Is Too Much Cardio Stopping You From Getting Toned?

Nikkiey: This is how you build muscle mass. This is how you increase muscle mass, which is what being toned means.

What's up, you guys? Welcome to The WarriorBabe Show with Nikkiey Stott, co-founder and brand personality of WarriorBabe, where we talk about mindset, methodologies, and tactics that will help you lose body fat, build muscle, be strong, and feel insanely confident. I am your host, Nikkiey Stott, and welcome to episode number 10, all about strength training burning more calories than cardio.

I'm going to give you the proof today. You guys have probably heard that too much cardio is bad for you. But what exactly does that mean? Like, huh? What does that mean? So in this podcast, I'm going to break it down for you and explain why too much cardio can be hindering the results you want to see with building muscle, being more toned and seeing changes in your body composition, and how to balance cardio properly with strength training.

Because I'm not saying cardio is terrible. I'm not saying cardio is something you should not be doing. So first, let's talk about why cardio is important for weight loss. Cardio exercises like running, cycling and swimming are great for burning calories and promoting weight loss. And cardio is great for your overall cardiovascular health. That's why I'm not saying cardio is bad. I'm just saying that when it comes to building muscle and changing your body composition, cardio alone, or doing too much of it, may not be the best approach.

Too much cardio without incorporating strength training can lead to muscle loss, which can be counterproductive to the type of results you want to see in your body composition. It won't give you a toned, lean look, right? You need muscle mass to achieve that look. Instead, it's going to leave you looking skinny fat, with no muscle tone.

I explained this to you guys in episode number one when I shared my whole journey with you and how I was a cardio bunny at the beginning of my journey. It just left me looking like a skinnier, fatter version of myself, not the goals I wanted to accomplish of building more muscle and looking more toned.

When you engage in cardio for long periods of time, your body starts to break down muscle tissue for fuel instead of using fat. This can lead to a decrease in muscle mass and a decrease in your metabolism, making it harder to lose weight and burn fat in the long run. And I'm going to break this down and elaborate on it so it makes absolute sense to your brain.

If you're doing excess running and cardio, your body may start to adapt to that constant demand, and you may end up burning fewer calories than you expect. This is known as the adaptive response of the body. As muscle mass decreases, your body starts to become more efficient at completing the same cardio exercises, leading to fewer calories being burned per cardio session. This can make it harder to continue losing weight and burning fat. And it's why, if you're a cardio bunny, you're not yet seeing the results you want, because you will need to increase the duration or intensity of your cardio workouts to see results.

So let me dive a little deeper into this explanation. If you are doing an activity that requires very little strength and muscle, and you're doing a lot of it, AKA cardio, and that activity burns a lot of calories, then your body will start to adapt. Your metabolism will start to adapt. It will start to slow down, as I mentioned earlier. Our metabolism has a range of how many calories it can burn. It can make itself more efficient or less efficient with calories.

When your body becomes less efficient with calories, it wastes more energy. It wastes more calories. You want to be less efficient. When it becomes more efficient, it conserves more energy. It conserves more calories. It holds on to more calories. I told you I was going to elaborate on this more and more and dive deeper and deeper so that it just makes sense to your brains. So I'm going to give you examples of what I mean with cardio versus strength training.

With overuse of cardio, your body recognizes, okay, we're burning a lot of calories during this activity. We need endurance. We don't need a lot of muscle and strength. So let's learn how to conserve calories by paring down muscle and slowing the metabolism down so we can become more efficient at endurance, more of a cardio machine.

Whereas with strength workouts, your workouts don't really burn that many calories. And this is where I can get into the nitty gritty: the calories burned on your fitness watches. Should that number matter? It does not matter. I just want to burn that into your brain. The calorie numbers you see burned after your exercise on your fitness watch don't matter. They're not directly linked to your metabolism.

So with strength workouts, your workouts don't burn that many calories, but they require strength and muscle. Now your body is like, let's build this muscle, and we can be less efficient with calories so that we can build that muscle, which is what will speed up your metabolism and help aid in the fat loss you want to see in your body.

You probably see all these people who routinely go into the gym, right? Maybe you can picture the people on the cardio equipment when you walk into the gym, and you're like, oh my God, I see this person all the time doing the same thing every week. They're in there for one to two hours doing cardio on all different equipment. They go from the treadmill to the elliptical to the StairMaster. And they may be paying such fine-tuned attention to how many calories they eat during the day. Maybe they're trying to eat better. They're like, I'm counting calories, I'm paying attention, I'm eating better, and now I'm going in and watching the equipment tell me I'm burning X, Y and Z. They're watching that during their workout sessions, using the measuring tool built into the machines.

So it's like, I ate 1,800 calories today and I burned 600 calories on this treadmill. Awesome. That number on those machines has virtually nothing to do with anything. What those people on those machines don't realize, and maybe this was you, this was definitely me, so you're not alone if this is you, and I'm hoping to make some light bulbs go off in your brain today, is that over the long period of time they've been doing the same exact thing, they've actually been slowing down their metabolism by conserving calories for that activity.

