BUILDING MUSCLE & ENDURANCE TRAINING. – CAN THEY MIX?
Endurance athletes such as long distance runners, cyclists & elite triathletes are skinny, lack defined & full muscles, & their very low bodyfat levels reveal their sinews & their ribs. But what if you want to indulge in endurance sports, have low bodyfat levels & still keep your muscle? Is it possible? There is a reason why endurance athletes are stick thin. The bigger you are, the less suited you are to running, in particular, marathons & triathlons. Your bigger surface area means that your body has to expend more energy just to keep you cool, let alone keep those miles flying past.
If you want the cardio health benefits of running/cycling & a cover model body, then you’ll need to weight train.
Also, you must keep in mind that too much endurance activity will deflate your muscle size gains from weight training. Scientists have discovered that weight training & endurance sports make uneasy bed-fellows & have described what they call the “interference effect”. This produces a set of contradictory physiological responses that will
(1) have little direct benefit to enhance endurance sports performance, &
(2) make building bigger muscles almost impossible!
Basically, when you weight train & endurance train at the same time, you are asking your body to work against itself & you are training opposing energy systems. Your muscle building fast twitch muscle
fibres will be being pulled in two different directions. On the one hand, with aerobic endurance training, they will be attempting to develop greater oxygen processing capacity, & on the other, through anaerobic weight training, they will be trying to increase their cross-sectional area. (Weight training breaks down muscle tissue &
in the period when you are not weight training, they repair & grow bigger & stronger.) The result in this is “the interference effect.
And for all those women who are about to tune out because you don’t want to get big pecs & biceps, you too can benefit from building muscle by increasing your metabolic rate so you will be able to burn more calories, even while sleeping, & you will preserve your precious bone density through weight training. There is also an aesthetic
appeal of a lean, muscular body. While not many people think a pro-bodybuilder’s appearance is attractive, buff & toned beats skinny & frail any day, by any standard.
Personally, I strongly believe that one of the most important issues to be addressed in the quest for a muscular body & aerobic fitness is nutrition. What follows are several strategies & tips for adding muscle while maintaining
sports performance:
(1) Divide your calories into five to six smaller meals/snacks per day. Eat regularly throughout the day & you
should never feel too hungry or too full. You won’t store fat eating this way & you will keep your metabolism
stoked & deliver a constant supply of nutrients to your muscle cells for repair & growth. Your muscles will need
protein & amino acids especially, all day long as raw materials to keep you anabolic. As fat loss is not really the
issue here, you will need to ensure a slight, daily calorie surplus to build new muscle. If you ever feel
“starving”, you are catabolizing your own muscle tissue – not good!
(2) Always eat breakfast & include protein & complex carbs.
(3) Eat protein at every meal & aim for 7 grams per pound of bodyweight each day. Whey protein supplement is
best for pre & post workout meals for quickest absorption & assimilation. Start with 20g per serving. Whey protein
sets the anabolic environment in motion. As you will both be strength & endurance training, you will have much
higher protein requirements. Muscle is made up of protein after all!
(4) One – two hours before your workouts, eat a small meal containing about 60g of mostly complex carbs &
about 20g of whey protein. Oats are a great choice. Also, bear in mind that anaerobic strength training exercise
uses carbs/glycogen & muscle ATP for fuel. Aerobic exercise uses mostly fat for fuel. So, before hitting the
weights, you should top off your glycogen stores so you can lift adequate weight to engage the maximum amount of
fast-twitch muscle fibres during exercise to stimulate maximum growth!
(5) Your post-workout meal is the most important you eat. Within 30 minutes after you train, there is a
critical nutrient & sugar uptake window where your muscle cells are extremely insulin-sensitive & ready to restore
glycogen for muscle repair. This meal should ideally consist of 20 grams of whey protein, along with about 60 grams
of simple carbs or sugar. At this time you are actually trying to maximize insulin release to shuttle glycogen &
amino acids into your muscle cells. Plan ahead for this meal & never miss it! You could also add 2-5 grams of
creatine supplement to take advantage of this muscle cell insulin-sensitive window. The creatine will be driven
into the muscle cells to provide ATP replenishment, cell hydration & further anabolic effect.
(6) One – two hours prior to going to bed, have a small protein based meal to keep your muscles supplied with
amino acids throughout the night, when your body is under repair & growing most. Cottage cheese is a great protein
choice for this meal as it is very slow digesting. It congeals in the stomach. If you don’t like dairy or lactose,
then choose some other form of “time-release” protein like egg whites that will not give you heatburn.
