{"id":14752,"date":"2025-07-22T04:44:36","date_gmt":"2025-07-21T21:44:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/loudhdtv.com\/?p=14752"},"modified":"2025-07-22T04:44:36","modified_gmt":"2025-07-21T21:44:36","slug":"looking-to-grow-in-size-why-then-are-you-doing-cardio","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/loudhdtv.com\/?p=14752","title":{"rendered":"Looking to Grow in Size? Why Then Are You Doing Cardio?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <script async src=\"https:\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js?client=ca-pub-3711241968723425\"\r\n     crossorigin=\"anonymous\"><\/script><br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p>I thought you wanted to be big and ripped??<\/p>\n<p>For decades, bodybuilders have let themselves believe they need to eat like a bear preparing for hibernation \u2014 8,000 or 10,000 calories a day\u2014to build muscle. They balloon up in the off-season until they look like they belong in a powerlifting meet instead of a bodybuilding lineup. Then, after all that eating, they somehow have to strip off 40 pounds of fat in 12 weeks just to look like they even belong on a stage.<\/p>\n<p>Who sold them that bridge? Where is it written that in order to grow muscle you need to grow a gut? Let me tell you, it isn\u2019t written anywhere except on the blank page of collective gym mythology \u2014 otherwise known as \u201cbro-science.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>As I\u2019ve stated numerous times, muscle grows for one reason and one reason ONLY: the body is convinced it needs it. The only way to send that message is mechanical tension\u2014big work, hard work, heavy work. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.muscleandfitness.com\/workouts\/workout-tips\/the-ultimate-guide-to-progressive-overload-and-muscle-growth\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Progressive overload<\/a>, not progressive overeating. All the calories in the world won\u2019t help you if the stimulus isn\u2019t there. Muscle growth is part of our survival mechanism; the body builds it because it needs it. Period. Not because you want 21\u201d arms.<\/p>\n<p>Once that need is established through brutal, consistent training, your body only requires enough nutrients for repair and growth, and, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.muscleandfitness.com\/supplements\/build-muscle\/list-performance-enhancing-drugs-and-their-definitions\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">if you\u2019re taking PEDs<\/a>, to maximize them as well. That\u2019s it. Anything beyond that is excess. Part of the science of bodybuilding is figuring out exactly where that point in your body composition is and never crossing it.<\/p>\n<p>But when people realized how little food they actually need, the industry came up with cardio. Cardio is a convenient excuse\u2014a workaround\u2014so you can keep grazing at the Chinese buffet and think you\u2019ll burn it off on the treadmill. Then, somewhere down the line, somebody decided to promote the idea that cardio was anabolic, because cardio supposedly spikes growth hormone. So now, everyone thinks they have to do it or be at a disadvantage.<\/p>\n<p>Are you kidding me? Most of these guys are already pinning growth hormone from a bottle anyway. And you want to do three hours a day of cardio to squeeze out another couple of IUs of endogenous GH? Congratulations\u2014you\u2019ve just turned your workouts into a catabolic swamp, hammering your recovery and draining your energy while you\u2019re starving to death. Otherwise known as negative-sum gain. Which is not the goal.<\/p>\n<p>The old-school guys dieted up to a show. They only did gear for eight to 10 weeks before a show. As they filled out and got leaner, they looked even bigger because the muscle popped through. They didn\u2019t get \u201csmaller\u201d\u2014they got fuller, tighter, and more dangerous. Because they didn\u2019t have 40 pounds of blubber to melt off, their contest preps were shorter and less hellish, and their skin wasn\u2019t all stretched out. Arnold and his crew? Steak, whole eggs, potatoes. That was their diet. They trained for hours, sure, but not on a treadmill. They pushed the weights faster, rested less, and burned calories under the bar.<\/p>\n<h2>Cardio? That Was For Boxers and Endurance Athletes<\/h2>\n<p>Here\u2019s the part no one likes to admit: There\u2019s a reason everyone clings to cardio. Because suffering\u2014true dietary suffering\u2014is beyond what most people can handle. When you have to cut calories to contest-prep levels, and you\u2019re running on nothing but fish and broccoli for weeks on end, it\u2019s the kind of misery that will have you contemplating slitting your wrists after day three.