Cardio training while trying to gain muscle

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  • Rammer123
    Rammer123 Posts: 679 Member
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    stanmann571 wrote: »
    mrsagraham wrote: »
    Hello all,

    Thanks for the feedback. I'm seeing a lot of "I don't like your lifting splits", but I don't suggestions for better ideas? I've been doing this for a long while, so would be happy to switch it up but don't have any great ideas for a better way.

    Eating more is something I'm working on, I am annoyingly one of those women who really f-ed up my relationship with food when I was younger so I struggle to just pound a ton of it (still). Bleh. Also, I do love me some chips and stuff, so don't take my reluctance to eat a lot of pizza, etc as just a preoccupation with "healthy" food--it's really just that I literally feel sick when I eat a lot of that kind of thing. It seems silly to eat to gain when the food I have to eat to do it makes me feel like crap.

    I find the comment about my "small amount of cardio" interesting, since most people around me seem to think that 5-7 hrs of it a week is a fair amount for someone who's not an avid marathoner or Ironman or something. Glad to hear that other people don't see this as a barrier to muscle gain, though!
    mrsagraham wrote: »
    Hello all,

    Thanks for the feedback. I'm seeing a lot of "I don't like your lifting splits", but I don't suggestions for better ideas? I've been doing this for a long while, so would be happy to switch it up but don't have any great ideas for a better way.

    Eating more is something I'm working on, I am annoyingly one of those women who really f-ed up my relationship with food when I was younger so I struggle to just pound a ton of it (still). Bleh. Also, I do love me some chips and stuff, so don't take my reluctance to eat a lot of pizza, etc as just a preoccupation with "healthy" food--it's really just that I literally feel sick when I eat a lot of that kind of thing. It seems silly to eat to gain when the food I have to eat to do it makes me feel like crap.

    I find the comment about my "small amount of cardio" interesting, since most people around me seem to think that 5-7 hrs of it a week is a fair amount for someone who's not an avid marathoner or Ironman or something. Glad to hear that other people don't see this as a barrier to muscle gain, though!

    Honestly, you're only doing about 3 hours a week of "cardio" The rest is just lifestyle activity...

    To be fair, you've got 4+ hours a week of lifestyle activity... but that's life...

    I wouldn't consider a 32 mile bike ride to work a lifestyle activity, that seems like purposeful cardio.
  • stanmann571
    stanmann571 Posts: 5,728 Member
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    RAD_Fitness wrote: »
    stanmann571 wrote: »
    mrsagraham wrote: »
    Hello all,

    Thanks for the feedback. I'm seeing a lot of "I don't like your lifting splits", but I don't suggestions for better ideas? I've been doing this for a long while, so would be happy to switch it up but don't have any great ideas for a better way.

    Eating more is something I'm working on, I am annoyingly one of those women who really f-ed up my relationship with food when I was younger so I struggle to just pound a ton of it (still). Bleh. Also, I do love me some chips and stuff, so don't take my reluctance to eat a lot of pizza, etc as just a preoccupation with "healthy" food--it's really just that I literally feel sick when I eat a lot of that kind of thing. It seems silly to eat to gain when the food I have to eat to do it makes me feel like crap.

    I find the comment about my "small amount of cardio" interesting, since most people around me seem to think that 5-7 hrs of it a week is a fair amount for someone who's not an avid marathoner or Ironman or something. Glad to hear that other people don't see this as a barrier to muscle gain, though!
    mrsagraham wrote: »
    Hello all,

    Thanks for the feedback. I'm seeing a lot of "I don't like your lifting splits", but I don't suggestions for better ideas? I've been doing this for a long while, so would be happy to switch it up but don't have any great ideas for a better way.

    Eating more is something I'm working on, I am annoyingly one of those women who really f-ed up my relationship with food when I was younger so I struggle to just pound a ton of it (still). Bleh. Also, I do love me some chips and stuff, so don't take my reluctance to eat a lot of pizza, etc as just a preoccupation with "healthy" food--it's really just that I literally feel sick when I eat a lot of that kind of thing. It seems silly to eat to gain when the food I have to eat to do it makes me feel like crap.

    I find the comment about my "small amount of cardio" interesting, since most people around me seem to think that 5-7 hrs of it a week is a fair amount for someone who's not an avid marathoner or Ironman or something. Glad to hear that other people don't see this as a barrier to muscle gain, though!

    Honestly, you're only doing about 3 hours a week of "cardio" The rest is just lifestyle activity...

    To be fair, you've got 4+ hours a week of lifestyle activity... but that's life...

    I wouldn't consider a 32 mile bike ride to work a lifestyle activity, that seems like purposeful cardio.

    And yet there are hundreds of thousands of people who do that every day every week all year long.
  • stanmann571
    stanmann571 Posts: 5,728 Member
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    richardgavel wrote: »
    stanmann571 wrote: »
    mrsagraham wrote: »
    Hello all,

    Thanks for the feedback. I'm seeing a lot of "I don't like your lifting splits", but I don't suggestions for better ideas? I've been doing this for a long while, so would be happy to switch it up but don't have any great ideas for a better way.

    Eating more is something I'm working on, I am annoyingly one of those women who really f-ed up my relationship with food when I was younger so I struggle to just pound a ton of it (still). Bleh. Also, I do love me some chips and stuff, so don't take my reluctance to eat a lot of pizza, etc as just a preoccupation with "healthy" food--it's really just that I literally feel sick when I eat a lot of that kind of thing. It seems silly to eat to gain when the food I have to eat to do it makes me feel like crap.

