It is actually beneficial to do cardio while in a gaining phase. there are 5 major mistakes that will make it much harder for you to gain and even preserve muscle mass.. I’m going to share with you 3 surprising things that are killing your gains. Eat an extra 100-200 calories. A minimum of three sessions per week (up to perhaps a maximum of 5) of reasonable duration (20-30 minutes minimum up to perhaps 40 minutes maximum) at a low to moderate intensity (70% of maximum heart rate or less) should achieve the benefits I talked about above without causing any of the problems that I also discussed. Moderate cardio like jogging, running on the treadmill will kill your gains. Sprint intervals will preserve muscle and may actually help you to put on muscle. Studies show how important the aerobic system is in improving anaerobic performance (6,8,9,10). MikeTheBear - 2007-12-27 11:51 AM Cardio won't necessarily kill muscle gains but it will slow your gains down. Overdoing it with cardio will bring your gym gains to a dead halt. Will Cardio Kill Your Muscle Gains? You just fixed any loss that 100-200 cals worth of cardio would do to your gains. eat at a calorie surplus and you will gain. Is cardio “good” or “bad”? For years now, we’ve been peddled the idea that “cardio kills your gains.” Meaning, too much running, swimming, and cycling will literally cause your muscle to waste away! Cardio will only kill your gains if you don't eat to compensate for the increased expenditure. If you do a bunch of anaerobic cardio then immediately jump into a strength building exercise, you'll likely see less output in the second exercise -- even if the cardio exercise wasn't directly working the muscles being worked in the strength exercise. AthleanX posted a video yesterday (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w1qYhkL468o) that said cardio kills gains by diverting blood flow to muscles that aren't being used during your workout. CARDIO DOES NOT KILL GAINS!! Especially for someone that is trying to be a body builder but still loves to do mud runs and spartan races. Lebert EQualizer Giveaway! The other issue is that chronically doing too much cardio can lead to actually losing muscle. My question is: to what extent does cardio kill your gains? You’ll also reap the benefits that cardio has to offer, including: 1. It probably burns somewhere between 100 and 200 calories. So keep training as you are trying to building muscle. Decreased risk of diabetes Here’s the thing: Heavy lifting creates small tears in the muscles. I think the vid made sense. Light cardio is just fine. https://bit.ly/2uYUsfh Join the PictureFit Discord https://discord.gg/picturefit Cardio, yuck! Strength Training. Press question mark to learn the rest of the keyboard shortcuts. As your goal is to lose fat while retaining or ideally building muscle. No Cardio will not kill your gains. Not enough to hinder gains anyway. Coach. You should be fine. Improved respiratory health 3. So, does cardio “burn muscle” and “kill gains”? Since you're just walking I doubt it would negatively influence your workout that much but I would drop it to 10 mins. Part 1 of my million subscribers Q&A. In fact doing some cardio (preferably Conditioning since it has more carryover) will actually help. JUST ANOTHER FITNESS MYTH!! The most important determining factor for the effect of cardio on gains is your daily caloric intake. It does if you don't account for it when calculating your calories. Press question mark to learn the rest of the keyboard shortcuts, (lb)150-231-240 (kg)70-99-105-110 (6'3:191cm). This is an important question to answer because it’s putting the muscles in catabolic conditions from the outset. Endurance training shuts down muscle and strength gains completely only when it comes in enormous quantities. We've all seen the people who go to the gym, hop on the elliptical for 45 minutes, never change their routine, and never change their appearance. 1; 2; Page 1 of 2. I personally don't eat the extra cals so I can indulge more on the weekends when I'm sedentary (short female here). No. Tom Venuto. I run cross country every day plus I go to the gym every day - are they interfering with each other significantly? Different types are cardio targets different energy stores on the body whether that'd be muscle or fat. What I do is walk from the parking lot as my general warmup and then get straight into specific warm ups. The same authors showed that strength and hypertrop… Just compare the physique of a marathon runner and a sprinter. If you eat 300 mire calories then you're back to normal. Most of this fear stems from a decades-old study that has since been mostly debunked. If you eat 300 mire calories then you're back to … Cookies help us deliver our Services. Cardiovascular training can improve your recovery between sets and workouts, and won’t interfere with strength or muscle gains if you do it correctly. When does cardio kill muscle and strength gains? However, the question remains: If you have to do aerobic work and then train directly after, can you still get jacked? Cardio is good but if you do it up to a certain limit. If you can't do that then work out in the morning and do cardio in the evening. Cardio or cardiovascular exercise