How Much Cardio Per Week

Updated 4 July 20268 min read

Short answer

The right amount of cardio depends on your goals and recovery, but consistency matters more than one ideal weekly number.

Cardio supports endurance, health, recovery capacity, and work capacity, but too much badly placed volume competes with everything else.

Goals, available time, lifting volume, current fitness, and recovery all change how much cardio you can use well.

Start with an amount you can repeat for several weeks and add only when recovery stays stable.

The biggest error is layering cardio on top of an already overloaded week without reducing something else.

If your strength work is stalling, the issue may be bad scheduling rather than cardio itself.

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