Is Cardio Killing Your Gains?
Why do we do cardio?
We have all heard it before, staying fit and active is good for our physical and mental health, no matter our age or gender. This is true for the general population who want to keep their bodies moving and maintain and/or improve their general health. However, for those of us with specific body composition and physique goals, our reasons behind cardiovascular training are very different.
What are your goals?
Most of us don’t care about being super fit and being able to run a marathon without stopping, we want to increase muscle mass, live healthier lifestyles, tone up, or lose fat. Based on these outcomes can we do cardio and still achieve our goals? In short, yes.
“How much cardio should I do to lose weight?” “Will doing cardio make me lose all my gains bro?” To answer these two questions simply, doing cardio doesn’t make you lose fat, being in a calorie deficit does (read my last blog) and no, doing cardio doesn’t cause you to lose your muscle mass. Cardio is simply a form of exercise that is good for your fitness and heart that burns calories. On the other side, participating in some form of cardio may help you achieve your fat loss and or muscle growth goals
Should you only do cardio to get shredded/tone? The simple answer is No. Weight training within close proximity to failure is a stimulus that helps us grow and shape our muscles. Along with being in a calorie deficit, cardio can be used as a tool to expend more energy to aid in weight/fat loss. As a result of reduced body fat, our muscles look more defined and ‘toned’. Weight loss can be achieved without HIIT classes, skipping, or other types of cardio. However when dieting we can use cardio in our favour, it allows us to eat more of the foods we love and still progress towards our goals by burning more calories throughout the day. This can help increase the size of the calorie deficit we are in.
Our bodies are quite smart, whatever we throw at it, it responds and adapts, to make its environment the new ‘norm’. Most commonly seen is when we decrease our food intake to lose weight and within weeks our metabolism has adjusted, and we no longer are losing weight. The same principle applies with cardio and energy output in any form, if you run for 15km every day you would probably lose some fat, yet again your body will adapt to this stimulus/energy output and weight loss will come to a halt as your body gets ‘used’ to running 15km. So then you have to either eat even less or move even more. Do you really want to run 20km every day to lose weight? Didn’t think so. This is why it is recommended to start doing the minimum effective amount of cardio/output to progress towards your goals. Starting at a lower time/intensity point for cardio means you get to eat more food and/or slowly and progressively increase your cardio without burning out and driving yourself to the extremes.
What type of cardio should you do?
Not all types of cardio are made equal, different types of output result in varying amounts of calories burned. For example, the difference in the number of calories burnt from walking on a flat treadmill for 20 minutes compared to being on a stair master for 20 minutes is great, and the same between the stair master and sprinting at maximum speed for 20 minutes. What does all this mean? It means you can spend the same amount of time doing cardio but burn more calories, helping you progress your training even when your body has adapted. It’s simply better bang for buck.
Can you do Cardio and Bulk?
“I don’t do cardio bro, I’m bulking” We have all heard that before because apparently “Cardio kills your gains”. Is this true? In short no. Like with anything in life, too much can be detrimental. Firstly, we know, during a growth phase we need to eat in a surplus of energy, meaning more than food than our maintenance calories. Doing excessive amounts of cardio during a bulk may hinder your body’s ability to grow muscle as you are expending a large amount of calories, therefore, cancelling out the calorie surplus, putting yourself back at maintenance and potentially even a deficit. On the flip side, small amounts of cardio that keep your heart and lunges nice and healthy will keep your body healthier. With a stronger heart and lungs, our body’s ability to transport nutrients to our muscles is improved which can potentially help you train and recover better. Just like servicing your car, it keeps everything working well and less likely to break down.
So how much cardio should i do?
The amount of cardio you do depends on your goals, if you’re looking at toning and losing belly fat, probably a little more than someone who’s trying to increase their muscle mass and improve their strength. It’s a matter of trial and error as well as listening to your body. If your goal is to put on muscle and you’re doing cardio, but you find that even though you're ticking all the boxes and you’re in a surplus that your weight isn’t going up, then you’re probably doing too much and may want to reduce or increase your food intake to account for the extra burnt calories. Add in some cardio to your daily routine and see what happens to the scale and in the mirror, if you see no changes towards your goals then either slightly increase or decrease and keep moving forward. The same principle applies for fat loss but in reverse, you may increase the amount/intensity of cardio you’re doing or reduce the amount your eating. Smaller changes are usually easier to adhere to from a food and/or cardio stand out, find what works best for you, your goals and your lifestyle then stick with it.
