Is it healthy to do high intensity cardio (HIT) more than three times a week?

In a word - yes!

Personally I never used to do HIT more than a few times a week until I decided to get in proper shape during my 12 week challenge.  There, I ended up doing 10 a week and saw very big fitness gains and a lot of fat loss. Since getting down to about 6% I'm maintaining my body fat at about 6 HIT cardios a week.

There are very big health benefits associated with high intensity cardio - including fat loss, prevention of a number of diseases and increased fitness levels.  Apart from the physiological benefits, mentally you will gain focus and discipline by pushing your pain threshold further and further each time.  I have found that by performing consistent cardio sessions, my resistance training has benefited greatly as a result of my increased fitness levels and focus.

If you are performing a bulk, you may want to limit the number of cardio sessions you perform every week.  If you perform too many, you may reach a point where the amount of muscle mass you lose is not worth the cardiovascular gains due to you being a bulking period.

On a final note, the more HIT sessions you perform, the more toll it takes on your body - physically and mentally.  Ensure that you don't jump in the deep end - allow your body to slowly adapt to the increased working load by gradually adding additional cardio sessions in each week.  Also make sure that your cardio and resistance training regime is accompanied by a sound diet and adequate rest - without these you can very easily go backwards and undo all your hard work.

Leave a Reply

Sorry, you must be logged in to post a comment.

GIVE $10 GET $10More info