<\/p>\n<p>This is not to say that doing hours of cardio a day isn\u2019t gruesome\u2014it is. You still feel like you\u2019re starving\u2014because you are, even though you\u2019re eating enough to require the cardio. It just logically makes no sense. Eat less, do less, would be a better way to go.<\/p>\n<p>Kevin Levrone did the broccoli and fish thing for 12 weeks straight. No cardio. Just diet, training, and suffering. Dorian? He didn\u2019t immediately add cardio to his Olympia prep, and even then it was just 20 minutes a few times a week. Arnold, Franco and company? No cardio. John Defendis\u2019s Ultra-Fit program? No cardio. All weight training, all diet, no hamster wheel. His clients get shredded, some of them hard as stone. Even me \u2014 no cardio, and I\u2019m shredded all the time. It\u2019s not genetics, it\u2019s not drugs\u2014although they do help\u2014it\u2019s your ability to suffer and stick to the grind. That is the key.<\/p>\n<p>But today\u2019s trainers and gurus? They prescribe cardio like judges handing out mandatory minimums to crack dealers. Hit the treadmill for an hour in the morning, an hour at night\u2014all because you\u2019re too chicken to close the refrigerator. That\u2019s the truth. I\u2019m not saying doing cardio while you\u2019re dieting is easy. It\u2019s not. But it\u2019s also not necessary if you just eat less.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-caption \">\n<div style=\"padding-bottom:55.36519386835%;\" class=\"ratio-based-placeholder\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.muscleandfitness.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/Skinny-Guy-Running-On-Treadmill.jpg?quality=86&amp;strip=all\" srcset=\"\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\" alt=\"Skinny-Guy-Running-On-Treadmill\" width=\"1109\" height=\"614\" data-fallback-img=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.muscleandfitness.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/Skinny-Guy-Running-On-Treadmill.jpg?quality=86&amp;strip=all\"\/><\/div><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\"><span class=\"credit\">G-Stock Studio \/ Shutterstock<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<h2>Cardio Does Not Offer a Net Benefit to Muscle Growth<\/h2>\n<p>Under calorie restriction, excessive cardio will do the opposite of you\u2019re seeking\u2014it will eat into your hard-earned muscle because the body needs amino acids, and if they\u2019re not coming from your diet, they\u2019ll come from the very tissue you\u2019re trying to keep. Like it or not, the body will always strive to get what it needs, because what it needs is prime. What you want is irrelevant.<\/p>\n<p>You want to be lean, hard, and separated? Accept the suffering. Lower the food. Train harder. Rest less. Get the same calorie burn through your sets. That\u2019s how the legends did it. They didn\u2019t have a stepmill. They didn\u2019t have a Peloton. They had a barbell and a clock.<\/p>\n<p>Think about it: If you train with enough intensity, enough volume, and enough consistency, you\u2019ll burn plenty of calories. You\u2019ll send the hypertrophic signal. Then you feed just enough to recover and grow. That\u2019s bodybuilding. That\u2019s what it has always been.<\/p>\n<p>People today are so obsessed with being comfortable that they invented cardio to let them keep eating. And then they invented a myth around its supposed \u201cgrowth hormone benefits\u201d just to feel good about the hamster wheel. But what they\u2019re really doing is wasting time and draining recovery that could go into more hard training\u2014not to mention the needless wear and tear on your joints. You beat up those knees and hips with 15\u201320 hours of cardio a week, and one day you\u2019re gonna have to serve somebody. And the sad thing is, it\u2019s totally unnecessary.<\/p>\n<p>Want proof? Go look at contest photos from the \u201880s and \u201890s. Those guys were tighter, denser, and harder than a lot of today\u2019s pros. And they didn\u2019t have fancy treadmills. They trained like animals, and they dieted. Almost no one did cardio. If they did, it was 20 minutes, three times a week. And no one monitored their heart rate. Many of them even went off most of their gear a month out\u2014to help drive out the water.<\/p>\n<p>If you want to get shredded, it comes down to this: You have to convince your body it needs more muscle, and it doesn\u2019t need any stored fat. You do that in the gym with mechanical stress. Then you feed enough to grow. Anything beyond that gets converted into suffering. If you want to see the cuts and lines you built, you have to eat less, plain and simple. That\u2019s going to hurt. That\u2019s going to feel like you\u2019re dying some days. And it sounds counterintuitive, but that is the price. All you have to do is prove it to make it right.