Could Cardiovascular Exercise Actually Improve Your Muscle Gains?
Challenging the bro science…again
Will cardio kill your gains?
If you follow bro science, you may believe the treadmill is the enemy of muscle growth. As with many pieces of advice that float around the gym, this one disagrees with current research.
Bro science and advice from the gym can be useful. I first learned about exercise from my uncle. He was a very strong, very fit, and very muscular individual. He knew a lot about lifting weights for muscle growth but he didn’t scour PubMed for the latest research articles.
A lot can be learned simply through experience and gathering experiences from other people. However, this approach is rife with bias. We can never determine causation without randomized control trials that provide comparison groups.
What was responsible for your lack of improvement in the gym? Was it your sleep or diet habits? Was it the total volume of exercise? Was it your exercise intensity? Could your sleep and recent stress have impeded your perceived effort? Did you shorten the range of motion or reduce the time under tension?
Or was it the 10-minute run on the treadmill at the end of your lift?
