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Are you doing too much cardio? How to balance aerobic exercise and weight training to meet your fitness goals

Men's Fitness, Oct, 2003 by Bob Cooper

Decisions, decisions. Some are big (engagement ring worth 20% of gross annual salary, marriage), some aren't (CK boxers or Hilfiger briefs?).

Somewhere in between is this one: determining how much time to devote to cardio training.

In short, it depends. Your goals--do you want to focus on building muscle or getting lean, or do you want to strike a delicate balance of both?--will provide the answer. First, understand that if you pursue one course nearly to the exclusion of the other, you'll jeopardize your gains in that secondary activity. Nobody can have it all, except Ben Affleck, but that's an altogether different story about different extremities. The bottom line is, the guy who plans to wear down his Nike runners pursuing fat loss while at the same time trying to pack on muscle would probably have more luck surviving a shark attack.

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But all is not bleak. If you take the time to define your goals, then build an intelligent training program, you will probably reach them. That's where we come in. Instead of giving you a bunch of formulas, MEN'S FITNESS has made this easy. We've devised three plans, each one designed to hit one of three specific goals: 1) getting bigger muscles; 2) getting lean; and 3) maintaining a balance between the best of both worlds (probably the most difficult objective). Pursuing one of these goals now doesn't mean you're locked into it for life. Simply change your workout routine at any time to accommodate newly established objectives.

HOW MUCH CARDIO TO DO WHEN YOUR PRIMARY GOAL IS TO ADD SOME MUSCLE

The Strategy: Supplement your serious lifting program with three 30-minute cardio sessions a week. Resist the urge to do any more cardio than that.

"Three sessions per week is enough to satisfy the requirement for cardiovascular health, and it shouldn't cost you any muscle-mass loss," says exercise physiologist Irv Rubenstein, Ph.D., C.S.C.S., who owns and manages S.T.E.P.S. Inc., the largest personal-training center in Nashville, Tenn. The two best cardio choices for preserving muscle gains (see "Two-for-One Workout," below) are rowing and any type of sprint interval.

To maximize muscle growth, if you're an experienced weight-lifter you can split your workouts to cover certain body parts (for example, chest, shoulders and triceps; lower body; back, traps and biceps). Lift for three days, take a day off, then start the cycle again.

Keep in mind that while on this plan you shouldn't simultaneously restrict calories to lose weight. "Maintaining or increasing muscle mass through resistance training requires adequate calorie intake," says Rubenstein.

Watch out: Avoid running, which, when combined with lifting days, can decrease muscle size due to the large energy expenditure it demands. "When the body is faced with a calorie deficit, the muscles are one of the first places it goes, along with fat stores, to supply energy to your other systems," says Rubenstein. So, in this case, running will lead your body to feast on its own muscle tissue.

The bottom line: Cardio and lifting sessions should be performed on different days. Studies have shown that you'll build more muscle if you aren't drained from doing cardio in the same session. If you must do both in the same workout, at least do the lifting first, when your physical strength and ability to contract muscle deeply, your mental focus and your energy reserves are at their peak. Finally, remember this: As you add muscle tissue to your frame, your metabolic furnace will burn hotter, allowing you to lose a bit of fat along the way.

HOW MUCH CARDIO TO DO WHEN YOU WANT TO GET LEAN

The strategy: Try to build up to five or six days a week of aerobic exercise, 30 to 60 minutes per session. When shedding weight is the priority (why build muscle if you're going to conceal it under a layer of flab?), your main focus should be aerobic work and calorie monitoring. "A low- or moderate-calorie diet and a lot of cardio time will drop the pounds," says Rubenstein. "But remember, some of that weight loss will inevitably be muscle tissue."

Watch out: Hours of weekly endurance work will trigger a duster of metabolic adaptations that tend to deflate and weaken those strength-and-power fast-twitch muscle fibers, making it harder to lift heavy weights. Meanwhile, your smaller, conditioning-oriented slow-twitch fibers will take on a more dominant role.

The bottom line: Find time to hit the weights. How often? You won't lose too much muscle as long as you fit two moderate weight-training sessions a week around all those cardio workouts. Schedule one to three days between weight workouts (Wednesday and Saturday, for example). Target both the upper body and the lower body each session.

HOW TO STRIKE A BALANCE TO GAIN MUSCLE AND LOSE FAT AT THE SAME TIME

The strategy: If balanced fitness--making moderate muscle gains while losing fat--is your objective, spending roughly the same amount of time on cardio and weight workouts should help you to achieve that end.

Are you doing too much cardio? How to balance aerobic exercise and weight training to meet your fitness goals

Men's Fitness, Oct, 2003 by Bob Cooper

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