Why I'm not for cardio and resistance concurrently
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Typically why I also split my cardio and weight lifting into 2 different sessions. I train in the morning and evening so it's not tough for me to do it.So, a lot of people on here like to condense their workouts into a long session consisting both of cardiovascular workouts and also resistance (weight training usually) work. I've been against it for a while, for a multitude of reasons. My main reason is because they compete for resources in the body, thus neither allowing for full results. I've always been a champion of this idea, but while I know the chemistry behind the hormonal response, convincing others with less metabolic knowledge was a tad difficult.
Well, here you go folks, I finally found a research study that backs up my concepts, it's relatively recent (from 2005) and statistically relevant to my beliefs that you should never do hard cardio and weight training in the same session, and if at all possible, not in the same day either. Anyway, here's the research to back my results up.
here's a link to the research:
http://www.jssm.org/vol4/n1/10/v4n1-10pdf.pdf
Title:
RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN CIRCULATING CORTISOL AND TESTOSTERONE: INFLUENCE OF PHYSICAL EXERCISE
Kaye K. Brownlee, Alex W. Moore and Anthony C. Hackney
originally published in : Journal of Sports Science and Medicine (2005) 4, 76-83
I'll make special note of the first part of the conclusion by the researchers here:
"In conclusion, there are statistically significant relationships between cortisol and testosterone in humans in the recovery from physical exercise. Previous results demonstrate pharmacological levels of cortisol have a highly significant negative effect on circulating testosterone concentrations (Bambino and Hsueh, 1981; Cumming et al.,1983). Exercise appears to allow for the development of a similar negative relationship between cortisol and total testosterone (although not an extremely robust
association)."
essentially what this paper says is that in the post exercise recovery phase (up to about an hour after the exercise), cortisol essentially counteracts the effects of testosterone in the body, which means drastically reduced muscle building and recovery function. If you do cardio, this is not a problem as there's no statistical increase in muscle mass anyway, thus no need for elevated testosterone levels, but after a heavy resistance session where the goal is hypertrophy or otherwise increasing muscle mass, the first hour post exercise is the time when testosterone levels would be the highest, thereby generating the most muscle recovery and growth. In other words, if you do both, you're reducing the results of both.
Besides my other contentions with regards to mixed exercise types (those being, competition for energy in the form of glycogen, reduced actin-myocin bridge reaction because of increased need and depletion of calcium in the muscle site, and increased need for oxygen at the non-rebuilding muscles when in cardiovascular sub-maximal conditions), this additional research really presses home the point that you should separate your workouts, giving at LEAST an 8 hour separation to allow for hormone levels to recover and glycogen levels to be replenished before attempting an alternate exercise routine.
If all of this information is way over your head, here's the layman's synopsis:
Doing both weight training and cardio in the same session makes your body battle for resources, your weight training muscles want the resources to repair the muscles you worked out, and the cardio muscles need other hormones and resouces that fight against those weight training hormones and resources, add that to the fact that cardio depletes the energy that you need to fuel the rebuilding process, and you have reduced results from both, meaning that the results you THINK you're getting aren't going to be there.
just thought I'd throw this out there guys,
feel free to PM (<-- means personal message) me if you have any specific questions on this topic.
-Banks
SIDE NOTES:
-This topic isn't referring to warm up and cool down before weight training, I'm in full agreement with a 5 to 10 minute warm up and cool down
-This only refers to heavy weight training, I.E. hypertrophy or failure training for mass building, not high rep, low weight workouts (I.E. 15 to 30 reps or more per set)
I know I've read this article before somewhere. Thanks for posting it.
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You can trust that the weight training is Zumba isn't very intense.Ok what About like I do Zumba Mix it has warm up weight s cardio and abs andline dancing and leg works and we also have a cool down with alot of stretching the muscles out after we work out for 45 min. we do all types of workingout in our class. all parts of the body plus weight are involved in parts .
A.C.E. Certified Personal Trainer
IDEA Fitness member
Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness for 28+ years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition0 -
Awesome stuff.0
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. 45 mins of strength training should leave someone wanting to take a nap, not take a zumba class.
LMBO. yes. this. I cannot fathom doing intense cardio right after lifting. There's just nothing left in me. Maybe later that night, if I was really itching for cardio, but it's just not that serious to me....0 -
Thank you for posting this. Very informative.
