Cardio and Muscle Loss

Bigger Stronger Leaner Competitive Bodybuilding
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Anything that prisoner says on this forum I take as gold. I’ve lurked on this site for a few years now before finally making my own tpage or whatever you call it. Anybody telling prisoner what to do on here needs to keep the respect, the man has a lot to offer.

Prisoner: I understand the part about wanting to use the muscle densely packed with mitochondria allowing the body to use o2 for energy and that cardio is used for burning calories. With a bodybuilding mind and knowing we will diet down dropping both muscle and fat to get to low bf% I think that the cardio form you stated is optimal.
I have one question tho. Won’t using sprints during a phase where somebody would want to “bulk” and do some cardio have a positive impact on a physique .vs. doing the medium paced cardio as you stated? Some people can actually build muscle incorporating sprints into their training regime can’t they? And any form of cardio whether it be sprints or medium paced cardio in the target heart range is going to burn calories. I think that the theory is to be able to consume/burn just enough calories to put on muscle w/o a bunch of fat. As for me when bulking I’m not concerned with putting on some fat because I know that I’m only concerned with being cut up is on stage. The average person however wants to miraculously put on muscle while burning fat. So to sum up my question can a person incorporate sprints into a “bulk” phase of training and reap the benefits of the ability to build muscle and produce a leaner physique overall hence building some muscle and lean out at the same time? (not talking lean out to extrem low bf% but enough for your average gym goer) I appreciate your time.

Gerdy

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[quote]evansmi wrote:
Prisoner wrote:

Boy, if I had more time on here to set all you Newbs straight on things. It’s like the blind leading the blind on this forum!

The only thing that will achieve fat loss…

You had some good points in there, but those two sentances made you lose a lot of credibility.

Generally, when you want people to listen to you, its not a good idea to open by offending them. And if there is one universal truth to this subject, its that there is never only one possible way to do anything.[/quote]

I couldn’t give a dam if you listen to me or not. Bottom line is this thread is about fat loss through cardio with mimimal muscle loss. Yeah, there are different methods to losing fat, but they are not always equal. In this case it is what it is. I don’t care how many post you people have on here, when I see things said that are not correct I will sometimes speak up -if I have the time and the inclination to do so. I’ve never been known for being nice, I have been know for being honest and blunt. Soryy, that’s just me. If that means I hurt feelings and egos, what do I care. I really don’t. I just don’t have any use for people who come on boards and think they know what they are talking about p Any national competitors participating on this thread besides me? I didn’t think so. The fact is Cardio training and BB aren’t synomynous. Alot of athletes I know don’t even do any cardio, they just diet. That is because of the risk of muscle loss. I prefer to do cardio, but I am very carefull - mindfull of the risks of muscle loss.

I’m not here to impress anyone, and I certainly have nothing to prove to anyone - But when the Origional poster asks a question and gets responces that I know are not correct… too bad.

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[quote]ds77 wrote:
My own experience with cardio and muscle mass loss:

A couple of years ago i started running on my off days as i do like running… i was running for about 30 minutes; just a jog; no sprinting or anything.

Prior to even starting to run, i had been lifting for years. I had some fat but not really that much and really did not start running to burn off fat. At any rate, i continued to lift while i was running; but after a couple months someone asked me why i looked so skinny and realized i had lost one hell of a lot of muscle; i did not lose any strengh i guess a result of muscle memory.

I was not even trying to diet during this time and was really eating a lot of fast food; but i still lost a lot of muscle without even realizing.

I guess im saying that you really do have to watch that you dont push cardio to far during a workout program. Everybody has threshold and i cant say for each individual what that threshold is; but i know i went beyond it without even realizing it and was not even on a calorie restriction; so i would think if your restricting calories you really need to be careful.[/quote]

Running/ Jogging is very catabolic as a bodybuilder, that is one activity you should never do, if you goal is max muscle.

Controlling your diet and your portions is a far better way to achieving leaness.

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[quote]Mcflurry wrote:
Thats a heck of a lot of information to take in at one time, but I think I get the gist of it. How does this sound guys?..

