Your WLC cardio program must be included in your overall weight lifting program.
You must have a good cardio program along with a good diet if you want to build muscle and burn fat.
I want you to have a well-rounded and complete program that delivers results.
So, I want you to include weight lifting, stretching, diet, proper rest, and cardio along with other components included in the WLC System strategy.
The combination of all these components will get you to your goals faster than you might believe.
You've got to plan each of these components carefully, though, so you've got them directed towards your goals.
You'll see what I mean as you continue reading.
Cardio is an absolute requirement for each and every person no matter what your goals may be.
I know how some people think, and I understand that cardio burns calories. If you have trouble gaining weight, you're probably thinking that I'm crazy telling you to do cardio when you have enough trouble gaining weight in the first place.
Cardio can develop pathways within your body for building muscle more efficiently.
There's a way you can structure your cardio program so that cardio helps you work towards your goals of gaining weight. Just because you're skinny or having trouble gaining weight doesn't mean that you're healthy…
Cardio is a great form of exercise that only leads to better health.
More of this is discussed in the main cardio section of Weight Lifting Complete, but I want you to understand how to design your WLC cardio program to meet your goals.
Each and every person is different, so it will be difficult to give you an exact program without knowing you. But, I will give you some guidelines that should get you in the ball park.
You can adjust accordingly from there.
WLC Cardio Program For Muscle Building
If you think cardio works against you in the muscle building arena, you must be crazy!!! Yes, it does burn calories but it burns the calories we want.
Do you know what cardio does for many people? Cardio increases your appetite.
Cardio helps the body get better at building muscle… more efficient you might say.
So, if you're having trouble downing more calories and you just can't eat any more food, cardio can increase that appetite of yours and work for you in building muscle. You'll end up eating more food and more calories.
This is just one of the reasons I want people with muscle building goals to perform cardio.
I want most people doing some form of cardio 3 times per week for muscle building WLC cycles. During muscle building cycles, I want you to mix high intensity interval training for short periods of time with longer sessions of medium intensity cardio.
You can do other forms of cardio besides high intensity interval training and medium intensity cardio, but I don't want you overdoing it.
If you're playing another sport for extended periods of time during the weeks, you're really going to have some trouble gaining muscle.
I'm talking about practicing basketball every day of the week for a few hours at a time. It's possible to gain muscle during this time, but you're going to have to eat a whole lot of food.
It may even feel like you never stop eating.
So, my recommendation for muscle building is to do medium intensity cardio and high intensity interval training (HIIT) 3 times per week for 30 minutes medium intensity and 15 minutes HIIT at a time on your off days. You can adjust it to fit your needs from there.
Do either medium intensity or HIIT per session… not both.
An example of an adjustment is to add a second cardio session to one of your off days – one in the morning and one in the afternoon – to get a little extra fat off of you that you've gained from over eating.
If you're wondering why I've chosen high intensity interval training for short time periods during muscle building, I'll give you a short explanation here.
You're going to be in a calorie surplus during muscle building cycles, so we're not worried about the increased stress from high intensity cardio.
We do it in short amounts of time so that we don't add too much stress, but we do high intensity interval training so our bodies become accustomed to our increased weight gain thru both low intensity periods and high intensity periods during the intervals.
Trust me, HIIT works wonders during muscle building cycles. I've done cycles without cardio and cycles with cardio and there's absolutely no comparison.
Cardio will also help you recover from your workouts on your off days. Getting some blood flowing is very important to recovery and cardio on your off days will give you that during your muscle building cycles.
The benefits are endless, so set that WLC cardio program up today and get going.
WLC Cardio Program for Fat Loss
During fat loss WLC cycles, we're going to want to keep the stress on our bodies as low as possible. We will be in a calorie deficit so keeping stress as low as possible is very important.
I want the majority to all of your cardio to be low to medium intensity.
To get benefits with low to medium intensity cardio, we're going to perform it for longer periods of time. 30 to 60 minutes to be exact.
Remember, I am giving you a starting point and you can adjust from there. I recommend that you do low to medium intensity cardio first thing in the morning on an empty stomach. That's the best time to burn body fat fast.
Directly after weight training workouts is also a good time to burn fat.
In the beginning of your fat loss cycles, I want you to take your rest days off completely. This means no cardio at all. I want you to keep this schedule for as long as possible.
If you ever hit a wall with your fat loss during the cycle and you're calories are already fairly low, you can add an extra cardio session at a time to one of your rest days during the week.
I would rather this cardio session be low to medium intensity, but you can do high intensity for shorter amounts of time for a maximum of 1 session per week.
Don't do too many high intensity sessions. We're trying to keep overtraining away and too much stress will bring it closer.
The Important Thing To Take Away From This…
Make sure you include your designed WLC cardio program as a part of your complete weight lifting program.
A cardiovascular program is very important. Don't forget it or leave it out purposely. Too many benefits to pass up.
Don't be lazy.
Include cardio and you will be rewarded. Exclude cardio and you'll be wishing you included it. I've been there and done that too many times before.
So, listen to me and get to that cardio.
For the amount of time it takes per week versus the results you receive, it's well worth the effort.
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