Cardio For Gain, Cardio For Loss
Q: I’ve seen you recommend doing cardio after training in some situations while recommending cardio on separate days in other situations. Why the difference? Should I do cardio at all and if so, when should I do it? Or should I just eat well?
A: I don’t understand why there’s a huge cardio debate in weight-training circles. I wish I could just click my heels two times and it would just go away. I guess my first idea is that cardio probably has a place in virtually every trainee’s program. Now the one caveat here is that athletes training for pure strength and power should probably do no cardio at all since cardiovascular exercise can interfere with strength development.
Cardio can cause a shift in muscle fiber type from very fast twitch (glycolytic) fibers to slower fibers (oxidative/glycolytic). In strength and power athletes, this can lead to lower total force development and lower rate of force development. This means sub-optimal lifting performance. However, this same shift in fiber type is probably beneficial for bodybuilders, recreational trainees interested in improving body composition, and other types of athletes. They should all do their cardio.
Understand that there are many ways to accomplish your physique goals, too many to discuss in a single article or Q and A column. I’ve seen people get lean with and without cardio. And I’ve seen people get big with and without cardio. There are so many other variables involved in improving your body. Cardio is just a piece of the puzzle. However, let me give some guidelines for optimizing your progress.
Moderate duration, low intensity cardiovascular exercise leads to increases in both insulin dependent and insulin-independent glucose and amino acid uptake in muscle and liver cells for several hours after the exercise bout. So as a result, cardio can be somewhat anabolic for muscle tissue (from a nutrient partitioning viewpoint). Also, cardiovascular exercise burns a good amount of calories (and therefore fat) and leads to increased muscular uptake of nutrients for hours after exercise (there’s that nutrient partitioning again).
This should make it clear that in addition to anabolism, cardio can also contribute to fat loss. So with the potential anabolic effects of cardio as well as the potential for fat loss, I don’t see why anyone interested either in getting bigger or getting leaner would exclude cardio from their training program.
Sure, some have argued in the past that cardio can be very catabolic, blah, blah, blah, but if you combine your cardio training with eating for your goals, and you avoid doing excessive high-intensity cardio work, your cardio will have mostly desirable effects.
So, since I recommend cardio for both getting bigger and getting leaner, let’s split them up and discuss the best way to incorporate cardio into both types of programs.
Gettin’ Bigger
Since increasing muscle mass is the goal, it’s especially important to eat enough to compensate for the caloric expenditure of all your exercise (weights and cardio). Using the Massive Eating plan will help in this. With this plan, cardiovascular exercise fits in quite nicely, as the cardio will help increase nutrient partitioning and the muscle to fat gain ratio. In the perfect world, the best way to incorporate cardio into your program would be as follows:
First, directly after your weight training workouts, you’d perform about 15 minutes of cardiovascular exercise at about 60 to 70% of your HR max (which is 220 minus your age). Immediately after this session consume a Biotest Surge or a Biotest Surge-like beverage containing 0.4 grams of protein hydrolysate and 0.8 grams of carbohydrate per kg of body mass. Then about an hour later, consume another meal. This time choose food sources that contain about a one to two ratio of protein to carbs.
Next, on your non-weight training days perform 30 minutes of cardio at 60 to 70% of your HR max. This should not be done in the morning on an empty stomach but sometime during the day about 120 minutes after a meal. Immediately after the cardio session, again consume Biotest Surge or a Biotest Surge-like beverage. This time however, you won’t need to eat again 60 minutes later. Just get back on track to eating every three hours or so after this, being sure to eat enough calories to match or exceed your maintenance needs.
Gettin’ Leaner
To lose body fat, a combination of diet and exercise is the way to go. Obviously, eating below your maintenance level is necessary for fat loss. Using the Massive Eating principles of food selection and macronutrient combinations, subtracting about 25% of your calculated caloric needs should do the trick.
As far as the cardio goes, the idea here is to increase total calorie expenditure, to increase fat utilization, and to decrease potential fat storage. While the focus may be a bit different, the recommendations are only slightly different from above.
First, directly after your weight training workouts, you’d perform about 30 minutes of cardiovascular exercise at 60 to 70% of your HR max. Immediately after this session, consume a Biotest Surge-like beverage containing 0.4 grams of protein hydrolysate and 0.8 grams of carbohydrate per kg of body mass. However, don’t eat again an hour later. After your post-workout drink, just eat every three hours as usual.
Next, on your non-weight training days perform 30 minutes of cardio at 60 to 70% of your HR max. This time, the cardio should be done in the morning on an empty stomach. Again, immediately after the cardio session, consume a Biotest Surge-like beverage. And again, just get back on your normal diet plan of eating every three hours or so.
Using the aforementioned plans, you should be able to use cardio as an effective tool in achieving your goal of body comp improvement. And by the way, since it can help your physique progress, a few nifty "side effects" include better heart, circulatory system, and respiratory system function as well as better overall health and longevity.
Summary: Do your cardio!