Cardio has a specific function to play in overall bodybuilding plan that will eventually result in well sculpted and muscular body. So, before you accelerate bodybuilding program, it is crucial to trim down the body fat so that your muscle building plan can start with lean base of muscles.
Why opt for cardio?
Well, cardio exercises have great health benefits and thus should not be avoided by those who are very much concerned with having a muscular figure. The fact is that cardio improves one’s physic as it cuts the fat from the body as well as enhances definition of muscular build up. The significant benefit of cardio is more than worthy of any other muscle building techniques. A combination of cardio exercises for an hour or so when blended with lifting program can offer a very well balanced plan for overall health and muscle building.
As for any bodybuilder, losing weight is the ultimate goal and there is in fact a lot of science behind the fact that losing weight helps in achieving a better muscular physique. You can include cardio exercises with other programs and proper diet in order to eliminate fat from your body and build muscles with ease.
Cardio bodybuilding benefits
There are in fact many reasons of adding cardio workout to your bodybuilding regimen. To begin, cardio serves as the best way of exercising the lungs and heart and is the best way to cut out fat and boost the metabolic rate in a more efficient and natural way. So, the main question is about how much cardio one should do? This is indeed a hard question. While some suggest that you can start losing muscles after about half an hour of your run. Though they might be correct, you need to take this with large grain of salt. Muscles which you lose after an hour are indeed miniscule. More so, as you train with the weights on daily routine, you are sending the signals to the body to save and build more muscles. Running and weight lifting on a regular schedule will eventually condition your overall body to handle running and bodybuilding efficiently.
Through learning a variety of cardiovascular workouts and exercises, you can make your own cardio program every week in order to keep the variety of exercises fresh and achieve cardio goals with ease. And so, when the weights start to fall, you get inspired of keep hitting gym and using cardio plans to push yourself till the time you are at the perfect shape and weight you always wanted to be at.
How to do cardio?
In all, the general rule of thumb is to not do any sort of cardio exercise more than you actually need. Most of the bodybuilders generally find that about 30 to 40 minutes cardio done 4 to 5 days in a week is good for burning the excessive calories and increasing muscle size.
So, it can be derived from this piece of information that doing cardio is a great way of building up muscles and a great physique.
Mike Shiles is a bodybuilder, gym owner, freelance writer, success coach and author of “Burn fat build muscle. He has written thousands of articles on exercise, nutrition and health.