BTW, nice backlink building.

Thank you so much for all of your articles; after reading most of your work, I find that I’m easily agreeing with just about everything you say and mostly find it practical. I enjoy that you think more obviously than others, in the sense that you see what is practical for the majority, rather than what’s best for that 2% you like to mention.

With that, here is my situation (I’ll keep it concise):
I’m starting medic program and mass gaining phase. 6 days a week, 8 hour days. In it I have a 1 hour lunch. Cardio in the morning is out of the question. My workout plan is Upper/Lower splitX3(Mon-Sat w/ Sun rest). I was originally going to further split up a days workouts into the lunch and after all class was over, but after reading this article I realized I might benefit more from cardio during lunch and whole workout after all is said and done (rather than some workout lunch, after classes do cardio as part of warm-up of second session).

I’m in good cardio shape so I originally wasn’t too worried about cardio cutting into intensity, especially since cardio would coincide with leg days(can’t go hard on legs because of past with acquired spondylolisthothesis). So I guess really the question is: do you see a benefit in either splitting the workouts into 2 sessions(cardio prior to 2nd session of legs), or cardio separately and whole workout together? or does it really make no difference? (For what it’s worth I’m a resident intern firefighter and have a chance of that second session being interrupted).

Thank you!

What about activating the fat burning pathways? Unfortunately, I belong to those who completely eliminated cardio out of the program. Planning to go on moderate cardio for 30min, very much afraid of hindering or eliminating lean gains in the process…
And do you classify cardio as low or moderate plainly based on the HR? What about treadmill at 4.3mph and 15% incline? 😉

Gotta love this site

“A higher frequency can be used but I wouldn’t see much point to more than five per week unless the intensity is kept very low (e.g. you can do brisk walking daily if desired). Going longer than the bare minimum of 20-30 minutes will burn a few more calories but there are limits to time availability (and people start to get bored) and I might set a reasonable limit of 40 minutes of moderate intensity cardio at the maximum; if the intensity is kept way down (again, think brisk walking), an hour is acceptable.”

And how much while dieting depends and will range from none (some can get lean with nothing but lifting and diet) to lots (some may be doing 1-2 hours/day at the end of a contest diet).

What would be the max you would recommend of steady state cardio on a fat loss program as far as minutes/duration and frequency/days per week.

I can’t wait for your article on creating the deficit via activity and food restriction. I think it’s time to write this! 🙂
Thanks.

Thanks for contributing this one. This system worked 99.9% for me, it should also work for most of you especially if you follow the procedures well and keep it moderate. I remember a year ago when I incorporated 30 min threadmill running before my weight training, those are the moments that I really gained mass very very fast. Like most of us we always experiment, then I changed my exercise programs more than 3x then. The latter programs didn’t give me lots of mass gain anymore. I couldn’t really figure out what went wrong, UNTIL I READ THIS ARTICLE. Again just two weeks ago I incorporated 30 min carido on my mass gain program, 10min before and 20 min after exercise. And it really works! I gained 1+ kg fast in just two weeks. I hope many of us could benefit from this. More power to the author. By the way I’m just a dwarf at 5’3″, 71+ kg with 19% body fat.

I’ve been reading a lot here on your site and I had a theory that i wanted to pass by you. Please tell me if im nuts.

I’ve read that when losing weight you can have a 31 calorie deficit per pound of fat you have on your body. I also understand that in order to gain muscle mass you have to have a calorie surplus.

If you are someone who has a decent amount of fat, but you’re PSMF’ing , so you’re intaking a good deal of protein, if your body wanted to make muscle, could it draw from the calories in your fat and work with the high amounts of protein you’re eating?

I recognize I could be nuts but I wanted to know does that have any logic to it at all?