MATT LISTER

Doing cardio won’t limit those allimportant gains from your weights routine – in fact, do it right and you’ll see better results

Fitness in focus

If you’re on a mission to build muscle, don’t make the classic mistake of cutting cardio from your regime. The belief that cardio training can have a negative impact on your weight- training gains and muscle growth is a myth and nothing more.

The truth of the matter is that not only will including cardio in your weekly workout routine help you lift more weight in the gym, but it also off ers the added benefi ts of increased muscle size and improved strength development. This is because the stronger and more eff icient your cardiovascular system is at getting oxygen and nutrients to the muscles where they’re needed most — as well as clearing out the metabolic waste from those muscles — the more reps you’ll be able to do, the more power you’ll be able to put into those reps, and the less time it will take you to recover between sets.

All of those things are going to add up to increased results across the board — but just make sure that you’re not overdoing it on the cardio during your workout, otherwise you’ll be slipping towards the myth we just busted.

So what should you do? Well, you can choose from two options. The fi rst is to include stand- alone cardio sessions in your weekly workout schedule by spending a couple of mornings on the rowing machine, the cross- trainer, or maybe the StairMaster to get that

J. Lo derriere going! This sort of exercise should be done at a really steady pace, one where you can hold a conversation easily.

Alternatively, you can add a calorie- crushing cardio fi nisher to your standard workout, or swap some of your ‘ sit- around sets and reps’ workout for a more intense HIIT workout to get you in a sweat or a CrossFit session with shorter breaks.

If you needed another incentive, adding those extra cardio elements to a strength- training programme will help you burn even more calories and shred you to FILTH!