Do I lose muscles doing cardio?

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infamous1997
infamous1997 Posts: 46 Member
in Goal: Gaining Weight and Body Building
I do cardio before I lift and after I lift. I do it as a warm up and such. I was wondering if I lose muscles doing cardio since I'm like losing weight and my body would get smaller if I lost weight from cardio.

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  • Megmo127
    Megmo127 Posts: 76 Member
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    I do cardio before I lift and after I lift. I do it as a warm up and such. I was wondering if I lose muscles doing cardio since I'm like losing weight and my body would get smaller if I lost weight from cardio.

    How long/intensity?
  • Jamal_Guildford
    Jamal_Guildford Posts: 214 Member
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    I do cardio before I lift and after I lift. I do it as a warm up and such. I was wondering if I lose muscles doing cardio since I'm like losing weight and my body would get smaller if I lost weight from cardio.

    I think it depends on the intensity. I noticed my apppetite decreased after a long run (i.e. more than one hour), it's probably due to muscle loss....
  • infamous1997
    infamous1997 Posts: 46 Member
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    I do 15 minutes before lifting and 15 more after lifting. I manage to burn about 350-400 calories. 150-200 for 15 minutes
  • mustgetmuscles1
    mustgetmuscles1 Posts: 3,346 Member
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    If you are lifting progressively heavier weights and getting enough protein you are fine.
  • __freckles__
    __freckles__ Posts: 1,238 Member
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    As long as you're making up for the calories burned while doing cardio and still eating at a surplus you should be fine. At least you get to eat more foodz, right?
  • dieselbyte
    dieselbyte Posts: 733 Member
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    Why would cardio alone cause you to lose muscle? As long as you are either maintaining or in a caloric surplus, lifting for progressive overload/hypertrophy and getting adequate protein and rest/recovery, you won't lose muscle.
  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,867 Member
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    This is really only an issue when:

    - you're not taking in adequate nutrition to support your activity, to include appropriate protein intake as well as appropriate calorie intake for your given activity level

    - you're not doing any kind of progressive resistance training...muscles are a use it or lose it kind of thing.

    - you're training to be a competitive endurance athlete and/or otherwise doing incessant aerobic work

    Note also that when you're dieting, some muscle loss is pretty much inevitable....the more weight you have to lose, the more likely it is that you will lose more muscle for the simple fact that you have to diet much longer. The slower your rate of weight loss, the more you help yourself retain muscle.
  • DarthLos
    DarthLos Posts: 1 Member
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    You will only lose muscle if you do cardio for a very long time, usually over 45 minutes straight.
  • MarkR_2013
    MarkR_2013 Posts: 43 Member
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    Not for 2x15 minutes. If you were training for distance running, that would be another matter as your body would be not be using the fast twitch (weight training) fibers in favor of the slower twitch (endurance) muscle fibers.

    Check your protein intake and lean muscle mass. IIRC, it's 8 grams of protein per 10 lbs body weight recommended protein intake and ideally you should be around 20% body fat.

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