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Cardio or Weights. Weights or Cardio. What's It Going To Be? Knowing how to balance cardio and weight training can be one of the most challenging aspects of putting together your training program. Learn how to do it here.

Training your body is all about balance. A complete exercise program should address not only resistance training but cardiovascular training as well. Proper balance between these two basic forms of exercise is essential to your training success.

Training balance basically boils down to the amount of cardio training you do compared to the amount of weight training you do. You are going to learn exactly what factors affect this training balance and how you can use them to ensure you reach your goals as quickly as possible!

The major issue you will need to take into consideration when balancing your cardio with your weight training is your primary training goal; if you're training to lose fat, your balance is going to be very different than if you're trying to gain muscle or if you're training for a specific sport.

Your primary goal will give you a general starting point for figuring out exactly how to balance your training, as well as what type of cardio and weight training you should be doing.

In addition to your primary goal, you will also need to take into account two other major factors:

1. Your body type - Are you naturally slim? Do you gain muscle easily? Do you tend to hold onto fat readily?

2. The type of cardio training you're doing - Is it high-intensity or low-intensity? Does it fatigue you for weights? Does your weight training fatigue you for your cardio?

As you read through this article, I want you to write down the points that apply to you. After explaining these factors, I will tell you how to integrate everything you've learned in your personal training program.

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In order to successfully balance your training, you need to first identify what your primary goal is. Are you trying to lose fat? Are you focused on gaining muscle? Are trying to improve sports performance?

It's very important to note, you will be far more successful in achieving your goal if you focus on one specific goal only. The training processes involved in losing fat or gaining muscle are very different and do not mix well with each other. If you try to do both at the same time, your results won't be as good as if you focused on one at a time.

If you're training to lose fat, you're going to need to do more cardio than someone who is training to gain muscle. A good starting point is three times per week, 20 to 30 minutes per session. Depending on the other factors we're going to discuss, you may need more or less than this. Weight training three times per week should be sufficient to maintain and even build muscle mass.

With fat loss, your primary goal should be burning calories while sparing as much muscle as possible. Since you're most likely eating fewer calories, your body is not going to be eager to add muscle, therefore it's best to focus on keeping what you've got. Any muscle you may add is just ice cream on the cake (bad analogy for this topic!).

If you're training to gain muscle, you will need to do less cardio training. Too much cardio can actually hamper your muscle gain by slowing recovery and burning up calories that your body needs for the process of building muscle.

As a general guideline, one or two cardio sessions per week should be enough to maintain your cardiovascular conditioning and keep your bodyfat gains in check while not slowing muscle growth. You should train with weights at least three times per week, up to even six times if you can recover from it and still make progress.

If you are training for a specific sport, how many cardio sessions you need will depend greatly on the cardiovascular and muscle mass and strength requirements of your sport. Naturally, a long-distnace runner is going to have far different requirements than a hockey or football player. The type of cardio training you do will also come into play here (which we will look at below).

As a guideline, the more cardio-oriented your sport is, the more cardio sessions you will need and the greater your focus should be on cardio training. If your sport is more strength-oriented, your focus should be primarily on developing that strength, with fewer cardio sessions. Of course, there are many sports that require both strength and cardiovascular capacity. Training in this case should be more equally balanced.

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Now that you've identified your training focus and the general guidelines for it, we need to take a look at your general body type. There are three main bodytypes: ectomorph, endomorph and mesomorph. The catogories operate on a sliding scale - a person may be an ectomorph but have mesomorphic tendencies, for example (we will go more into each type below).

The ectomorph is the naturally-slim person. They have a smaller bone-structure and can seem to "eat whatever they want and not gain an ounce."

The ectomorph has a fairly easy time losing fat so they will will generally not need to do as much cardio for fat loss. Two or three times per week should be plenty. An ectomorph trying to gain muscle may need to lay off cardio training completely in order to have enough recovery energy available for their body to even build muscle. Once or twice a week should be the maximum cardio frequency. Even weight training may need to be less frequent (two or three times per week) in order to see results.

The endomorph type is the heavyset end of the scale. The endomorph typically gains and holds onto fat easily and has a harder time losing it. The endomorph does tend to carry more muscle mass than the ectomorph, however.

Endomorphs will need to do more cardio to see significant fat loss. The minimum would be three times per week but some may require up to five or six sessions per week for best results.

