At this point everyone seriously involved in lifting weights has probably heard the refrain, "cardio limits gains and causes fibers to switch." It's well known that excessive endurance training can impact strength training negatively, and it's well-established in the literature that the two types of training don't always jive well. Additionally, it's been demonstrated that strength training and endurance training don't carry over well to performance in the respective alternate field.
But be that as it may, the reality for many athletes is that the health benefits or performance improvements from endurance training can help them in their endeavors, and training in both areas is needed for a competitor to excel in many sports. Mechanisms for training adaptations are understood to be specific to context, so we know that performance increases of the type that would be significant to the athlete's game require training that matches the demands. A rugby player certainly needs to be strong, but he also needs to be able to run a 5k during a game while hitting other players, jumping, throwing, falling, and getting crushed by a pile of similarly stressed individuals. A trail runner needs to be in fantastic condition, but if he's got weak legs he'll get crushed by a dude who does his squats regularly when an 800 meter hill comes up. For lifters and bodybuilders, while cardio may present some hindrances, you also don't need to be a sloppy fat-ass with no work capacity and horrible circulation, so you may find yourself in a situation where a little cardio will make you healthier, and thereby better able to train and perform adequately.
So, having established that there are times where you'd conceivably want to address both endurance and strength, we need to establish the extent of the potential hindrances to performance with concurrent training. Once we understand these and understand the context of the adaptations, we can plan these different training stresses and adaptations to be minimally incompatible or compatible completely in the best case. Let's look at some literature first.
http://www.jappl.org/content/56/4/831.short
http://www.portalsaudebrasil.com/artigospsb/ativfis150.pdf
http://jap.physiology.org/content/59/6/1716.short
Endurance training induces changes to skeletal muscle. This includes metabolic as well as fiber-type adaptations. Duh. But since some of the cardio extremists insist on harping about how endurance training is too low-threshold to affect muscular development, we'll put these links up there. You'll adapt to endurance training just as you'll adapt to any training. We get better at what we practice. If you are still with me after the remedial assertion that the training you do has a physiological effect, good. You are now ready for freshman health class. If not, I don't know how you found this blog but it's beyond your current level of understanding. Please stick around, but do some major studying too.
http://sriechman.tamu.edu/629/2012/Nader%202006.pdf
Another concept that should be simple to grasp but still eludes some is that too much endurance training can hinder both hypertrophy and strength development. This is not a problem confined to endurance training. Too much of any training that doesn't carry over to your sport directly will carry risk of hindering progress, for various reasons.
There should be no debate about whether excessive endurance training can hinder strength and muscular growth. Many of the adaptations caused by endurance training run counter to many
caused by strength training and bodybuilding. Many have said cardio has no or limited benefit in populations seeking strength and size.
But looking at the issue in a black-and-white fashion completely ignores how things work in the real world: Energy systems do not function in isolation. All systems are working to keep you alive and functioning. Low aerobic capacity will affect your health and performance in major ways. Adaptation is a way to cope with a changing environment; much of it is transient. And lastly, the biggest thing the no-cardio-ever crowd forgets: a little bit of cardio isn't going to cause the same adaptations as intensive endurance training.
Clearly, there is a time and a place where endurance work is appropriate. Considering that, it behooves us to look more deeply into how the resulting adaptations occur, especially when combined with strength training. Luckily, the good folks in the military-industrial complex have already figured it out:
http://allasamsonova.ru/wp-content/uploads/downloads/2013/12/1995_Kraemer-W.J.-at-all.pdf
This study examines in depth the interaction of endurance and strength training, noting that the two seem to be incompatible. But what is more interesting to us at this moment is the hypotheses about why this is the case and how we might manage it. "Thus, incompatibility of training may be attributed to a large extent to the extreme stress of adrenal activation due to the total amount of high intensity exercise. Whether successful adaptations can occur remains dependent on the ability of various anabolic compensatory mechanisms (e.g. testosterone, IGF-1, and GH) to eventually override a catabolic environment." Later, the author states, "...such data and previous studies have indicated that total work stress may be a potentially significant factor in the development of incompatibility of exercise training. This concept is now supported from an endocrine perspective."
While attenuation of adaptations was occurring in this study, it's important to note that strength, size, and endurance all increased significantly in groups training concurrently. It's hypothesized that, as discussed above, the limiting factor for the compatibility of the two training types could be determined more by the ability of the athlete to recover from training stresses than by an inherent attenuation. The author goes on to say that rest, periodization, and control of outside stressors contributed to continued improvements even with the attenuation, and suggests controlling these factors may decrease incompatibility of the two training types.
We also need to note that fiber type conversions took 12 weeks to become apparent, and that other markers of endurance adaptations took a while as well.
If you want a sound-bite answer to the question of whether cardio is okay here it is: it's not cardio
that kills gains. It's excessive cardio. Controlling training volumes and intensities and making sure the bulk of your work is specific to your goals continues to be the best way to train. Adding some cardio is not going to immediately impact your strength training in any negative way unless you go whole-hog into intensive and specialized endurance work. Appropriate modes of endurance training in appropriate volumes will aid you rather than hindering you.
The question now is only, "what is appropriate?" If you've learned anything from me so far then you already know the answer. It depends.
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