muscle loss

[soldierboy1989]

I am a 23yr old man at 5 feet 9 inches, 157 lbs, and with a body fat of 11.6%. I was wondering if I started doing more cardio would I start seeing muscle loss...I just want to lose a bit more of belly fat than anything else..Lastly I need muscles!! I have tried everything,,to c4 extreme pe workout, whey protein and casein. I do chest mondays, shoulders tuesday, biceps/triceps om wednesdays, abs on thursday, legs on friday, then I take the weekend off..I still dont see muscle growth..Do I need to star eating a alot of food..Someone please help ;-(

[dcmaggio]

No cardio doesnt cause muscle loss poor diet does.

Gaining muscle takes a long time of proper diet + lifting heavy ****.

You cant add crazy muscle in a month, 2 , or 3.

It takes time

[bruceprice]

I am a 23yr old man at 5 feet 9 inches, 157 lbs, and with a body fat of 11.6%. I was wondering if I started doing more cardio would I start seeing muscle loss...I just want to lose a bit more of belly fat than anything else..Lastly I need muscles!! I have tried everything,,to c4 extreme pe workout, whey protein and casein. I do chest mondays, shoulders tuesday, biceps/triceps om wednesdays, abs on thursday, legs on friday, then I take the weekend off..I still dont see muscle growth..Do I need to star eating a alot of food..Someone please help ;-(

The two most important things for muscle growth are eating a surplus of calories and progressively increasing your lifts each workout (keep a journal.) If you eat a small surplus of calories, you may possibly gain some muscle while losing fat, especially if you're a beginner. An easier route though is to separate the muscle growth and fat loss into two separate periods. In your muscle-building phase, slowly bulk so you don't put on too much fat- adjust your diet until you consistently gain a 1/2 pound a week.
After a few months, if your lifts plateau or you feel you're getting too fat, then switch to cutting. Eat a deficit of calories so you lose about a lb/wk but make sure you keep lifting heavy. And it's probably best to decrease the volume and frequency of your workouts during a cut because your recovery will be impaired due to the undereating. Doing 4-6 sets for each muscle once a week should be all you need during a cut. The goal is to maintain as much muscle as possible while losing fat, not to gain muscle- so basically just lift in the 6-10 rep range and try to match your personal best lift each week, rather than trying to exceed it the way you would during a bulk.

[soldierboy1989]

Thanks bro! What are your workout snd diet routines like? DO you take supplements such as weigh?

[bruceprice]

Thanks bro! What are your workout snd diet routines like? DO you take supplements such as weigh?

I take creatine and I have whey protein but I typically just get my protein from real food.

For diet, I personally don't count calories but my daily consumption is pretty consistent so I have a good sense of what I need to eat to slowly add weight vs. lose weight. I have a lot of chicken breasts and greek yogurt and cottage cheese in my fridge because if I don't put in the effort, I won't eat enough protein. I think I usually eat about 1g/lb of bodyweight of protein per day.

As for workout routine, the exact split is much less important than the concept of progressively increasing your lifts and eating the proper calorie surplus/deficit. Right now on my cut, I'm doing a push/pull/legs split over the course of a week and only about 6 sets for the big muscles.
On my next bulk, I plan to do: Upper body, rest, lower body, rest, upper body, rest, lower body, rest..... I'll do around 8 sets for the big muscles so volume will be more than double what it was during my cut because I'm working each muscle about twice as often. Arms, I'll probably do 4 sets each for bis and tris but this is optional because I'll be focusing on compound exercises. I'll alternate between 6-8 rep set workouts and 12-15.
That's just what I'm doing though and routine should be switched up from time to time anyway. I think good general rules for a bulking routine is to hit each muscle every 3-5 days and not do a huge amount of volume. Some people hit each muscle every 7 days with a huge number of sets but I've read that works best for very experienced lifters or people on steroids.
But once again: don't stress out too much over the number of reps and sets, etc. Just make sure to get your calorie surplus/deficit right and keep a workout journal and set small records each workout.

[t3nchi]

If there's one thing I learned all these years, it's that "slow and steady" wins the race when it comes to either fat loss (minimal muscle loss) or muscle gains (minimal fat gain). The "slow and steady" approach does require tracking calories and macros though, and takes patience and time.