gets a bad wrap when it comes to building muscle and performance. However, there is a downside to doing cardio because it is supposed to counteract strength and muscle gains. But is cardio really so bad? As long as you eat back the cals you're fine. "cardio kills gains" Fittit please help me asses the validity of this statement. In fact, some of the mistakes that I’m about to go over can definitely lead to the catabolism or the breakdown of muscle mass ultimately slowing your progress.. So, is it bad to do cardio if you’re trying to build muscle? Sadly, most that choose cardio as their method for staying healthy or getting fit consistently surpass this point. Low intensity cardio should be prioritized over interval training for the most part. Optimal body composition 5. However, there are three common gain-killing cardio mistakes that you need to avoid: Mistake #1: Doing Cardio At The Wrong Time . If you are on a cut and are eating in a caloric deficit, then cardio can help keep your energy expenditure high, meaning your energy intake, or calories, can be higher as well. Potential pros include improved recovery, improved work capacity, better calorie partitioning, improved appetite (sometimes), perhaps staying leaner and an easier time shifting back into dieting when the mass gaining phase is over. The title of the video was more than likely intentionally misleading; the thesis being advanced here isn't so much that cardio kills gains, but that cardio-type exercises being done shortly before resistance-type exercises are likely to hinder progress by virtue of the cardio-type exercises diverting blood-flow to where we want the blood-flow to be during resistance. - Cardio increases energy expenditure, which is good if your goal is weight loss - Cardio is good for staying fit from an endurance perspective - Cardio can be fun for some people (definitely not everyone!) He had another video with title something like 12x3 reps kills your gains, and the actual video was about doing slow negatives. Just don't be running marathons if you want to be putting on mass . Find the timestamps for each question in the pinned comment. January 9, 2014 . However, the right amount of cardio and in the right order can increase your gains. It also depends on the type of cardio. Yesterday, I just googled "Bret Contreras Cardio" and found a bunch of articles with and without Bret that say crazy cardio can ruin your gains, and it really isn't needed to lose fat (I'm also trying to lose a significant amount of weight while doing Gorgeous Glutes). Also, if it is true, why? Cardiovascular exercise (or a conditioning workout) can be an excellent way to improve health, speed up fat loss, build muscle, and speed up recovery. The only issue is that you're taking 20 minutes that you could put to more productive use. I've heard that phrase many times, but I've never been sure how true it is. Improved cardiovascular health 2. Many lifters are terrified of cardio. One of the most common mistakes is doing cardio at the wrong time. So is that it, it's bad? A lot of people say that cardio kills gains because it burns off excess calories and a lot of people say that cardio is also vital for your health. It's what I look forward to when I go to the gym. By using our Services or clicking I agree, you agree to our use of cookies. Reddit; Twitter; Cardio can be scary for any guy or gal looking to build serious muscle. Thanks for the great questions! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w1qYhkL468o. Press J to jump to the feed. Enjoy! I've also read of some science that seems to indicate that doing cardio after lifting can help the body better synthesize new muscle fibers. The answer: only if you do it the wrong way. I'm not of those people. Your surplus is now 200 so your gains are affected. The unfortunate part about the cardio-kill-gains myth is that including the right amount of low to moderate intensity cardio in your training program can help with building muscle. Like DiscoJew said, this is not true. I don't think walking for 20 minutes burns a significant amount of calories. http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/muscle-gain/cardio-and-mass-gains.html/, "Summing Up So summing up, under most circumstances, I think keeping a reasonable amount of moderate intensity cardio in the training program, even when the goal is explicitly mass gaining can be beneficial for most trainees (the major exception being the extreme hardgainer types). Glad someone actually watched the video before responding. Cycling is better at running for this purpose, and duration is a key factor. For example if your TDEE was 2000 and you ate 2500 calories because you want to bulk, then you did cardio and burned 200-300 calories off. Increased recovery abilities 4. Walking for 20mins definitely does not kill gains. Mistake 5: Overdoing Cardio to Stay Lean. Your surplus is now 200 so your gains are affected. The oxygen requirement during exercise is a determining factor in … Fitness and weight-loss coach Dave Smith told the Huffington Post that because cardio is not the most effective fat-blasting workout, you'll have to keep doing more and more if you want to see weight loss. Share Tweet Flip. It's true that muscle