can definitely be good exercise.
I like Recycled's idea of considering the kinds of activity that humans are naturally designed for as a guide to which exercises work best. The activities of people doing physical labor while living off the land are a good guideline for what we're built to do. If you keep that in mind, the reality is that we're built for a variety of activities, meaning many combinations of movements and varied levels of intensity. True, in the natural state there's a lot of long-duration activity of moderate intensity, but there is intense activity as well. Picture hunting as an example. You might walk for hours, and cover many miles, while stalking an animal. This would be light exertion, perhaps moderate if there's a lot of uphill and downhill, but then there will also be that final sprint as you get close enough to the quarry to be within range for throwing a spear. So there is that intense burst of activity as well as the long hike at moderate exertion.
The same is true of lifting objects. People who do physical labor for a living spend a lot of time in activities of light intensity, such as hoeing, and moderate intensity--shoveling, and hauling wheelbarrows loaded with dirt, for example--but there will also be the occasional need to lift something heavy. The reality is that people living off the land will probably do less really heavy lifting than body builders do, but they still do some.
It's also worth considering that the physical activities that suit you best for the purpose of exercise have a lot to do with individual abilities. For someone with a naturally large, brawny build, lifting weights as the central activity of a fitness regimen will be more suitable than running marathons. Someone whose basic build is in the light or medium range will probably naturally gravitate toward more long-duration activities. For all-around fitness, it would still be good to incorporate a moderate amount of strength training, even for someone whose real desire when it comes to leisure activity is to get outside on a bike, on a hiking trail, or in the water. If you can't stand the idea of lifting weights or doing calisthenics, it would be good to at least do a variety of outdoor activities which in combination use both the upper and lower bodies, combining bicycling, hiking, and swimming, for example, and throwing in some bursts of high-intensity activity along the way as a change of pace during your long-duration activities of moderate intensity.
A variety of activity is best, but how you get there will depend on the kinds of exercise your build suits you for, as well as the activities you enjoy doing. The bottom line is that any regular physical activity is better than no exercise at all.
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