High intensity cardio obviously burns more calories for the time you spend doing it, but it burns less calories from fat, and more calories from muscle. Why do sprinters have more muscular bodies though? perhaps they put more of an emphasis on Strength training? Or maybe although sprinting does burn muscle when your actually doing it, perhaps its such a small fraction of muscle that was actually burned, that it recovers, and rebuilds stronger before the next session?

ah…as long as I’m not running a marathon, I’m just not going to worry about it.

Thanks once again:)

Not many sprinters weight over 200 lbs. yes they are ripped and have good muscle tone, however they definitely are not bodybuilders.

I ran sprints at the University Level, back when I was 19 and I can attest to the fact that Sprint training and BB do not go together.

[/quote]

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[quote]andrewc1989 wrote:

I understand you have far more experience than me, and probably 99% of people on this site, but I don’t buy this at all.

“Performing other activies such as biking running sprints, will not burn body fat directly, it will burn calories, but more likely those calories will be taken from the most dispensible source of energy in your body: your skeletal muscle.”

The goal of HIT isn’t to burn bodyfat directly, neither is weightraining, but both burn bodyfat extremly well INDIRECTLY. HIT isn’t designed to be performed for long periods of time, as you know. I agree with Nelson Montana when he says that cardio is really a waste of time, as the caloric expenditure during the 30 min sessions are pretty insignificant. He claims true loss of bodyfat is achieved through eating clean and less, and weighttraining. Not to mention, those ellipticals can be pretty far off on how many calories they claim you burn in one session.[/quote]

How many Pro bodybuilders do you know do HITT? I certainly don’t As I said, your body will remodel itself to best preform a certain activity. That means dropping muscle to become faster at preforming sprints. above is a picture of me pre nationals. A product of dieting, and steady state cardio. I would never consider doing HITT. I will be posting new pictures soon of this year. Once again Bigger and leaner then last years. And no HITT used.

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[quote]Freaky Styley wrote:
I guess I’m lucky to be young and resilient. [/quote]

Enjoy it while you can.

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Tnx for the information Prisoner! How do you think about doing circuit training as a part of a fat los program?

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Yeah I never see bodybuilders running. LOL. I don’t think Ronnie can even run.

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[quote]tw0scoops2 wrote:
Yeah I never see bodybuilders running. LOL. I don’t think Ronnie can even run.[/quote]

Well, that’s a dumb statement…
Back to the topic at hand. Prisoner may be right. But I like to do one HIIT session per week even while dieting [energy demands and other training permitting]. I don’t do it primarily for fat loss. But I haven’t had problems getting in the single digits while doing it without muscle loss. But my body is resilient. I gain muscle fairly easily and hold onto it well. [Obviously, it’s NOT easy. But with proper diet and training, it comes steadily] Conversely, getting really lean is hard for me. Everyone is different. To me it defies belief, that moderate cardio causes some people to lose muscle on a MAINTENANCE diet and a solid training program. But that is what people have stated on this thread. I have no reason to think they are lying.

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Where you really get into trouble with cardio is the intensity you do it at. Not only can cardio catabolize muscle, you essentially you are working in two opposite directions. Intervals are great. But cardio done at a very high heart rate encourages adaptations of the cardiovascular system, your body is trying to make itself more efficient. One of the easiest ways to do this is to reduce the force production so the muscle produces just what is necessary to achieve the task. Which is exactly what you dont want, because this exactly what you have been working so hard lifting for.

If you do cardio at a low intensity and regulate your diet properly, you shouldnt lose too much muscle. Where intervals create a problem is when they are too stressfull and demand to much out of the body, so you would be better off possibly losing a small amount of muscle doing somewhat easy steady state cardio than doing the stressfull intervals.

Sprinters obviously do interval type work and they work great, but I dont know of many elite juiced bodybuilders that do. Too much to ask of that much muscle.

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[quote]Prisoner wrote:
andrewc1989 wrote:

I understand you have far more experience than me, and probably 99% of people on this site, but I don’t buy this at all.

