Weight Gain and the Forbidden Cardio

You’re thinking of doing what!?

You’ve heard it, I’ve heard it – it is bullshit.

I had been doing martial arts for years and then when I started bodybuilding to gain weight and muscle I start being told by everyone that I need to abandon my passion.

I bought it.

I ditched the dojo and joined the gym. It was the worst mistake of my life. Not the part of joining the gym, o f course, but rather leaving behind my greatest hobby all because a bunch of “expert” bodybuilders had convinced me that cardio was evil. The way bodybuilders talk about cardio is as if doing an hour of jogging or martial arts is going to cause your muscles to disappear and cause you to lose a hundred pounds.

I’ve seen fat people run on the treadmill for over an hour, they look exactly the same afterwards.

Let’s find some common ground:

Running for five hours a day, every day, is a bad idea.

I’m afraid that’s the best I can do. The point is this, if you are trying to bulk up and gain weight then you need to be consuming more calories. That’s a given. Cardio uses a good amount of calories (although not as much as you’ve probably been tricked into thinking).

So how can this problem be solved? You consume some more calories.

Check this out.

It’s a chart showing the amount of calories burned per hour during different workouts. It’s not 100% accurate, but it’ll give you a good idea of the extra amount you need to eat if you’re going to do cardio.

Exercise                                                               Cal burned

Boxing, sparring                                                633

Aerobics, high impact                                     493

karate, kick boxing, tae kwan do               704

So 700 calories. Is that a good amount? Sure.

Is it so much that I should give up martial arts? Hell no.

I’ve read blogs from a few people that think like me and they say that you should eat a big meal before you do cardio since this supposedly will keep you from losing weight. If you’ve ever been in martial arts and ate a big meal beforehand, you know this is a bad idea.

Good news, though. You don’t have to. Eat an apple before you go into the dojo and then drink a protein shake after you get home. Consume the extra 600 calories within a couple hours after you get back. Pretty simple, really.

If you enjoy doing some sort of cardio then let no one tell you to stop.

Don’t be a one trick pony.

If someone were to ask you what you do with your free time, I expect you to be able to say more than just bodybuilding. Don’t be one of those douche bags at the gym that have nothing else in their life so they stay there for ten hours a day.

Go out, get laid, find other hobbies and enjoy the road leading towards inevitability.