The drag is that there's not a sufficient number of days in the week to do everything I want to do. I want to lift 3x to build muscle & beat you at arm wrestling. I want to run multiple times so I can be ready for my races/mudrun. I want to do my salsa fitness class & pole dancing class bc they're hella fun. Solve that, science!
that's exactly where I'm at...the lack of time to fit it all in. My half marathon training is first and foremost...but somehow I have to make time for weights, and I do "double up" cardio and strength sessions once or twice a week...right now it's working for me. (shrug) ?0 -
It's a very interesting study and I've heard of people advocating the separation of the two for this reason.
Not sure where I stand on it currently (from strictly an observational standpoint --- from a personal standpoint I don't do cardio at all so it doesn't effect me but I like these discussions). I think that the study seems to lend credibility to the idea but I also think context/dosage matter (dosage in this case would look at cardio intensity/duration since that would then effect cortisol).
If you like doing hour+ cardio sessions at a moderate intensity, I could understand wanting to separate them. If you're doing 20 minutes of low intensity, I don't know that I'd recommend a separate trip to the gym.
I also think the individual's goals should be taken into consideration. For example, if you're 300+ lbs, lift the weights and get on the elliptical and don't worry about it. If you're lean and trying to maximize your efforts, then maybe that's another situation entirely?
Just thoughts at this point, I do think it's an interesting study.
20 minutes of light cardio doesn't factor into this, in order for the hormones to qualify, you have to work hard enough for them to begin, your body doesn't begin to increase either (testosterone or cortisol) until a stress point is reached, around 65 to 75% max HR is normally where it starts, which would qualify as moderate cardio, not light.
otherwise, a 300 lb person (or more accurate would be a morbidly obese person as some 300 lb people aren't necessarily obese) probably has an overabundance of fat and severely compromised glandular system anyway, so the least of their worries is going to be testosterone, more likely the majority of their exercise will be cardiovascular, any resistance will be low weight and localized muscular fatigue anyway, not true muscle building, thus this chemistry would not come into play for quite some time.0 -
Ok what About like I do Zumba Mix it has warm up weight s cardio and abs andline dancing and leg works and we also have a cool down with alot of stretching the muscles out after we work out for 45 min. we do all types of workingout in our class. all parts of the body plus weight are involved in parts .
at no point of this routine (or zumba in general) would I consider any of it resistance training geared towards gaining muscle mass. This would be more towards either cardio or endurance specific training, neither of which grow muscle mass.0 -
-This only refers to heavy weight training, I.E. hypertrophy or failure training for mass building, not high rep, low weight workouts (I.E. 15 to 30 reps or more per set)
What is the correlation between obese individuals needing to drop 50.100.200lbs. and this concept... From the beginning my emphasis was always on cardio and that also went for my weight lifting ( 30 seconds or less between sets, compounding sets, Low weights for high reps.) My beliefs from the beginning was maintaining what muscle I have/had while losing the massive amount of weight (body fat) that I needed to lose. I figured heavy weights and low reps would come into play once I had achieved my weight loss goal and was eating above maintenance to build muscle. I have and do 3 days a week of weight training (high reps, low weights) it in itself is a cardio workout (normally lasting 60 minutes) and then I do low impact cardio usually treadmill or seated elliptical at 50-60% of my Max HR for 60 minutes on those weightlifting days immediately after... This has worked well for me.... Just wondered what your thoughts are on this....
low weight high rep does one of two things, if your "wind" gives out first (I.E. you're too oxygen deprived to continue) then you're working on cardio, if your muscles tire first, then you're working on localized muscular fatigue. Both are great, and both are a form of cardiovascular training, neither are traditionally known as resistance training (despite using resistance equipment) because you aren't increasing your muscle strength or mass, you are either increasing your cardiopulmonary system (in the first example above) or increasing the amount of work your local muscle site can accomplish (by the second example) via building up the local muscular oxygen extraction, mitochondrial count, and glycogen storage systems.
This is a great thing to do, and is something you should think about doing even if you are also doing classical resistance routines, but it isn't, in and of itself, resistance training.0 -
I love Bank's posts!
Since I'm a little dense sometimes, I have a quick question: I typically lift heavy 2x/week (full-body). I warm-up with about 10 minutes on the stairmaster, do my weights, and then I like to finish off with 10 minutes on the exercise bike. The first 1 minute is steady-state, then 4 minutes of intervals, then a 5 minute cool down. I just really like feeling like I'm zapping out the last of whatever energy is left in me by doing this. I does leave me with the "I'm practically crawling to my car" feeling and I love ending this way.
