Cardio vs muscle mass

[Sixguns]

Im wondering if and when does cardio play in not gaining muscle mass. Right now i average about 20 minutes of cardio a day. 5 minute warm up at 3mph that 10 minutes at 6 mph (1 mile) and than a 5 minute cool down at 3 mph. I than head to the gym and will be there for about an hour. I havent seemed to but on the muscle ive wanted to and ive been lifting for about 8 months now. Would this play a factor in it?

 

[nanaki333]

what's your diet look like? if you're need eating enough protein and calories, you're not going to put on any mass. during my 2x day gym days, i consume over 3000 calories throughout the day through 6 meals. if you're dieting on something like 1200-1500 calories, then you're just going to keep trimming down without putting on much, if any hard gains.

 

[Pantlegz]

Im wondering if and when does cardio play in not gaining muscle mass. Right now i average about 20 minutes of cardio a day. 5 minute warm up at 3mph that 10 minutes at 6 mph (1 mile) and than a 5 minute cool down at 3 mph. I than head to the gym and will be there for about an hour. I havent seemed to but on the muscle ive wanted to and ive been lifting for about 8 months now. Would this play a factor in it?

Yes it could, mostly because cardio will deplete glycogen in muscles which basically just stores energy so it's ready to be used. With glycogen stores low or depleted your muscles aren't able to work as hard or long as they would be able to otherwise which can slow mass gains. Your diet could also be effecting this, if you're not eating excess calories you won't gain mass.

It would also depend on what your goals were, some people set goals that are unreasonable and just can't meet them due to this fact. Right now I'm looking for 10-15% strength increase every 6 months. To be honest my goal is a little higher than it should be, that will be at least 100lbs added to my squat and deadlift this year.

 

[darkxshade]

Eat more protein if you aren't... at least 1g/lb of LBM and do your cardio after your lift. Other than that and without specifics, I doubt 1 mile/day @ a 10 min mile pace would significantly impact progress.

 

[Deeko]

I've never bought the whole idea that doing cardio in itself makes you lose muscle or fail to gain it. The problem is, people that do too much cardio on top of their lifting probably aren't eating enough to replace those calories. Also, as was suggested, do the cardio after lifting, that way you've got the most energy to push your lifting as hard as you can.

 

[Sixguns]

My overall goal right now is weight loss. Im 6'2" and about 205lbs. I am wanting to cut about another 10lbs. Im getting about 150ish grams of protein and day. I just cant seem to get it higher than that. My calorie intake is around 3000 most days and I usually do my workout 5 days a week.

 

[nanaki333]

you could have also just plateaued. have you tried changing up the exercises in your routine? changing the order too? what is your on-off schedule? if you do back and chest on the same day usually, switch it up and do back and triceps the same day. if you did bicep and tricep on one day, do bicep and chest that day. change up the order of the workouts.

are you doing heavy weight with low reps, or light weight with high reps? heavy weight low reps is really good for bulking on the muscle. be careful with that though. a lot of people try to do more weight than their body can handle and end up using more momentum and their back and end up hurting themselves. you don't want to be "that guy" at the gym. the one who is curling 75 lbs dumbells, but is just swinging his arms, back and whole body to just throw the dumbell up. not using his bicep at all.

my protein shake intake i take syntha6/myofusion (whichever is on sale when i buy it) for breakfast and before bed. they have a nice slow release of protein over the course of a few hours. your muscles are going to do a lot of repairing when you're asleep, so it's good to have that nice shot of protein (i have a small bladder, so it keeps me up ). then i have whey for lunch, dinner, and post workouts. taking just protein for your meals and post workouts isn't always enough, gotta start distributing it better. should probably bring it up to 200g of protein too.

 

[Sixguns]

I have to be careful with heavier weights due to my back surgery last year. Even though I did just get a full release from my doctor last week. She even said that the other discs have decompressed some. Me and my workout buddy were talking about how we have been doing the same routine for almost 8 months now so next week we are going to change the days we do chest/back/shoulders and what not. Right now my workout schedule is after work I will do my said run from OP. Right after I will head to the gym and monday-Chest/Tri Tuesday- Back/Bic Wend- Shoulder/Tri Thursday- Leg/Bi and most fridays are either and off day or maybe do a circuit of everything.

 

[nanaki333]

i'm in the same boat man. i had spinal fusion on l6 and l7. try using the hammer strength machines. i can't do flat bench because too much can go wrong. hammer strength isolates your chest really nicely.

 

[Pantlegz]

ideally you should get 1-2g of protein per lb of lean mass. It can be hard but eating 3000 calories it shouldn't be much of a push.

BB splits aren't a good way to get big either. Especially if you're doing 10-12 rep sets like most people do on them. I would strongly suggest strong lifts, starting strength or madcow programs to start. Just be very careful with form and start very light on squats and deadlifts and you shouldn't have any issues. If you're not able to do any of those programs due to your back, at very least drop your reps to 5-8 and bump the weight up you'll get stronger and bigger.

 

[nanaki333]

ideally you should get 1-2g of protein per lb of lean mass. It can be hard but eating 3000 calories it shouldn't be much of a push.

BB splits aren't a good way to get big either. Especially if you're doing 10-12 rep sets like most people do on them. I would strongly suggest strong lifts, starting strength or madcow programs to start. Just be very careful with form and start very light on squats and deadlifts and you shouldn't have any issues. If you're not able to do any of those programs due to your back, at very least drop your reps to 5-8 and bump the weight up you'll get stronger and bigger.

it's actually really hard to do perfects sets with heavy weight with a bad back. another thing that i had to resort to was keep the weight not so heavy, but slow the reps down A LOT to the point where i can only do it 5-6 times. looks kind of silly but man are you on fire afterward!

 

[Sixguns]

Squats and deadlifts are the two things that I cannot do due to my fusion of L5-S1. I normally am doing 3 sets of about 10. Ill try lowering the sets and add weight starting next week and see what happens. I still have a bit of body fat to lose which will help show off the muscle that im putting on too. Thats why ive kind of kept with the higher reps. The strength is there i know since Im putting up a lot more weight than when I first started. Im just wanted to get that cut look and dont we all.

 

[nanaki333]

sorry to derail the thread a bit, but you have a pic of your MRI? in my MRI here, the bulging disc below the ruptured one actually ruptured between the time this was taken, and when i had my surgery a 2 hour routine surgery took nearly 4 hours cause the surgeon wasn't expecting to do 2 and was unprepared.

 

[Sixguns]

I wont be able to load it until i get off work. But I will try. They also had issues when they opened me up. They relized that my upper half of my spine had slid forward about 1/4 inch.