cardio and muscle mass

[soulsurvivor]

I've heard that doing a lot fo cardio would decrease your amount of mass...is this true? If so, would flexing your arms while running prevent this somewhat

[Travis Stenersn]

No, but you would look like a retard doing it! =)

I'm just kidding, although an image of some guy on a treadmill doing a double bicep pose while sprinting came to my mind.

Excessive cardio will cut into gains as it burns up calories, moderate cardio can improve insulin sensitivity and help with gains in muscle. Obviously, don't do excessive cardio at all if you are looking to gain heaps of muscle mass. If you're going to do it, keep it short in duration.

And I very much doubt flexing would help prevent muscle loss!

[-Atheist-]

flexing while running would promote even more muscle loss IMO, because flexing takes up alot of energy, thus you would be wasting more calories.

[user87745477315471972481]

that's a pure myth. doing cardio will NOT destroy muscle mass.

Your body would probably burn muscle as the last resource , and only if it had no choice.

first it would burn: food in your stomach, and then glycogen, and THEN bodyfat. now , only when you will have absolutely no fat to burn (which i highly doubt), then you'd start to burn muscle for energy.

However, if you do cardio in the morning on an empty stomach you will burn only your bodyfat, and you can eat the rest of the day so it will not interfere with your calorie-consuming.. and if you're still paranoid(like me), then take some glutamine before and after the session.

another benefit of cardio, is it stimulates your blood circulation.
Why do you think people who have muscle-tear injuries start by doing light weights just to get the blood flowing to the injured muscle? exactly, to circulate some blood in that area, and this leads to quicker recovery. So , cardio helps your recovery some-what through blood circulation.

Also, it releases Growth Hormone, which is great for adding muscles and reducing bodyfat, so it's a win/win combination.

Gmav

[rpgnick]

That sounds reasonable Gmav, I was pondering those same answers myself. I have about 16-18% bodyfat and hell, I think I could still gain muscle mass and have visible abs at about 10-12