Since I'm only really doing 4-30 second intervals, in light of your research, is this a bad thing? Or is this minimal enough to be OK?
If it matters, I'm a post-menopausal 54 year old. Thanks in advance!0 -
Thank you for posting this. Very informative.
The drag is that there's not a sufficient number of days in the week to do everything I want to do. I want to lift 3x to build muscle & beat you at arm wrestling. I want to run multiple times so I can be ready for my races/mudrun. I want to do my salsa fitness class & pole dancing class bc they're hella fun. Solve that, science!
that's exactly where I'm at...the lack of time to fit it all in. My half marathon training is first and foremost...but somehow I have to make time for weights, and I do "double up" cardio and strength sessions once or twice a week...right now it's working for me. (shrug) ?
are you seriously training? I mean competitive? If you are, there should be very little weight training involved in season. The two don't mix very well. If you're just training to do a single race, and aren't truely a runner by trade, then that's one thing, but seriously, don't do much weight training in season (and all runners should create an off-season for themselves, or else arthritis and joint problems can become a big problem later). The weight training should be kept in the off season and the in-season training should be limited to cardio and localized muscular fatigue for the most part. Things like tempo/speed runs, HIIT training (wonderful as a reactionary increase for runners)...etc. are what you should use to mix your training up.0 -
I love Bank's posts!
Since I'm a little dense sometimes, I have a quick question: I typically lift heavy 2x/week (full-body). I warm-up with about 10 minutes on the stairmaster, do my weights, and then I like to finish off with 10 minutes on the exercise bike. The first 1 minute is steady-state, then 4 minutes of intervals, then a 5 minute cool down. I just really like feeling like I'm zapping out the last of whatever energy is left in me by doing this. I does leave me with the "I'm practically crawling to my car" feeling and I love ending this way.
Since I'm only really doing 4-30 second intervals, in light of your research, is this a bad thing? Or is this minimal enough to be OK?
If it matters, I'm a post-menopausal 54 year old. Thanks in advance!
first of all, good for you lady, that's awesome! Second, 5 minutes of most things probably won't bother you much, but I'd probably stay away from 5 minutes of anaerobic work at the end of your routine, just because weak, fatigued muscles are prone to injury far easier than fresh strong muscles. I'm sure there's SOME rise in cortisol with it, but that really depends on you. I like to keep them fully separate myself, but remember, this is all a game of gray areas, none of this is line in the sand stuff, you can (and should) remember that you can improve by degrees (I.E. 6 minutes won't flip some kind of cortisol switch that 5 minutes wouldn't), so just keep this stuff in mind when you work. Always have a goal for each workout, if your goal is heavy lifting to failure, then really, what is 5 minutes of hard cardio doing for you besides making you FEEL better (maybe that's worth it to you , that's a personal choice).0 -
How does HIIT training fall into this equation?0
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Hang on the professional athlete's of this world e.g body builders, football players, boxers etc,
will do anywhere between 6hours training a day which will include weights,cardio, etc and look at them,
there was a programme on in England about this so called pin up model called jodie marsh and she trainned for a female body building contest and was doing 3hrs of weight trainning, 2 hrs of cardio, 1 hr of abs work a day.
me personally do both cardio (30mins) and weight training (50mins) in each workout. done me no harm, seen results.0 -
Hang on the professional athlete's of this world e.g body builders, football players, boxers etc,
will do anywhere between 6hours training a day which will include weights,cardio, etc and look at them,
there was a programme on in England about this so called pin up model called jodie marsh and she trainned for a female body building contest and was doing 3hrs of weight trainning, 2 hrs of cardio, 1 hr of abs work a day.
me personally do both cardio (30mins) and weight training (50mins) in each workout. done me no harm, seen results.
Yep, people do all kinds of crazy stuff. There's a point of diminishing returns with weight training anyway. Train smarter, not harder is what I always say. For every 1 body building professional that is successful and trains the way you've pointed out, I could probably name 10 that are just as successful and train the way I've stated.0 -
How does HIIT training fall into this equation?
ahh, well hiit training is a very broad term, BUT, in essence, most hiit training focuses on anaerobic respiration, I.E. the point at which your body cannot provide the energy needed for cells via ATP production using oxygen. This isn't the same as using muscles to the point of failure physically, which causes microtears and triggers the muscle to be able to produce more total work (essentially telling the muscle to grow).
