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Will 15-20 minutes elliptical prior to lifting decrease gains at all?

john10960

Member
Hi. I know this is an age old question.

brief reading on the internet tells me some studies show that cardio combined with lifting can inhibit muscle gains on some level.

what is everyone’s thoughts here? Thanks!!
 
What is the end goal?>

If you goal is muscular growth and do any cardio before a lift sesh, keep it to 10 minutes for a warmup. Anything longer will activate AMPK and that will stop mTOR in its tracks. Doing it after is better for muscle growth but even then, there is a fine line.
Too much activity always makes growth hard to achieve, especially au natural.

If you are trying to lose BF then It would be smart to do cardio first. In this case muscle growth is not the main concern, and thus you would want AMPK activation for maximum fat burning effects.
 
Very intensity dependable. Walking on the treadmill at 2.3 mph, especially with a preworkout meal about two hours ago is not going to matter IMO. Even less so if using an intra.

If doing "cardio" for anything other than a warmup I would always choose post weights.
 
Im gonna say it absolutely will not hinder gains unless someone is so out of shape that 15min of cardio uses up all there energy. Or there doing 15min high intensity, thats a bad idea.

I usually will reccomend ppl do 10-15min On the elliptical machine pre workout just to kinda get loosened up and get the blood flowing
 
Most ppl in the BB world call walking on a treadmill cardio, if thats cardio, then my job is eight hours of cardio every day and I will never make gains😞, luckily thats not cardio
 
Smont said:
Im gonna say it absolutely will not hinder gains unless someone is so out of shape that 15min of cardio uses up all there energy. Or there doing 15min high intensity, thats a bad idea.

I usually will reccomend ppl do 10-15min On the elliptical machine pre workout just to kinda get loosened up and get the blood flowing
Click to expand...

I do this. Been doing it for years. 15 min on the treadmill and 2.5 mph for 15 min just to get the blood flowing. I don’t count it as cardio.
 
Thanks for all the replies guys!

So most likely doing cardio 15-20 prior will not result in me seeing a drop off in gains.

thanks for your in depth reply Resolve. Just through my minimal reading on a google search I somewhat arrived at same conclusion although there seemed to be a bit more ambiguity.

at the end of the day, I’m gathering, I would not see a reduction in my gains and would only see an improvement in cardiovascular health.

my next question would be, would it be even more unlikely to see a reduction in gains if I saved cardio for a non lift day or off day?
 
Resolve10 said:
Short answer:
Anyone who tells you cardio is going to limit your gains to a meaningful degree either A) Likely doesn't actually know what they are talking about B) Probably doesn't actually do (read avoids) cardio anyways so their advice probably isn't that useful C) Is at a level of development advanced enough you’d probably know if you were there and not be worried about these types of things

Slightly more nuanced answer:
15-20 minutes before your session will likely only provide a negative effect if it is too intense or you are so out of shape (or both) that doing it limits your ability to perform high quality work in your lifting session (through various means of fatigue).

In which case you may find it beneficial to switch your cardio to after, move your cardio to another portion of the day, or just suck it up and accept slightly worse workouts with the goal of improving your cardiovascular fitness for better long term gains (especially if you are this out of shape it probably should have some focus in your plan).

Long answer everyone will skip:
A lot of this topic comes from misunderstandings of energy systems and older research that showed "potential" for interference.

MoreInvalid Link Removed after more studies have been done tends to show

Therefore for most people who lift this really is a very small issue and probably not worth stressing over. Athletes with varying needs of explosive strength may need to keep training alterations in mind, but even most of them will still need it at various points in their training career/season, which is why smart programming is important.

If anything I'd make an argument, with a couple caveats at the end, that most people need more cardio and/or need to be in better shape if they want to make continual gains over a long training career.

Since most people probably didn't even make it this far I'll try to keep it brief for those who are still reading.

We see muscle capillarization may help with perfusion and that increases in capillary density may lead to larger increases in satellite cell content and hypertrophy versus low capillary density. Showing being in better shape before hypertrophy training may lead to larger gains (and is one of my hypothesis for why slower gains may be more sustainable or why certain individuals may struggle to maintain levels with faster approaches since increases in muscle capillary density and perfusion may be a slow). Studies Invalid Link Removed and Invalid Link Removed.

Now caveats:
Obviously (maybe not) this doesn't mean you can just do infinite cardio and infinite training and just act like it will be fine. The closer you are to upper limits/abilities, the harder either is taxing your recovery, and potentially other factors will impact the degree these things interact. For most people who are mostly focused on hypertrophy it probably still makes sense to:
1) Potentially limit the total amount done around a training session if cardiovascular benefits aren't the main goal.
2) Potentially split the sessions if your needs and recovery demand enough from both types of training.
3) Potentially have different focuses at specific times of the year understanding you may put some things slightly on the backburner in hopes of better long term outcomes.

