Should I Do Cardio While Bulking

Should I Do Cardio While Bulking

Should You do Cardio While Bulking?

cardio while bulking

Cardio in the Gym

 

 

The first thing to consider is that there is no absolute guideline for doing cardio while bulking. Everyone is different and has a different body type, activity level, appetite, and structure of training routine. It is clear that everyone should be doing some type of cardio regardless of whether or not they are bulking, cutting, or maintaining. If your only goal is to pack on size and strength you can achieve that by skipping cardio. It requires a very clean diet and is not optimal, but it is possible. I do not recommend this approach because it requires much more planning and acquires worse results. 

Cardiovascular Conditioning

When you don’t do any form of cardio, you will have to gradually increase rest time between sets and workouts. This will make your workouts take longer and inevitably you will be less motivated. When doing compound movements with higher rep ranges, you will begin to fatigue very quickly. This takes away from your overall muscle and strength gains. When your cardiovascular levels are low, you start to feel more systemic fatigue from everyday activities. If every time you did a workout and you felt the 4 times you used the stairs, the walk you took, and the cleaning you did around the house your workout would be noticeably worse. Hypothetically, if you did nothing else but go to the gym, then you could get away with not doing any cardio. That is an unrealistic lifestyle, so it is not considered while producing this answer. 

 

Reintroducing Cardio

Once your bulk is over you will most likely want to cut. Trying to start doing cardio again after not doing it for months will be very mentally challenging and cause you to most likely not stick to the plan. You will also have to build up your conditioning again to get anything out of it. If an hour of daily cardio is part of your plan, you will probably have to start with 30 minutes and work your way up. This is because you have not only neglected cardio for so long but also because you are now in a bulked state. If you were to just have done cardio throughout the bulk and kept it a habit then doing more intense cardio during the cut would not be that difficult of a transition.

Active Recovery

Doing steady state cardio between workouts can actually assist with recovery. It promotes blood flow throughout your body and skeletal muscle. This is because any use of your muscles dilates blood vessels within them and any form of movement naturally pushes blood through its circulation. This is beneficial because it will reduce inflammation and soreness in the muscles and even help strengthen joints. When you are sore, your workout quality is automatically decreased, and your risk for injury increases. This can either cause you to have a bad workout or just skip it all together. The light impact of steady state cardio also alleviates joints allowing you to go harder in your workouts because you’re not as worried about joint pain.

 

 What Cardio Should I be Doing

 

Again, it will be different for everyone, but a good routine to follow is 2-4 cardio sessions a week. Half of your sessions should be higher intensity internal movements for roughly 20 minutes and the other half should be lower intensity for 45-60 minutes. It would be best to perform these on off days, but if you are on a 4 or 5 day program then try to do these at least 8 hours before or after your workout. One of the determining factors of whether you should do the 2, 3, or 4 days of cardio is how your body processes calories. If you are a hard gainer then it is suggested that you do 2 or 3. If you have no problem packing on weight then you should be in the 3 or 4 range. Another thing to consider is your activity level outside of your workouts. A more active lifestyle or job would allow you to not do as many days of cardio because the activities you’re doing are burning enough calories to make up for the cardio. Satiety also can be affected by cardio. Sometimes cardio makes people hungrier, sometimes it makes people feel like they can’t eat. Depending on your personal goals, use that to your advantage. If you have trouble hitting your calories and cardio makes you hungry then do more cardio. Lastly, look at your training routine and do what makes sense. If you workout 5 days a week then do fewer cardio sessions or only do low intensity cardio on all 4 days. 

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