adaptations differ greatly in response to aerobic training versus resistance exercise. After your workout, your body repairs these damaged muscle fibers which cause growt… AthleanX posted a video yesterday (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w1qYhkL468o) that said cardio kills gains by diverting blood flow to muscles that aren't being used during your workout. "Cardio kills gains" has long been a mantra within the lifting community. But gaining mass requires a caloric surplus, and cardio does burn a lot of calories. Cardio Doesn't Kill Gains (and You Should Be Doing It) Tanner Baze. I'm sorry but how is athlean-x talking out of his ass? ", New comments cannot be posted and votes cannot be cast. The recent meta-analysis I linked to in my first post on this subject essentially said that you can absolutely get stronger while doing some aerobic training. A lot of people these days like to say you don't need cardio at all, and that simply setting foot on a treadmill or trail is going to cost you gains and leave you skinny-fat. The u/CardioKillsYourGains community on Reddit. Don't overcomplicate stuff. Cardio does have the potential to kill your gains, especially if your training program looks like the one Hickson had his subjects doing back in the day. For the OP though, I don't think walking on the treadmill before your workout is the same thing as doing more intense anaerobic activity like in the vid, then jumping directly into strength work 10 seconds later. AthleanX posted a video yesterday (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w1qYhkL468o) that said cardio kills gains by diverting blood flow to muscles that aren't being used during your workout. It's mostly bullshit. Share Tweet. After all, the idea that cardio kills gains has been circulating the weight room for years. Does Cardio Kill Your Gains? A lot of people say that cardio kills gains because it burns off excess calories and a lot of people say that cardio is also vital for your health. I've read that you should never do cardio before working out and it's best to do cardio on non workout days. Most of those have not shown any evidence that moderate cardio kills weight training gains. Performing “cardio” too frequently, too intensely, or for too long can certainly prevent you from gaining muscle from your strength training workouts. Cardio doesn’t burn muscle tissue as easily as many people believe it does, as long as you’re consuming an adequate amount of calories and protein. Are you tired after walking for 20 mins? Cookies help us deliver our Services. 0. Here's What Science Says. You’re trying a whole lot but it’s not working? You see cardio might have an immediate interference effect limiting your gains, but it might also be a necessary evil for your gains as well. But cardio will never not be good for you! Shares. I play a sport to almost a top university level 3+ times a week for 2 hours each time and I just make up for it by giving myself a cheat meal with lots of calories on those days. Some bodybuilders cling to this notion so tenaciously that they think climbing two flights of stairs can shrink a 270-pound man into a 120-pound weakling. So as long as I eat tons of calories (as i do), it should be fine? Is this going to hurt my progress (atm I'm struggling to meet my calorie goals). I'm getting the feeling now that it might just be an excuse for some people not to do cardio. For example, long distance running affects muscle construction significantly, but a few 40-60 minutes cardio … Just make up for it with eating. All cardio burns calories. Oh look it's athlean-X. Reddit gives you the best of the internet in one place. Provided it’s done on different days than your strength training, some cardio can help promote muscle growth. Significantly, the thesis is not "Cardio is bad", or "Cardio in all forms hinders gains", or "You oughtn't perform Cardio". That guys talks out of his ass so much it's hilarious. For example if your TDEE was 2000 and you ate 2500 calories because you want to bulk, then you did cardio and burned 200-300 calories off. It does if you don't account for it when calculating your calories. SO SICK OF HEARING THIS BS!! Peachtree City, Georgia, United States. Athlean-X pits these clickbait titles all the times. Are you the kind of person who works out hard at the gym, eats healthy, tracks their macros but still can’t seem to get the results you desire? Like everything else it comes down to your diet, New comments cannot be posted and votes cannot be cast, Discussion of physical fitness/exercise goals and how they can be achieved, Press J to jump to the feed. When you lift often, some cardio is helpful to keep your heart healthy and strong. Hours and hours of cardio burn muscle and can kill your gains. It does so in a number of ways. Cardio can kill gains in three situations: when it cancels out your caloric surplus. So essentially an extra glass of milk would just solve it for him right? The cons, including hampered recovery and systematic overtraining only really become an issue when too much volume or too high of an intensity is performed. By using our Services or clicking I agree, you agree to our use of cookies. 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