But again that is why smart training is beneficial and most people who will tell you it is going to be a problem don't understand most of the above and probably don't actually do any of the above and finally most of the people worried about this probably are nowhere near the level they need to be to be that worried about it.

TLDR you are most likely fine and that amount shouldn’t be an issue.
Click to expand...
I read every word
 
Well, I train 6-7 days currently, rotating muscle groups and push pull.
That’s why I asked about cardio during training days as I’m in the gym essentially every day. It’s equally about structure and stress relief as it is to hypertrophy and strength gain.

I would do moderate jogging or moderate elliptical
 
Resolve10 said:
Short answer:
Anyone who tells you cardio is going to limit your gains to a meaningful degree either A) Likely doesn't actually know what they are talking about B) Probably doesn't actually do (read avoids) cardio anyways so their advice probably isn't that useful C) Is at a level of development advanced enough you’d probably know if you were there and not be worried about these types of things

Slightly more nuanced answer:
15-20 minutes before your session will likely only provide a negative effect if it is too intense or you are so out of shape (or both) that doing it limits your ability to perform high quality work in your lifting session (through various means of fatigue).

In which case you may find it beneficial to switch your cardio to after, move your cardio to another portion of the day, or just suck it up and accept slightly worse workouts with the goal of improving your cardiovascular fitness for better long term gains (especially if you are this out of shape it probably should have some focus in your plan).

Long answer everyone will skip:
A lot of this topic comes from misunderstandings of energy systems and older research that showed "potential" for interference.

MoreInvalid Link Removed after more studies have been done tends to show

Therefore for most people who lift this really is a very small issue and probably not worth stressing over. Athletes with varying needs of explosive strength may need to keep training alterations in mind, but even most of them will still need it at various points in their training career/season, which is why smart programming is important.

If anything I'd make an argument, with a couple caveats at the end, that most people need more cardio and/or need to be in better shape if they want to make continual gains over a long training career.

Since most people probably didn't even make it this far I'll try to keep it brief for those who are still reading.

We see muscle capillarization may help with perfusion and that increases in capillary density may lead to larger increases in satellite cell content and hypertrophy versus low capillary density. Showing being in better shape before hypertrophy training may lead to larger gains (and is one of my hypothesis for why slower gains may be more sustainable or why certain individuals may struggle to maintain levels with faster approaches since increases in muscle capillary density and perfusion may be a slow). Studies Invalid Link Removed and Invalid Link Removed.

Now caveats:
Obviously (maybe not) this doesn't mean you can just do infinite cardio and infinite training and just act like it will be fine. The closer you are to upper limits/abilities, the harder either is taxing your recovery, and potentially other factors will impact the degree these things interact. For most people who are mostly focused on hypertrophy it probably still makes sense to:
1) Potentially limit the total amount done around a training session if cardiovascular benefits aren't the main goal.
2) Potentially split the sessions if your needs and recovery demand enough from both types of training.
3) Potentially have different focuses at specific times of the year understanding you may put some things slightly on the backburner in hopes of better long term outcomes.

But again that is why smart training is beneficial and most people who will tell you it is going to be a problem don't understand most of the above and probably don't actually do any of the above and finally most of the people worried about this probably are nowhere near the level they need to be to be that worried about it.

TLDR you are most likely fine and that amount shouldn’t be an issue.
Click to expand...
Wow that was a great read thanks for posting that!
 
Rad83 said:
A 6-7 day routine…? We grow when we rest recover…
Click to expand...

I was going to make another thread with my question being about this/

6-7 days I go as it helps to start the day off right, stress relief, structure, etc. I am rotating between muscle groups.

Im definitely building muscle and moving past PRs. Am I necessarily hindering myself by going 6-7 days?
 
Not necessarily….If you’re managing workload, training intensity etc. keeping a log book maybe….

Sleep and nutrition dialed in…

Still everything catches up with many people.

Start a thread with your training detail or post it here.
 
I mean just for example…
You could do the ppl mon, We’d, fri…with light elliptical warmup …Tuesday and Thursday actual cardio…Then the weekend is free to maybe come in and do some touch up work on something…or get some cardio in at a park etc
 
thanks for the feedback. I actually wouldn’t mind that routine but…

one of the other reasons I do 6-7 days is my work/sleep schedule is such that I don’t have enough time to fit a full push or pull in.

I do push or pull, while rotating muscle groups, same intensity every work out, in semi short bursts.
 
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