5 Easy Steps to Reveal More Muscle

You love lifting. You love the plain challenge and the simple rewards—beating your previous best and feeling a great pump afterward. And maybe you hate cardio. Devoting gym time to cardiovascular exercise feels as if you're burning away hard-earned muscle. But you're not—you're revealing it.

If gaining mass is all you focus on, soon no one will be able to distinguish your traps from your deltoids. For a lean and chiseled physique, you need cardio work (relax—no distance running involved). Just follow our 5 easy steps to reveal more muscle. You don't need much cardio (15 to 20 minutes twice a week max), and most of what you do need should be at a high intensity, as befits a man with a lifter's mindset. But after a few weeks, you’ll start to notice less fat and greater muscle definition. Consider it the fast track to the body you’ve always wanted—without feeling like a rat on a wheel.

Muscle Defining Tip #1 - Change The Cycle:

You don't lift the same way all year, so why should the frequency, intensity, and duration of your cardiovascular workouts stay the same? They shouldn't.

When you're trying to add muscle, keep your aerobic work to a minimum—say, once or twice a week for about 15 to 20 minutes. This will limit your energy expenditure and allow your body to concentrate on building muscle.

When you're trying to get lean, increase your cardio training to two to four times a week, to help strip away excess body fat.

At all times, alternate your cardio methods so your workout's not so boring—treadmill running 1 day, rowing or elliptical training the next, cycling the day after that.

Muscle Defining Tip #2 - Seperate Cardio From Lifting:

Serious lifters worry that cardiovascular training will impede their ability to recover from intense strength training. That all depends on when and how you do your cardio.

Keep your cardio days and strength days as removed from each other as possible. That way your cardio won't hinder gains in strength and size. For instance, doing a tough cycling workout after you hammer your legs with squats and lunges isn't a good idea if your goal is to build bigger legs. Save your cardio for the next day, or even 2 days later, to rest your legs.

If you must do cardio and weights on the same day, choose a form of aerobic work that emphasizes body parts your weight lifting didn't focus on that day. So, if your cardio choice is rowing, which works your upper body as much as it does your legs, row on a day when your weight session doesn't concentrate on your upper body.

Whichever route you choose, just be sure to hit the weights first. You don't want to wipe yourself out before your weight routine—you won't get the most out of your session, and lifting when you're tired can be dangerous.

Muscle Defining Tip #3 - Don't Make An Impact:

Your body has enough to contend with in repairing the damage that lifting inflicts on it. The last thing you need to do is break it down further with high-impact cardio training.

Concentrate on cardio workouts that minimize microtrauma—the small tears to muscle fibers that are part of the process of building new muscle. Running on hard surfaces like asphalt or concrete can be traumatic to muscles and joints. Jumping rope can cause similar problems.

Your best bets for low-impact exercise are swimming, cycling, and using an elliptical machine.

Muscle Defining Tip #4 - Ignore the "Fat-Burning Zone"

It's a myth that you have to work out continuously for 20 minutes before you begin burning fat. The thinking once was that you needed to exercise in a range between 60 percent and 80 percent of your maximum heart rate. Any lower was too easy, and any higher made it too difficult to efficiently use fat for fuel.

Ignore that theory. Your body uses more energy overall when training at high intensities—just look at the physique of a sprinter. Going all out also makes better use of your time. You can finish your cardio in an intense 10- to 15-minute workout.

Stick to interval workouts that feature short bursts of high-intensity movement followed by active recovery periods. This approach is best for your heart and for fat loss.

Muscle Defining Tip #5 - Choose The Path of More Resistance:

Changing the gears on a bike and altering the gradient on a treadmill, for instance, are great ways to increase intensity. Just be careful to find a level of resistance that won't reduce the amount of work you're able to do when you return to the weight room.

cardio is highly overrated for burning fat

How would you suggest to burn fat then?

I do cardio 7 days a week and it has helped me out a lot and all the guys in the gym say what I am doing is working so why really change it? I just do more cardio some days and I change my weight on the bench and whatever every week.

cardio is highly overrated for burning fat

How would you suggest to burn fat then?

That cardio fact may be true, IF you don't care if you burn through muscle also. Going into too much of a high-heart rate zone will start to use muscle as a fuel source since it is easier and faster to burn than fat. While HIIT is best, if you are are looking to conserve most of your muscle mass, 45 minutes of cardio on separate days (you still gotta be sweating, nothing simple, but dont lose your breath) is best.

Perhaps for those in the upper tier of physiques - for everyone else not using pharmacueticals it just results in large pudgy guys walking around thinking they are 'swole'. If your body is changing to using muscle as fuel something is seriously wrong with your dietary habits....

The article is a typical sign of bro-science. Which is the art of telling people hey look at X it works for X so it'll work for you, or it worked for me and will work for you.

1) Change the cycle - If you do the 3 main compound exercises (Bench, Squat, Deadlift) you will see gains in strength and appearance no matter if you do anything else or if that's all you do in the gym. These will help you reach your goals whether its to be bigger, faster, or leaner. Its your diet that will dictate if you achieve your goal or not.

2) Separate cardio from lifting- Such a BS blanket statement. You ever watched top MMA fighters work out? What do they do? They do circuit or interval training, Kettlebell, swimming, rope undulation. Now if you like to jog a couple of miles before/after a workout that is fine. Now running should only be done on a day by itself because it will cause your legs to recover the next day and you may want to isolate your muscles instead of a full body workout. Running should be you pushing yourself and should not be easy at all to complete your distance or time.

3)Don't make an impact - basically this is saying don't play basketball, football or any other contact sport because they are high impact. You should be using explosive movements with your lifts so that you increase the explosive muscle fibers.

4)Ignore the fat burning zone - How many 100% all out sprints can you do in a workout? probably 4-7. This will cause your legs to build muscle if your eating right but if you're not your body will eat your muscle. Where as jogging for a prolonged period of time will cause your body to use the fat for energy also did i mention jogging is a lot safer. When you are sprinting 100% you are very prone to an injury.

5)Choose the path of more resistance - More resistance will require more muscle to be used and less cardio, if your goal is to lose weight keep the resistance down and the pace high. If your goal is to gain muscle why are you even using cardio equipment for that? If you do legs you should not be able to do cardio the same day, if you can then you didn't go hard enough.

This article was very misinforming and this is why people will join gyms like planet fitness and not see any increases or get any closer to their goals because people just don't know any better.

How would you suggest to burn fat then?

Little lost here.... So after lifting I run 20-30mins incline .... Should I stop this...? Lost 100pounds just off running and eating 4-6 small meals .... Just started lifting 3 months ago and to be honest I am getting stronger ....my biggest downfall after loosing is how weak I got ....anybody got feedback? Would be grateful

Little lost here.... So after lifting I run 20-30mins incline .... Should I stop this...? Lost 100pounds just off running and eating 4-6 small meals .... Just started lifting 3 months ago and to be honest I am getting stronger ....my biggest downfall after loosing is how weak I got ....anybody got feedback? Would be grateful

There's a difference in being obese vs. already low bodyfat.........