posted Mon, 04/29/2013 - 22:44
1023
Cardio Interval training question
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I did 3 hours of cardio today. but i divided it into 6 intervals.of. i did 30 mins of cardio around the heart rate of 130 heat beat per min then rested for 5 mins and repeated it 6 times....
my question is : I know that most people consider anything over 45 mins will burn muscles. is doing intervals some how muscle sparring? anybody had experience with this
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Too many variables to consider but my short answer would be, no.
And of course, my long answer:
It depends on your glycogen levels. On a long, 3 hour cardio session, you have depleted your glycogen levels fairly low and are already in the process of breaking down muscle tissue to convert into glycogen. However, breaking it into intervals allows you to replenish glycogen in between for a bit, and also the whole idea of intervals targeting fat more as apposed to carbs in single long sessions. Other factors come into play such as diet and intensity but at 3 total hours of cardio, I would imagine some muscle breakdown would still be occurring
BiteyIf he's doing low intensity wouldn't most of your energy come from lipolysis though?
Yes but a good 35-50% would sill probably come from carbs. Where high intensity would burn at a rate of about 75/25 carbs to fat, low intensity would burn at about 35/65 to 50/50. At 3 hours of cardio, you still reach that threshold of glycogen depletion and muscle breakdown is still an issue.
I'm starting to wonder if you can make up for a low intensity cardio session's carb loss with a well planned out diet though, but you'd also need to know at what rate you can replenish the carbs lost before the next cardio session.
Look up layne norton the guy is a genious, he one of the most intelligent men in bb at this moment in time.
His YouTube channel covers a wide range of questions
This is a very interesting topic. I prefer intervals to long cardio sessions overall for fat burning but couldn't really find any studies out there. But just from an observation standpoint think of competitive sprinters vs. long distance/intermediate distance runners. The sprinters always seem to be absolutely jacked and have a lot of muscle mass while the intermediate/long distance athletes are very lean. I think this would suggest that short burst training might be muscle sparing or even promote muscle building.