Without further adieu, here’s the real deal on doing cardio while trying to gain size and strength…
Get your training and diet down and pack on some size. In that time you should be able to gain at least 15lbs of muscle if not 20+. I would start with three weekly sessions of twenty minutes of medium intensity cardio; no intervals. Use a bike to limit the amount of eccentric stress or pounding on the joints.
If you are beyond the beginner level you should always be doing some kind of cardio on a regular basis, be it intervals, moderate intensity steady state, or low intensity, long duration steady state.
Contrary to what many people believe, cardio can actually be of great benefit to those looking to get bigger and stronger. Not only does it improve the cardiovascular system and thus improve the quality of your weight training workouts but it allows you to eat more muscle building calories while staying lean. What kind of cardio will have the least negative effect on your size and strength gains? That’s a no brainer; walking. I despise intervals on a bike with a passion. Why not just ride your bike across town? Next on the list is medium/moderate/high intensity steady state cardio. This kind of cardio is a little tricky because it can elevate hydrocortisone and lead to losses in size and strength.
Intervals
The good- intervals allow you to burn a lot of calories in a short amount of time and keep your metabolism elevated long after you finish doing them.
The bad- if you are training legs two or even three times per week, you can not do intervals more than once a week without overtraining. You can negate this slightly by keeping your leg training volume extremely low and doing your intervals on the same day as your weight training.
The ugly- if you choose sprinting as your form of interval training you could get hurt; it’s an ugly truth that has to be faced. Normally it is recommended to do 30-60 second intervals when they are being performed on a stationary bike. A lot of people take these recommendations and apply them to sprinting. Nobody can sprint for 30-60 seconds. World class athletes can sprint for that long, but not everyone else.
When you keep your sprint distances and times very short, you decrease the risk for injury because you never hit top speed and instead spend most of your time in the acceleration phase. For that reason, most people should be running 20-50 yard sprints. To further reduce your injury while sprinting, use adequate rest periods between sets. Also, running with a sled slows you down enough to avoid top speeds and makes sprinting much safer. I would recommend sprints above intervals on a bike and even then I wouldn’t do them in true interval fashion but more of a traditional speed physical exercise with short sprints and adequate rest periods. Sprint, rest… no intervals.
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great stuff will have to bookmark so i may return to read more
Cardio workouts help me attain a healthy weight. I was having a big tummy last year and cardio really helped flattened my belly.
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It’s incredible how beginners anticipate to exercise today and anticipate to construct muscles mass instantly. You’ve most likely observed that new guy in the gym. Muscle building routines done the right way can give you fast dramatically results, but do not anticipate miracles.
This is very interesting. I think I might give it a try.
This is right on target but is calorie shifting the only way to accomplish it?
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Thanks for sharing, I will bookmark and be back again