    I find the comment about my "small amount of cardio" interesting, since most people around me seem to think that 5-7 hrs of it a week is a fair amount for someone who's not an avid marathoner or Ironman or something. Glad to hear that other people don't see this as a barrier to muscle gain, though!
    mrsagraham wrote: »
    Hello all,

    Thanks for the feedback. I'm seeing a lot of "I don't like your lifting splits", but I don't suggestions for better ideas? I've been doing this for a long while, so would be happy to switch it up but don't have any great ideas for a better way.

    Eating more is something I'm working on, I am annoyingly one of those women who really f-ed up my relationship with food when I was younger so I struggle to just pound a ton of it (still). Bleh. Also, I do love me some chips and stuff, so don't take my reluctance to eat a lot of pizza, etc as just a preoccupation with "healthy" food--it's really just that I literally feel sick when I eat a lot of that kind of thing. It seems silly to eat to gain when the food I have to eat to do it makes me feel like crap.

    I find the comment about my "small amount of cardio" interesting, since most people around me seem to think that 5-7 hrs of it a week is a fair amount for someone who's not an avid marathoner or Ironman or something. Glad to hear that other people don't see this as a barrier to muscle gain, though!

    Honestly, you're only doing about 3 hours a week of "cardio" The rest is just lifestyle activity...

    To be fair, you've got 4+ hours a week of lifestyle activity... but that's life...

    She's doing 40 to 60 mins of running each time. That could be anywhere from 4 miles to 8 miles and can support a wide range of intensity levels. She said she's done half and full marathons.

    No disagreement.

    My comment about small amount of cardio was that 3 hours a week of cardio isn't going to derail a strength training program.
  • dbhuff369
    dbhuff369 Posts: 17 Member
    edited July 2017
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    So, my understanding is the issue with cardio and gaining muscle is the conflict your body perceives between stressors. Long distance running is hurt by carrying excess weight, so your body would tend to respond to that stimulus by reducing muscle mass that wasn't needed. How many buff marathoners do you see? However, change that stress to something like sprinting, and you see some really buff folks who are still very fit cardiovascularly. The theory is to do low intensity cardio (e.g. walking) or high intensity intervals (HIIT) for short enough time your body doesn't think the excess muscle is a problem. My personal routine is heavy rucking (40 lbs pack, I have a big backpacking trip coming up) for 45 minutes 2 days per week, HIIT intervals for 30-40 minutes twice per week, full body heavy weights three times per week (4-6 rep range). I have a resting pulse below 50, and can deadlift and squat over 500 at age 56, so it seems to be working. That said, I could not run a marathon, or do well in a triathlon, so if that's the priority you might need to make some changes in your goals. Your body fat sounds fine, even a bit lean, showing the long distance cardio is probably "winning" at the moment. PS, if you want to gain muscle, you will need to lift heavy (for women in the 6-8 rep range), not high rep, low weights, machine work. Use the big four, squat, deadlift, bench and overhead as the baseline program as these are compound exercises which will stimulate a lot of muscle simultaneously. These exercises require good technique to be safe so get a trainer or study a lot to be safe, if needed.
  • sijomial
    sijomial Posts: 19,811 Member
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    mrsagraham wrote: »
    Hello all,

    Thanks for the feedback. I'm seeing a lot of "I don't like your lifting splits", but I don't suggestions for better ideas? I've been doing this for a long while, so would be happy to switch it up but don't have any great ideas for a better way.

    Eating more is something I'm working on, I am annoyingly one of those women who really f-ed up my relationship with food when I was younger so I struggle to just pound a ton of it (still). Bleh. Also, I do love me some chips and stuff, so don't take my reluctance to eat a lot of pizza, etc as just a preoccupation with "healthy" food--it's really just that I literally feel sick when I eat a lot of that kind of thing. It seems silly to eat to gain when the food I have to eat to do it makes me feel like crap.

    I find the comment about my "small amount of cardio" interesting, since most people around me seem to think that 5-7 hrs of it a week is a fair amount for someone who's not an avid marathoner or Ironman or something. Glad to hear that other people don't see this as a barrier to muscle gain, though!

    Would suggest big compound lifts 3 times a week rather than the isolation work you are doing twice a week per muscle group. More time efficient, less need to do cardio and lifting on the same day (i.e. better focus and quality of training).

    My personal perspective on the "small amount of cardio" comment is that I wouldn't say it's small but it's really not a huge volume and you aren't giving the impression it's high intensity (duration isn't the only factor is what I'm getting at).

    In the main summer months I'm cycling c. 34 hours a month (about 550 miles) and that volume does cause me training/recovery conflicts with my strength training especially after a very long or hard ride/training session. Rest of the year when volume drops it's really only the very intense or long duration cardio sessions that interfere with lower body training.
  • mrsagraham
    mrsagraham Posts: 6 Member
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    Hey everyone,

    OK, the suggestions to switch to a full-body, 3x/week lifting routine makes sense. I think I am going to switch to that, then do my runs/biking on the days I don't lift so that hopefully there is less interference between the two. I'll give this a whirl and see how it feels.

    I do think that a big part of the issue is just the sheer number of calories I burn through my cardio/lifting combined. If I run for an hour and lift, I am burning like 800 calories in a day (similar to a day I bike for 2 hrs, that's a 900+ calorie work out. Biking distance in Vermont is sure not one of those "ladeda-isn't-this-beautiful" sight-seeing bike rides. If I'm burning 800 calories, plus my RMR of about 1600, plus at least 250 to get in a surplus, I'm looking at eating like 2600-2700 calories a day. That in itself is work for me, though I guess it's a good problem to have :)

    So, new plan is 3x full-body lifting, 3-4 run/bike sessions a week, more food, and at least 1 full rest day a week.

    Thanks for your help!

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