Cardio can hinder your recovery and slow the muscle growth process; Cardio splits your adaptations between aerobic (type 1 muscle fibers) and anaerobic (type 2 growth fibers). When it comes to doing cardio for fat loss, it's either slow and easy (walking) or fast and torrid (HIIT). Now the question, If I do a 45 min workout to maximum failure and the next day my body is doing all the repair work would it not be better to do slow cardio on that day vs HIT cardio because it will stress the body less and allow me to be better rested for the following HIT lifting? The middle ground can make you fatter. Many of those who look to build muscle seem to equate cardio with muscle destruction. You wonât get optimal gains if you do both. If there's one topic that I get asked about all the time, it's stomach distention. Big, distended guts! Is it b/c they have so much LBM and so little bodyfat that they'd lose muscle if they ran too much or something? It seems tons of BBers walk a ton for cardio instead of running or HIIT. ... and in large amounts, so i don't think fiber intake is an issue. I do. Cardio just makes me feel better all around. and the proper way to do it. The most effective cardio for retaining muscle is the kind you don't need to recover from, which is walking. Greg Kovacs: Why Bodybuilders Get Distended Stomachs & How to Prevent It! Khemist. 06-11-2007, 06:57 PM #2. Intense weight training alone creates one clear signal â make my muscles bigger. Understanding What Cardio Does for Bodybuilders. The best option is to do weight training and cardio on separate days. According to this research, cardio sessions which exceed three times per week and ⦠I do cardio because it ramps up my metabolic rate and turns me into a fat burning machine, but the benefits of cardio go far beyond the direct effect it has on fat-loss. Why? I personally don't like the elliptical trainer because it seems to move too fast. They automatically assume that the inclusion of any form of cardiovascular training into their routine will mean losing all of their hard earned muscle. A meta-analysis of 21 studies confirmed that the more days per week you do cardio, and the longer your cardio sessions are, the harder it will be to build muscle and strength. Why do bodybuilders walk for cardio? One thing's for sure: I don't do cardio on leg day. For bodybuilders, the very utterance of the word cardio seems to send chills down their spines. This is a phenomenon that has been prevalent in bodybuilding for decades. John: Yeah, that's right. The second best option is to do them at different times in the day, like cardio in the morning and lifting in the afternoon. Don't think of HIIT as calorie burning cardio, but rather muscle building cardio. Most guys don't do cardio on leg day. Depending on where I am in my preparation, I'll do anywhere from 30 minutes of cardio all the way up to 2 hours. 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