Less cardio sessions vs more ?

[Bozekk]

Hello, i have a question. My main goal is muscle building, so im eating at caloric surplus. I want to add cardio into my routine for general health. Lets say i want to do 120 minutes of steady state cardio per week. Is there any benefits/downside in doing it less frequently, but for longer ? I mean 4x 30 minutes per week vs. 2x 1 hour per week. The thing is, i prefer less but longer sessions, but i want to ask if 1 hour of running when muscle building is main goal is not a bad thing. Thanks

[SuffolkPunch]

Only you can really answer that because it all depend on how it affects your individual recovery ability. There are no hard and fast numbers that suit everyone.

You need to monitor how you feel and decide if the cardio is causing your gym performance to suffer. If it does, reevaluate your priorities because muscle gain come solely from effective weight training and sufficient (net) calorie intake. Cardio should give way if your goal is purely about muscle gain.

[FurtadoZ9]

The difference is, you will be expending a larger sum of energy 2x a week when compared to lesser output 4x a week. I see this affecting your primary goals in two ways:

1. If you are doing a large cardio session within 24hrs before your next weight training session, particularly lower body work - it will have an affect on performance of said workout. How much of an affect will of course depend on the intensity / volume you are currently training at. IE, if you are 8 weeks into a 5x5 program vs just starting a training cycle. There are times you can get away with smaller recovery margins.

2. If you are not replenishing the energy expenditure in a reasonable time (more kcals to make up for the cardio) - which can have an affect on both your performance and recovery.


Short answer - make up for it with more food (mostly fats/carbs) and you probably won't notice a difference. The only exception would be if you are at the tail end of a training block and RPE's are high.

[joewattie]

Well I have no clue if what I do REALLY counts as cardio but ... my one hour routine is basically non-stop supersets. Pull/push pairs. I'm huffin' pretty good. In my mind it's at least genuine make-believe cardio :-)

[Tommy W.]

Well I have no clue if what I do REALLY counts as cardio but ... my one hour routine is basically non-stop supersets. Pull/push pairs. I'm huffin' pretty good. In my mind it's at least genuine make-believe cardio :-)

More and shorter sessions will be better for recovery a lot will depend on the intensity though

[joewattie]

More and shorter sessions will be better for recovery a lot will depend on the intensity though

I thank you for your response, I sincerely do. I've toyed with the idea a couple times but the "more" part just doesn't seem to be an option between wife, work, family, etc. So ... I'm left trying to squeeze everything I can into what little time I have (hence the make-believe cardio / supersets); an hour or two - 2 to 3 times a week.

Recovery seems good but intensity is relative, what's intense for me (a 75 y/o newbie) is probably chicken sh*t for thee :-)

It is most impressive to see that you've been training for over a half century now! Smart man, wish I had started at 18.