You train your body to get better at what you're teaching it to do, or what your workouts are doing. So if your workouts are high calorie burning and require very little muscle, your body learns to adapt to that workout by slowing down its metabolism.

Hey, I just want to drop a huge appreciation to you guys listening to the show. It means a lot. I hope you're enjoying it, and there's so much more to come. If you are enjoying it, hit the subscribe button. I'd appreciate that tons, and it would also help this podcast reach others who need to hear these messages too. Thanks so much, guys. Let's get back to the show.

It's probably why you've seen these people inside the gym every single week for the last 52 weeks and they look virtually the same, right? Maybe they've lost some weight. But it's not conducive to building muscle. Strength training is essential for building muscle, increasing strength, and so, so much more.

By using resistance to target specific muscles, such as weightlifting, resistance band training or bodyweight exercises, you cause micro tears in the muscle fibers, which then repair and grow back stronger and bigger. This is how you build muscle mass. This is how you increase muscle mass, which is what being toned means.

I freaking hate that word toned. You guys, toned is building muscle. But women get so afraid to build muscle because they think it's going to make them bulky, and I'm going to talk about this in another podcast. That is so not true.

Strength training, breaking down these fibers and making them grow back stronger and bigger, is how you build muscle and increase muscle mass. That's just how you get toned. That's how you get a lean, toned body. And it's important for overall health, strength and your metabolism.

Strength training has a metabolic benefit, as I've already explained, which is important for burning fat. A higher muscle mass means a higher metabolism, which can help you burn more calories, even at rest. This can be achieved by progressive strength training, which means consistently increasing the weight and the reps you do and keeping your muscles challenged with every single workout. That's why, as professionals, we change up people's programs every six to eight weeks, or every four weeks, whatever is specific to the individual. That's to keep your muscles experiencing a challenge so they're constantly growing and constantly getting bigger.

Another issue with excessive running and cardio is that it can lead to a condition called overtraining. When you're running for long periods of time, your body is in a constant state of inflammation, which can lead to muscle breakdown and can cause hormonal imbalances in the body. This is completely counterproductive when your goal is to build muscle. The term overtraining refers to a state when the body is constantly fatigued and unable to recover from exercise, which makes muscle building almost impossible.

Rest and recovery are so important to building muscle. You'll hear me say this: when you're inside the gym during your strength training workout, you are breaking down the muscle. It's during the 24 to 48 hours after, with proper nutrition, rest and recovery, that you are building the muscle. So if your body is constantly fatigued and unable to recover because you're overtraining it, building muscle becomes almost impossible.

So to maximize fat loss and muscle building, it's so important to incorporate both cardio and strength training. Again, I'm not saying cardio is terrible. You just have to find the balance. Cardio is great for your cardiovascular and overall health. Right now, a goal of mine in 2023 is to incorporate two endurance days, one being a three-to-four-mile run and the other a CrossFit endurance workout. But the majority of my other workouts are strength training because of the ultimate goal I have for my body.

So instead of excessive cardio, try to balance the load with shorter, more intense sessions, or, like I just said, choose two of your workouts in the week to be more endurance style. HIIT is a great recommendation here, but there is a right way to do HIIT. You don't want to overdo this either. Shorter, more balanced cardio sessions will burn more calories and promote muscle growth.

And you want to focus on progressive strength training, like I've mentioned, so you can increase the weight and the reps and keep challenging your muscles.

And most importantly, which I haven't mentioned yet in this podcast, it's also very important that you eat enough protein to fuel the muscle growth. So make sure you're getting enough of that in your daily diet. That's why I love tracking macronutrients. It helps me recognize and have more awareness of how much protein I am eating.

Lastly, as we wrap up this podcast today, it is super important to monitor recovery time and your scheduled rest days so the body can heal and grow. I'm going to keep repeating it so it's ingrained in your brain: you break down muscle in the gym and you build it in the hours and days following, with proper nutrition, rest and recovery. Remember, recovery is just as important as training, and your body needs time to repair and build muscle.

So to wrap it all up, too much cardio and not enough strength training can negatively impact your ability to lose fat and build more muscle by leading to muscle loss, the adaptive response of your body, and overtraining. To achieve your goals, it's important to strike a balance between cardio and strength training. Focus on progressive strength training, eat more protein to fuel muscle growth, and watch your recovery time and schedule rest days into your plan weekly so the body can heal and grow.

That wraps up the podcast for today. Thanks so much for being here, and thanks for being a follower of the podcast. If you haven't subscribed yet, please do. Please rate and review it. I would highly appreciate that. It could also help impact somebody else's world, because they'll see this podcast, listen to it, and their life could change. So just by rating and reviewing it, you could change somebody else's life too. All right, guys, I'll see you in the next podcast.

Real quick. The only ask I could ever have of you is to help spread the word so we can help more women lose body fat, build muscle, reach their goals, and feel insanely confident. The only way we can do that is if you rate, review and share this podcast. So the single thing I ask you to do is leave a review. It will take you 10 seconds, it will mean the absolute world to me, and it may change the world of someone else.