I have always been on the thin side. The last decade or so I struggled w/drinking & gained a bit of a pot belly. I quit drinking 6 months ago & I have been working out for the 1st time in a few years.

I only do weights & yoga. Yoga twice a week, weights 3x. I never do yoga and weights on the same day because it is my understanding it can raise injury risk?

But I have a lot of trouble summoning the energy to do any meaningful cardio. I do ride a bike sometimes but only to get places (no car), not really for the exercise. I just find cardio really boring, painful, and difficult (on the other hand I enjoy weights & yoga.) Cardio basically feels like torture, I don't enjoy it at all and I do not enjoy the way I feel when I'm doing it. So it's very hard to get motivated for it. It feels unnatural (I'm a very relaxed person by nature.) I'm also already in pretty decent shape compared to most people in my community, so I don't have much incentive to do cardio to make myself more appealing to the ladies etc.

How bad is this? How important is cardio? FWIW hypertension runs pretty much universally on my mother's side of the family, not so much on the other.

oh & I am 31yo.

thanks

sounds like you only do cardio.

Whether or not cardio is a good idea is entirely dependent on your goals.

If your goal is to increase "health and fitness" (ie cardiovascular system, respiratory system) then non-strenuous cardio is a good idea. If your goal is to become as big and strong as possible in a short timespan than cardio is probably not a good idea.

not bad at all

Weights and yoga are fine, and there are always other ways to get cardio in while having more fun in the process (running/biking is fun for some, but it can feel like quite a chore at times for others). You can get benefits from bball, soccer, walking the dog, etc without all of the boredom.

false. unless you're one of the few that will be negatively impacted by the ~200 cal expenditure.

Bike for transportation seems like cardio. Unless you're always going slower than 12 miles/hour.

what about how cardio impacts recovery?

good point.

I do kickboxing 2 times a week, and I am in NO shape to lift the next day. Legs fatigued due to running, shoulders are fatigued due to punching. Triceps/back feel **** due to warmup.
I used to do kickboxing 7 times a week, so its not like I'm in terrible shape either.

low intensity cardio helps recovery. jdock's non-strenuous cardio fits for almost every goal.

kickboxing is not low intensity

Low intensity for most sedentary folks is somewhere slightly above a fast walk. Maybe if you're fat... a fast walk.

How much does cardio effect recovery for those of us who run ontop of doing SS?

(my milage is still quite low, only 20-25 a week at the moment, run 5-7 days a week).

Right now its all easy runs and a few tempo runs mixed in for me pretty much, Figure I'm better off getting more distance in as opposed to interval stuff as I'm still not in that good of shape. Am I going to run into problems recovering once I'm doing 30-40 a week with one or two days of interval work?

what weights are you at now? once i started deadlifting like 225+, i stopped being functional for other activities if i wanted to keep trying to move up in squat the next workout.

my squats are 3x5 185 and bench is 170 3x5 (I'm 6'2 175 fwiw)

Deadlift is still quite low as I'm working on my **** form.