Can I do Cardio on Off days?

[jeffnewbie26]

New to this. I don't want to be huge, but have been in a body recomp process. My goal is not be body builder huge but rather to look and feel healthy and strong... So fat loss with lean muscle gain. Making progress but not sure if my process is the most efficient and effective. This is a really basic question but I've been reading through the forums and it's still unclear to me what constitutes a rest day. I know it means time away from lifting, but does that mean avoid cardio on off days as well? If I could I'd be in the gym 7 days a week.

 

[GetYucked]

Trust me, you're not gonna just "get huge", it's not easy for 99.99999% of people, the others just grow looking at weights.

Cardio on the off days is fine. It will help with losing that last bit of fat.

 

[jeffnewbie26]

So can I do cardio essentially 7 days a week? Some days being more intense than others.

 

[ChEmFrEaK86]

you can do it 7 days a week but i wouldn't recommend it if your trying to build some muscle too. Id do Intense cardio 3xWK while following a weight routine. should at least take one day off completely IMO..

 

[oktome]

Cardio

This is always going to be a fine balancing act. I can get bigger but as soon as I go heavy back into long distance running and biking I lose mass. It just works that way. Even the diets for getting big vs lean are different. With getting bigger, you need a diet much more driven by protein, with high cardio, you need one that is driven by more carbs.

It seems to me if you have the genetics ( i don't) to get big you can do more cardio and still keep growing. . I am looking at SARMS and Peptides as a way to keep "maintain" muscle mass and keep doing cardio at the marathon and 70.3 level. I have increased my protein intake more than I used to and that helps. I don't use rapid assimilation protein on my cardio days, but I do on my lift days.

One of biggest body comp things you can do is eliminate simple sugars, ie donuts, cakes, cookies, sodas etc... I guarantee if people just do that they will look better.

Most of the guys here look to get big, they dose things differently and look at everything differently. That is why it is called ProMus, not Triathlon yearly.

For me though it offers some very interesting insights to many things and it is a good group of "bros"

 

[panteracfh]

Yeh, definitely. I do 30-45min low impact cardio on off days in the AM on empty stomach. Something like high incline @ 3.0 mph on treadmill without holding the sides. Really depends on what your priorities are in terms of retaining as much muscle as possible vs losing as much BF as possible. Diet is going to be key no matter what you decide though.

 

[jeffnewbie26]

Thanks for answering my questions. I've been doing about 20 min on the stair climber at a relatively high intensity and running about 20 minutes at varying speeds. I do this about 5 times a week. Not sure how to describe diet other than both healthy and well-rounded. So far I haven't lost any weight! But dropping a lot BF% and people are commented that I look a lot leaner. This is good but my goal was to drop a few pounds just to be a bit lighter... but also want an athletic physique. Thinking of ramping up the cardio to lose more fat at a faster pace. I'm hoping to keep building muscle in the process. I started this process naturally. In terms of SARMS, Peptides, Etc... If that is something your interested: I recently integrated IGF-Des and IGF LR3 as well as MK-2866 and GW-501516. I haven't weighed in or done any measurements yet, still gaining strength and look better... so seems to be working. I was just concerned that if I overdid it, the lack of 'rest' would eventually lead to diminishing returns.