Does Cardio Kill Gains?
Many people interested in building muscle, strength and power have wondered ‘does cardio kill gains?’
In this article, we answer that question and provide you with evidence-based guidelines for cardio training for bodybuilding and muscle preservation.
Does cardio ruin muscle gains?
Cardio does not necessarily ruin or impair muscle gains. However, doing too much cardio may impair your muscle gains. In addition, if you don’t eat enough or get the right nutrients in your diet to compensate for the additional calories you burn doing cardio, cardio may actually impair your gains.
However, provided you strike a happy balance between strength training and cardio and eat sufficient calories, cardio training can actually help you build muscle.
Doing regular cardio exercise can improve your recovery from strength training sessions. First of all, cardio helps you recover faster between sets so you can more work done during your strength workouts with less total fatigue. Secondly, cardio helps you recover faster between training sessions, helping you get more out of your weight training. Regular cardio training also helps you burn more fat and less glucose for fuel, making your training feel easier.
To get the benefits of cardio training, you just need to avoid making some beginner mistakes and set up your cardio program correctly.
Should I do cardio if I want to gain muscle?
You should definitely do cardio if you want to gain muscle. Below, I will show you how to set up your cardio so you can keep building muscle.
Make sure to eat enough calories to continue building muscle. You might need to increase your calorie intake above what you ate while just performing strength and hypertrophy workouts. Additionally, do not do fasted cardio to make sure you do not increase protein (muscle) breakdown during your cardio workouts.
Cardio Recommendations
Below, I will include some cardio recommendations to preserve muscle.
Best Type of Cardio
Some modes of cardio help you preserve muscle better than others. The best types of cardio to preserve muscle do not put a lot of stress on your muscles, joints and ligaments. These types of cardio workouts save your strength for the weight room.
Additionally, the best types of cardio to preserve muscle work your entire body rather than just fatiguing one muscle group. This helps you reduce muscle fatigue and soreness that may impair your strength training workouts.
The best modes of cardio training to preserve muscle include brisk walking, using an elliptical, low intensity swimming and low intensity/low resistance cycling.
Best Cardio Frequency
To preserve muscle, try to perform one to three cardio sessions per week. You can also break your cardio up into more frequent sessions. However, if you choose to perform cardio more often, you should reduce the duration of each session.
Try to perform cardio on days that you do not perform weight training. If you do choose to perform cardio on weight training days, try to put cardio after lower intensity workouts or upper body workouts.
Trying to perform cardio after lower body or full body workouts may prove too taxing.
Remember to always put your cardio after your weight training workouts, or separate both by a four to six hour break.
Best Cardio Intensity
To preserve as much muscle as possible, you should focus on cardiac output training, a type of low intensity cardio. Keep your heart rate between 110-140 beats per minute.
Alternatively, aim for an intensity level of 4-5 out of 10.
If you choose to do moderate or high intensity cardio, try to keep the total time down. You can also work vigorous cardio into your weight training routine without impairing muscle gains. For instance, you can end your strength training workouts with kettlebell swings or circuit training.
Cardio Volume
The American Heart Association recommends 150 minutes per week of moderate cardio activity or 75 minutes per week of vigorous cardio activity.
You can achieve this total with five thirty minute walks per week. Alternatively, you could aim for three 50 minute cardio sessions per week.
You could also aim to complete an easy 10 minute aerobic warm up before each weight training session, in addition to two fifty minute walks per week.
Alternatively, you could perform ten to fifteen minutes per day of circuit training or conditioning at the end of your weight training workouts.
You can easily hit 150 minutes of cardio per week. However, you should not aim to complete excessive volumes of cardio if you want to preserve as much muscle as possible.
Final Thoughts
While many people fear that cardio will kill their gains, it does not have to be that way. If you structure your weight training and cardio plan appropriately, cardio can actually help you build muscle and keep your heart healthy too.
What do you think? What type of cardio routine has helped you preserve and build muscle? Please let me know in the comment section below.