See hiit training tells your body, your cardiovascular system, your muscles, and your cells to be more efficient when using oxygen, the fatigue you feel during HIIT isn't telling your muscles to grow in strength, it's telling them to better use oxygen, and store and use glycogen more efficiently.
Now, this isn't to say that you'll never grow muscle doing HIIT training, you can, but I'm talking about the majority of the focus. For HIIT the focus is mostly on LOCALIZED muscle efficiency (like in your quads if you are talking about spinning), and with steady state cardio it's talking about overall muscular endurance and overall cardiovascular efficiency (as opposed to localized), and with strength training you're talking about muscle fatigue and/or hypertrophy which means growth in the muscle length, or overall mass which translates into power and/or size.
When I talk about these things, It's never one or the other, it's almost always a percentage given to each, which ever one is talked about is usually the main percentage. I.E. HIIT training focuses more on muscle energy and aerobic threshold where as strength training focuses on power of a given muscle group.0 -
bump0
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When I do cardio, it's generally 30min low intensity after my weight lifting. This hasn't seem to prevent me from building muscle. Of course as a woman I don't have as much testoterone anyway.....
I missed this reply, yes, that makes sense, low intensity cardio may not be triggering your stress response, thus not raising your cortisol levels, which is fine, then again, other than burning a few more calories, it's probably not doing much for your body either. If calorie burn is your goal with it, then you're right on track, if you're looking for something else, then I doubt it's doing much for you.0 -
depends on the strength routine, if it's a few exercises at max weight you can do for 4 sets of 5, and then you do cardio , you should be able to do both.....
If it's a full body workout or 2 body parts with 12 exercises with isolation, then no, you will probably or should be exhausted..
No need for those though.... squat, bench, row and deadlift, that just about covers it !!
no, in fact this is the exact worst time to do both. Any time you're going to failure you're creating microtears that require repair. Repair requires not only testosterone, HGH, and IGF-2, but also an increased level of energy for extended periods (8 to 24 hours, longer for the really large muscle groups in the legs), doing weight training first, means you should be done for the day. If you wanted to do both with an 8 or more hour gap, I would strongly advise doing cardio first, then weight training, cardio has no repair time, thus when your energy is replenished (usually within an hour) and your hormones are recovered (usually within 2 to 4 hours) then you should be fine to do resistance.
My experience backs this up. For a number of years I followed weights with cardio. Last year I began to do cardio first thing in the morning and weights late in the afternoon. Improvement was fairly dramatic.0 -
Thank you for posting this. Very informative.
The drag is that there's not a sufficient number of days in the week to do everything I want to do. I want to lift 3x to build muscle & beat you at arm wrestling. I want to run multiple times so I can be ready for my races/mudrun. I want to do my salsa fitness class & pole dancing class bc they're hella fun. Solve that, science!
that's exactly where I'm at...the lack of time to fit it all in. My half marathon training is first and foremost...but somehow I have to make time for weights, and I do "double up" cardio and strength sessions once or twice a week...right now it's working for me. (shrug) ?
are you seriously training? I mean competitive? If you are, there should be very little weight training involved in season. The two don't mix very well. If you're just training to do a single race, and aren't truely a runner by trade, then that's one thing, but seriously, don't do much weight training in season (and all runners should create an off-season for themselves, or else arthritis and joint problems can become a big problem later). The weight training should be kept in the off season and the in-season training should be limited to cardio and localized muscular fatigue for the most part. Things like tempo/speed runs, HIIT training (wonderful as a reactionary increase for runners)...etc. are what you should use to mix your training up.
OK, this is interesting. I would call myself a runner first, but I'm starting to do some strength work now because I want to get stronger and leaner as well as a bit faster (although its probably more accurate to say "not quite as slow").
I'm running 3 x week plus strength training 3 x week (a mix of machine and body weight at the moments as that's what I have access to). My running goal is a half marathon in August, currently I'm doing relatively short runs (my "long" runs are around an hour currently though they will be building up) and I'm curious to see how the combination of both running an dstrength works for me. I do them on different days - mostly due to time, so I'm pleased that this seems to be smart from the body's perspective too.0 -
I love Bank's posts!
Since I'm a little dense sometimes, I have a quick question: I typically lift heavy 2x/week (full-body). I warm-up with about 10 minutes on the stairmaster, do my weights, and then I like to finish off with 10 minutes on the exercise bike. The first 1 minute is steady-state, then 4 minutes of intervals, then a 5 minute cool down. I just really like feeling like I'm zapping out the last of whatever energy is left in me by doing this. I does leave me with the "I'm practically crawling to my car" feeling and I love ending this way.