<\/p>\n<p>So no, you don\u2019t need cardio to get ripped. You need to suffer. You need to accept that bodybuilding isn\u2019t about comfort. It\u2019s about creating a physique that looks impossible\u2014and there\u2019s nothing comfortable about that. If there were, everyone would be big and ripped. Because big muscles are cool, especially when they\u2019re striated and covered in veins.<\/p>\n<p>If you can\u2019t stand the thought of being hungry, being weak, being flat for a while, then maybe this isn\u2019t for you. Because there is no worse feeling than being underfed, overtrained, and still facing a set of squats with four plates on the bar. That\u2019s the kind of desperation you can\u2019t fake. That\u2019s the kind of desperation that peels you to the bone.<\/p>\n<p>And after all that, you\u2019re going to do an hour of cardio? Come on. That\u2019s the equivalent of getting your foot run over by a fire truck and calling it a pedicure.<\/p>\n<p>If you want to get ripped? Train harder. Eat less. Accept the suffering. And stop doing cardio.<\/p>\n<h2>Once again: You can\u2019t flex fat!<\/h2>\n<p>If this sounds like you: \u201cBut if I don\u2019t eat four million calories, I\u2019ll lose muscle,\u201d \u201cplease allow me to unpack this fable for you.<\/p>\n<p>Fat predominantly resides in two places\u2014under the skin and inside the muscle\u2014think of a marbled steak. Once the body stimulates lipolysis, fatty acids enter the bloodstream. This liberation of stored fat is not preferential. It happens all over at the same time. You can\u2019t just burn off sub-Q fat and leave the intramuscular. It doesn\u2019t work that way\u2014it all goes concomitantly. It\u2019s also deposited the same way.<\/p>\n<p>So, back to that fat, juicy ribeye on your plate. Excise that giant lump of fat between the cap and the eye and push the steak back together. What happened? It got smaller. But did you lose any muscle? No.<\/p>\n<p>So as you get leaner, your muscle will shrink because you\u2019re burning the marbled fat inside the muscle. The correct metric is strength. Are you getting weaker? You can expect to feel a little weaker on very low calories, but most of that is in your head. A dramatic drop in strength, though, means you need to bump up the nutrients until you level off. Everyone is different. You have to go through these trials and errors on your own to figure yourself out.<\/p>\n<p>Be that as it may, for many people\u2014I\u2019d venture to say most \u2014 they\u2019re not losing muscle. They\u2019re just afraid to eat less because they think if they do, they will. It\u2019s just not true.<\/p>\n<p>Remember, you can\u2019t flex fat.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js?client=ca-pub-3711241968723425\"\r\n     crossorigin=\"anonymous\"><\/script><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.muscleandfitness.com\/flexonline\/training\/looking-to-grow-in-size-why-then-are-you-doing-cardio\/\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I thought you wanted to be big and ripped?? For decades, bodybuilders have let themselves believe they need to eat like a bear preparing for hibernation \u2014 8,000 or 10,000 calories a day\u2014to build muscle. They balloon up in the off-season until they look like they belong in a powerlifting meet instead of a bodybuilding &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14752","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fitness"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/loudhdtv.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14752","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/loudhdtv.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/loudhdtv.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/loudhdtv.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/loudhdtv.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14752"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/loudhdtv.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14752\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/loudhdtv.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14752"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/loudhdtv.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14752"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/loudhdtv.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14752"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}