Help: combining weight training and cardio

[kalbo]

Here's my situation:

I'm 5'7 155lbs w/ a small frame (yeah, I'm fairly tiny). I prefer to stay at this weight but I wouldn't mind gaining about 5lbs of muscle. I lift weights about 2-3 times a week and ride a stationary bike 2 times a week.

Recently I started jogging outdoors and have fell in love with it. I'm wondering if I were to jog 3-4 times a week for about 20-30min., would that be too much? Would I be sacrificing the muscle gain? As I said, I'd prefer to stay at this weight but I'm looking to lower my body fat and gain some muscle.

Suggestions?

 

[CCS]

The only downside of cardio is you burn a small amount of muscle along with the fat, and your body is not in an anabolic state during the 30 minutes or so that you are doing cardio. As soon as your next meal after the cardio hits your blood stream, your body is back in an anabolic state. With 24 hours in a day, I doubt this is an issue. Just limit the cardio to a 1 hour low intensity fat burn each day, or 20-30 minutes of high intensity. As long as you have glycogen in your muscles, you can do high intensity and not burn much muscle. But once it is burnt, you can only do low intensity and primarily burn fat. If you want to do high intensity longer, and don't know if you still have glycogen, just sip a sugary drink during the second half of high intensity work.

Best time for low intensity fat burn: right when you wake up. You don't burn fat unless your glycogen is gone. You will not burn much muscle as long as the intensity is low (65% max heart rate), since fat can only provide energy so fast.

You can lift weights that same day, 4 hours after wards, if you had some carbohydrate meals. The key is you can lift weights if your muscle glycogen is replenished. It is good to lift early so you have all day to eat and grow. DO NOT do cardio after lifting weights. Do it 4 hours before. 10 minutes of cardio right before will not burn much glycogen, but will get your muscles warmed up.

Treat high intensity cardio like a weight training workout. Do it after you have been up 4 hours and had time to replenish glycogen. Recover afterwards with protein and carbs. Unless you are in good shape or trying to be a stud, do the high intensity cardio and heavy lifting on different days. Combining them is like doing chest in the morning and quats in the afternoon. Only PowerSam would try something like that.

 

[kalbo]

Wow, thanks for the detailed response!

I usually jog first thing when I wake up and I would incorporate some sprints in there as well. So I guess I should eliminate the sprints from the workout then.

So do you think jogging 3-4 times a week is too much? I'm not trying to lose weight, but at the same time, I'm trying to lose fat and gain some muscle.

 

[CCS]

keep the sprints. Just do them later in the day, separate from the jogging. You can even do them right after, if there are just a few, since you will only burn a little muscle. You can sprint harder with glycogen in your muscles, but maybe you will make your body more efficient by pushing the limit with those few sprints in the morning. Jogging 3-4 days per week is not a problem. Just don't go more than 1 hour in the morning.

 

[powersam]

Only PowerSam would try something like that.

and with great success . exercise science can bite my arse, i'm just going to do what i enjoy and what feels right to me. that way i'm far more likely to continue doing it.

far better to any exercise at all than obsess about how to do it right without actually doing any.

 

[Aplunk1]

DO NOT do cardio after lifting weights.

What's wrong with this? CCS, that's exactly the opposite of what I do! I run 6-7 days a week, 1-2 hours daily, at about 6-7 m.p.h.. I do 50 pushups before, after, and during this work out.

Also, 3 days a week, I hit the gym. I lift for about 30 minutes with some good upper body (biceps, triceps, chest), then immediately I run.

I'm making small gains. My muscle is pretty toned, and body fat is going down to a minimum.

Am I making it harder on myself to keep a toned body? I don't necessarily want to build up any more muscle, more like maintain and tone (that's what I want the most!), and to keep the lean runner's appearance.

Only PowerSam would try something like that.

Hah. :lol:

 

[kalbo]

keep the sprints. Just do them later in the day, separate from the jogging. You can even do them right after, if there are just a few, since you will only burn a little muscle. You can sprint harder with glycogen in your muscles, but maybe you will make your body more efficient by pushing the limit with those few sprints in the morning. Jogging 3-4 days per week is not a problem. Just don't go more than 1 hour in the morning.

Thanks. Just to be safe though, I'll probably just leave out the sprints in the morning. I'll save those for when I plan to go jogging in the afternoon/evening.

DO NOT do cardio after lifting weights.

What's wrong with this? CCS, that's exactly the opposite of what I do! I run 6-7 days a week, 1-2 hours daily, at about 6-7 m.p.h.. I do 50 pushups before, after, and during this work out.

Also, 3 days a week, I hit the gym. I lift for about 30 minutes with some good upper body (biceps, triceps, chest), then immediately I run.

Yeah I was wondering about that part too. I've read that it's perfectly okay to do cardio after lifting weights. I see people at the gym do it all the time, and those guys are all in great shape.

 

[CCS]

DO NOT do cardio after lifting weights.

What's wrong with this? CCS, that's exactly the opposite of what I do! I run 6-7 days a week, 1-2 hours daily, at about 6-7 m.p.h.. I do 50 pushups before, after, and during this work out.

Also, 3 days a week, I hit the gym. I lift for about 30 minutes with some good upper body (biceps, triceps, chest), then immediately I run.

I'm making small gains. My muscle is pretty toned, and body fat is going down to a minimum.

Am I making it harder on myself to keep a toned body? I don't necessarily want to build up any more muscle, more like maintain and tone (that's what I want the most!), and to keep the lean runner's appearance.

Only PowerSam would try something like that.

Hah. :lol:

immediately after a workout your testosterone levels are peaked, and your muscles are most ready to grow in the presence of food. they will still grow even if you don't give them a chance until later, but you are sacrificing some gains.

 

[CCS]

Yeah I was wondering about that part too. I've read that it's perfectly okay to do cardio after lifting weights. I see people at the gym do it all the time, and those guys are all in great shape.

now you have me wondering. But if their total workout time is less than 1 hour, and the cardio is intense, then it should boost testosterone, and not lower it.

Also, if a guy is on roids, his testosterone will aways be high, so it won't matter if me misses the post workout spike.

 

[CCS]

Bubka reminded me that the body holds 2000 calories of glycogen, and can't burn it off overnight. Yet other sources say cardio in the morning burns fat because the glycogen is gone. I wonder if people's glycogen stores are even full most of the time. I know runners go to great lengths with their carbs before a race, trying to fill their glycogen stores up.

 

[s.a.f]

Anyone would think you were training for the next Olympia. I bet half of those guys dont obbsess about it as much as you do.

 

[hair today gone tomorrow]

Anyone would think you were training for the next Olympia. I bet half of those guys dont obbsess about it as much as you do.

wow...EXACTLY what i was thinking....Ronnie Coleman couldnt answer half of CCS' questions.

 

[hair today gone tomorrow]

Anyone would think you were training for the next Olympia. I bet half of those guys dont obbsess about it as much as you do.

wow...EXACTLY what i was thinking....Ronnie Coleman couldnt answer half of CCS' questions.

 

[s.a.f]

I wonder if Ronnies ever considered injecting DHT directly into his wang?

 

[CCS]

I wonder if Ronnies ever considered injecting DHT directly into his wang?

he'd get better results if he had a local aromatase inhibitor, and some growth hormone, and used a pump. I think DHT gel is better than injections, due to slow delivery.

 

[s.a.f]

Then lets hope he's reading this (after all he's bald)

 

[CCS]

yeah, bald people should avoid doing anything that raises testosterone. No muscle for us. Or we could just put an androgen receptor blocker on our head, and take finasteride.