An endomorphic person trying to gain muscle mass should continue to do cardio two or three times per week. Their tendency to accumulate bodyfat when eating excess calories (which is a requirement for muscle gain) can be reduced by keeping a reasonable amount of cardio in their training program. The endomorphic body has plenty of energy in reserve for muscle gain.

The mesomorph has all the luck. This is the naturally-muscular person. They are characterized by having broader shoulders and a narrower waist (known as a "V" taper). They gain muscle easily and lose fat easily.

A mesomorphic person training to lose fat can get away with doing only one or two cardio sessions a week while still seeing fairly good results. They will have an easier time holding onto muscle while losing fat, which gives them a calorie-burning advantage (the more muscle you have, the more calories you burn in a day even while doing nothing). Mesomorphs who do more cardio sessions will see greater fat loss results than either of the other two bodytypes - their greater muscle mass helps them burn more calories.

The mesomorph has a relatively easy time gaining muscle. Their bodies seem to naturally want to add muscle and keep it. The mesomorph training for muscle gain should keep doing enough cardio training to maintain cardiovascular capacity (about once or twice a week). They can, however, still get away with doing more without compromising results.

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The type of cardio training you do will have a tremendous impact on the frequency at which you can do it and still get the results you want.

Low-intensity cardio training, such as walking or slow cycling, can be done practically every single day (even several times a day) for longer periods of time. This type of training is very easy for your body to recover from, regardless of your body type and your goals. It will have very little negative impact on muscle gain and can help you burn calories for fat loss.

Moderate-intensity cardio training, such as jogging or swimming, will need to be done a little less frequently. This type of training requires more energy both to perfom and for your body to recover from. A person trying to lose fat can generally perform four to six moderate-intensity sessions per week at around 20 to 30 minutes each. A person trying to gain muscle should reduce this amount to two to three sessions per week.

High-intensity training is the toughest of the bunch but can actually net you the greatest and fastest results. High-intensity training is exemplified in activities such as sprinting and interval training. If you've ever had a coach make you run up and down hills, you've done high-intensity cardio. Basically, anything that you do as hard as you can for a short period of time could be considered high-intensity training. In fact, intense weight training with short rest periods is very good for cardio capacity.

High-intensity training is extremely effective for fat loss as it not only causes you to burn a lot of calories during the activity, it also raises your metabolism for a long time after the activity is done. This type of hard training should be done less frequently than the more moderate forms of cardio as it is much harder for your body to recover from. If you are training for fat loss, you should do at least two but no more than three high-intensity cardio sessions per week. If you are training for muscle gain, once or, at the most, twice per week should be the limit.

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The three major factors that determine how much cardio you should do in your program (your primary training goal, your bodytype and the type of cardio training you do) must now all be taken into account when determining how much cardio you should be doing compared to weight training.

Every body is different and every person reacts to training in different ways. To determine how much cardio you should do, you will need to look at each factor on it's own then look at all three factors at once. When you write them all down, you will probably see a pattern develop. Here's an example.

Fat Loss - 3 to 6 times per week
Endomorph - 3 to 6 times per week
High-intensity Training - 2 to 3 times per week
Weight Training - 3 times per week

This would mean an endomorphic person training for fat loss with high-intensity training could do cardio three times per week and weights 3 times per week.

Here's another example:

Muscle Gain - 1 to 2 times per week
Ectomorph - 1 to 2 times per week
Low-intensity Training - 2 to 3 times per week minimum but can be done almost every day
Weight Training - 3 to 4 times per week

This would mean an ectomorphic person looking for muscle gain and doing low-intensity cardio training could do cardio two days a week at a minimum to maintain cardio capacity while trying to gain muscle.

Conclusion:

Every person's situation is wide open to interpretation and, when it all comes right down to it, much of your training schedule is determined by the time you have available to you. These guidelines should help give you an idea of what frequency of training is most appropriate for your specific goals and situation. Take these recommendations simply as advice, not as rules written in stone and feel free to experiment. You may find out that what actually works for you is exactly the opposite of what is written here!

