Regular Cardio Will Make You Fat

by John Meadows | 05/20/16

Tags: 
 Metabolic Conditioning

Here's what you need to know...

1. When using cardio while dieting, begin by doing the minimum necessary
for fat loss, not the maximum.
2. The most effective cardio for retaining muscle is the kind you don't need
to recover from, which is walking.
3. When it comes to doing cardio for fat loss, it's either slow and easy
(walking) or fast and torrid (HIIT). The middle ground can make you fatter.
4. Don't think of HIIT as calorie burning cardio, but rather muscle building
cardio.

Whenever the topic of "cardio" comes up, it always ignites a firestorm of

differing opinions, most dealing with how much people hate it or how you have
to do it to get shredded. What never gets clearly explained, though, is the
context and reasoning for which it's being done. This is crucial to understand,
because cardio from a conditioning and endurance standpoint is going to be
very different from a physique and bodybuilding perspective.

For a competitive athlete, it's likely very important that some kind of energy
systems work be performed that either prepares them for their sport or aids in
building overall work capacity. In contrast, for a physique competitor, cardio is
employed for the sole purpose of either weight control/maintenance or
creating a calorie deficit for fat loss. Energy systems development is likely a
non-issue, provided the physique competitor is lifting with enough frequency
and relative intensity.

Still, when it comes to doing cardio for fat loss, bodybuilders – if they want to
preserve their muscle mass – need to take it either slow and easy or fast and
torrid. The middle ground can actually make you fatter.

Slow and Easy

Speaking specifically to the bodybuilders, you have to ask yourself the

following:

If my primary goal is maximal muscle, do I want to be performing a high

volume of an entirely conflicting activity?

Please tell me you didn't answer yes to this. This isn't to dissuade people from
doing cardio. If you like cardio, and I know some people that do, by all means
do as much as you want. But be cognizant that it may be a conflicting factor
that you have to account for if you want to get as big and lean as possible.

If, however, you're going to do cardio, it'd be best to do something that won't
conflict with your goals and that's easy to recover from, namely, easy walking.
So, if you're doing the incline walks on the treadmill, you're probably doing
something right. Just keep it as short as necessary.

However, if you're insistent on stair stepping for an hour to "striate the glutes,"
or walking on an incline for two hours as contest prep, consider the following:

You have to take the Specific Adaptation to Imposed Demands (SAID)

principle into account.

If you're dieting for a show and your lifting volume goes down but your cardio
goes up, what's the primary stimulus your body is going to need to adapt to?
The cardio. Now how does one become more efficient at slow, aerobic
cardio? By decreasing overall energy output, which means burning fewer
calories to do the same activity.