Tuesday, 4 December 2012

Is Doing Cardio Before Weights Bad For Your Muscles?

http://nyti.ms/UdLX36
Is Doing Cardio Before Weights Bad For Your Muscles?
Is it a good idea to perform strength training and aerobic exercise on the same day?

As any modern bodybuilder, or even someone who aims at putting on muscle mass knows, the line between anaerobic and aerobic exercise is not always clear. In fact, it’s often filled with many shades of grey, which some might even call transparent. The point being--up until not too long ago, the philosophy towards adding muscle mass was that aerobic exercise was for runners and other endurance athletes, while anaerobic exercise was for bodybuilders and other strength athletes. The two separate exercise divisions were not to be mixed without repercussions - many of which were thought to be counterproductive.

Despite millions of dollars spent every year on exercise research, there are no large-scale studies that give a clear answer. But research papers released in 2012 from Sweden and Canada, attempt to shed a little light on the subject.

These results were a major breakthrough for the fitness industry. But perhaps the most definitive conclusion from the study came as the researchers concluded "aerobic exercise can precede resistance exercise on the same day without compromising results." Additionally, further studies showed that the same goes for the alternative method of doing cardio following a resistance workout. Either way there were no conflicting results.

An additional conclusion from the studies showed that doing a workout of half endurance and half resistance training can produce the same results as doing a full workout of one or the other.