One of the most difficult tasks in building lean muscle, is figuring out the right amount of cardio to add to your training. The amount of cardio depends on the goals of the individual. If the individual goal is to bulk up, then cardio should be limited. However, if the individual goal is to get lean, then cardio should be limited as well. I know this may sound confusing, I will do my best to make sense of it all. It is a well known fact about the benefits of cardio. Cardio increases metabolism, burns fat, lowers blood pressure and help reduce weight. The downside is that if you only do cardio, you will lose muscle mass as well. You can reach your desired weight goal; however, you will not truly have a toned body. This is why when building lean muscle, you have to make sure you don’t go overboard with doing cardio. You will lose and muscle mass gains by doing too much cardio. A delicate balance of both resistance training and cardio is required. A few years ago, Men’s Fitness magazine published an informative article helped unlock the mystery of figuring out the proper amount of cardio to do.
IF YOUR PRIMARY GOAL IS TO ADD SOME MUSCLE
The Strategy: Supplement your serious lifting program with three 30-minute cardio sessions a week. Resist the urge to do any more cardio than that. The two best cardio choices for preserving muscle gains are rowing and any type of sprint interval. To maximize muscle growth, if you’re an experienced weight-lifter you can split your workouts to cover certain body parts (for example, chest, shoulders and triceps; lower body; back, traps and biceps). Lift for three days, take a day off, then start the cycle again. Keep in mind that while on this plan you shouldn’t simultaneously restrict calories to lose weight. Maintaining or increasing muscle mass through resistance training requires adequate calorie intake. Avoid running, which, when combined with lifting days, can decrease muscle size due to the large energy expenditure it demands. When the body is faced with a calorie deficit, the muscles are one of the first places it goes, along with fat stores, to supply energy to your other systems. So, in this case, running will lead your body to feast on its own muscle tissue.
The bottom line: Cardio and lifting sessions should be performed on different days. Studies have shown that you’ll build more muscle if you aren’t drained from doing cardio in the same session. If you must do both in the same workout, at least do the lifting first, when your physical strength and ability to contract muscle deeply, your mental focus and your energy reserves are at their peak. Finally, remember this: As you add muscle tissue to your frame, your metabolic furnace will burn hotter, allowing you to lose a bit of fat along the way.
IF YOUR PRIMARY GOAL IS TO GET LEAN
The strategy: Try to build up to five or six days a week of aerobic exercise, 30 to 60 minutes per session. When shedding weight is the priority (why build muscle if you’re going to conceal it under a layer of flab?), your main focus should be aerobic work and calorie monitoring. A low- or moderate-calorie diet and a lot of cardio time will drop the pounds. Hours of weekly endurance work will trigger a duster of metabolic adaptations that tend to deflate and weaken those strength-and-power fast-twitch muscle fibers, making it harder to lift heavy weights. Meanwhile, your smaller, conditioning-oriented slow-twitch fibers will take on a more dominant role.
The bottom line: Find time to hit the weights. How often? You won’t lose too much muscle as long as you fit two moderate weight-training sessions a week around all those cardio workouts. Schedule one to three days between weight workouts (Wednesday and Saturday, for example). Target both the upper body and the lower body each session.
IF YOUR PRIMARY GOAL IS TO GAIN MUSCLE AND LOSE FAT AT THE SAME TIME
The strategy: If balanced fitness–making moderate muscle gains while losing fat–is your objective, spending roughly the same amount of time on cardio and weight workouts should help you to achieve that end. Be sure to follow a balanced diet of carbs, fat and protein that contains enough calories to guard against losing the muscle mass you work so hard to develop at the gym. Two types of workouts provide cardio and muscle benefits at the same time. That makes them great choices whether you want to emphasize lifting, cardio or both. But they’re taxing, so try them only after establishing a solid cardio-fitness base, along the lines of doing at least three 30-minute aerobic workouts a week for four to eight weeks. First up is any rowing-machine or outdoor paddling workout. “Rowing strengthens the upper back, lower back shoulders and glutes while keeping your heart rate elevated. Second is a sprint-interval workout on any cardio machine. “Intervals let you significantly increase cardiorespiratory power while preserving muscle mass,” he says. Depending on your fitness level, do one to three sessions a week. After five to 10 minutes of cardio warm-up, do 10 one-minute bursts or 20 half-minute bursts, with each burst followed by one minute of easy cardio.
