Anybody read this week’s Heavy Metal. Ian wrote something I found kinda interesting. He wrote:
“However my concern for a person under neutral or negative caloric conditions is that the anaerobic training is too catabolic. Just a thought.”
I have always trained under the impression that strength training was the most anabolic one can do while on a hypocaloric diet. Any comments?
bump
Strength training is both catabolic and anabolic. You train and break your muscles down(the catabolic part). Then you rest and and recover(the anabolic part). During the resting period is when your muscles grow. While on a low calorie diet your muscles don’t have the resources necessary to grow.
So what I think Ian is suggesting during a low calorie diet is to use training that is going to maintain muscle mass while trying to drop bodyfat.
Max
I think what Ian was referring to is the use of interval type cardio or sprints etc. When you combine this along with a lower calorie diet and weight training sessions the stress on the muscles, and thus risk of catabolism, is greater. I think he prefers the use of lower intensity cardio which burns fat but doesn’t put much strain on either the muscular or nervous system.
Dieting is always a delicate balance of many factors. One must strength train to maintain a constant stimulus so that atrophy does not occur. But you cannot expect to build any significant amounts of muscle in a hypocaloric state, so why try? Do what you need to maintain strength and size and then stop. Cardiovascular activity is not significantly taxing to the muscular system unless you approach significant workloads (>85% HR max) or do marathon sessions in length. Cardio taxes our glycogen and fat stores and will rely on protein for energy as a last resort. I know that cardio is considered wasted energy by many bodybuilders/strength athletes, but I think that it is not necessarily the case in many situations. My general rule is: when your sole goal is to add muscle mass, don’t do any more cardio than is necessary to warm you up for your weightlifting (generally 10 min or so at a light intensity). When your sole goal is to lose fat, do enough resistance training to prevent atrophy and then use cardio to create most of your energy deficit. I think that a higher calorie diet combined with cardio will lead to better muscle preservation and a preferential loss of fat.