“Performing other activies such as biking running sprints, will not burn body fat directly, it will burn calories, but more likely those calories will be taken from the most dispensible source of energy in your body: your skeletal muscle.”

The goal of HIT isn’t to burn bodyfat directly, neither is weightraining, but both burn bodyfat extremly well INDIRECTLY. HIT isn’t designed to be performed for long periods of time, as you know. I agree with Nelson Montana when he says that cardio is really a waste of time, as the caloric expenditure during the 30 min sessions are pretty insignificant. He claims true loss of bodyfat is achieved through eating clean and less, and weighttraining. Not to mention, those ellipticals can be pretty far off on how many calories they claim you burn in one session.

How many Pro bodybuilders do you know do HITT? I certainly don’t As I said, your body will remodel itself to best preform a certain activity. That means dropping muscle to become faster at preforming sprints. above is a picture of me pre nationals. A product of dieting, and steady state cardio. I would never consider doing HITT. I will be posting new pictures soon of this year. Once again Bigger and leaner then last years. And no HITT used.

[/quote]

I don’t think the question is how many pros do HIT, but rather, how many pros CAN DO HIT. Many of them don’t because carrying 250 LBS of lean tissue is hard enough as it is, and sprinting with max intensity just isn’t happening. Perhaps HIT is better designed for smaller people, but once you get to the elite like yourself, HIT becomes too much of a burden (joints.) I think that probably makes more sense. It doesn’t mean HIT doesn’t work or couldn’t work for an elite, but probably doesn’t make much sense because of risk of injury. I mean, take dexter jackson, who’s only 5’6, who carries 250 lbs on the offseason. I couldn’t imagine doing sprints with that much weight on me.

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[quote]Prisoner wrote:
<<< the most dispensible source of energy in your body: your skeletal muscle. >>>[/quote]

On what do you base this? Everything I’ve seen and read indicates that the conversion of aminos to glucose through gluconeogenesis is expensive, inefficient and accomplished as a physiological last resort in the absence of available energy stores in the form of sugars or lipids. Or when triggered by a starvation response to an abrupt over deficit of calories prolonged past a few days.

In other words while skeletal muscle can surely be cannibalized it is not the most “dispensable”, by which I assume you mean readily available, source of energy in the body.

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[quote]Tiribulus wrote:
Prisoner wrote:
<<< the most dispensible source of energy in your body: your skeletal muscle. >>>

On what do you base this? Everything I’ve seen and read indicates that the conversion of aminos to glucose through gluconeogenesis is expensive, inefficient and accomplished as a physiological last resort in the absence of available energy stores in the form of sugars or lipids. Or when triggered by a starvation response to an abrupt over deficit of calories prolonged past a few days.

In other words while skeletal muscle can surely be cannibalized it is not the most “dispensable”, by which I assume you mean readily available, source of energy in the body.
[/quote]

Your body constantly needs protein. Anytime it becomes defficient in protein, it draws from skeletal muscle if protein is not in ready supply. This can occur easily during intense and prolonged workouts. That is why it is so important to replenish stores using a quick absorbing form of protein, and sugars post workout - Surge being one way. The aim is to minimize the body’s secretion of cortisol - a catabolic hormone produced in the adrenal glands that regulates many different fuctions, including bone density and skeletal muscle mass.

Blocking cortisol is one of the ways that some Anabolic steriods such as Dianabol are so effective at allowing the body to continue to build muscle.

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Spot on.

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[quote]Prisoner wrote:
Tiribulus wrote:
Prisoner wrote:
<<< the most dispensible source of energy in your body: your skeletal muscle. >>>

On what do you base this? Everything I’ve seen and read indicates that the conversion of aminos to glucose through gluconeogenesis is expensive, inefficient and accomplished as a physiological last resort in the absence of available energy stores in the form of sugars or lipids. Or when triggered by a starvation response to an abrupt over deficit of calories prolonged past a few days.

In other words while skeletal muscle can surely be cannibalized it is not the most “dispensable”, by which I assume you mean readily available, source of energy in the body.