Since I'm only really doing 4-30 second intervals, in light of your research, is this a bad thing? Or is this minimal enough to be OK?
If it matters, I'm a post-menopausal 54 year old. Thanks in advance!
first of all, good for you lady, that's awesome!
Well, you're one of the folks on here who finally got it through my head to drop the low weights/high reps for heavy lifting (heavy being a relative thing of course, I'm still working on building up). I love it and am seeing great results from it. So, thank you, good sir!Second, 5 minutes of most things probably won't bother you much, but I'd probably stay away from 5 minutes of anaerobic work at the end of your routine, just because weak, fatigued muscles are prone to injury far easier than fresh strong muscles.
Well, there's a reason why I do it on the bike. My legs would buckle under me if I tried to do the intervals on an elliptical or treadmill due to the fatigue from lifting, LOL. I typically do this with zero resistance (level 1) on the bike so it's the speed of the pedaling that creates the intense intervals. I lean over the handlebars, close my eyes, and pedal like mad until I count to 30 and then check the on-bike timer. If it's anywhere around 30-seconds, I slow down. I'm thinking that the lack of resistance should keep me safe from any injury from this but that's definitely something I'll keep in mind. [/quote]I'm sure there's SOME rise in cortisol with it, but that really depends on you. I like to keep them fully separate myself, but remember, this is all a game of gray areas, none of this is line in the sand stuff, you can (and should) remember that you can improve by degrees (I.E. 6 minutes won't flip some kind of cortisol switch that 5 minutes wouldn't), so just keep this stuff in mind when you work. Always have a goal for each workout, if your goal is heavy lifting to failure, then really, what is 5 minutes of hard cardio doing for you besides making you FEEL better (maybe that's worth it to you , that's a personal choice).
Yeah, it does feel good to end like that. Like I've totally spent myself out. Hmmmm, this brings up another question.
My upper-body is definitely spent from my weight session but my legs do have that last little bit of oomph left. So maybe I need to add in another weight training routine or two for my legs instead of doing the few intervals I'm doing? Your thoughts?
Again, thanks in advance.0 -
I'm doing my exercise routine to assist with weight loss. I'm not too worried about building muscle. I want to maintain it (which is why I'm doing NROLFW)
I also don't have the time to go to the gym every day. I'm there three times a week and even that's a struggle. I'll do an hour, half hour weights, half hour cardio and I'm done. I've got better things with my life than to spend every day at the gym.0 -
I agree, but studies aside, it makes sense to me that if you are working hard enough at one, you should not have any energy for the other.
I keep seeing diaries where someone will do 45 minutes of strength followed by an hour of cardio. Neither is being done effectively. 45 mins of strength training should leave someone wanting to take a nap, not take a zumba class.
Sorry sir but personally I can go a good hard hour on strength training and then go ahead and do circuits of cardio and calisthenics for an hour or so. Also in the same day I can play basketball for a few hours. I don;t know if it is my youth that allows this but the only thing I have to make sure is done when I complete all these exercises is that I stretch properly and drink enough water in the day. This is an example of my Monday:
Class: 8:30-9:20am
Break from class/Lunch: 9:30-12:15pm
Basketball: 12:30-2:30pm
Class: 2:30-4:45pm
Rugby Practice: 5:00-6:15pm
Weightlifting: 6:30-7:45pm
(Chest Workout: Bench Press 3x10, Incline 3x10, Decline 3x10, Dumbell Incline 3x10, Chest Flies (Incline, Decline, and Flat) 3x10, Chest Fly Machine 3x10, Dips 3x10, Pushups 3x25)
(Shoulder Workout: Arnold Press 3x10 light wieght, Ninety degree shoulder flies 3x10 "", Front Shoulder Fly 3x10 "", Shrugs 3x10 "")
Cardio Circuit: 7:50-8:50 (Jump Rope, Tabata Jumping Jacks, Burpee's, Kettlebell Swings each 8x13)
Studying: 10:00-1:00am
Just because you think weightlifting should drain you to that degree doesn't mean it holds true for everyone. I mean I can understand why it would but some people have the will power to do all of the above and not really feel the soreness of it because they've adjusted there mindset. I mean my goal is to be as fit as superior athletes and that takes a lot of work. So I put in the time and effort to get where I want.0 -
lol0
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I am fairly new to understanding and intergrating the physiologic / metabolic soup that you talk about. So forgive my naive approach thus far and the fairly simple questions that I ask.
