#013 Cardio 101

Welcome back to the 13th edition of the Boats & Logs Lifting Club. I really appreciate you being here. We are the based fitness community that focuses on mastering the basics instead of getting lost in the details.

Today, we will be discussing cardio and how we can get the biggest health benefits while minimizing our effort and keeping the focus on muscle growth. I asked you beforehand what you would like to know about cardio and tried to answer as many of your questions as possible here.

I hope you enjoy this newsletter.

The Boats & Logs Approach to Cardio

Cardio has always been a weakness for many lifters. The reasons for that are many. Some don’t do cardio because they perceive it as boring or too time-consuming. Others don’t do it because it is not as rewarding as a pump after a good workout and knowing that you just built muscle or because it may even interfere with building muscle. And some just don’t care.

But all that shouldn’t matter to us because cardio is a non-negotiable for a long and healthy life.

To find the right balance between prioritizing muscle growth while still getting most of the health benefits, our approach is to apply an effective minimum for cardio.

Why you should be doing Cardio

The name cardio, short for cardiovascular system, already tells you why you need to be doing cardio: It strengthens your heart.

- YOUR - MOST - IMPORTANT - MUSCLE -

Some of the benefits can include (but are not limited to) control of blood pressure, lower stroke risk, strengthened heart, and an improved immune system. Additionally, cardio releases a high amount of endorphins, which increase your mood.

Besides the obvious health benefits, cardio is also a good tool to regulate your energy balance. When you have problems reaching your daily calorie goal consistently because you perceive it as too low and you are overeating, a strategy for you could be increasing cardio. Then, instead of lowering your calorie intake, you are increasing your calorie burn, which could allow you to reach your targeted energy balance.

Improving your cardio can also have a positive impact on your general performance in the gym. By being in a better physical condition, the workout may be less exhausting to you, which will allow you to perform on a high level for a longer time and, as a consequence, stimulate the muscles more efficiently.

Some low-intensity forms of cardio can also have a direct positive impact on hypertrophy by boosting recovery through increased blood flow through the muscle.

Negative Effects on Hypertrophy

A common excuse to skip cardio is that it hinders hypertrophy. While there is some truth to it, we can minimize the negative effect of cardio on hypertrophy. As we laid out before, cardio can also positively impact hypertrophy and has immense health benefits.

The benefits of cardio greatly outweigh the negatives.

But now, let’s focus on the two downsides that occur when our priority is building muscle and cardio mainly serves health purposes: Energy Balance and Recovery.

As listed under the benefits, many people are doing cardio to lose weight. The reason? They want to burn more calories to reach a caloric deficit.

But when we focus on building muscle, we want to have a calorie surplus. By doing cardio, our body requires more energy and burns more calories, making it harder to reach a calorie surplus.

This actively works against our goal of putting on muscles. Luckily, we can quite easily diffuse this problem. First of all, cardio does not burn as many calories as many people believe. Especially if you are keeping it to an effective minimum, as we describe below. Secondly, to still build muscle and counter the higher energy consumption of our body, we simply need to feed it additional calories to make up for the higher burn rate.

The other downside of cardio you may have is recovery. As with any kind of exercise, cardio puts stress on your body too. If this interferes with your workouts, this can slow your progress and/or lead to injuries. Luckily, the risk of interfering with recovery is greatly overblown. Especially when you are sticking to an effective minimum, you don’t need to worry much about it.

The only type of cardio that has a realistic negative impact on your recovery is running. While running is great because you don’t need any extra equipment for it, it has some downsides from a hypertrophy aspect.

The problem with running can be that it puts a lot of eccentric stress on your body during the landing. Especially when you are taking longer runs or multiple runs a week, this can interfere with your leg workouts.

Better options you can more easily recover from are swimming, cycling, AirBike, or rowing, as these types of cardio are more concentric focussed.

Not a direct downside but another factor to consider is that your performance in the gym will most likely be lower if you have done intense cardio before your workout, which will directly impact the quality of your workout and, consequently, hypertrophy. Therefore, I’d generally advise you to do cardio after your workout.

Low Intensity Steady State (LISS) vs. High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT)

For most people, low intensity steady state training is the first form of cardio they think of. It is basically what is also described as “Zone 2 cardio”. LISS focuses on reaching around 60-70% of your maximum heart rate and holding that for at least 20-30 minutes.

Typical examples are jogging or cycling, but also fast walking or hiking get close to LISS.

An often included benchmark is getting at least 120 minutes of LISS per week. To reach this benchmark, you don’t need to be doing four 30-minute runs per week, as fast walking can also be counted towards LISS. While more LISS rarely hurts, getting in 2-3 dedicated LISS sessions of 30 minutes per week is already quite good.

As LISS is, by definition, low intensity, you can do this form of cardio basically every day (maybe with the exception of running) without needing to worry much about recovery. However, doing LISS is a time investment you need to take.

A more time-efficient way to do cardio is by doing High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT). As the name suggests, this method contains high intensity and intervals.

An example would be doing ten rounds of going as hard as you can on the AirBike for 20 seconds and then resting for 40 seconds. By applying high intensity, you are pushing your heart rate towards its maximum.

One thing to be careful about with HIIT is the high intensity. Due to the fact that it is very taxing on your body, you shouldn’t be doing more than 1-2 HIIT sessions per week in the beginning.

As you can see, HIIT is very time efficient by only requiring 1-2 sessions of 10-20 minutes per week.

If your main goal is fat loss, it also doesn’t matter much which kind of cardio you are choosing.

While HIIT tends to burn more calories per minute than LISS, this effect will most likely be neutralized because you can do LISS more often per week as you don’t need to worry about recovering and can do more sessions per week.

Applying this all to the effective minimum

As our main goal is muscle growth, with as little time spent in the gym as possible, we are also applying the same logic to cardio. We will start with the basics that provide the biggest upside and then add additional exercises you can but don’t have to add depending on your goals.

Level 1:
As it is the most efficient way to do cardio and also the only way to truly get your heart rate pumping, a once-a-week 10-20-minute HIIT session of your choice should be the basis of your cardio work. I personally like to use the AirBike for that, as it puts less stress on the body compared to sprints.

Level 2:
If you are fine with doing only one HIIT session per week and can’t or don’t want to invest more time into the gym that’s ok. In that case, you should definitely leverage your day-to-day to get in at least a little bit of additional LISS cardio. This can include taking the stairs instead of the elevator (bonus points if you take them as fast as possible) or simply getting off the metro a station early and walking the remaining distance (again, bonus points if you are doing it at 2x speed).

Level 3:
For better results, however, you should also include at least some LISS training. Doing 1-3 sessions for 30 minutes each is a good ballpark.

That all being said, doing the cardio that is most fun to you is what you should be doing. The rest is optimization. Even taking one 20-minute run per week has great benefits for your health and is something you should continue doing.

Also, the type of cardio you choose depends on your goals. Are you training for a marathon? Are you trying to burn as many calories as possible, or are you trying to minimize your calorie burn?

Thank you for reading today's newsletter. I tried to answer as many of your questions as possible. If you have further questions, simply DM me on Instagram.

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Stay strong,
Boats & Logs

Disclaimer

This is not Legal, Medical, or Financial advice. Before starting any workout program, diet plan, or supplement protocol, please consult a medical professional. These are the opinions from an AI voice.