Q: When is the best time for cardio? I’ve tried first thing in the morning before breakfast, but I felt tired and burned out by mid-morning, and my job suffered. Is right after a weight-training workout good? If so, for how many minutes? I’m trying to get lean while it’s still summer.
A: Steve interviewed two top researchers, Gabriel Wilson, M.S., and Jacob Wilson, Ph.D., and they believe cardio first thing in the morning on an empty stomach is HIGHLY catabolic. In other words, it wastes away your hard-earned muscle tissue. That makes sense considering you’ve been fasting for eight hours or more while you slept and your body is in the early stages of starvation.
That means your body will burn way too much muscle in order to preserve fat because it perceives famine. That also means lots of fatigue (as you found out). Therefore, cardio first thing in the morning on an empty stomach might not be a bodybuilder’s best choice.
The best time for cardio, according to the Wilson brothers, is right after a weight-training workout, something we also recommended in our Fat-to-Muscle e-book. We suggest about 20 minutes of medium-intensity work on a treadmill right after your last set of weights.
After a workout is when you’ve burned off all the sugar in your blood stream, so your body will go to bodyfat immediately for the energy it needs during medium-intensity cardio. Go only hard enough to where your breathing elevates—but not so hard that you couldn’t carry on a coherent conversation.
By building muscle and burning more fat, you’ll get size and definition that looks like a relief map. Let ‘er rip!
NOTE: Both our X-treme Lean fat-burning and nutrition guide and our Fat-to-Muscle e-book are available separately, or you can get both of those 2 e-books PLUS X-traordinary Abs at a ridiculously low $17.00 (for all 3!) HERE.
Till next time, train hard—and smart—for BIG results.
—Steve Holman and Jonathan Lawson
www.X-Rep.com
NO MORE SHOULDER PAIN
Shoulder pain can affect your workouts forever. That’s not good!
That’s why we’re recommending advice from injury specialist Rick Kaselj, MS. His tips can help make your shoulders nearly bullet-proof.
Here are a few general tips from Rick (he goes into more detail in his program)…
Top 5 Tips To Bullet-Proof Your Shoulders
- Build Tension in Your Lats. When doing shoulder exercises, activate your lats and keep your shoulders happy.
- Prime Up Your Muscles. Most people do a warm-up that just lubricates the joint, but you need to activate and turn on all the muscles in your upper body.
- Technique, Technique, Technique. This is the number one reason why people injure their shoulders. You can’t go to the gym every day and work on your max lift.
- Watch Out for Fatigue. Cooking your smaller muscles in your shoulder complex, and that increases the risk of shoulder injury and pain.
- Work on Your Shoulder Blade Muscles. Many strength coaches will say you’re wasting your time on this, but if you want to have bullet-proof shoulders, you need to work on them.
Get all of Rick’s tips and tricks for pain-free workouts below: