Cardio Workout Balancing Act

Hi Ray, I know you are really busy, etc., but I do have your fat to fit book and I am just trying to refocus on my cardio workout / weights balancing act.

Female
45
5′3″
approx. 123lbs

(I am fairly lean, however, any weight I do carry is in my lower body and I find that if I can get under 120 my legs start really responding nicely to definition and “leanness”, I am not after bulky legs)
RHR: 46

I am within 5lbs of my desired body weight and would still like to burn more fat particularly off my legs as they are not nearly as defined as I would like! I am currently doing a split routine that allows me to do a leg workout 2x per week and upper body workout 2x per week. My question for you is how many cardio workouts should I do to drop the last bit of weight but to compliment the legs. I am extremely strong cardio workout wise as I have been a junkie for so long that my resting heart rate is now around 46 or so. My endurance allows me to do a cardio workout with incline training at 12/14 inclines for an hour at 80 to 90% heart rate. Do you think I should bring this down to 70 or 75%? Do you think there is truth to fat burning cardio workouts at lower heart rate levels?

Do you do body fat percentage calculations? Caliper? How much? Where are you located?

Thanks
(Name Withheld)

ANSWER FROM RAY:

This is a pretty common question and it has a multi-part answer.

This first thing you want to do is recheck your calorie intake and break down between carbohydrates, fats and proteins. It’s different for everyone but for myself if I make a slight switch to more complex carbs in the early part of the day and transfer into more fat based fuels like nuts at night, this makes a big difference.

For the cardio workouts, when I need that last bit off, I go into heavy interval training workouts and change my regular form of cardio to something new that I am NOT efficient at. Either in the form of wind sprints or sparring. Bag work and grappling work well as a substitute. You can also use jump rope, which I am a big fan off. With this sort of training, it’s an all out effort for 1-2 minutes followed by a minutes rest. I will do this 3-4 times a week whenever I feel like fitting it around my resistance training and if I start to get really tired during the day, I will throw in a rest day as my body tells me.

I’ve never been a fan of long slow cardio workouts that take more than 30 minutes. All that happens is my body gets flat and I feel week. The same thing happens to my clients that do slow cardio workouts. The only times I do this is in cases where the client is very over weight and it’s more about pounds than composition. The other is when they are training for an event or simply really enjoy getting outside for a long run.

It’s also very important that you keep up the progression of weight increases in your training. This is what will keep you hard even though you are doing increased cardio workouts.

As far as body fat checks go, yes I do them and by caliper. I only do them as a service to personal training clients as part of a session which costs $80. Buildingbodies personal training is located at 2123 – 33rd ave S.W. Calgary Alberta.

I hope that answers your questions and helps you out!