Question re Cardio & Muscle Loss

How could I MINIMISE muscle loss whilst doing endurance cardio?

Eat a lot.

I mean, you do realize there's an inherent contradiction in trying to get your body to adapt positively and simultaneously to anaerobic and aerobic work.

essentially (with some oversimplification)

Aerobic = smaller, more fuel-efficient muscles

Anaerobic = larger, less fuel-efficient muscles

You're tangoing backwards and forwards if you're trying to put on a lot of strength (and in particular mass) while doing a lot of aerobic work.

Also, by virtue of you not wanting to do HIIT, you officially suck.

Posted by: @Loki

I mean, you do realize there's an inherent contradiction in trying to get your body to adapt positively and simultaneously to anaerobic and aerobic work.

essentially (with some oversimplification)

Aerobic = smaller, more fuel-efficient muscles

Anaerobic = larger, less fuel-efficient muscles

You're tangoing backwards and forwards if you're trying to put on a lot of strength (and in particular mass) while doing a lot of aerobic work.

So it's completely 100% impossible?

Posted by: @Loki

Also, by virtue of you not wanting to do HIIT, you officially suck.

This may be true, but endurance is transpiring to be somewhat more convenient than HIIT when the swimming pool is crowded and absolutely EVERYONE else is doing endurance........

I do endurance just about quicker than anyone else in the pool nowadays, but in a crowded pool HIIT is proving to be a tad more tricky. - Too many women swimming in twos and exercising their tongues more than their bodies, it sometimes seems....

p.s. I also read this little rumour on a thread on a bulk-nut bulletin board:

quote:

"If it suits your lifestyle taking your Ephedrine stack in the morning before your cardio will help prevent muscle loss."

unquote:

Any truth to this rumour..............?

If it suits your lifestyle taking your Ephedrine stack in the morning before your cardio will help prevent muscle loss

Myth. I am not even sure where that poster got that idea.

Also, you should do HIIT. Swim sprints. You can do it.

Although if you still refuse, and refuse to eat, I figure leptigen mass could help you out.

Thanks, Godmode, I'd forgotten about this thread. ( I'm as smart as a goldfish )

I shall check out the Leptigen thing.

As for swim sprints I think I'm sort of doing them anyway, just by virtue of the fact that I'm now swimming faster than ever ( thanks Citrulline Malate! ) but I just can't stop at 20 minutes, it just doesn't feel right. So I swim for 50 mins quick-ish. But I guess that length of time makes it endurance, really.

It's all very confusing.

But I'm not complaining.

I feel great.

I do my swim, then soon afterwards I do a coupla hours of simple weight training, and I definitely look and feel different afterwards. Physically a lot more toned, and even a bit muscly. I've even got a couple of veins starting to appear over my biceps that wern't there before. And I can feel I'm losing weight as well.

I'm currently doing the swim/weights thing at the start of every 2nd day. So one day of swim/weights exer for a few hours & then one day of rest.

But I suppose I'm losing muscle each time I swim for 50 mins. I'm not too worried though, as being a 'serious' body builder is not really my intention, and this thread was initiated by curiosity as much as anything.

Well, whatever, I'm pleased with my progress, and I feel good.

Tomorrow is exercise morning and I'm already really looking forward to it.

Posted by: @Loki

How could I MINIMISE muscle loss whilst doing endurance cardio?

Eat a lot.

I mean, you do realize there's an inherent contradiction in trying to get your body to adapt positively and simultaneously to anaerobic and aerobic work.

essentially (with some oversimplification)

Aerobic = smaller, more fuel-efficient muscles

Anaerobic = larger, less fuel-efficient muscles

You're tangoing backwards and forwards if you're trying to put on a lot of strength (and in particular mass) while doing a lot of aerobic work.

Hey,

I was just wondering, I sorta have a similar problem. I'm trying to put on muscle but when I try and do HIIT I end up injuring myself which means I usually do fairly intense (but probably not enough to be HIIT) intervals, 1 min high, 2 min moderate repeated 8 times. Do you think this will prohibit me from adding muscle? What would be considered 'too much' aerobic work?

Thanks!

The only reason cardio would be catabolic is if you're lean and you're on very low calories. The difference between cutting Kcals or doing more cardio is negligible. If you're really fat, and you want an even bigger deficit, doing cardio is fine. You'll lose weight faster than without cardio.

Posted by: @Loki

How could I MINIMISE muscle loss whilst doing endurance cardio?

Eat a lot.

I mean, you do realize there's an inherent contradiction in trying to get your body to adapt positively and simultaneously to anaerobic and aerobic work.

essentially (with some oversimplification)

Aerobic = smaller, more fuel-efficient muscles

Anaerobic = larger, less fuel-efficient muscles

You're tangoing backwards and forwards if you're trying to put on a lot of strength (and in particular mass) while doing a lot of aerobic work.

i've been researching this lately quite a bit. Basically you can't have the best of both worlds. If you do endurance and strength then you will get results that way, but your endurance won't be as good as it would if you did pure endurance and your strength won't be as good as if you did pure strength.

In combined routines however, the strength componant seems to suffer more.

-Layne

O/T: Layne, have you done strength oriented phases or do you just stick to trying to maximize hypertrophy with every training cycle?

If you're born with a certain amount of fiber types (like say I'm mostly Type I muscle fibers and dude over there is mostly Type II) and this doesn't really change that much shouldn't I get better results from an endurance routine than a HIIT routine? Seems I only lost fat when I used to jog a mile or so ED and my legs, I've concluded after much training variation, will never grow large.

Posted by: @Godmode

If it suits your lifestyle taking your Ephedrine stack in the morning before your cardio will help prevent muscle loss

Myth. I am not even sure where that poster got that idea.

Also, you should do HIIT. Swim sprints. You can do it.

Although if you still refuse, and refuse to eat, I figure leptigen mass could help you out.

Maybe because Eph causes short term insulin resistance which is anticatabolic

Ephedrine does help prevent muscle loss, in general. I can see why someone would assume that it prevents it prior to exercise, since it promotes the oxidation of fat, which will necessarily inhibit the use of protein as a fuel source.