limited carbs during precontest cardio...

[RicPhoenix]

What is the thought behind limiting carbs during a cardio workout? What I mean is...if you are on the stepper doing a full blast cardio workout for say 45 min and you hit the wall...due to your low calorie nutrition program..isnt it better to consume the carb drink that contains about 50-100 calories ? Because it seems to me that consuming that drink allows you to continue exercising far beyond 100 calories whereas if you just drank water you would have to stop your workout due to no energy or blood sugar. What do you think?

 

[DIEZEL666]

I would have thought that consuming the carb drink would spike insulin, thereby stopping fat burning and using the carbs for energy.

 

[Queefer]

I think it's as simple as ; if you are doing cardio and burning fat, then why would you want to drink some sugars and burn them instead of the fat. Another thing, I always drink a 0 carb protein drink right before I start my workout so I don't burn any muscle off. For energy you may want to drink a cup of coffee or pop some eca.

 

[Kidrok]

I would rather take some glutamine and/or BCAA's to decrease the chance of going catabolic on muscle tissue and just grind through the cardio without the extra carbs. Once the body switches back to burning the crbs why would it go back to burning bodyfat? and after 45minutes how much longer do you really want to go???

 

[einie1]

I agree

I completely agree; if you are performing cardio to lose body fat (and assuming you are in your target heart rate zone) and are doing the cardio separate from a work out you do not want to add any carbohydrates before, during, or after your aerobic exercise. Kid has got the right idea by adding aminos esp. glutamine. Here is a link to an article about Glutamine that might be insightful.

http://getbig.com/articles/glut-1.htm

in my opinion doing too much cardio (with or without carbs) is a lot more detrimental to you than overtraining, undernourishment, or under-resting. There shouldn't be any reason for a body builder to do more than 45 minutes of cardio in one period of time ever.

 

[RicPhoenix]

research?

Dont many top bodybuilders do more than 45 min cardio and keep their muscle mass? Is there any actual evidence (besides the bodybuilder fear of cardio ie myths that they will become a marathon runner) that muscle mass decreases after a certain amount of cardio?

 

[xcelbeyond]

I believe there are a lot of factors, most mentioned here.

- when (time-of-day) cardio is performed
- intensity of cardio (targeted heart rate)
- frequency (how often cardio is done)

To me the facts are pretty evident. You train like a marathon runner, you'll look like a marathon runner. Endurance athletes DO NOT want to increase their muscle mass, only make it more efficient (stronger).

Maybe Randy will chime in on HIIT cardio as this seems to somewhat intrigue me.

xcel

 

[RicPhoenix]

The comments are very interesting but they do not address the original question posted in the thread.

I am not asking how long to do cardio.

I am asking about the physiology of carbohydrate ingestion during cardio regardless of the length of the cardio session. For example, a dieting bodybuilder who plans to do cardio for 60 min. hits the wall at 30 min...yet refuses to use a carbohydrate product with the belief that 'carbs' are evil....will need to stop their cardio work due to lack of energy...however if they would have taken a drink or supplement with 5-10g of carbs in it they could have finished an additional 30 min of cardio and burn another 300 or more calories worth of fat.

What I am suggesting or observing is that a 'little' carbohydrate goes a LONG way...and if it can increase your workout intensity during a cardio session perhaps it is best to use a supplement instead of trying to suffer without the carbs due to a belief that insulin will be spiked and you will store fat.