is lifting the only/best way to retain muscle?

1motorpsycho

This is a great unknown for me too. As well as getting my heart rate too high into the red zone (though very comfortable), will I burn muscle?

DavPul

1motorpsycho wrote: »

This is a great unknown for me too. As well as getting my heart rate too high into the red zone (though very comfortable), will I burn muscle?

highly doubtful and not something most people need worry about

1motorpsycho

Thank you. Not certain why it's considered "The red zone". :-)

jacksonpt

Ok, so my take away so far is ...

There seems to be a fair bit of anecdotal evidence to suggest "traditional" cardio helps with muscle preservation in the face of a calorie deficit and reasonable macros. There may be questions about how that muscle preservation compares to that resulting from heavy lifting.

Resistance training seems to be the key to muscle preservation.

So my follow up question is this - what exactly constitutes resistance training? Obviously lifting. Body weight work seems accepted as resistance training. Plyometrics? Yoga? Swimming? Hiking with a loaded pack?

Obviously there are variables which may make this a difficult conversation to have, but I'm still interested to see what people have to say.

tomatoey

I've been reading a lot of stuff from Bret Contreras; he summarized a few studies here
http://www.fitnessrxwomen.com/training/workout-tips-advice/do-light-weights-tone-heavy-weights-bulk/

The body of literature overwhelmingly supports the notion that lighter weights can be used to build muscle mass, as long as effort is sufficient. In fact, sets carried out to momentary muscular failure using 30% of maximum strength for 24 reps per set has been shown to be more effective at synthesizing muscle than sets using 90% of maximum strength for 5 reps per set. 1

Taking this into account, Burd et al. 20122 noted that, “It is often recommended that heavier training intensities (∼70%–80% of maximal strength) be lifted to maximize muscle growth. However, we have reported that intensities as low as 30% of maximum strength, when lifted to volitional fatigue, are equally effective at stimulating muscle protein synthesis rates during resistance exercise recovery.” A limitation in their experiment is that it examined the transient effects of resistance exercise immediately following the training session. This information is certainly interesting, but ideally, you want long-term training studies to reference when exploring the effects of higher versus lower repetition ranges and muscle hypertrophy. Indeed, two recent training studies have emerged, both showing similar findings.

Longer Term Training Studies

Mitchell et al. 20123 had subjects perform ten weeks of the leg extension exercise. The subjects that performed high reps with 30% of their maximum strength saw similar gains in muscle growth compared to the subjects that performed medium reps with 80% of their maximum strength. This casted serious doubt on the claim that low reps are superior to high reps for muscle building. More recently, Schoenfeld et al. 20144 came to the same conclusion. Eight weeks of bodybuilding-style training involving 3 sets of 10 reps with 90 seconds in between sets was equally effective at building muscle as powerlifting-style training involving 7 sets of 3 reps with 3 minutes of rest in between sets. This research clearly calls into question the tenet that heavier weight is better than lighter weight for building muscle.

...

As long as effort is sufficiently high and training is carried out close to failure, similar results in terms of muscle growth will be seen whether training in low, medium, or high rep ranges. Therefore, training loads should be customized to the lifter according to their preferences. There is some data that indicates that using a combination of rep ranges in training would be optimal, since high reps appear to build type I muscle fibers to a greater degree than low rep training (but high rep and low rep training appear to be equal with regards to building type II muscle fibers),3 but this hypothesis warrants more investigation. In the meantime, train with the loads that you’re most comfortable with, and don’t buy into the notion that light weights are for toning and heavy weights are for bulking.

tomatoey

^^ obviously is still just about weight lifting, but makes the case that lighter loads can achieve similar results to heavy lifting.

But I guess if the cardio/endurance activity allows you to reach failure, odds are good it will help build muscle, based on those studies.

And, probably it doesn't hurt, even if you don't reach failure. It's just the gains won't be as big.

jimmmer

I think power training can retain or increase lbm (dependant on caloric deficit/surplus).

I'd put plyo stuff and sprinting in this category.

Advanced yoga is little different from advanced bodyweight stuff. So there's adequate scope for progressive resistance with it. Trig the volume and progress it sensibly then why shouldn't it work?

I know little about swimming, so can't really offer an opinion on it.

Just to throw this out there, but haven't there been studies on fish oil that show an increase in lbm even in people who are not training in any way. Could be wrong about that though... so there's a possibility of lbm increases without even cardio, let alone resistance. Obvs this would be a limited increase against a training response, but things are more complicated in the body than some people will admit...

Sabine_Stroehm

tylerw86008 wrote: »

But that dude is clearly skinny. He ran all his size off. Cardio does kill gains if its done to long and to much. If you wanna be tiny run on a treadmill all day. If u want to have muscle and be lean moderate cardio with lots of free weights.

I think he looks damn fine. He's the perfect size. He's not skinny. He's lean and fabulous.

earlnabby

jacksonpt wrote: »

Resistance training seems to be the key to muscle preservation.

So my follow up question is this - what exactly constitutes resistance training? Obviously lifting. Body weight work seems accepted as resistance training. Plyometrics? Yoga? Swimming? Hiking with a loaded pack?

Swimming has been a great resistance training for me, as well as some "lifting" type resistance with things like noodles and paddles in the water. Pulling my big self through water as well as working against the water has definitely strengthened my upper body and, to a lesser extent, the lower body.

PikaKnight

Resistance/strength training does help retain LBM and there are a variety of ways to do this. Heavy lifting gets pushed first and often because a lot of people come on these forums complaining more about aesthetics and (as Jo pointed out earlier) heavy lifting is a way to get the most bang for your buck.

But if you don't have access to barbells (like myself) or just don't want to go that route, there are other options. Strength training with dumbbells or kettlebells, bodyweight training, swimming, and sprinting.

(Again, the results may not be obtained as easy or as "fast" as if you'd gone the heavy lifting route, but you'll still get them.)