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Cardio’s role in strength training

Tiger Toning.Send your fitness-related questions to cghebb@dal.ca and check back in the Gazette weekly to see if your question gets answered. 

“How important is cardio exercise to my workout routine if I’m looking to gain strength?” –Hercules in Training

Let’s start this off by chatting about the components of a healthy fitness regime. After all, you’ve touched on two of the three primary components in your question.

Health-related fitness is usually thought to include cardio, strength and flexibility training, although other sources may break it down differently than myself. Cardiovascular exercise composes activities which get your heart racing for an extended period of time; strength training involves the actions that challenge your musculoskeletal system to grow in strength; and flexibility training consists of bettering your range of motion and the functionality of your muscles.

Training that involves more skill/performance-related goals such as balance and agility can be incorporated into your workouts as well but are thought to be secondary considerations for non-athletes.

Back to your question about what role cardio plays in strength training; well, when it comes to strength specifically, not a whole lot. But please let me explain before you start changing your whole fitness regime and take the sledgehammer to those awful treadmills or burn your fancy new running shoes.

Building strength requires you to challenge your muscles beyond what they are accustomed to. Using weights as part of a workout program accomplishes this by putting an added load onto unsuspecting muscles and pushing them to exhaustion.

Cardiovascular exercise, while playing a role in building muscle endurance, typically does little to actually build muscle strength as you are not adding a load your muscles are not used to holding already. For example, if you run a marathon, you may be exhausting your leg muscles but they are still onlycarrying your body weight, which they are familiar with hauling anyways. Your muscles will adapt to the stress they are given and, in this case, the focus will be on endurance and other physiological changes which will make you a better runner.

I say all of this so you are aware that a nice brisk run is not sufficient if you are looking to enhance your leg strength, but cardio should still be part of a workout plan dedicated to improving your strength.

The reason I started this response with the three primary components of health-related fitness is because they should always—and I stress always—be part of a balanced workout plan, no matter what your ultimate goal is. This is because no matter what changes you are looking to make, you always need a healthy heart, well-functioning muscles, strong bones (yes, strength training is actually an important component of maintaining a strong and healthy skeleton) and a body able to accomplish everyday tasks.

You always want cardio to be part of your workout because even if you are looking to gain 300 pounds of fat (not a suggested goal), you still want to have a healthy cardiorespiratory system, which can only be accomplished with a lifestyle that includes adequate amounts of heart rate-raising activities.

You may have heard that cardio activities run opposed to the goal of building muscle/strength, but this is only true if you don’t incorporate it smartly. In order to strengthen your muscles, your body needs adequate amounts of building material; in other words, protein. It’s true that cardio burns calories and would therefore use up some of this building material. However, as long as you are fuelling appropriately by eating a balanced diet of more than just protein and getting a good shot of calories after each workout, you will be just fine.

Remember to keep cardio exercises in your workout. Your heart will thank you!

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