Should I Avoid Aerobic Workouts If I Want To Build Muscles Fastest?

A typical dilemma for any active sportsmen who lifts weights and wants to gain muscle mass is that they know there goal to build muscle mass conflicts with the fact that they do a lot of cardio-vascular work. How can someone like this build muscles fastest whilst still doing cardio, indeed is it even possible?

Well often you will read that in order to build muscles fastest you should keep cardio workouts to a minimum. This is said because cardio workouts do two main things that work against muscle building, they are: 1) use up a lot of calories 2) increase the speed of your metabolism. These two things both add weight to the problem of consuming enough calories. This takes us to the question of exactly what amount of calories should I therefore be taking on?

Well, to keep at the same weight every day you would be required to consume enough calories to cover the energy usage of your body as if it were resting (basal metabolic rate), then eat enough extra calories to provide energy for your workouts. Every day you will have to take on board another 500 calories if you want to build muscle mass.

Can I work this number out?

Yes, there definitely is and one way of finding this total is by following the Katch-McArdle formula (BMR based on lean body weight). Here it is:

Men: BMR = 66 + (13.7 X wt in kg) + (5 X ht in cm) – (6.8 X age in years)

Women: BMR = 655 + (9.6 X wt in kg) + (1.8 X hght in cm) – (4.7 X age in years)

Once you have gotten this figure you should then multiply it by one of the following to allow for your daily activity levels:

Sedentary = BMR X 1.2 (desk job, little or no exercise)
Lightly active equals BMR X 1.375 (1-3 days/wk sports/light exercise )
Mod. active equals BMR X 1.55 (sports 3-5 days/wk/moderate exercise)
Very active equals BMR X 1.725 (sports 6-7 days/hard exercise/wk)
Extr. active = BMR X 1.{9 (hard daily exercise/sports & physical job or 2X day training, i}.e marathon, contest etc

So, if you are doing cardio and weights frequently then you should multiply this by at least 1.725. This will cover the amount of energy for your daily needs. To suit your specific goals you should then adjust this total. A further 500 calories a day need to be added if your goal is indeed to gain muscle mass.

So if your final figure is 3000 calories then you would be looking at eating 6 meals per day of 500 calories each. the constituents of every meal would therefore be protein: 37 grams, carbohydrate 62 grams and 11 grams would come from fat. This is figured out as so due to the fact that one gram of protein or carbohydrate is worth 4 gram whereas one gram of fat equals 9 calories.

Correct muscle building nutrition and working out your calorie needs like this is what is going to ensure you build muscles fastest, not any miracle new exercise!