Bulking and Cardio

[amino]

Some information on this site has suggested minimizing cardio activity during a bulk. I enjoy being active and will have a very difficult time cutting swimming, volleyball, dancing, & wakeboarding from my lifestyle.

My question is: Can I keep cardio in my life during a bulk if I just eat more to make up for the spent calories? Or is it just not possible to compensate for the additional time spent *not resting* and *not recovering*?

[Dzoni]

Something like swimming, volleyball, and a bit more intense activities, will affect your recovery. But that being said, you CAN bulk and cardio.

Personally I use 30 mins of light intensity walks as my cardio. Something like volleyball, dancing may have an affect on your recovery. Where as swimming, it just depends if you're taking a dip in the water and mucking around or you're actually doing Olympic laps lol

[HELLO77]

A lot of the discussion on this site relating to cardio has to do with fat burn more than anything else. I have never stopped activities that I enjoy just because I want to recover and would actually discourage you from doing such unless you are sometype of elite athlete trying to prepare for a competition or something.

I love swimming, tennis, and other things and think that my lifting helps with these activities. If my lifting would get in the way of performing the things I love to do, then I would not be lifting even though I also like to lift; but not to the detriment of everything else.

[amino]

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Where as swimming, it just depends if you're taking a dip in the water and mucking around or you're actually doing Olympic laps lol

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I used to swim a mile 3 mornings per week. Took me about an hour. But I changed up though after learning that the sweet spot for burning fat is 60%MaxVo2 for less than 30 mins. So now I've dropped down and devised a type of HIIT where I crank out a quarter mile 3 to 5 mornings per week. I do this in about 20 mins.

I swear this is addicting to me as heroin would be. It really affects my mood some days if I have skip on cardio and miss out on this natural high. I can't explain it enough to overweight or lazy people that just dont understand how I can be so motivated and think that it’s so great.

Then if I throw in my ab workout afterwards...
Whoooo-WHEE!!!
That’s enough motivation to turn down cake & cookies all day long.

[icehawk]

Hey, I'm all for additional exercise... even when bulking. Just make sure you eat extra on the days you swim/bike/run/whatever. If you make up those calories you burn, I don't see any problem.

[Venom]

There are a lot of issues with cardio on a bulk. It decreases protein synthesis by quite a large magnitude; though amino acid supplementation can abate this effect. You can combat a lot of the issues with cardio by increasing your caloric intake, but if you are doing cardio daily, it becomes almost impossible to overcome this deficit. And eventually, your body accommodates to the stimulus, and you won't get the same magnitude of fat metabolism as you had when you started.

On a bulk, I mostly do cardio for maintainence of conditioning. Maintaining vascularity and mitochondria is important, and cardio sessions is the best way to go about doing this. 2-3 sessions per week would do. I prefer doing a HIIT cardio session (sprints are great) followed by a moderate intensity session. Usually not longer than 40 minutes total. Optimally, on separate days from lifting.

Be sure to have essential aminos before and after, and some carbohydrates after as well.

[Mr.Jack]

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I swear this is addicting to me as heroin would be.


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Tell me about it! I used to do Muay Thai 2 times a week. I've never felt as relaxed as after a session of that stuff.

[amino]

[ QUOTE ]
There are a lot of issues with cardio on a bulk. It decreases protein synthesis by quite a large magnitude; though amino acid supplementation can abate this effect. You can combat a lot of the issues with cardio by increasing your caloric intake, but if you are doing cardio daily, it becomes almost impossible to overcome this deficit. And eventually, your body accommodates to the stimulus, and you won't get the same magnitude of fat metabolism as you had when you started.

On a bulk, I mostly do cardio for maintainence of conditioning. Maintaining vascularity and mitochondria is important, and cardio sessions is the best way to go about doing this. 2-3 sessions per week would do. I prefer doing a HIIT cardio session (sprints are great) followed by a moderate intensity session. Usually not longer than 40 minutes total. Optimally, on separate days from lifting.

Be sure to have essential aminos before and after, and some carbohydrates after as well.

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So ideally on a bulk, I'm going to lots of days just sitting around resting? That might actually be tough for me... ;-)

[Venom]

Hmm, not necessarily. You can train in the weight room pretty hard-core during a bulk; including two a days. Take a gander at the 4th horseman workout in the workout section, among others.