ArtsAutosBooksBusinessEducationEntertainmentFamilyFashionFoodGamesGenderHealthHolidaysHomeHubPagesPersonal FinancePetsPoliticsReligionSportsTechnologyTravel

How To Build Strong Rock Hard Muscle And Burn Fat Doing Cardio

Updated on March 1, 2013

Losing Muscle

Doing cardio can cause your body to burn muscle but so can weightlifting. If you exercise too much your muscles will suffer. It does not matter if you are lifting weights or doing cardio. You should pay attention to your body and give your muscles time to recover. It is difficult to accidentally overtrain. Your body will tell you if it needs more rest. If my muscles are still sore from the day before I will exercise different muscles or take time off. You should take a rest day at least once a week anyway.

Cardio exercises are popular with people attempting to lose a lot of weight. If you exercise a lot and deny your body the foods it needs your body may start to lose muscle. Weight lifters are less likely to be starving themselves. The main reason cardio is associated with muscle loss is because of poor eating habits. A bad diet can cause you to lose muscle. So you should maintain a healthy diet and avoid over training if you do not want to lose muscle.

You can also lose muscle from lack of use. To hold onto muscle you need to keep using it. So if I stop lifting heavy weights and replace it with bike riding I am going to lose muscle in some areas and gain it in others. The 'use it or lose it' phrase applies.

Source
Source
Source

Burning Fat

Cardio exercise can burn a lot of fat. I can burn more fat doing intense cardio exercises than I can lifting weights. As you lose fat your muscles may look smaller because there is less fat over top of the muscle. That is another reason people think doing cardio will cause them to lose muscle. Weight lifers often put on some extra fat causing their muscles to look bigger.

Checking your muscle size when you are gaining or losing fat is like weighing yourself when you are wearing heavier or lighter clothes. Your muscles may appear to be smaller even if they have gotten bigger when you have lost fat. Just like you can appear to have lost weight by weighing yourself when you are wearing lighter clothes. So even if the muscle size does not change the people dieting and doing cardio appear to have smaller muscles and the weight lifters that are trying to put on weight appear to have bigger muscles.

Building Muscle

I know cardio works great for building muscle because my calf muscles are rock hard. A while after I started doing a lot of biking I noticed my calf muscles had gotten bigger and a lot harder. People can easily see that I have strong legs and if they felt my legs they would notice how hard my leg muscles are. My abdominal muscles also got pretty strong from doing cardio.

The trick to building muscle is to do exercises that require strength and continue to exceed your limits by improving. If you do cardio exercises like running, biking or swimming you are moving your whole body. It is easy to get really strong leg muscles using your body weight. For your arms you can punch, row a boat, use an exercise machine, etc. If you gradually increase the intensity or duration your muscles will become stronger. For bigger muscles do short intense exercises like sprinting or running uphill. Long workouts can give you really hard muscles but they will not be as big. For best results do both.

Biking for over 3 hours one day a week was enough to give me big rock hard calf muscles. It was not too much just because I did it for over 3 hours in one day. If you push yourself and give your body what it needs you can have rock hard muscles doing cardio. Just look at the pro athletes like boxers. Boxing is cardio and most of the training they do involves cardio exercises like jumping rope, running and hitting punching bags.

working

This website uses cookies

As a user in the EEA, your approval is needed on a few things. To provide a better website experience, hubpages.com uses cookies (and other similar technologies) and may collect, process, and share personal data. Please choose which areas of our service you consent to our doing so.

For more information on managing or withdrawing consents and how we handle data, visit our Privacy Policy at: https://corp.maven.io/privacy-policy

Show Details
Necessary
HubPages Device IDThis is used to identify particular browsers or devices when the access the service, and is used for security reasons.
LoginThis is necessary to sign in to the HubPages Service.
Google RecaptchaThis is used to prevent bots and spam. (Privacy Policy)
AkismetThis is used to detect comment spam. (Privacy Policy)
HubPages Google AnalyticsThis is used to provide data on traffic to our website, all personally identifyable data is anonymized. (Privacy Policy)
HubPages Traffic PixelThis is used to collect data on traffic to articles and other pages on our site. Unless you are signed in to a HubPages account, all personally identifiable information is anonymized.
Amazon Web ServicesThis is a cloud services platform that we used to host our service. (Privacy Policy)
CloudflareThis is a cloud CDN service that we use to efficiently deliver files required for our service to operate such as javascript, cascading style sheets, images, and videos. (Privacy Policy)
Google Hosted LibrariesJavascript software libraries such as jQuery are loaded at endpoints on the googleapis.com or gstatic.com domains, for performance and efficiency reasons. (Privacy Policy)
Features
Google Custom SearchThis is feature allows you to search the site. (Privacy Policy)
Google MapsSome articles have Google Maps embedded in them. (Privacy Policy)
Google ChartsThis is used to display charts and graphs on articles and the author center. (Privacy Policy)
Google AdSense Host APIThis service allows you to sign up for or associate a Google AdSense account with HubPages, so that you can earn money from ads on your articles. No data is shared unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy)
Google YouTubeSome articles have YouTube videos embedded in them. (Privacy Policy)
VimeoSome articles have Vimeo videos embedded in them. (Privacy Policy)
PaypalThis is used for a registered author who enrolls in the HubPages Earnings program and requests to be paid via PayPal. No data is shared with Paypal unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy)
Facebook LoginYou can use this to streamline signing up for, or signing in to your Hubpages account. No data is shared with Facebook unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy)
MavenThis supports the Maven widget and search functionality. (Privacy Policy)
Marketing
Google AdSenseThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Google DoubleClickGoogle provides ad serving technology and runs an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Index ExchangeThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
SovrnThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Facebook AdsThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Amazon Unified Ad MarketplaceThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
AppNexusThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
OpenxThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Rubicon ProjectThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
TripleLiftThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Say MediaWe partner with Say Media to deliver ad campaigns on our sites. (Privacy Policy)
Remarketing PixelsWe may use remarketing pixels from advertising networks such as Google AdWords, Bing Ads, and Facebook in order to advertise the HubPages Service to people that have visited our sites.
Conversion Tracking PixelsWe may use conversion tracking pixels from advertising networks such as Google AdWords, Bing Ads, and Facebook in order to identify when an advertisement has successfully resulted in the desired action, such as signing up for the HubPages Service or publishing an article on the HubPages Service.
Statistics
Author Google AnalyticsThis is used to provide traffic data and reports to the authors of articles on the HubPages Service. (Privacy Policy)
ComscoreComScore is a media measurement and analytics company providing marketing data and analytics to enterprises, media and advertising agencies, and publishers. Non-consent will result in ComScore only processing obfuscated personal data. (Privacy Policy)
Amazon Tracking PixelSome articles display amazon products as part of the Amazon Affiliate program, this pixel provides traffic statistics for those products (Privacy Policy)
ClickscoThis is a data management platform studying reader behavior (Privacy Policy)