How Cardio Affects Weight Gain
Cardiovascular exercise should be a staple of every fitness program. Cardio can strengthen your lungs and heart, reduce your risk of heart disease, reduce stress and anxiety, give you more energy and cause you to sleep deeper. In addition to these, there are plenty other benefits to doing cardio as well.
When attempting to gain weight however, cardio may be stopping you from achieving your goals. All forms of cardiovascular exercises burn calories. When you are trying to bulk up you need to make sure you are taking in more calories than you are burning. (Be sure to read the diet page for more info on this.) This can be hard if you are spending much time on the treadmill.
Running burns around 500-1000 calories per hour depending on how much you weigh and how fast you run. Using a stationary bike you could burn 300-1100 calories. Walking will burn between 200-700.
If you are a “hardgainer” and are going through the 12 week training program outlined in my ebook I recommend you either stop your cardio temporarily or at least keeping it to a bare minimum. As soon as you reach your goal weight then you can pick up your cardio training again. If you do choose to continue doing cardio during Do one to two cardio sessions per week.
your bulking phase follow these strategies:
Keep your cardio sessions to 20 minutes or less
Do one to two cardio sessions a week.
Avoid overly intense sessions, aim for low or moderate indensity.
Eat an extra 250-500 calories everyday that you do cardio.
Take in calories both before, during and after cardio.
As I mentioned before cardio provides several benefits so it shouldn’t be stopped for good. In fact if you always focus on bulking up and never do cardio it can hurt your gains. It is important to have a strong and healthy heart so that it can pump the necessary nutrients to your muscles allowing them to grow.