The Motor Unit Biweekly

I get this a lot when I talk to my corporate colleagues. No, scratch that, It’s not just them. It seems like it’s almost everyone out there and social media memes are not helping too.

Seems like they’re all screaming the same thing - “Cardio kills your gains!”.

So, is there any truth to it? Can one get stronger, build muscle, and still improve their cardiovascular endurance? Or does one just resign themselves to one or the other nook?

I’m Hari, a strength, conditioning, and nutrition coach and I aim to use concurrent training methods to help people build a strong and well-conditioned body and I’m going to get into why you can have your cake and eat it too in this pilot newsletter article of mine.

Now, does concurrent training kill your gains?

Well, it’s a lot more complicated than that. I say this because, with the right programming and intensity, it can actually help you make better strength and muscle gains (but more on how it can support this will be dealt with in the next post). For now, I’m going to deal with how you can make it so that it doesn’t kill your gains.

A meta-analysis study¹ published in 2021 states that your lower body strength gains take a beating when you’re well-trained and you decide to cram, let’s say, a run for 30 minutes and then follow that up with a session of lower body strength training within a few minutes of each other. On the other hand, if you’re only just starting on your journey to build strength and endurance or if you’re someone who’s been training only for a few months, then this interference effect isn’t going to be a major impediment.

So, if you’ve been following a resistance training protocol with proper form for at least a year or if you’re someone who has a lot on your plate like a student, a professional, or a professional juggling parenthood then it’s best to space out your strength training and cardio sessions by 24 hours ideally to prevent overtraining and/or the interference. If you’re an athlete, then you can think about spacing them out by 4 to 6 hours at least.

This is just one side of the coin. The next question is how intense should the cardio session be to not interfere with your strength gains while still helping you improve your cardiovascular health and endurance. Guidelines here would be training for 30 minutes two to three times a week with your heart rate hovering in Zone 2 (Zone 3 as an upper end).

Zone 2 heart rate is 60% to 70% (Zone 3 - 70% to 80%) of your maximum heart rate and a general estimation of your maximum heart rate is 220 minus your age. So, for a 30 year old the maximum heart rate is going to be 190 beats per minute and their zone 2 is probably going to be between 114 to 133 bpm. The easiest way one can train zone 2 is by running at a steady and easy pace for 30 minutes continuously.

If steady-pace running is not your thing, you can also try tempo intervals where you run hard for 15 seconds and then slow down to an easy pace for 45 seconds. Repeat 20 to 30 times so that your heart rate averages out at zone 2 for the entirety of those 20 to 30 minutes. If running is not your cup of tea, you can just as easily replace it with other forms of cyclical work like cycling, the jump rope, or the rowing machine. You could even mix up all these modalities across a 30-minute circuit to spice it up.

What is this going to look like every week? For someone who likes training full-body strength sessions three times a week, that’s going to look like this -

Monday, Wednesday, Friday - Full-body strength

Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday - Cardiovascular conditioning (steady state or tempo intervals or mixed modalities)

Now, I notice that I’ve covered only one aspect of resistance training, which is strength training and that is different from training to build muscles and explosive strength. These aspects of resistance training bring in their nuances when training them concurrently with aerobic training (cardio), and I’ll be digging into these and other topics that could help you make better gains from your programming.

Until next time!

References:

1. Petré H, Hemmingsson E, Rosdahl H, et al. Development of maximal dynamic strength during concurrent resistance and endurance training in untrained, moderately trained, and trained individuals: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Sports Med. 2021. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40279-021-01426-9