Cardiovascular exercise is an important part of our healthy lifestyle. It helps you burn more calories, improves your heart health and reduces your risk of chronic diseases.
But here a common question arises whether doing cardio can lead to muscle loss. Fitness professionals often recommend leaving cardio out for those looking to gain strength and size.
Statements like cardio will burn muscles, decrease muscle mass or put you in a catabolic state, which is something that’ll probably leave people ignoring the cardio exercise to only pick up the weights. But what’s the truth?
Does cardio cause muscle loss?
Yes, cardio causes muscle loss but only if you are not doing enough weight training or nourishing your workout with proper nutrients. Cardio does not cause muscle loss automatically, but it can if you are making these 3 mistakes.
Doing too much cardio.
Doing cardio at the wrong time.
Doing the wrong type of cardio.
Doing too much cardio can cause muscle loss.
- One common mistake people make is that they do too much cardio.
- When someone wants to lose fat, they prefer cardio as their first choice.
- Cardio will indeed burn more amount of calories, but that doesn’t mean cardio is the best way to lose fat.
- Cardio will help you to some extent for fat loss but the main tool to get higher fat loss is your BMR (Basal Metabolic Rate).
- Elevated BMR will help burn higher amounts of calories at relative rest.
- One should focus on lifting weights to get more fat loss and prevent muscle loss.
- Keep your cardio sessions 25-30 minutes, 1-2 times a week to prevent muscle loss.
Doing cardio at the wrong time can cause muscle loss.
- The second common mistake people make is that they do cardio at the wrong time.
- Most people do a treadmill, elliptical or any other cardio equipment before they start the workout as a warm-up exercise.
- Instead of doing cardio and weights on the same day, keep both on separate days to get better muscle growth. Cardio also decreases lifting strength.
- If you’re doing both on the same day because of your different goals, keep your cardio workout after completing weights.
- For warm-up before weight training, you can do mobility drills or dynamic stretches. It will help your joints to perform well.
Doing the wrong type of cardio can cause muscle loss.
- The third common mistake people make is the selection of a cardio workout.
- Most people choose running as their cardio workout.
- Despite popular belief, running may not be the best form of cardio. All forms of high-impact cardio, such as running, jump rope and sprinting have significant eccentric components.
- These eccentric components are responsible for lower body muscle damage, which requires time to recover from.
- The best form of cardio that you can do is low-impact cardio such as elliptical, cycling or incline walking.
Conclusion
Each form of exercise is equally important. It is up to your fitness goal and what you intend to focus on primarily. Cardio and weight both are equally beneficial for the body. But choosing cardio the smarter way will help you go longer in the fitness race.
From the above article, you get the conclusion that-
Does cardio burn muscle if done in moderation? probably not.
Does cardio burn muscle if it is done excessively? It could decrease your potential muscle growth.
Understanding how cardio affects your gains or losses is vitally important.
