CARDIO

HIGH INTENSITY INTERVAL TRAINING VS ENDURANCE

When it comes to cardio you can go down one of two paths, that is moderate pace but for long periods of time (Endurance), or High intensity for short periods of time repeated in repetitions (High Intensity Training).

Now picture a marathon runner, they are very lean, not a huge amount of visible muscle but can run for hours and hours at a time, so what type of cardio do they do? Endurance. When you do long periods of cardio your body has little energy left over to contribute to muscle growth and repair and so muscle is sacrificed. Therefore we can say this type of cardio is catabolic (results in the breakdown of muscle). This also is key in endurance runners as muscles require oxygen, so the less muscle you have the less fatigued more quickly you become.

However when you look at professional sprinters, they have huge quantities of muscle mass, specially designed for anaerobic respiration over sprints of no longer than 20 seconds. When you have this scenario the cardio exercise does not last long enough to break into your muscle to break it down for energy and so muscle mass can be maintained. This is classed as anabolic (Building of muscle); it has also been proven that this type of cardio increases your testosterone production in the bod which in turn can cause maximal muscle growth throughout the body.

So if your overall goal is to lean down and build your body for marathons then set your pace right and hit the machine for as long as you can go. However if you're looking for that bulky, defined look and still need to incorporate cardio into your workouts then try high intensity interval training, for example go on a treadmill, jog at a comfortable pace for a minute and then sprint all out for 15-20 seconds. Repeat this 15-20 times and this will maximise testosterone production to help build muscle