Alright let’s live outside our boxes a little bit and talk about Pre-workout cardio VS. Post-workout cardio and which is better when you are utilizing a pre/intra/post workout nutrition protocol. Take a look at this with an open mind, don’t be so married to one way to do things, it’s thinking about things like we are going to talk about here that help us find better ways to do things. Im not saying this is the next new thing for cardio timing, but it makes sense to me and my clients who have been doing it so I thought I would pass long. More on that in a bit, but first a couple things I want to get out of the way about cardio just to remind folks.
Cardio of the steady state variety is catabolic, there’s no way around that, and the cardio I want to focus on is MISS cardio at a heartrate of about 130 (that’s what I set my clients at). Ideally, cardio should be done between meals and furthest away from weight training as possible. I don’t want to discuss fasted cardio, that’s not important here and research has shown for years its counterproductive and I’ve felt and seen its wasting effects on myself and clients enough I ditched it some time ago. This cardio discussion is for people who are doing their cardio PWO, and who are doing it while utilizing a pre/intra/pwo protocol with high gi carbs such as the protocol I put together for my cleints or even just having carbs during training. Here’s a link to the one I have my clients do. (https://www.team-gorman.net/team-gormans-preintrapwo-protocol-for-muscle-growth-and-preservation/)
Here’s the common scenario in our industry and an example:
Meal 1
Meal 2
Pre workout- 10 grams BCAA’s or whey and 30 grams dextrose, take when you start warming up.
Intra workout- 10 grams BCAAs and 30 grams dextrose again. Have finished by time cardio begins.
FINISH WEIGHT TRAINING HERE- DO 30 MINS CARDIO PWO
PWO meal- whey protein and fast acting carbs, dextrose kids cereal whatever……..
Meals 4-6
What I am proposing is to not do cardio PWO after weights but do it PRE workout. Why? Think about this for a second. You are having insulin spiked and blood sugar elevated during training, that’s what we want for our muscles to recover and replenish glycogen quickly during the workout. BUT, after the workout insulin is still elevated (which blocks fat burning) and blood sugar is elevated, so while we do PWO cardio we are burning off carbs from our intra workout drink instead of tapping adequately into fat stores. Why do this when the carbs we want to store in the muscle cell will only be used for fuel for our cardio session PWO? Sure you will have a decent cardio session burning off elevated blood sugar, but that’s not what we are after.
By doing cardio Pre-workout we are able to quickly tap into fat stores. Cardio of the MISS variety isn’t like HIIT cardio, there’ s not a ton of recovery and a lot of stored glycogen isn’t really used when it’s done, it’s more of an immediate fat burning state that once it’s done it sputters out. HIIT can keep burning calories as we know for hours and hours. The point is (and I keep hammering that away) is that we want to utilize fat better by doing it PRE-workout. But wait, what about the 130 heartrate really draining someone and them worrying about the workout next and not having a good workout? At this point after your cardio is finished you will get your pre workout concoction of BCAAS and dextrose into your system to get ready for weight training and immediately switch the body from being catabolic from the cardio to anti-catabolic which we want for training. I have had clients doing this for a couple months now and no one has complained and everyone loves it to be honest. The pre workout and intra workout carbs help sustain muscle, block cortisol, and help get through some great workouts and hold strength while dieting, that’s the purpose of the nutrient timing. But IMO doing cardio PWO with all the insulin and blood sugar circulating isn’t an optimal way to go about fat loss. We always want more bang for our buck. Just something I have been thinking about for a couple months now and wanted to throw out there to everyone to think about.
(there was an interesting discussion on our TG facebook page, where some top prep coaches weighed in with their thoughts on my idea, you can see the post here: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.42773303376.37237.787318376&type=1¬if_t=close_friend_activity#!/TeamGorman/posts/555740914470428?notif_t=like)