Are you someone who is afraid to integrate cardio training into your workout? You are not alone. Many lifters do not want to do much cardio because it effects recovery time from their lifting workouts. When you are trying to build muscle mass quickly you do not want to do anything that may hinder your attempts.
Cardio can have two negative effects on your weight training and muscle building progress. First, as mentioned, it will slow recovery time since cardio works the muscles and the body and your body has to recover from it along with the recovery from the muscle building. Second, cardio uses calories that could have been used to build muscle.
The important thing to note here when it comes to calorie burning is that you have to be diligent in your calorie consumption. Your body is capable of building only a certain amount of muscle per day. If you are eating more calories than your body needs to build muscle then you are going to gain weight. You will actually need to burn those excess calories so you can keep your body fat levels down.
It is much easier to just watch your calorie consumption and not go above what you need instead of trying to use cardio to burn off the excess calories. However, if you want to add cardio to your muscle building routine then you need to do it smartly.
There are different options in cardio workouts that you can use. A moderate cardio workout is fine to add in on occasion. You don’t want to be doing it for hour long periods five days a week as that would be too much. Aim for a consistent pace for about 20 to 40 minutes max. Interval training, often called high intensity interval training or HIIT, involves short bursts of high intensity throughout the workout. You alternate between the high intensity and rest throughout the workout. It is very intense on your body and works you hard. If you lift about four days a week then this will be too much cardio for you. If you want to try HIIT then do it only once a week.
The last type of cardio is the best option for weight training lifters that want to add in cardio without affecting their muscle building. It is called recovery training. Recovery training involves light cardio that really is done to improve circulation and not to burn fat. It is done for about 10 to 20 minutes and can be done the same day as a workout. If you are doing an intense muscle building routine then stick with recovery cardio.
Integrating cardio into your workout is done with care. You need to easy make cardio second in importance to your muscle building. You can use a light cardio workout to warm up before muscle building. This is the ideal option. You can also use it afterwards to loosen tight muscles and wind down from a workout.
If you must integrate cardio training along side your weight training workouts then be sure to do it right. You have to make sure it is not affecting your muscle building. Pay attention to your body. If you notice you lack energy for your weightlifting then back off the cardio for a while and see if that is what is affecting you. Any cardio you do is secondary and should be stopped if it is causing issues with your muscle building.
