Hey. So I’m doing a bulking diet, eating clean, great macronutrient breakdown, but I had a question. When bulking, should you do any cardio? I cut down from about 170 and 17%bf to about 150 and 12% bf, so now I am bulking back up.
Think is, I don’t want to gain too much bf…other wise what’s the point. So, my question is, should i through in some cardio during the week? I lift 5-6 days a week, and I used to do cardio 4-5 days of HIIT. Thanks.
Might want to add an HIIT workout or two in for the week to keep your heart in good shape.
I would keep everything according to you plan, increase food intake to “bulking” levels, and see how the muscle/fat gains come along.
Adjust as necessary.
Whatever helped you loose the fat will keep you with the low fat. Make sure you keep the cardio in, just don’t do it on days you are working legs hard. From my experience HIIT and heavy leg days don’t work together.
You can, if you have the willpower, do your cardio 4-5 days per week, in the mornings, on an empty stomach and do your regular bulk-up training in the afternoons or nights.
Since you have been fat before, it is probable that you will have more propensity to have extra water retention and gain fat easier than if you were thin to begin with. Don’t fret over it since you already proved to yourself that you can loose the fat. Just make a conscious decition as to which level of bodyfat is acceptable for you and when you reach that level, don’t change the diet, but increase the cardio until you are at the low end again.
Also remember that building muscle in itself will make you burn more calories at rest. If you aren’t making a lot of strenght gains perhaps you will not be eating enough calories. This is IMO the biggest problem with FFB that try to gain muscle. We are so worried about not re-gaining the fat that our muscle gain is ludicrous. To build muscle mass naturally is a specialization routine. A fat loss is also a specialization routine. Think about what I just wrote before.
[quote]sawadeekrob wrote:
You can, if you have the willpower, do your cardio 4-5 days per week, in the mornings, on an empty stomach and do your regular bulk-up training in the afternoons or nights.
.[/quote]
This thread was done just a few days ago in the beginner section, this guy here seems to share my thoughts. I’d type more but I have to do my cardio haha.
[quote]rrjc5488 wrote:
Might want to add an HIIT workout or two in for the week to keep your heart in good shape.[/quote]
Weight training doesn’t keep the heart in good health?
I’d do HIIT a couple times per week also just because it seems easier to keep the BF in check. Dunno the science behind it, but it seems to help when I bulk. Just don’t overdo it or you’ll end up burning too many calories.
tw0scoops, you hit it right on point. I don’t want to do too much cardio, bc I don’t want to burn off too many calories. I was able to drop the bf and weight in just 3~ months. I don’t want to put that kind of weight on again, so I’m clean bulking, and I plan on weighing and checking my bf every monday.
Anyways, my best days to do cardio(without doing it on leg days) would be mon/thurs/fri. Would that suffice? I can def throw in HIIT those days, possibly even on Saturdays- even though I do back/legs on that day as well…but I can split it up into two different times.
Thanks for the responses guys.
i wouldn’t do too much HIIT, it’s much more intense than “LSD” training. I would probably do 10-15 minutes at a low intensity, say 50-60%
those that say no cardio make me wonder. cardio increases your body’s ability to utilize nutrients, and 10-15 mins of low intensity will hardly burn that many calories.
Yea, I think I need to be doing some kind of cardio. Low intensity would be real easy to do. Like I said before, I’m going to try and throw in about 3 days of cardio at least; I still don’t know if HIIT would be best though. I’ll have to experiment