Question: Here’s my workout schedule.
- Eat Breakfast
- Lift Weights
- East Lunch
- Snack
- Dinner
- Bed
When and where can i fit in 20 mins of cardio? Is it ok if i jump right into cardio after my workout?
I heard before breakfast isn’t good because you have nothing in your system to burn off, so you end up burning muscle. G.M.
Answer: The supposed "muscle burning" effects of fasted (before breakfast) cardio are WAY overstated. Competitive bodybuilders have been doing fasted cardio for decades, and it seems to work fine
However, you can take advantage of advances in nutrition by consuming anticatabolic nutrients prior to cardio. This will ward of the miniscule muscle burning that you may otherwise experience.
I often have clients consume 10g BCAA prior to cardio and it works lovely (odd choice of words I know).
To further complicate things, if you’re doing interval training, it really doesn’t matter when you do them.
As Nike would say… "just do the damn cardio."
Best,
Dr Clay
As you’ve mentioned, the timing of interval cardio does not matter. So is it okay to do it in the morning on a empty stomach ? I mean wont it use muscle as fuel ? I’ve heard people say that the calories burned during steady state cardio comes mainly from fat while hiit uses carbs as its primary fuel, does it really matter ? And also, is it okay to do hiit on a low day or should I opt for steady state cardio ?