Athletes and Bodyfat

Training Bodybuilding
41

[quote]jsbrook wrote:
Mcflurry wrote:
I feel it is a good, clear-cut, straightfarward question…who’s asking it is a moot point. I am not advising anyone.

If you don’t have any answers or personal experience on the matter, I’d appreciate it if you didn’t post in my thread.

I’ve got a few good responses from people with personal experience on the matter, and I don’t want this thread to get side tracked.

Thank you.

It’s kind of a moronic question that has no application to real life. Your identical twin scenario is impossible to say for sure. But the exerciser is likely to be a little leaner due to elevated metabolism and better insulin sensitivity. And healthier too. So what?

Are you considering 3 options: a. sedentary, b. cardio only, or c. cardio and weights. Option c is very obviously what you should be doing. The rest is all academic. But not interesting enough as far as exercise theory or nutrition goes to make it an interesting dicussion.[/quote]

No Application to real life? uh…

If it is not interesting enough for you, don’t get involved;)

42

[quote]Cephalic_Carnage wrote:
Anyone know a good fail-pic site?
…
[/quote]

43

[quote]Mcflurry wrote:
jsbrook wrote:
Mcflurry wrote:
I feel it is a good, clear-cut, straightfarward question…who’s asking it is a moot point. I am not advising anyone.

If you don’t have any answers or personal experience on the matter, I’d appreciate it if you didn’t post in my thread.

I’ve got a few good responses from people with personal experience on the matter, and I don’t want this thread to get side tracked.

Thank you.

It’s kind of a moronic question that has no application to real life. Your identical twin scenario is impossible to say for sure. But the exerciser is likely to be a little leaner due to elevated metabolism and better insulin sensitivity. And healthier too. So what?

Are you considering 3 options: a. sedentary, b. cardio only, or c. cardio and weights. Option c is very obviously what you should be doing. The rest is all academic. But not interesting enough as far as exercise theory or nutrition goes to make it an interesting dicussion.

No Application to real life? uh…

If it is not interesting enough for you, don’t get involved;)

[/quote]

Ok. I won’t post in the thread anymore. I’m still not sure how you’re planning to revamp your training based on the kind of questions you’ve asked here. But if you’re happy with it, that’s fine.

44

[quote]alit4 wrote:
Mcflurry wrote:
This is something I’ve always wondered, but could never really find an answer (probably because everyone is different).

I know the general consensus among the majority of people these days regarding medium/low intensity cardio, is that it is simply a means of burning calories (as well as strengthening the heart and lungs).

I do agree that cardio like running or biking is going to build little (if any) muscle, unless you were previously a very sedentary person to start with.

I do “feel” however, that if you take someone who is on the smaller side (say 5’ 10" 150 lbs.) who does not participate in “much” physically (no cardio, weight training etc…), and then you take the same guy at the same weight who runs his ass off for an hour a day, that the guy who runs for an hour a day is going to be considerable leaner then the guy who doesn’t.

For example, my uncle was always on the skinny side (5’ 10" 150 lbs.), but ever since he starting running miles, he looks like he is carved out of stone, but his weight has remained the same. He was always reasonably lean (12% or so), but now he looks well under 10% bf for sure.

Now I’ve also heard of people who lost a lot of muscle doing cardio (usually bigger guys).

What are your guys’s experiences with doing cardio (running in particular), and body fat?

when i started in 2003, 200lbs ish of skinnyfat, i ran and ran and did resistance training (to say lifting weights would be an exaggeration). guess what, i dropped bodyfat and didn’t lose muscle, in fact gained a bit because i was a beginner.
moving on a bit, started weight training harder and upped the calories and kept up the cardio and…
gained very little.
moving on a bit more; upped the calories some more, decreased the cardio a little, gained much better.
decided to cut, increased the cardio and…
lost all the gains.

present day. dropped the cardio.increased calories some more, got stronger, beginning to move some weight now. gained 17 lbs in 12 weeks.

conclusion,well draw your own.

(cardio in this case was running, 30-40 mins ish, not jogging. you don’t need to be a big guy to lose muscle.)[/quote]

Your experience sounds almost exactly like mine…although I was in worse shape than you when I sarted. I had to drop a shit load of fat though (50 lbs.)

After losing the 50 lbs. (compound lifts, medium intensity cardio), I had saved all my muscle. When I tried to bulk up after my fat loss, cardio just slowed the process.

I stopped doing the cardio for a while, had very good gains, then incorporated 400m track sprints, and hill sprints. My weight stayed the same, but my body fat really shot down.

Did you run every day? How intense were your runs?

Thanks for the input:)

45

hah! when i started it ws 10 mins hard then puke and be so sore i couldn’t walk for days.
over time this built up to 5 mile or so in 40minutes, about 3 days a week. alternatively after starting in a gym i would use treadmills/machines for about an hour.must point out that there was no thought to building muscle or strength, more to do with getting in shape. i would not recommend training like this to anyone with bodybuilding goals. for me building muscle didn’t become a goal until some time after i adopted a fitter healthier lifestyle.

nowadays cardio for me is, 10 mins kettlebell swings/snatches, surfing when possible,cleaning the van, going for a walk with the missus or my favourite, 10-15 sets of medium weight deadlifts with 40 second rests.