Alternatively, there are some very good supplements suited for this meal. You can include some complex carbs in
this meal for added taste & to increase serotonin levels to help you fall asleep easier. Carbohydrates allow the
amino acid “tryptophan” to cross the blood-brain barrier where it can be readily converted into serotonin, the
“pleasant neurotransmitter”, which then converts into melatonin.
(7) Ensure you get a good night’s sleep. This is important for many things, including muscle & tissue growth &
repair, & a big boost of growth hormone release. Another benefit of intense training is that you will sleep
sounder, deeper & longer. You’ll be surprised how much difference an intense exercise programme can make in your quality of sleep.
(8) Drink as much water as you can. Any chance you have to down some water, do so. As soon as you become
dehydrated to any degree, you are no longer anabolic & your muscle growth shuts down. Plus, drinking abundant
amounts of water is good for overall health. Similarly, limit the amount of diuretic-type drinks you consume, eg
caffeinated & alcoholic beverages as this can interfere with adequate hydration.
(9) Consider supplementing with a high-quality whey protein isolate powder throughout the day to help you meet
your protein requirements. Whey protein isolate has a higher biological value than any other protein source – even
eggs. Again, this is especially beneficial pre & post workout, when immediate assimilation into the bloodstream is
critical.
(10) Creatine is by far the best non-steroid, safe & legal muscle building supplement to hit the market since
whey protein. It works by increasing levels of muscle cell ATP allowing you to complete a higher number of
repetitions with more weight. It also volumizes the muscle cells with water & glycogen to make them fuller & more
anabolic. Lastly, it increases insulin sensitivity causing your muscle cells to uptake sugar/glucose from the blood
stream more readily & store it as glycogen for energy.
To build & maintain running/cycling muscle you should:
(1) Emphasize raining phases where you focus only on your weight training. –Every six weeks, you should incorporate
a 3-week block of training which comprises of three intense strength weight training workouts & only two
running/cycling sessions lasting no longer than 20 minutes.
(2) Utilise compound weight training exercises .
To get the biggest muscle building benefit from your weight training do exercises such as the squat, clean dead
lift, bench press and leg press. These ‘compound’ exercises work across a number of joints and recruit large
amounts of muscle fibre. Forget the biceps curb, you want to create a large anabolic effect when you weight train.
Compound muscle exercises do this as the trigger the release of large amounts of the muscle building hormones,
testosterone and growth hormone (known as androgens). In terms of reps and sets, you should go medium to heavy and
use medium rep ranges and sets, 3-5x6-8 reps at 75% of one rep max. This type of workout will hit your muscle growing fast twitch fibres and create maximized androgen release.
(3) Include High Intensity Cardio from Time to Time.
Sprinters run and weight train and still have great physiques. Their training is much less affected by the interference effect. For most of their training time they are only training their anaerobic energy systems. This creates optimum muscle growing conditions. It would be a good idea to train like a sprinter every 3 months for about 3 weeks. The anaerobic run training performed by a sprinter can maintain your aerobic fitness.
UNDERSTAND YOUR BODY TYPE
There 3 main body types – more specifically known as ‘somatotypes’
– these are ectomorphs, mesomorphs and endomorphs.
These are also commonly know as ‘thin’, ‘athletic’ and ‘fat’! William Sheldon, the originator of the body type classification theory, believed that each body type had its own distinct physiological and psychological traits.Many of the top endurance athletes are ectomorphs and their slim build means they will find it hard to put on
muscle, even if they wanted to. If you have a similar build you too will find it difficult. In order to stand a decent chance of gaining muscle, you should reduce your endurance activity significantly. It may be a good idea, if you have been a regular endurance athlete for 6 months or more, to reduce the cycle/run/swim time to a minimum and go through a 2 month muscle building phase.
If you have an athletic body type then the chances are you will be able to maintain your muscle mass pretty well, even when endurance training. ‘Mesomorphs’ bodies will respond quickly to virtually all types of training and will be less affected by the interference effect.
Endomorphs will be carrying a lot of muscle and potentially fat and will be more able to maintain size when endurance training. To put it simply, they have more to lose! However, running will place more strain on their joints and this could lead to injury. Mileage should be built up gradually. Once the weight is off, endomorphs
have potentially the best opportunity to look big and strong as they run.
The most important factor in building muscle is your training. You need to push yourself and train with intensity. You need to experience some discomfort as you squeeze out that last rep! It is good to have some soreness. Likewise, muscles grow when they are resting. Over-training can be a common issue for athletes. If a certain muscle group is still sore, don’t train it again until it is fully recovered. Simply put, to gain muscle and maintain cardiovascular fitness, you have to train hard and train smart!