Cardiovascular Training Resource Links:

What Do You Mean Low-Intensity Training Isn't The Best For Fat Burning?
http://www.fitstep.com/Misc/Newsletter-archives/issue7.htm

Cardiovascular Training Basics
http://www.fitstep.com/Library/Info/Cardio_fitness1.htm

Cardiovascular Activities
http://www.fitstep.com/Library/Info/Cardio_activities.htm

Cardiovascular Equipment
http://www.fitstep.com/Library/Info/Cardio_equipment1.htm

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ANNOUNCING AN AMAZING WEIGHT LOSS RESOURCE WEBSITE REVEALS...Why Almost Everyone Is Dead Wrong In The Way They Diet To Lose Body Fat The approach you're using to lose body fat may not only be ineffective, it might be damaging your metabolism and even making you fatter! I'm confident that I've discovered an easier, better and more natural way to burn fat faster -- Not by a few percent, not by 50%, not even by 100%, but by up to 300% or more! Click on the following link to find out how: http://www.fitstep.com/goto/burnfat.htm

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Secret Training Tip #683 - 5 Groundbreaking Calf Training Techniques For Complete Calf Development and Rock-Solid Ankle Stability Are you having trouble building your calves? These innovative, new techniques will help you develop your calves to the very fullest, including the hard-to-reach inner and outer areas.

Technique #1 - Ski-Jump Calf Raises

Your calf machine must be bolted down solidly to take full advantage of this technique as you'll be pushing against the machine at an angle.

Set your shoulders in the calf-raise machine as you normally would. Now place your feet back about a foot back from there (don't use a calf-raise block for this technique as the block may slip out) so your body is at an angle. You will look somewhat like a ski jumper when you are in this position.

Push up and forward into the calf raise from this position. This angle increases the tension in the stretch position and works the calves at a very unique angle not found in any other calf movements.

This technique is excellent for any sport requiring explosive forward movement, e.g. track, football, soccer, volleyball, etc., as the body position employed with this technique mimics that movement very closely.

It's also especially useful if you find you're running out of resistance on the calf machine you're using. Since you'll be pushing forward against the machine as well as the weight, the resistance will be greater.

Note: be sure your shoes have good grip and that you are not on a slippery surface when you use this technique. Your feet could slide out.

Go to the following URL for pictures of this technique:

http://www.fitstep.com/Misc/Newsletter-archives/issue21-calves.htm#1

Technique #2 - Using Weight Plates To Hit the Inner and Outer Calves

This technique will work on any variation of the calf raise exercise from regular calf machine raises to dumbell calf raises to Smith Machine calf raises. It will not only work the inner and outer calves but it will also help you develop incredible ankle strength and stability.

Instead of using a calf block or the regular footplate of the machine, you will be using one or two 25-pound weight plates (depending on which area of your calves you want to hit) placed on the floor. These will be what you'll be setting your feet on for the exercise.

To work the inner calves, place one 25-pound plate on the floor. Stand so that only the front inner quarters of your feet are on the plate. The sides of your feet will be half off so your ankles slope down and away. When you execute the calf raise, raise the sides of your feet and come up onto the big toe side each foot. Try to force your heels in together as you come up for a little extra inner-calf tension. Roll back down and out to complete the movement.

To work the outer calves, use two plates with about six inches of separation between them. Place the outer front quarters of your feet on the sides of the plates. Your feet will be tilted down and in. Roll up and do a calf raise then return to the start position. Make sure you hit both positions in order to keep the ankles and calves balanced.

Go to the following URL for pictures of this technique:

http://www.fitstep.com/Misc/Newsletter-archives/issue21-calves.htm#2

Technique #3 - High Incline Calf Walking

For this one, you will need a treadmill with an incline. It's really quite simple but produces an incredible, muscle-building pump in even the most stubborn of calves. It is one of the most effective techniques you can use for getting past calf-development plateaus.

Set the treadmill to the highest incline setting it's got and set the machine to a fairly slow speed. You aren't trying to do cardio here; you're trying to force blood into the calves.

Walk for five to ten minutes steadily, focusing on pushing up with the calves every time you step (like a mini-calf raise). Keep your body in a straight upright position to keep the resistance on your calves.

This is an excellent way to enhance blood circulation in the calves. After you finish your set, stretch your calves hard once they are fully pumped to expand the fascia. For more information on stretching for muscle growth, check out the following article:

How Stretching Can Explode Your Muscle Growth

http://www.fitstep.com/Misc/Newsletter-archives/issue10.htm

Technique #4 - Calf Raises On A Dumbell

When doing one-legged calf raises, stand on a dumbell handle (preferably one with round plates so it rolls). This tendency to roll will make you work to stabilize yourself as you're doing the calf raise, increasing the effectiveness of the exercise. Be sure to hang onto something solid as you're doing this exercise as you don't want to slip off.