Your body constantly needs protein. Anytime it becomes defficient in protein, it draws from skeletal muscle if protein is not in ready supply. This can occur easily during intense and prolonged workouts. That is why it is so important to replenish stores using a quick absorbing form of protein, and sugars post workout - Surge being one way. The aim is to minimize the body’s secretion of cortisol - a catabolic hormone produced in the adrenal glands that regulates many different fuctions, including bone density and skeletal muscle mass.

Blocking cortisol is one of the ways that some Anabolic steriods such as Dianabol are so effective at allowing the body to continue to build muscle.[/quote]

You are exactly right. However, the effect achieved with steroids is all positive from the standpoint we are talking. Any time you try to prevent muscle catabolism you risk putting on fat, and it can be pretty hard to get the right amount of the right type of sugar post workout. Additionally I am not convinced the benefit of this outweighs the bodyfat you can potentially put on, of course this depends on the person. So I agree with you but this is not always easily done in practice.

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Found in the May 08 issue of Musclemag :

Researchers @ Loughborough University in England found that Growth Hormone levels in Sprint-Trained Athletes reached 25 times their resting levels around 30 minutes after they completed a 30-second sprint.

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[quote]Prisoner wrote:
Tiribulus wrote:
Prisoner wrote:
<<< the most dispensible source of energy in your body: your skeletal muscle. >>>

On what do you base this? Everything I’ve seen and read indicates that the conversion of aminos to glucose through gluconeogenesis is expensive, inefficient and accomplished as a physiological last resort in the absence of available energy stores in the form of sugars or lipids. Or when triggered by a starvation response to an abrupt over deficit of calories prolonged past a few days.

In other words while skeletal muscle can surely be cannibalized it is not the most “dispensable”, by which I assume you mean readily available, source of energy in the body.

Your body constantly needs protein. Anytime it becomes defficient in protein, it draws from skeletal muscle if protein is not in ready supply. This can occur easily during intense and prolonged workouts. That is why it is so important to replenish stores using a quick absorbing form of protein, and sugars post workout - Surge being one way. The aim is to minimize the body’s secretion of cortisol - a catabolic hormone produced in the adrenal glands that regulates many different fuctions, including bone density and skeletal muscle mass.

Blocking cortisol is one of the ways that some Anabolic steriods such as Dianabol are so effective at allowing the body to continue to build muscle.[/quote]

I think we’re on the same page. I just get a little chafed when somebody makes it sound VERY easy to lose muscle through non weightlifting exercise.

You mention “intense and prolonged” exercise. I really believe prolonged is the operative term where catabolism is concerned. As usual it comes down to being intelligent with your planning. I’m totally onboard with your prescription of moderate intensity and and duration BTW.

My only point was that your body isn’t sitting there eagerly waiting for a reason to chew up it’s own muscle. You have to do some things wrong for it to be a significant concern.

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I heard “Body For Life” works well and it alternates between lifting and HIIT cardio. Doesn’t that discredit those who say the two can’t work?

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[quote]Tiribulus wrote:
Prisoner wrote:
Tiribulus wrote:
Prisoner wrote:
<<< the most dispensible source of energy in your body: your skeletal muscle. >>>

On what do you base this? Everything I’ve seen and read indicates that the conversion of aminos to glucose through gluconeogenesis is expensive, inefficient and accomplished as a physiological last resort in the absence of available energy stores in the form of sugars or lipids. Or when triggered by a starvation response to an abrupt over deficit of calories prolonged past a few days.

In other words while skeletal muscle can surely be cannibalized it is not the most “dispensable”, by which I assume you mean readily available, source of energy in the body.

Your body constantly needs protein. Anytime it becomes defficient in protein, it draws from skeletal muscle if protein is not in ready supply. This can occur easily during intense and prolonged workouts. That is why it is so important to replenish stores using a quick absorbing form of protein, and sugars post workout - Surge being one way. The aim is to minimize the body’s secretion of cortisol - a catabolic hormone produced in the adrenal glands that regulates many different fuctions, including bone density and skeletal muscle mass.