First, does your supposition that doing both exercises in the same setting (less than 8 hours apart) assume that one wants to "bulk up" by weight training? I personally started lifting a month ago and have used it more for tone and cardio than to add mass. I don't see any problem with adding it to the elliptical or swim. In fact, those exercises warm the muscles up and get me going. If I do the elliptical I do arm work with weights. I make sure to eat a good meal mixture of complex and some simple carbs and protein at least 2 hours prior to my extended workout replentishing stores.
To the best of my knowledge, in weekend warriors like me (not really, I work out 5 days a week) I understand our glycogen stores in the liver to be about 100 grams. We use about 1 gram a minute and therefore have about 90 minutes before we exhaust our liver stores and start grabbing glycogen from muscle (stores there about 280 grams in non-elite atheletes). My intense work-outs (weights cardio and swim/elliptical cardio) are about 45 min for each exercise (ie 90 minutes total). I then replace protein within 30 minutes of completing the exercise with a mixture of carbs/protein in liquid form (easiest when at the gym and not headed home to eat right away). Skipping the arguement over whether a mixture of complex proteins/carbs mixed with some simple fast absorbing is best in various ratios....for the non-elite athelete...one would think this is probably enough. If I were training for the Olympics and in that kind of shape, the story might be different...and the whole story does change depending on the type of exercise (swim, row, run) and effort etc. Elite atheletes actually reportedly carry less stores in the liver and run around with an average of 55 grams in the liver at baseline (not the 100 grams in my liver). By carb loading they can increase muscle stores up to 800 grams (mine are probably stuck at 280). So for them, they can store even more and go harder longer. All this is to say that I do believe while the arguement of not combining exercises of resistance and cardio on the same day apply to some, it probably doesn't apply to all. Just depends on what you want out of it and how long you do it and how hard you are doing it. Yes? or am I down a creek without a paddle?
Lastly, why is it that we say cardio exercises don't build muscle? or need a positive testosterone balance to improve muscle synthesis and slow breakdown? Bikers have big quads and hamstrings. Aren't they building muscle too?
Just asking....as I said....this is all new to me...I've been reading for a week or two and realize I know enough to be dangerous. So educate and convince me.0 -
I agree, but studies aside, it makes sense to me that if you are working hard enough at one, you should not have any energy for the other.
I keep seeing diaries where someone will do 45 minutes of strength followed by an hour of cardio. Neither is being done effectively. 45 mins of strength training should leave someone wanting to take a nap, not take a zumba class.
LOL very true...0 -
I am fairly new to understanding and intergrating the physiologic / metabolic soup that you talk about. So forgive my naive approach thus far and the fairly simple questions that I ask.
First, does your supposition that doing both exercises in the same setting (less than 8 hours apart) assume that one wants to "bulk up" by weight training? I personally started lifting a month ago and have used it more for tone and cardio than to add mass. I don't see any problem with adding it to the elliptical or swim. In fact, those exercises warm the muscles up and get me going. If I do the elliptical I do arm work with weights. I make sure to eat a good meal mixture of complex and some simple carbs and protein at least 2 hours prior to my extended workout replentishing stores.
To the best of my knowledge, in weekend warriors like me (not really, I work out 5 days a week) I understand our glycogen stores in the liver to be about 100 grams. We use about 1 gram a minute and therefore have about 90 minutes before we exhaust our liver stores and start grabbing glycogen from muscle (stores there about 280 grams in non-elite atheletes). My intense work-outs (weights cardio and swim/elliptical cardio) are about 45 min for each exercise (ie 90 minutes total). I then replace protein within 30 minutes of completing the exercise with a mixture of carbs/protein in liquid form (easiest when at the gym and not headed home to eat right away). Skipping the arguement over whether a mixture of complex proteins/carbs mixed with some simple fast absorbing is best in various ratios....for the non-elite athelete...one would think this is probably enough. If I were training for the Olympics and in that kind of shape, the story might be different...and the whole story does change depending on the type of exercise (swim, row, run) and effort etc. Elite atheletes actually reportedly carry less stores in the liver and run around with an average of 55 grams in the liver at baseline (not the 100 grams in my liver). By carb loading they can increase muscle stores up to 800 grams (mine are probably stuck at 280). So for them, they can store even more and go harder longer. All this is to say that I do believe while the arguement of not combining exercises of resistance and cardio on the same day apply to some, it probably doesn't apply to all. Just depends on what you want out of it and how long you do it and how hard you are doing it. Yes? or am I down a creek without a paddle?
