Bulking should i do cardio

A clean bulk always looks better than getting sloppy! It is pretty safe to say that everyone wants to have a muscular, lean physique. Getting that muscular physique is going to take a lot of hard work and dedication.

With all of the different bulking programs out there it is easy to become lost and confused as to what is the correct way to gain muscle. To help with that confusion I am going to list my "Top 10 Rules Of Successful Clean Bulking" These rules are the main principles and keys to a successful bulking program and apply to anyone who is looking to gain muscle. Unless you are carrying a large amount of fat or you are just starting to weight train you are not going to lose fat while trying to gain muscle.

If your primary goal is to gain muscle then focus on that. To keep your gains lean you want to gain at a rate of about 0. If you don't track your progress then you won't know if you aren't gaining at all or if you are gaining too fast and adding unnecessary body fat.

You will most likely gain some fat when bulking. In order to gain muscle you have to eat more calories than you burn and doing so can lead to some fat gain. Some lifters opt to add cardio to their training plan during a bulk, however this could actually be counterproductive to your bulking efforts if you are a hard gainer.

For others, adding some low-intensity cardio may be beneficial at maintaining base fitness levels. So what type of cardio should you do when bulking? The 3 best options for cardio when bulking are: 1 keep it minimal and limit it as much as possible, 2 do low-intensity bouts between minutes, or 3 do high-intensity bouts between minutes.

In this article, we will discuss what types of cardio should you do to not impede on the weight gain goal of a bulking period. Need a workout program? Get 3 free workouts on Fitbod right now. What Is a Bulk? Bulking is a process where a lifter consumes a calorie surplus opposite of calorie deficit in a progressive manner to maximize weight gain and minimize body fat gain during this period however gaining some bodyfat is inevitable. Cardio during a bulk can be a tricky question.

Below are some pros and cons of adding cardio into your bulking training regiment. Cardiovascular fitness is a key indicator of heart health and can help alleviate increased blood pressure, decrease stress, and improve health. If you are someone who has poor cardiovascular fitness prior to the bulk, adding light intensity exercise a few days a week minutes bouts can help to improve cardiovascular health and wellness.

Even though I eventually damaged my knees running and this was the result of aggressive foolishness, and would never have happened if I had been training with a knowledgeable coach , running was something I did passably well, and truly enjoyed. When I was in my thirties, I would run about thirty miles a week. Most weeks I would run every day, at a comfortable pace.

Maybe once in a while I wold crank out a mean one, which might involve two continuous minutes of moderate stress. It was fun, and it kept me quite healthy. I am frequently tired. If you could assign physical strength on a bell curve, parallel to the one for IQ scores, where a score of would be average and would be the threshold for competitive athleticism at the college level, my score would be about Well below average.

It took me a while to understand that I was not aesthetically displeasing. Seen that one? On the cover will be a handsome guy in his mid-twenties who is not only physically gifted, but who probably spends about ten hours a week working out.

And we are being told that this is an ordinary man and that we can all look like he does with a little effort. And I had to learn that I look okay even though I could never look like that. Do you really want to be tired all the time, and having to get up the nerve to make more effort? Having been very skinny myself, and having dealt with the skinniest guys around, I can tell you with a great degree of confidence that even the hardgaineriest of ectomorphs can get far bigger and leaner than Sean Connery in a very short timeframe without more than around 3 hours per week in the gym, with an extremely low risk of injury, and with an overall very positive effect on their health.

How long will it take a very skinny guy to get to Sean Connery levels? We can run into similar issues if we build our workout routines around methods that only stockier guys excel at. You may also be overestimating the effort that it takes to maintain a bigger, more muscular physique. It requires far less time in the gym, far less intensity, far less specificity, and the needs for a caloric surplus are gone, so you can go back to eating a comfortable, normal amount of food.

You go back to listening to your appetite. There is no lifelong, daily struggle. Charlie Hunnam was on there , and a skinny guy can have a physique like that in no time if he works a little for it and 3 hours per week is plenty , and he can maintain that with almost zero effort.

