When I say ‘cardio’, you say…?
‘P*** off’, most likely.
Cardio has been stripped to within an inch of its far-reaching capabilities over the years, often being visualised as a laborious slog on the treadmill for those trying to expend a few more calories or a safe bet for the gym newcomer when the vastly more intriguing weight machines look a little scary.
We look at cardio primarily as a way of burning more calories. It’s a well-used tool in the pocket of many coaches striving to get an extra few pounds off their clients, and while it’s certainly effective, it is usually accepted as a burden rather than a welcome, positive addition to someone’s lifestyle.
It’s a shame that cardio – or cardiovascular exercise, if we’re going to use its proper name – has been reduced to this. And the reason I use its proper name is because it’s important to remember exactly what’s going on when we perform cardiovascular or aerobic exercise: we’re strengthening one of the most important organs in the body!
You’re probably already acutely aware of the benefits, but that knowledge doesn’t necessarily make you more inclined to participate. I think that may be because completed in isolation, the benefits of performing cardiovascular exercise aren’t hugely tangible. It’s not an effective way of losing weight, it’s not an effective way of building muscle and you can’t necessarily feel yourself getting healthier. People need to see and feel results.
So let’s reframe it.
I was once a staunch dismisser of cardio, but after listening to Luke Leaman (founder of Muscle Nerds) talk about his methods of incorporating aerobic exercise into a programme geared towards building muscle, I changed my mind.
As a coach intent on getting the best results from my clients as possible, it would be negligent of me to be anything short of meticulous when it comes to preparing my client for a body and lifestyle transformation. Realistically, can an overweight, sleep deprived, stressed-out-to-the-max individual dive straight into an incredibly demanding resistance training and nutrition programme without some sort of preparation? Absolutely not.
And when we consider that the aerobic system buffers all other systems, we can now look at cardiovascular exercise as a really efficient preparatory tool when it comes to getting general population clients in shape. By establishing an aerobic base – easily done by incorporating some really light cardiovascular exercise in the form of walking, cycling etc. – we can increase mitochondrial growth, put the body in a better position to oxidise carbohydrates and fats, and improve an individual’s lactate threshold (ability to handle pain in the gym) before they’ve even touched a weight.
If we look at the research, aerobic exercise has also been shown to help improve sleep quality, help improve mood and increase the production of a hormone called FGF21 which is a major regulator of energy homeostasis.
This is a really easy entry point to helping a client improve their sleep, stress and ability to do more in the gym.
Aerobic Training & Resistance Training
We’ve already established that by building an aerobic base we can help a client become more efficient inside the gym.
However, when faced with a client whom we would not consider to be a newcomer to training and who wants to put on as much muscle as possible, would we need to change anything?
As a client’s training age increases, the rate at which they’ll be able to build muscle decreases. We can also say that their ability to gain muscle in a caloric deficit significantly weakens. With this said – and this an approach I’ve taken with myself in the past – I could understand some hesitation surrounding the expenditure of extra calories via cardiovascular exercise.
However, knowing what we now know, that would perhaps be a rather prehistoric way of looking at things. We can’t expect a client to just sit on their arse all day and savour every possible calorie just because they want to gain muscle.
I know plenty of well-trained clients who could benefit from some extra aerobic fitness to improve their training capabilities and if I was to ever consciously programme aerobic exercise into a plan, I’d simply increase calories on days where my client was more active to avoid slipping into a caloric deficit.
Another question that arises is whether those attempting to build as much muscle as possible should be concerned about any potential interference from cardio on the hypertrophy process. As Nuckols (2014) notes, there is an assumption that activating the AMPK pathway (activated by anything that depletes cellular energy e.g. low calorie diet, aerobic exercise etc.) shuts down the MTOR pathway (stimulated by food intake, leucine rich protein sources etc.) Lundberg et al put this fear to rest in 2013 when they concluded that exercise induced AMPK activation does not interfere with muscle hypertrophy in response to resistance training in men.
However, performing aerobic training separate to resistance training may be a good idea when we consider aerobic training in concurrent training (doing cardiovascular and resistance training within the same session or closely together within the same day) can negatively affect acute and chronic hypertrophic responses (Macedo et al, 2019).
CO2 Tolerance
Another area of interest which I’ll probably write more on in the future is Carbon Dioxide tolerance.
The accumulation of co2 and hydrogen ions in the body are the chief factor in fatigue tolerance. A low co2 set-point will stimulate you to over-breathe during exertion and the over-release of co2 accelerates acidosis, making it difficult to maintain intensity levels.
Improving someone’s aerobic fitness is a fantastic way of improving co2 tolerance, but an even better way is to start encouraging a client to breathe through their nose. By breathing in slowly and sparingly through the nose, we increase the levels of co2 in the blood and our blood vessels dilate. This may seem counter-intuitive, but in the presence of carbon dioxide haemoglobin releases oxygen, subsequently lowering blood PH.
You may ask why this is relevant? Nasal breathing also stimulates parasympathetic nerve receptors located in the lower lung helping you to relieve stress and achieve a state of relaxation. For the every-day, busy client, anything that helps to relieve stress is a winner.
Conclusions
- Encouraging light aerobic work at the start of a weight-loss or muscle building journey can help to establish an aerobic base
- The aerobic system buffers all other systems, providing a foundation to work harder inside the gym
- Walking is a fantastic entry point – not only are you conditioning yourself aerobically, you’re also getting outside where the body can synthesise Vitamin D and be around nature
- For those focusing primarily on muscle building, place aerobic work separate to your training
- Aerobic work for those focused primarily on muscle building may still be necessary – e.g. if you begin to tire very quickly at the start of a workout
- By focusing on breathing through the nose rather than the mouth you can improve your co2 tolerance, ability to deal with stress and sleep quality
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