Muscle Loss Due To Cardio

[Martin Jones]

I tend to about 3 - 7 hours of road cycling a week but don't want to lose the muscle gains I make. Is it simply a case of eat enough to counteract the calories burnt?

[emos]

I tend to about 3 - 7 hours of road cycling a week but don't want to lose the muscle gains I make. Is it simply a case of eat enough to counteract the calories burnt?

Muscle gain/retention is established and encouraged by various mechanisms and the many stimuli that can induce it (such as "eating more") aren't necessarily equivalent or able to be paired with any given muscle-wasting stimulus. That is to say, in this case, that increasing food intake will only to a certain extent counteract the stimulus to waste muscle provided by certain other activities, such as long endurance work and cardio. But you won't be able to completely nullify it, most likely.

 

It's really impossible to predict where all the balances and tipping-points lie without knowing anything about someone, and it does vary a lot. I know about how much "cardio" I can do before I notice a real muscle wasting effect, and I know how much lifting I can afford before I over-work myself, and how much food I can eat to counteract that until it no longer helps and I just put on fat without actually recovering any faster... and so on.

 

In your case, 3-7 hours of road cycling isn't necessarily a great deal - rather depending on your pace and fitness, of course. You'll have to just try it and see. Employ all sensible dietary strategies to help as much as you can, and it might be fine. But remember that exercise of that nature directly induces the body to remodel itself in certain ways (just as strength-training does), and the simple calorie expenditure is the least of your worries.

[Philip Chubb]

Emos makes a good point. You have to take into account the adaptation toward distance work at that point. Eating enough will help, but there is also the fact that you are telling your body to adapt to this stimulus. If getting a very high level of strength is also a goal, it will be in two different directions.

[Larry Roseman]

Really it's rare that cardio causes muscle loss like your heading suggests. It's mainly the time and energy devoted to biking precludes upper body strength training. Also, bikers don't generally do upper body work that might cause growth - and extra wind resistance.  You don't have that problem.

 

Plus, there is a distortion comparing ourselves to endurance elites who generally have genetic predominance of slow twitch type I muscle fiber that doesn't grow very much. We probably don't have that problem.  

 

Anyway if your riding includes hills you won't lose leg mass and may gain some. And the stimulus gained from resistance training your upper body will prevent it from "wasting away", especially when combined with enough food. I know it's simplistic but at your volume of riding you don't have to worry about the fancy stuff.