Cardio question/help required!!

[DaBangEm]

I would recommend doing cardio on days that you are not lifting if you can. If your schedule permits you might want to hit it very first thing in the morning, go about your day normally and then lift weights at your normal time. HIT works great, you do not have to do it but when you go all out it does increase your bodies ability to burn fat. Again you don't have to but I found that it makes my cardio sessions fly by. Also really work on the diet side of things. Small meals through out the day that are purposeful are the way to go. Jiggagold has a good idea too with getting outside and doing activities that engage your body and burn fat. Swimming laps and treading water are actual great ways to incorporate your whole body and burn tons of calories, if you have access to a pool. Hope this helps.

 

[heavydutyhit]

Yeah but why do you think when I did my cardio I didn't look any better and just lost muscle?

You lost muscle because you did cardio after your weight training.

During the first 30 minutes after a session of weight training, your goal should be initiating the recovery process asap. You should have a post workout recovery shake including whey isolate and high glycemic carbohydrates. Glutamine, creatine, and a dose of BCAAs should be taken as well. 32oz of water should also be consumed to provide the H2O required for glycogen formation.

Instead of providing your muscles with the much needed nutrients, you were burning up additional calories and digging yourself into a deeper hole.

Secondly, you were doing cardio incorrectly.

HIIT cardio is fine if you do not care about losing a certain percentage of muscle, and depleting glycogen stores (which should be saved for weight training). With this protocol, you alternate high intensity (75-90% MHR) and low intensity (55-70% MHR)intervals repeatedly, until your session is over. This type of cardio will produce a greater overall total number of calories burned, but is less efficient at using stored bodyfat as fuel.


"Low Intensity Long Duration" cardio is the type of cardio most efficient at burning bodyfat. It is also more efficient at preserving lean muscle tissue since there is less chance for amino acid gluconeogenesis. With this type of cardio you exercise with a heart rate of 65-70% of your maximal heart rate, and maintain this % for the ENTIRE DURATION of your cardio session.

So what you were doing was sacrificing your post workout recovery window to do cardio at a heart rate that was too low to categorically qualify for either of these methods.

I also suspect that your nutritional needs were not met throughout the day. To preserve muscle mass while trying to lose bodyfat, a higher percentage of daily calories should come from protein. IF this demand is not met, your body will convert lean muscle tissue to glucose via a process known as gluconeogenesis.

And before the proponents of HIIT lambaste my post with objections, please allow me to point out that this is not my "opinion," as anyone who is familiar with my posts knows, I rarely post "opinions." I post factual information I acquired from text books and Medical Journals throughout my years at the University.

So to silence those who object let me lay some facts down to support my points made above.

There are two basic metabolic pathways. Aerobic and Anaerobic. These two pathways' job is to synthesize Adenosine Tri-Phosphate, the body's primary energy molecule.

Each pathway has two systems that can occur to complete the synthesis of additional ATP.

Anaerobic:

1- Phosphagen System
Creatine Phosphate is a high-energy compound stored in muscle tissue. Creatine phosphate stores are always quite limited so they can only synthesize ATP for about 8 seconds during maximal muscle contraction. This is the primary system used for short duration high intensity activities such as sprinting and/or maximal lifts in weight training.

2 - Oxygen Independent Glycolytic System
This system uses glycogen stored in muscle tissue to produce ATP, but is slower at doing so than the Phosphagen system. This systems ATP production last longer than the phosphagen system, lasting 35-60 seconds.

Aerobic:

1 - Oxygen Dependent Glycolytic System
This glycolytic system utilizes oxygen which makes it much more efficient. It can produce large amounts of ATP for a long period of between 1-40 minutes.

2 - Oxygen Dependent Lipolytic System
This aerobic system produces ATP via the breakdown of lipids and fatty acids. Since Oxygen is a requirement for this system to occur, it is the body's preferred source of energy during long bouts of lower intensity activities (110-130 bpm or 55-70%MHR). This system is efficient at synthesizing ATP for periods of 40+ minutes.