Blocking cortisol is one of the ways that some Anabolic steriods such as Dianabol are so effective at allowing the body to continue to build muscle.

I think we’re on the same page. I just get a little chafed when somebody makes it sound VERY easy to lose muscle through non weightlifting exercise.

You mention “intense and prolonged” exercise. I really believe prolonged is the operative term where catabolism is concerned. As usual it comes down to being intelligent with your planning. I’m totally onboard with your prescription of moderate intensity and and duration BTW.

My only point was that your body isn’t sitting there eagerly waiting for a reason to chew up it’s own muscle. You have to do some things wrong for it to be a significant concern. [/quote]

The problem with muscle catabolism gets worse as you get leaner. And keep in mind I am speaking of getting shredded for a show, not ripped for the beach. The leaner you get the easier it is to go catabolic, as the the diets are near starvation. Right now I am dieting and i am constantly without energy I feel sluggish, and frequently am in the state of ketosis. It is a really shitty feeling but if you want to win, you have to gut it out. Were talking about gluteal striation here, and I think others are only thinking of defined abdominal muscles. It’s a completely different thing.

Anyhow for a natural athlete it is even more important to get in the right balance of protein and carbohydrate replenishment post cardio/ workout, as you have nothing else in place to stave off catabolism. That is why individuals who are ‘hard gainers’ - natural ectomorphs find it so hard to grow, as their metabolism literally eats the muscle off their bones, if their nutritional intake is off. Duration of exercise and frequency of meals have to be kept in constant check.

I know because I was a natural ectomorph, and I would find I would absolutely have to eat every 3 hours or I would see visable decreases in muscle size. My Arms were always the first to shrink and the last to grow, so they were a great barometer as to how my diet was.

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[quote]andrewc1989 wrote:
Prisoner wrote:
andrewc1989 wrote:

I understand you have far more experience than me, and probably 99% of people on this site, but I don’t buy this at all.

“Performing other activies such as biking running sprints, will not burn body fat directly, it will burn calories, but more likely those calories will be taken from the most dispensible source of energy in your body: your skeletal muscle.”

The goal of HIT isn’t to burn bodyfat directly, neither is weightraining, but both burn bodyfat extremly well INDIRECTLY. HIT isn’t designed to be performed for long periods of time, as you know. I agree with Nelson Montana when he says that cardio is really a waste of time, as the caloric expenditure during the 30 min sessions are pretty insignificant. He claims true loss of bodyfat is achieved through eating clean and less, and weighttraining. Not to mention, those ellipticals can be pretty far off on how many calories they claim you burn in one session.

How many Pro bodybuilders do you know do HITT? I certainly don’t As I said, your body will remodel itself to best preform a certain activity. That means dropping muscle to become faster at preforming sprints. above is a picture of me pre nationals. A product of dieting, and steady state cardio. I would never consider doing HITT. I will be posting new pictures soon of this year. Once again Bigger and leaner then last years. And no HITT used.

I don’t think the question is how many pros do HIT, but rather, how many pros CAN DO HIT. Many of them don’t because carrying 250 LBS of lean tissue is hard enough as it is, and sprinting with max intensity just isn’t happening. Perhaps HIT is better designed for smaller people, but once you get to the elite like yourself, HIT becomes too much of a burden (joints.) I think that probably makes more sense. It doesn’t mean HIT doesn’t work or couldn’t work for an elite, but probably doesn’t make much sense because of risk of injury. I mean, take dexter jackson, who’s only 5’6, who carries 250 lbs on the offseason. I couldn’t imagine doing sprints with that much weight on me.[/quote]

I guess you never saw the clip of Kevin Levrone racing an Olympic sprinter about five years ago, and he only lost by 1/2 step. I myself could probably put down a 40 time between 4.5, and 4.6 seconds and I can still jump up from a standing with both feet on the floor and grab a basketball rim with two hands. - That’s at 5’10 and 230 lbs - Where I do see a loss in function is in running long distances. I know get winded after just jogging 2-3 blocks.