How much cardio should I do per week?
General health guidelines suggest at least 150 minutes of moderate activity or 75 minutes of vigorous activity per week. Athletes usually need more and structure it around the demands of their sport. Start from where you actually are and add roughly 10 percent per week.
Sensible targets by goal
- General health: 150 minutes of moderate activity, which can be walking, spread across the week.
- Supporting a lifting programme: Two or three easy sessions of 20 to 40 minutes, plus a daily step target.
- Improving aerobic fitness: Three to five sessions, mostly easy, with one or two harder ones.
- Endurance sport: Considerably more, structured around events and periodised across the season.
Build up rather than jumping in
Adding roughly 10 percent of total weekly duration at a time gives tendons, joints, and bone a chance to adapt alongside your cardiovascular system, which improves much faster than they do. Most overuse problems in new runners come from doing too much too soon rather than from poor technique.
Do not forget daily movement
Steps and general activity often contribute more total energy expenditure than structured sessions, and they carry almost no recovery cost. Increasing daily walking is frequently the highest-return change available for someone starting from a low base.
Balancing it with lifting
Keep most cardio easy, place hard cardio on separate days from heavy leg training where possible, and favour lower-impact modes such as cycling and rowing when weekly lifting volume is high. Two to three easy sessions rarely interferes with strength work at all.
Signs you are doing too much
Persistent fatigue, falling strength numbers, disturbed sleep, a rising resting heart rate, and nagging joint pain all suggest reducing volume rather than pushing on. More detail on recognising this is in Recovery Science and Adaptation.
Anyone with a heart or lung condition, or who has been inactive for a long time, should check with a doctor before starting a vigorous programme.
