Cardio or Diet More Effective?

Training Bodybuilding
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Background Info: A little over one year ago I weighed around 210 lbs. and had a 36 inch waist
For the past year I have been lifting very hard, doing cardio, and eating very well.

Currently: I stand 6 feet weigh 172 lbs., 31 inch waist, and am stronger with more muscle than I was when I weighed 210. My diet is very high protein with foods similar to that of an “abs diet”. I am neither at a caloric deficit nor surplus.

*** I have always done cardio with my lifting. I lift 5x a week and do cardio typically 3-4x a week. If I push my cardio down to 1-2x a week will I see better muscle gain? I really dont want to dull-up however. I have a pretty defined back/arms/chest and I would just like to add to it with bigger muscle.

**Knowing that my diet is basically straight from the abs diet book…if i stopped doing cardio would I basically lose definition?

My workout schedule:
Day 1: Chest with a few leg workouts
Day 2: Shoulders/Traps (Cardio)
Day 3: Arms
Day 4: Back (Cardio)
Day 5: Anything I missed (Possible Cardio)
Day 6: Off or Cardio
Day 7: Cardio
(Attempt to do abs at least 3 times a week)

When I do Cardio I either hop on the stairmaster or treadmill for 25-30 minutes…usually after a lift.

I feel like my workout is too spread out and should be condensed considering I am only hitting one muscle group per week. However I do wear myself out and work very hard on each of the days.

Maybe cardio is hurting my gains? I am not a powerlifter nor a thinned out model. I just want add more solid muscle to my already fit frame. Once again, with my diet…if I stopped doing cardio will I have better success?

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(For the rest of us: Abs Diet = 40/30/30)

If you want to gain muscle, up calories, and keep the cardio. I was booed out of a thread that suggested this exact thing, and I’m starting to believe it myself.

-Sab

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[quote]Mach10 wrote:
Background Info: A little over one year ago I weighed around 210 lbs. and had a 36 inch waist
For the past year I have been lifting very hard, doing cardio, and eating very well.

Currently: I stand 6 feet weigh 172 lbs., 31 inch waist, and am stronger with more muscle than I was when I weighed 210. My diet is very high protein with foods similar to that of an “abs diet”. I am neither at a caloric deficit nor surplus.

*** I have always done cardio with my lifting. I lift 5x a week and do cardio typically 3-4x a week. If I push my cardio down to 1-2x a week will I see better muscle gain? I really dont want to dull-up however. I have a pretty defined back/arms/chest and I would just like to add to it with bigger muscle.
[/quote]

I know this isn’t what you probably want to hear, but if you want to gain any significant muscle at anything other than a snail’s pace you’re going to need to lose some definition. That doesn’t mean that you need to get fat, but it does mean that you can’t stay really lean and gain at an appreciable rate.

Sorry, never read the book so I can’t really comment on that.

So you’re trying to build muscle, attempt to do abs at least 3 times a week, yet only do “a few leg workouts”? Sorry to say this but your priorities are completely backwards. Sure, abs are nice. But exercises for the legs are going to go a long way towards putting muscle on your frame. Ab stuff isn’t going to do anything.

I’d suggest you at least re-organize your routine to look like this:
Day 1: Chest/Back
Day 2: Arms
Day 3: Off
Day 4: Shoulders/Traps
Day 5: Legs
Day 6: Off
Day 7: Off

As for abs and cardio…first your abs are going to get plenty of stimulation from exercises like squats, military presses, really any exercise where your abs must contract to support your spine (anything standing or supporting weight). If you truly feel like they need more work then do them at the end of your “Arms” day.

For cardio I’d suggest either doing it on the off days or if need be at the end of your training days (but be smart about how you schedule it, you probably aren’t going to want to do cardio after an intense leg workout).

That would be fine. Another possible option would be to do morning cardio on your off days (low intensity).

Maybe, but more than likely your diet and lack of a serious leg day are the culprits. You need, I repeat need, to be eating a caloric surplus if you want to gain weight/build muscle (well unless you’ve got a seasoned nutrition coach standing by your side giving you precise directions in terms of nutrient timing, and even then it’ll be suboptimal). Like I said earlier I’m not familiar with the diet you’re following, so I can’t really give you tips on how to tweak it. Perhaps someone who is experienced with it can chime in.

Also, could you by any chance write out a list of the exercises that you’re currently doing for each of your workouts? Perhaps there are some suggestions that we can offer if we have more information.

Other questions that would be helpful:
How much have you gone up on your lifts in the past year?

What are you specific goals (I know you said to “add more muscle to your already fit frame” but that’s a pretty vague goal. The more specific the better)?

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your completely ignoring your legs; your program only consists of upper body exercises while your legs get very little; dont know exactly whats going on here but will say if you dont train your lower as same as upper it wont matter what you do as far as changing your diet or exercise program if such a descripancy between upper and lower body exists…

Its long been known if you ignore certain core exercises or “body parts” that the rest will suffer at some point… am i missing something here with your workout as you have no leg work… or very little on one day of the week… even though your working out 5 days a week…

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Why does working out the legs have a huge impact on the rest of your body? Is it the growth hormone that gets stimulated at night?

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[quote]Mach10 wrote:
Why does working out the legs have a huge impact on the rest of your body? Is it the growth hormone that gets stimulated at night?[/quote]

Try it and you’ll answer this question yourself. At your stage of the game especially, there’s no excuse for not working hard on heavy deadlifts and squats. I will go so far as to say that until you have, you have not tasted what real training is.

Also you’ve heard the old saying, “you are what you eat”? Well, you are. You cannot ever become bigger or stronger than the limits you place on your fuel and materials source.

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Doing Legs today (sqauts, deadlifts, etc.)

First time in awhile, thanks for the advice

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someone define cardio…

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[quote]Tiribulus wrote:

Also you’ve heard the old saying, “you are what you eat”? .[/quote]

  • goes off to try to eat a tank*

Ok to be actually helpful today: When I made this post I was eating about 11-12 oz of cooked fairly lean steak. A stack(several big handfuls I don’t know)of raw spinach and 5 fish oil pills. This is meal 4 of my day and I have 2 more similar(protein+veggies+healthy fat) meals plus a protein+carb “meal” during and after training.

It seems like I’m eating a lot but I’m actually burning bodyfat like this because my metabolism is burning so hot from all the protein, frequent eating, green tea intake(it’s alot ha) cardio(just a tool). I’ll take diet manipulations as being more important for physique goals over cardio or switching around training 99/100 times.

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hahaha

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I’d eat one of those bigass guys in liek Chronicles of Narnia that have the heads of bulls and the bodies of Ronnie C. That’d be wicked.