The tendency for the dumbell to roll will allow you to roll your foot over the top of the handle, giving you full extension of the calf at the top. As you come up, roll the dumbell slightly backward. Roll it slightly forward as you come down to get a better stretch.

It is also possible to do this technique on the actual dumbell plates themselves rather than the handle (make sure your are hanging on with both hands if you do this version as it is extremely unstable). Use a larger dumbell (e.g. 85 pounder) if you can, though a smaller one will still work. The reason for the larger dumbell is to be sure the plates are wide enough to stand on comfortably (a single dumbell plate can dig into your foot quite painfully).

Go to the following URL for pictures of this technique:

http://www.fitstep.com/Misc/Newsletter-archives/issue21-calves.htm#4

Technique #5 - Add Sets

An Add Set is just the opposite of a Drop Set. Instead of dropping the weight over the course of an extended set, you will actually increase it, hence the "add."

This is a very effective technique, especially for the calves, which recover from work extremely quickly. Calves need to be really overloaded to get them to grow and this technique fits the bill.

Start with a moderate weight for your first round--something you can get about 12 to 15 reps with. Do the set, step off the machine, shake your calves out then add 10 to 20 pounds (or more) onto the machine. Step back on and do as many reps as you can. Step off, add more weight to the machine and do it again. Repeat this procedure 3 to 5 times or until you can't more than 5 or so reps with the weight. Your calves should be fully worked by then!

You can learn more intensity techniques for all your bodyparts in
the article "Intensity Techniques That Will 'Kill' You AND Make You Stronger."

http://www.fitstep.com/Misc/Newsletter-archives/issue12.htm

Conclusion:

If you are having trouble building your calves and they just don't seem to be responding to anything, give these five calf-training techniques a try. They may be just what you need to spur your calves to new levels of development!

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Targeted Training Programs That Literally Force Your Most Stubborn Bodyparts To Grow Information this powerful doesn't come along every day. With the programs found in "Specialization Training", you could be bench pressing 50 more pounds in a matter of weeks. You could add inches to your arms with a program that requires only a couple of minutes a day. To find out how you can get results like these, go to: http://www.fitness-ebooks.com

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Stop Wasting Your Protein Powder! How To Squeeze More Results Out Of Each Scoop Of Protein Powder You Take Without knowing when and how to take your protein powder for best results, you could be flushing your gains directly down the toilet. Find out how to do it right.

It doesn't matter what brand or type of protein powder you take...if you are taking it at the wrong time, you aren't getting as much out of it as you could be. In fact, if you take your protein powder at the wrong time, you may as well just dump it in the garbage!

Here is a list of the when, why and how of effective protein supplementation, ranked in order of importance.

1. Immediately After A Workout

If you only take protein powder once per day, this is the absolute best time to take it. Immediately after you finish your workout, your body needs raw materials to rebuild and recover with. If you don't supply the raw materials through eating, your body will break down muscle from elsewhere in your body in order to rebuild the damaged areas. This is very counterproductive as you can well imagine.

By taking in some protein (20 to 30 grams or so) within minutes after exercise, you provide your body with the raw materials it needs to recover without breaking down its own muscle tissue.

2. An Hour After A Workout

About an hour following a workout, your body has settled down from the excitement and is ready to really start rebuilding. The protein that you took in immediately following the workout has been metabolized and your body is looking for more. Another protein shake at this time is a good way to help speed recovery. Try to take in another 20 to 30 grams about an hour after working out.

3. First Thing In The Morning

Immediately upon waking, or as soon after that as you can manage, take a scoop of protein powder. Your body has just been through an (approximately) 8 hour fast and is hungry for nutrients. Feed your body!

Protein powder is more quickly assimilated than solid food and gets into your muscles faster. This protein shot gives your metabolism a boost, which can help with fat loss. Be sure to follow it with a good breakfast, of course.

4. Last Thing At Night

Prepare your body for the long overnight fast by giving it a little something to work with. A good combination for this purpose is to mix a scoop of whey protein in with a small glass of milk.

Whey is what's known as a "fast" protein, meaning that it's digested quickly, while milk protein (casein) is what's known as a "slow" protein, meaning it's digested relatively slowly. At night, you want your protein to be metabolized slowly so that your body gets a more even supply over the course of the night. By mixing "fast" and "slow" proteins, you get the benefits of the higher-quality whey with the slower digestion time of the milk.

