Bodybuilding Forums

Hi, i am lookin to join the army and need to start getting my fitness and strength up. I have been going gym on and off for a while now. I always do my cardio work after my weights, until someone down the gym told me. that i will be burning off the muscle i have just been working on. Is there any truth in this could you give me some advice please. Also any advice on joining the army would be very grateful. thanks

Nope, you didn't build that muscle yet. You build it while you're recovering in the days after you lift. When you lift, you put your body into a hormonal state that stimulates muscle growth (anabolic). Cardio puts your body into a hormonal state that breaks down your stored tissues (catabolic), which is why people use it for fat loss. But it can also go after your muscle tissue too, which is why that guy said what he said. But what he said seems to imply then that you should do your cardio before lifting, which is exactly the wrong thing to do! That would mean you are never in an anabolic state and are in a catabolic state the whole time you lift-- what a waste of time!

So if you absolutely have to do your cardio on the same day you lift, do it after you lift, definitely.

Even better would be to give yourself a whole day to muscle-build before doing cardio. You could could do high-intensity interval training for up to 15-20 minutes after lifting and not put yourself into a catabolic state, and that will definitely wear your ass out! Then you could rest a whole day, do an endurance run, rest a day, lift and do HIIT, rest a day, do an endurance run, and so on. I understand that you do have to do some endurance runs or you're gonna be hosed when you go to boot camp.

If it was me, well, I wouldn't be joining the army, but if you absolutely must, you can at least do what you can to maximize your recovery time while still getting in the intensity bursts of HIIT, the endurance run training, and allow plenty of recovery time for your muscles to grow from the stimulation that lifting provides. Be sure that you are eating very nutritiously, and get extra sleep. Recovery is where you make the gains.

Best of luck to you.

Hi thanks for your advice, i will find this very helpful. Could you please explain 'HIIT' to me.At the moment i am doing my exercises betwween 12 and 15 reps, Do you think i should be doing heavier weights with less reps or stick with what im doing. I dont want get to big due to the lots of running, so any advice on how to do this would be very helpful. thanks

billyboy87 wrote:I dont want get to big due to the lots of running

Please explain that. You know that lots of running will tend to have the opposite effect, right? Just take a look at the long distance runners; they don't have lots of muscle mass. Or are you saying you don't want to get too big because it will make the running you'll have to do that much harder? Because I can see your point there.

billyboy87 wrote:Could you please explain 'HIIT' to me.At the moment i am doing my exercises betwween 12 and 15 reps, Do you think i should be doing heavier weights with less reps or stick with what im doing

HIIT just stands for high intensity interval training. When used in reference to cardio workouts, it just means doing something like sprinting or elliptical trainer or exercise bike for short bursts of all-out effort followed by very short rest or low intensity efforts, and done for a short duration workout. For example, you might try a light jog for a few minutes to warm up, sprinting for one minute and walking for 30 seconds, and repeating the sprint/walk for about 9-10 minutes, then a light jog or walk for a few minutes to cool down. There are lots of ways to do it, but that's a pretty simple and common example.

If your goal is to gain muscle, you might want to drop your reps to 8-12 instead of 12-15, with a corresponding increase in the weight lifted. If you're only trying to increase strength and don't care about adding size, you can increase the weight a good bit and drop down to sets of 5 with longer rests between sets. More than 12 reps and you are really into the muscular endurance range rather than stimulation for growth or strength. However, that isn't necessarily a bad idea while preparing for boot camp.

They want you lean and mean; added muscle mass just means you'll need to eat more. And trust me, you will probably be hungry all the time and trying to find ways to sneak food. I don't think they could care less if you're big, as long as you can do the workouts. But if they thought you could do the workouts, they'd give you more to do until you can't do them. That's sort of the nature of the beast.

Just make sure you're getting enough recovery time and good nutrition, and train the kind of workouts they'll have you doing in boot camp. That's really the best way to get in shape for the kind of workouts they'll have you doing in boot camp.

thanks alot that was very helpful. yea i ment i dont want to get big because i will have to do a lot of running. thanks again