Lastly, why is it that we say cardio exercises don't build muscle? or need a positive testosterone balance to improve muscle synthesis and slow breakdown? Bikers have big quads and hamstrings. Aren't they building muscle too?
Just asking....as I said....this is all new to me...I've been reading for a week or two and realize I know enough to be dangerous. So educate and convince me.
exellent post my friend.0 -
Good stuff my dear, I'm happy I could be a small influence towards your better health! :happy:
Well, you're one of the folks on here who finally got it through my head to drop the low weights/high reps for heavy lifting (heavy being a relative thing of course, I'm still working on building up). I love it and am seeing great results from it. So, thank you, good sir!
only if you want to, there's no law that says you have to be totally drained after a workout, especially if you're targeting a specific muscle group. if you're doing heavy weight, the group you're targeting should be exhausted, but other groups can be fine. I often walk out of the gym on upper days feeling fine in the legs, could do a 5 mile moderate run if I really wanted. I don't but just because time is limited for me.My upper-body is definitely spent from my weight session but my legs do have that last little bit of oomph left. So maybe I need to add in another weight training routine or two for my legs instead of doing the few intervals I'm doing? Your thoughts?
Again, thanks in advance.0 -
I am fairly new to understanding and intergrating the physiologic / metabolic soup that you talk about. So forgive my naive approach thus far and the fairly simple questions that I ask.
First, does your supposition that doing both exercises in the same setting (less than 8 hours apart) assume that one wants to "bulk up" by weight training? I personally started lifting a month ago and have used it more for tone and cardio than to add mass. I don't see any problem with adding it to the elliptical or swim. In fact, those exercises warm the muscles up and get me going. If I do the elliptical I do arm work with weights. I make sure to eat a good meal mixture of complex and some simple carbs and protein at least 2 hours prior to my extended workout replentishing stores.
To the best of my knowledge, in weekend warriors like me (not really, I work out 5 days a week) I understand our glycogen stores in the liver to be about 100 grams. We use about 1 gram a minute and therefore have about 90 minutes before we exhaust our liver stores and start grabbing glycogen from muscle (stores there about 280 grams in non-elite atheletes). My intense work-outs (weights cardio and swim/elliptical cardio) are about 45 min for each exercise (ie 90 minutes total). I then replace protein within 30 minutes of completing the exercise with a mixture of carbs/protein in liquid form (easiest when at the gym and not headed home to eat right away). Skipping the arguement over whether a mixture of complex proteins/carbs mixed with some simple fast absorbing is best in various ratios....for the non-elite athelete...one would think this is probably enough. If I were training for the Olympics and in that kind of shape, the story might be different...and the whole story does change depending on the type of exercise (swim, row, run) and effort etc. Elite atheletes actually reportedly carry less stores in the liver and run around with an average of 55 grams in the liver at baseline (not the 100 grams in my liver). By carb loading they can increase muscle stores up to 800 grams (mine are probably stuck at 280). So for them, they can store even more and go harder longer. All this is to say that I do believe while the arguement of not combining exercises of resistance and cardio on the same day apply to some, it probably doesn't apply to all. Just depends on what you want out of it and how long you do it and how hard you are doing it. Yes? or am I down a creek without a paddle?
Lastly, why is it that we say cardio exercises don't build muscle? or need a positive testosterone balance to improve muscle synthesis and slow breakdown? Bikers have big quads and hamstrings. Aren't they building muscle too?
Just asking....as I said....this is all new to me...I've been reading for a week or two and realize I know enough to be dangerous. So educate and convince me.
