Cardio – is it beneficial for gaining muscle?

I want to set something straight before I get started here. This article is made around getting a good average body with big amounts of defined muscle and low-medium body fat levels, I am writing from the view of one wanting to create muscle rapidly, not somebody considering to run marathons or participating in the annual hamburger eating competition!

The topic of whether or not cardio has a bad impact on muscle tissue is really something many think about. Me myself for one know seasoned veterans with concrete beliefs that cardiovascular activity burns muscle tissue so they steer completely clear. This article will clarify things and help you grasp the impact cardio has not only on your
performance but also your thinking.

What does cardiovascular exercise require from your body?

Differently from weight training, cardiovascular activity is traditionally made around repeated bodyweight movements that keep a medium to high heart rate for longer extent of time. What this indicated is that your body’s energy output is more likely to enter a catabolic state (tissue burning) instead than the anabolic state we need to grow muscle.

To put this really clearly, when doing cardio training, energy is burnt in this order;

1) Carbohydrates

2) Fats

3) Proteins

Points 1 & 2 above is where you should aim to be and consider staying. It is at those stages where you could quickly minimize the body fat percentage while maintaining the difficultly earned muscles.

It is the protein above that causes all the headaches! This is where your body transfers into a state of mass muscle breakdown just to maintain the energy output levels. It has burnt through the energy assigned for standard training and now needs an external outlet to continue rolling the ball. The body begins to feed off its own muscle fibres as a key source of energy.

When does this occur?

As a general consensus in the strength working out industry, medium to high intensity cardio with a duration more than the one hour mark is seen as an instigator for the body changing into a muscle consuming state.

Are there techniques to get around this if long cardio can’t be avoided?

After training several professional footballers and other athletes professionals comprehend that extended periods of cardio sometimes simply can’t be averted. So if that person was on a muscle gaining cycle and the persons main priority was to gain muscle weight while keeping the persons fitness levels, I would always advice two things;

Carbohydrate loading 1-2 hours before cardiovascular exercises.

By consuming 1-2 large meals of complex carbohydrates, you are ensuring your first choice energy stores are at maximum capacity, the higher they are, the longer they will last.

Differate your cardiovascular exercises to short and fast repeated circuits.

A method I utilize to measure my own cardiovascular fitness levels is by oversee my muscular ability and breathing capacity. Both of these are influenced by the heart beats per minute and the higher your heart beats per minute the more energy burnt and more benefits you will get.

So raising your heart beats per minute to levels above 75 percent of your maximum and keeping it there is one of the more effective fitness and fat burning techniques.

Running on a treadmill for 1 hour will still need large quantities of energy but will take around 15-30 minutes prior to high enough heart rate levels are reached, the levels it takes to improve your cardiovascular fitness.

What if all I want is to gain muscle size, should I ship the cardivascular exercisesforget about cardivascular training?

A really big here. Cardiovascular activity really assists you to create muscle by enhancing your recovery from weight training by promoting blood flow and oxygen transport to your muscles.

If you’re skinny at the moment and fat loss isn’t a priority, aim for 2 cardio workouts per week.

If you have a larger body with a little of excess body fat, aim for around three to four cardiovascular sessions per week by substituting one or two weight sessions throughout the week with a full body circuit.

If you’re one of those people that trains hard every day simply to be sore the entire week because of it, try embellishing your fitness levels with quick sharp cardiovascular sessions, and you will discover incredible improvements in your energy and recovery times.

If you are looking for an excellent “A to Z” work out program, which also includes a complete meal plan, there is a one program which can provide that to you. It’s called Athlean X.