You get stuff like that on there sometimes. Want to be a doctor but getting into med school will be hard? Want a wife but asking a girl out is hard? Probably worthwhile to do it anyway. Want a family but raising children is hard? Again, a worthwhile struggle.

And the types of people who accomplish their goals, even if those goals are difficult to achieve, tend to attract great people into their lives, and tend to live the lives they actually want. If I can just get back to my original point, extrapolating from my data set of one datum me , I have found aerobic running pleasant and healthful, and I believe that it is the form of exercise that does me the most benefit.

My experience with weightlifting was not only very unpleasant, it was fruitless. When I lifted weights I just got tired, and did not change my overall body shape. Not even a little. This was over the course of a year, when I was nineteen. The thing you have to admit about ectomorphs and mesomorphs is that they are two different kinds of people, with different reactions to physical effort.

When I was in university, I knew a guy who was on the hockey team. A very strong, heroically well-built guy. Six foot three and about pounds One of my little self-inflicted odeals at that time was running up stairs. I lived in a ten-storey student residence, and I would run the stairs from the basement up to the roof. I could do about one-and-half trips and I would be exhausted. The hockey guy would do ten.

He got mononucleosis. I asked him, how did you know you had mono? And then he said, he normally never got tired. That was a revelation to me, as I was tired pretty much all the time, from working out.

What I mean is, I had to come to terms with the fact that strong people are working with a completely different set of tools, and there was no way I was ever going to be anything but a failed imitation of a strong man, no matter what I ate or how much I lifted.

And you can see that phenomenon in the physical histories of many people. Norton bulked up for that movie, but at no time does he look like a true mesomorph like, say, Vin Diesel. He looks like an ectomorph who has bulked up. If Diesel had never worked out he would still have been wonderfully strong when he was twenty, and Norton could never have been that strong, no matter what. You pretty much have to concede that mesomorphs have a huge natural advantage in life. It must be wonderful to know that you can handle most jobs without getting tired, or that you can beat up most people, or that people will admire you on sight because of your obvious superiority.

Doing modest amount of cardio is great for general health and mood. I too struggled at 19, as did most of our members, but we found a way around it. And then I figured out how to lift and eat in a way that suited my body type, and I was able to move up to pounds after just a couple years.

Modest training always. Doing supersets is good for cardio, doing heavy deadlifts and farmer carries is great for bone density. While bulking up, it would make tired and sore, yes, especially at first. But then my body adapted to it, growing fitter, better able to resist the stressors of lifting. Now, instead of draining me, the workouts pump me up. They clear my head, improve my concentration. Most importantly, when you gain the weight you want, you can go back to eating a regular amount of food.

That frees up a TON of energy. Ectomorphs and mesomorphs are different, yeah, sure, but we can bulk up too. Most Hollywood sex icons and even most Hollywood superheroes seem to be ectomorphs. I disagree. I think our hand is actually pretty great, we just need to learn how to take advantage of it.

You won the argument fairly. You stayed polite throughout. You convinced me that you are correct because you kept arguing rationally from observed fact. As for me, I sure do love to run, and I sure did not love to lift weights. I may be an extreme case; I have gained only fifteen pounds since I was twenty, which is a trivial amount for a man my height. I actually view this as a gift, because I know so many people my age who are trying to lose weight.

Thank you. And not trending towards obesity is definitely an advantage that many of us ectomorphs share. I wish I would have read this when I was in the army. I was actually when I enlisted in and I struggled constantly through my military career making tape. I see now where my flaws were but at the same time still out of my control at the time. My unit in Ft. Bragg focused heavily on running pt, because there was a large number of soldiers with poor run times.

So I had no choice but to run an average of 15 miles a week just for pt even though my run time was sub when a time is the minimum time for a max run score. Then not to mention all the other forms of cardio we performed through out the week. I was just doing way too much cardio and being starved of calories from the militarys meal plan.

Funny how it works out that way. Thank you for the comment, thdude. Definitely exciting to have more freedom over your exercise routine, though! I already lift weights three times a week but i have a question about fat loss. Apart from the beneficial effects of walking for other reasons ex. I know, the question seems silly, but if fat loss is just a matter of calories, why not sitting on the couch all day and just doing some exercises three days a week?

