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Doing Cardio While Building Muscle- Part 2
By Jason Ferruggia
The purpose of doing cardio when trying to get bigger and stronger is to
keep you lean, improve your insulin sensitivity and allow you to eat
more calories. What kind of cardio will have the least negative effect
on your size and strength gains? That's a no brainer; walking. The great
thing about walking is it will not impede your progress in the least,
the bad thing is that you have to walk for a bare minimum of 45 minutes
to really burn a decent amount of calories and you will not elevate your
metabolism much after walking. That is the great thing about interval
training; it elevates your metabolism dramatically for long after you
have finished your workout.
With that being said, I would still choose a good fast paced hour long
walk on the beach over sitting on a stationary bike inside while
pounding away on some brutal intervals. I despise intervals on a bike
with a passion. My ass goes numb, my balls go numb and I get a splitting
headache. Not to mention that I am bored to tears within three minutes.
Plus, I think we all do more than enough sitting and the last thing I
want to do is sit some more while I'm supposedly "working out;" my hip
flexors are tight enough already, thanks.
If you love to ride a bike then that is fine and you should do what you
love. But for God's sake, go outside and do it. People will actually get
in their cars and drive ten minutes across town to walk inside a gym and
sit on a stationary bike and ride it for twenty minutes and then drive
home. Why not just ride your bike across town? I don't get it.
So we have established that low intensity, long duration cardio
(walking) is the best option for those who are concerned with any losses
in size and strength whatsoever. This method was a favorite of many
great bodybuilders such as Dorian Yates. Another option here, is to just
go for a long slow/low intensity bike ride. Either one works great; but
again I warn you to protect your nuts, aka get a good seat.
Next on the list is medium/moderate/high intensity steady state cardio.
This kind of cardio is a little tricky because it can elevate cortisol
and lead to losses in size and strength. To prevent this you need to be
sure to limit the time spent doing this to 30 minutes, max. Two days a
week should be safe and three days would probably be ok for most people
as well. It's when you get into the 4-7 day per week, 45-60 minute
marathon sessions that you see people at the gym doing (whose bodies
never change in the least from one year to the next) all the time, that
you get into trouble. If you limit your use of this method you should be
ok.
Lastly, we have intervals which we will cover in part 3.
Jason Ferruggia is a world famous fitness expert who is renowned for
his ability to help people build muscle as fast as humanly possible. He
is the head training adviser for Men’s Fitness Magazine where he also
has his own monthly column dedicated to muscle building. For more great
muscle building information, please visit
http://www.musclegainingsecrets.com/ |
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