Cardio burning muscle strength ?

M

mackabee66

0
Hi

I regularly (4 nights a week) perform the following at home :-

30 mins weights (dumbells) - varied over legs/shoulders/core
followed by
30 mins intense cardio - spin bike

I am a 48 yr old 6ft 2 ectomorph shape and my main goal is to achieve muscle strength as opposed to losing weight.
I understand the importance of the cardio (the reason i am doing it is i have a high cholesterol count, and want to keep fit and healthy), but all my life i have been plagued my muscle weakness.

Am I actually losing muscle strength as a result of my cardio ?
Is there any way i can tell if this is happening to me? How can i tell if my body is burning fat or muscle?

Thanks in advance

Mackabee66
 
I am naturally one of the scrawniest you would encounter, perfect build for marathon running, long limbs negligible body weight. I have never stopped cardio work for various reasons, not least of which that people die of weak hearts far more than weak biceps. I also have a theory, ok opinion, that the more intensely you can train within your aerobic threshold the more intense you can go in the anaerobic and therefore phospho-creatine energy bands which makes it easier to gain muscle, this could easily be wrong.
At close to 1.5 times my original body weight I am not the scrawny little nerd anymore, I am a bigger, stronger nerd now. The genetic disadvantage meant this took longer but in some ways I think the fact I had to work harder to get here has been part of why I have kept going where others have quit years ago.
As some will undoubtedly point out cardio does catabolise (cannibalise) muscle more than high intensity strength training, this is an inescapable fact. However if you are training regularly, eating well and allowing for recovery the body will replace this muscle and if it has to replace it regularly it will be less inclined to break it down in the first place. These are other inescapable facts.

If your goal is muscular strength you may want to sort out a split session, unless you are still in beginner territory, in which case using what you are doing to get a good initial base for a couple of months first will be fine.
Goldfish has some good stickies in the weight training sections that would be good for you to look through.
Final consideration that could be damaging your progress far more than the cardio is load used in training. For strength and or power you want reps at or below 10 at rep max. If you are doing higher reps or sets of 10, 8, 6 or below and feeling like you could do more at the end this will be delaying your progress.
 
Thanks Crazy old man. You always have the best advice.
I have been hit by a nasty virus for the last 2 weeks so have been out of action. Hope to get back into it all soon.
Mackabee66.
 
Focus on your diet if you don't want to lose muscle... lot's of protein and carbs before workouts and after. I went from being scrawny to putting on 30 pounds of muscle in 6 months. I still did cardio every day and usually played basketball for an hour.... at least.

I just ate tons of high calorie, high protein food.
 
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