All good questions tex, I'll see if I can respond in kind.
to your first question, it does assume you are looking to gain or maintain muscle mass by targeting muscles for specific weight training. I.E. testosterone release happens only in certain conditions (over and above the normal levels in the body that is), and moderate cardio, or even most HIIT training routines don't trigger high releases of testosterone, mainly because the body will only release hormones when the muscles "request" the need for more power. It's actually a complex set of hormonal releases based on charge balance and chemical homeostasis. I.E. glycogen depletion doesn't cause the testosterone trigger to happen, only using muscles to their maximal effort for an extended period will do this. As the body perceives failure because of mechanical work will it release testosterone, not because of energy depletion.
your understanding of localized and liver glycogen stores is actually very close to right on, the only thing you should be aware of is that muscle glycogen is not mobile, in other words the 250 to 350 grams in most adult males at the muscle site is locked at the muscle site, thus is not available to other muscles. Only the liver glycogen will be released to replenish muscle use, and the liver will always hold some glycogen in reserve for the brain if it can, it's almost impossible to completely deplete the liver of glycogen, thus about 80 grams can be released, and that takes 5 to 15 minutes to replenish a fully depleted muscle, that's why when you're looking for hypertrophy, your rest times between sets should be about 3 to 5 minutes, we're looking for mechanical work failure, not glycogen depletion.
to your last question about whether cardio builds muscle. It just doesn't, there's hundreds of studies documenting this, I'm not going to go listing them, but they're easy to find if you go to ajcn.org and search for cardio and muscle mass gains. But to be more to the point, and easier to understand, cardio works below the aerobic threshold, never triggering the response needed to build new muscle mass, unless the person never uses or uses very infrequently, the muscles being used for cardio, the body won't trigger mass (power) gains. Remember, the body is an efficiency engine, it will only add extra muscle when it perceives a need. If the need (like when doing cardio) is for better oxygen efficiency and OSAT (oxygen saturation in the blood) then the body will increase lung capacity, and mitochondrial counts to account for this, the one exception to this is the heart, and smooth muscles around the arterial systems which can grow stronger with cardio. But I'm sure we've all heard the stories of highly trained athletes that have extremely low resting heart rates, it's because their bodies are both adapted to better extract oxygen out of the blood, and their hearts are stronger, pumping more blood volume during each stroke (thus needing less beats to deliver the same amount of oxygen).
My point is basically this:
It isn't an all or nothing game, you can do both, and you'll probably return about 70% to 80% of the results that you would from each if compared to if you did them separately. Which, for many people is fine. It does make it easier if you're in a time crunch.
BUT
A lot of people ask me whether you should do both, 1 first, or the other first. And I always give them the answer of: "if time is an issue, then do both, but don't expect optimal results from either". And I say that simply because when you get right down to it, if you're training to gain strength, then your body needs fuel to recover, if you do that AND do cardio, you're depleting your energy levels, muscle repair waits for nobody, and if you have no energy to fuel your recovering body, then the protein and amino acids that would normally go towards building or repairing muscle tissue will instead be used to supplement energy recovery as the body deems that more vital to short term survival than building new muscle later (I.E. run away from the saber toothed cat, THEN worry about being strong enough to kill it next time)
The study I noted in my original quote wasn't elite athletes, they were adult males that were in good shape, but not elite, the process is similar for everyone. It's as much about balance as it is about anything. If you're looking for specific gains (I.E. strength and size gains, then the focus should be on hypertrophy and power, if your looking for overall endurance gains then the focus should be on sub-maximal cardiovascular work, if your focus is to gain endurance at one specific muscle site then the focus should be on HIIT training with specificity.
You mentioned cyclists, and that's true, but what we don't see is that the off season training regimen of most professional athletes has just as many strength days as it does specific sport training days. I.E. bicyclists do squats on some days, but they very rarely will do squats immediately followed by a long cardio session, the may do it in the same day, but always separated by hours and a re-feeding to replenish. The other thing to remember about professionals is that their bodies are trained to a point where they are supremely efficient at recovery, so what may take you and I 8 hours may only take them 3 or 4, that's more individual, but it's still a factor.
hope this helps clear some stuff up.
Let me know if you have any more questions.0 -
fyi guys, if you want a really good, to the point definition of hypertrophy, I found one that goes over all the different hormones involved with overload (hypertrophy) and cortisol
http://www.unm.edu/~lkravitz/Article folder/hypertrophy.html
give it a thorough read, it's really good for those of us without the ability to fully understand research studies.0 -
Bottom line is that fitness, whether it be cardio or strength training, isn't a one size fits all genre. Each person needs to find what works for them. There are too many varibles involved to say this is written in stone. Conventional wisdom tells us cardio and strength training should be on non-consecutive days, personally doing both on the same day has worked off and on for me over the last three years. I've lost 90lbs. AND kept it off! My advice to everyone is to experiment, find what works for you, and then go with it. Afterall we all aren't cookie cutters of each other.
Brandy0
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