can I do cardio twice a day without burning muscle?

[nick413]

If I do 20-30 minutes of cardio in the morning, can I do another session in the afternoon? How many hours should I wait?
If its a weightlifting day, can I tag the second cardio session on to the end of the weight training? At that point, should I be downing my whey shake between the weightlifting and cardio, or after the cardio?

[lee__d]

total daily macros/cals matter, not frequency (althought it wouldnt hurt to have something between the cardio sessions - even if ur not doing crazy endurance bouts to deplete glyocogen).

the size of your deficit (and of course adequate protein) will determine how muscle is spared while losing weight. so if you're doing tons of activity, but eating so you're deficit is modest, it likely wouldn't result in any more muscle loss than if u did no extra activity and kept a modest deficit.

[jhxetc]

if you are eating at about a 500 calorie per day deficit you can safely do plenty of cardio. Most of the people who lose a lot of muscle are doing drastic cutting where they eat at a 1-2000 calorie deficit and then do 2 hours of cardio. Pretty much if you can do your cardio without feeling like total crap afterwards, you probably aren't doing too much.

[nick413]

The reason I'm asking is because its my understanding that after about 30 to 45 mins of cardio your body begins to burn muscle instead of fat. So I was wondering if twice a day cardio would be an effective means of squeezing in an hour or so of cardio without going into the muscle burning phase. Presumably, I'd need to wait a few hours between cardio, no?

[kevi204]

If I do 20-30 minutes of cardio in the morning, can I do another session in the afternoon? How many hours should I wait?
If its a weightlifting day, can I tag the second cardio session on to the end of the weight training? At that point, should I be downing my whey shake between the weightlifting and cardio, or after the cardio?

Whats your goal, are you cutting?

[nick413]

Whats your goal, are you cutting?

Yes I'm cutting and I would like to cut as fast as possible while at least keeping the muscle I have.

[jessicajlin]

original reason for doing cardio in thge morning on a carb depleated stomach is to target burning fat

once you already ate during the day and you want to do a 2nd session of cardio it doesnt matter when u do 2nd cardio session

but heres an idea
eat ur meal do ur workout then shake then cardio

why do i say eat ur meal before training? so like this when you start working out and you start breaking the muscle tissue you instantly have real food in your system to repair the damaged tissue

[lee__d]

original reason for doing cardio in thge morning on a carb depleated stomach is to target burning fat

once you already ate during the day and you want to do a 2nd session of cardio it doesnt matter when u do 2nd cardio session

but heres an idea
eat ur meal do ur workout then shake then cardio

why do i say eat ur meal before training? so like this when you start working out and you start breaking the muscle tissue you instantly have real food in your system to repair the damaged tissue

http://alanaragon.com/myths-under-th...ed-cardio.html

[kevi204]

Yes I'm cutting and I would like to cut as fast as possible while at least keeping the muscle I have.

If you try to "cut as fast as possible", you will mostly likely lose some muscle. Patience is key to cutting/bulking. Only 1-2 lb loss should occurr weekly at most, otherwise you may be burning muscle.

[stingray72]

Yes I'm cutting and I would like to cut as fast as possible while at least keeping the muscle I have.

I do an hour of moderate intensity cardio every day and still gain some muscle while doing it on a cut.

[KhayBrown]

I do an hour of moderate intensity cardio every day and still gain some muscle while doing it on a cut.

Yep, it can be done. Ive successfully cut and gained muscle doing cardio and lifting on empty during a 16-18 hour fast (3-4 times weekly). Works for me.