5. In-between Meals

A quick protein shake can be a great snack in between meals. It helps keep your body supplied with protein all day long. This is especially useful if you tend to have long periods of time in-between meals. It could mean the difference between losing muscle and building or keeping muscle!

6. With Meals

Taking a protein supplement with meals is a handy way to increase the protein content of a meal. This is perfect for when you eat
a meal that is somewhat low in protein.

7. In The Middle Of The Night

This is a trick that bodybuilders sometimes use in order to keep their muscles supplied with protein throughout the night. Keep a pre-mixed protein shake right beside your bed. Although some trainers have been known to set alarms to wake up to drink it, I prefer to have it there waiting just in case I wake up, but I don't try to wake up on purpose. If I don't wake up, it's right there ready for me to drink first thing in the morning! This strategy is more targeted for muscle growth rather than fat loss.

WARNING!

Never drink a protein supplement immediately before working out!

Some people do this thinking that it will give them an energy boost or give them a head-start for post-workout recovery. Basically, all it does is sit in their stomach and bloat them up. Valuable blood that should be going to working muscles gets sent to the digestive system to try and digest it. The same warning goes for taking protein during a workout. Don't do it!

Taking protein powder is not going to make up for poor diet or a bad program but it can definitely help to support you in your training efforts. Take it at the right time and you'll get the most bang for your buck!

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Looking For Amazing Prices on High-Quality Protein Powder?

http://www.fitstep.com/goto/fitrx.htm

For more information on protein and muscle, I also highly recommend the eBook "Bodybuilding Revealed"by bodybuilding author Will Brink:

http://www.fitstep.com/goto/muscle-building-nutrition.htm

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The Ten Worst Pieces of Training Equipment I've Ever Used From the Trampoline Stair Machine to the Self-Impaling Cable Row Machine, you will not believe just how bad some training equipment can be.

Almost every single gym in the world has a piece of equipment in it that every member hates to use. It sits in the corner like a mousetrap, waiting for the next victim to get close. I've traveled the world in search of the worst of these diabolical machines (well, not really, but you get the idea).

Keep in mind, these are real pieces of equipment that I've actually used (but not for long!).

1. The Power Rack With Aluminum Safety Rails - if a rack has safety rails that are 1 inch in diameter, weigh 3 pounds each and are BENT, stay far, far away.

2. The Eight-Foot Pulldown Machine - have you ever used a pulldown machine where you needed to stand up on the seat to be able to reach the bar? It's about as practical as playing golf with a bowling ball (a little tricky to get into position if you're using more than your bodyweight too).

3. The Back-Breaker Crunch Machine - try a rep in this thing. It'll fold you up like an enchilada and not in a good way. That sharp, shooting pain in your lower back does NOT mean your abs are working.

4. The Short and Skinny Flat Bench - I have no idea who built this thing as I've only ever seen it one gym but this guy needs to be fired. This wonderfully unstable twelve-inch long bench is perfect for exercises that don't require a good base of support or pretty much any support at all. It was the only "bench" in the entire gym that wasn't nailed down so it was all I had to use for 500-pound partial bench presses. Fun!

5. The Shoulder-Separator Flye Machine - the designers of this machine must not have realized that your shoulders don't bend backwards quite as far as they go forward. Never before had I seen a machine that almost made your elbows touch behind your back for a "complete" stretch.

6. The Self-Impaling Cable Row Machine - I quite like cable row machines that have a support pad for your chest. I encountered one version that had a pad that was all of 2 square inches and set so that it pressed directly into your solar plexus as you rowed. It was like getting punched in the guts with every rep!

7. The Trampoline Stair Machine - what could be better than a stair machine that automatically shoots your one leg back up so fast as you push the other one down that you almost knock your teeth out with your knee? How about an escalator.

8. The Crooked Smith Machine - normally when you look at the bar on a Smith Machine, it is horizontal. Not this thing. I must confess, I didn't actually use it though. The fact that everyone who did any exercises on this machine walked away leaning at a 20-degree angle kind of scared me off.

9. The Seatless Stationary Bike - I didn't actually use this one either, for reasons too painful to discuss.

10. The Knee-Cracker Leg Extension Machine - the leg extension is not the healthiest exercise for your knees to begin with but the designer of this machine for some reason felt it necessary to enhance this danger by inclining the seat. Imagine doing a leg extension with your hips down, your knees up level with your chest and your heels forced back underneath your butt. When the sounds of someone crushing bubble wrap comes out of your knees, you know something is not quite right with the machine.

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