Losing fat is ultimately about getting into a calorie deficit: burning more calories than you eat. So, yeah, you can do that by either burning more calories or eating fewer calories. But which is better? So, first of all, both approaches will work. And in terms of simply burning fat during a cut, both will produce near-identical results.

However, in terms of general health and long-term body composition, the research tends to favour getting leaner by burning more calories. Why would a higher g-flux be associated with better health and body composition?

There are a couple reasons. First, the more active you are, the better it is for your cardiovascular health. And you can always start exercising more and burning more calories once you finish losing weight and switch to focusing on gaining muscle and strength, which would raise your metabolism a great deal anyway, giving you many of the benefits of having a high energy flux.

But some guys cut by reducing their calorie intake and only doing cardio. There are some upper-body […]. Cardio tends to come naturally to […]. Those short rest times wreck muscle growth study , transforming the workout into a cardio workout. Or, according to […]. You could still play […]. This might mean doing squats in moderate rep ranges 6—10, say to improve cardiovascular fitness along with muscle […].

If your program has more emphasis on endurance, cardio, or strength, the soreness might indicate stimulation of whole separate type of adaptation.

In […]. Unfortunately, that approach has since been studied and judged […]. Remember, that in order to build muscle, you need to maintain a caloric surplus at all times. So […]. So, let me tell you I started working out following your guide on bodyweight two weeks ago and I already gained more than a pound and a half! Am I right? Please, let me know If I am wrong. Both can be combined with a good muscle-building program if you do it properly.

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. Notify me of follow-up comments by email. Notify me of new posts by email. If you like the blog, you'll love the newsletter. It kicks off with a series about how to build muscle:.

Table of Contents. Does Cardio Reduce Muscle Growth? Does Cardio Reduce Fat Gain? Should We Do Cardio Fasted? Shane Duquette. Sign up for our 5-part bulking mini-course that covers everything you need to know about: Hardgainer genetics and how to make the most of them How to take a minimalist approach to bulking while still getting great results What you need to know about aesthetics, health and strength while bulking up.

Is Bulking Healthy? Can We Make it Healthier? Great article as usual! Shane Duquette on October 3, at pm. Thanks man, glad you enjoyed it! Greg on January 27, at pm. Shane Duquette on January 29, at pm. Shane Duquette on December 9, at pm. Good luck! Denis on October 3, at am. Luke Renia on October 3, at pm. Shane Duquette on October 4, at pm. Daniel on October 3, at pm. Mannie on October 26, at am. Any advice would be greatly appreciated! Shane Duquette on October 26, at pm.

Mannie on October 27, at am. Just want to add that i believe you have a very impressive blog, brilliant! Shane Duquette on July 6, at am. Paul on January 23, at am. Shane Duquette on January 23, at pm. Paul on January 28, at am. I hope that helps. Good luck man! N33 on January 28, at pm. Hey there, I was wondering would sprints help with burning off excess fat around the belly? Thanks for any feedback!

I hope that helps man, good luck! Jared on February 26, at am. Shane Duquette on February 28, at pm. Armid on May 15, at pm. Hey, awesome read!!! Shane Duquette on May 16, at pm. Marcus on August 27, at pm. Shane Duquette on August 29, at pm.

Just start eating more McDonalds and more time sitting down :S But I think what you mean is that you want a normal healthy and athletic body though, like you said, i. Matija on October 14, at pm. Shane Duquette on October 14, at pm. Despite all of this, it is true that excess cardio will inhibit growth. High intensity cardio burns far too many calories to incorporate into your bulk.

This means that you need to stick to low intensity exercise that promotes cardiovascular health without burning too many calories. Walking, jogging, cycling and elliptical machines are all good options for this. The benefits of cardio are too good to ignore, so keep up your cardio while bulking and build a bigger, cleaner and healthier physique. Send me offers and news. I understand Maximuscle will use my personal data to improve services and send me marketing communications , I also agree to the Privacy Policy.

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