Hey bob, I'm going on week 3 of my cut and have been performing 30-40 mins of fasted cardio everyday in the morning. I know your big fan/believer of fasted cardio. Just recently I came across this article on BB.com by Layne. I just wanted to hear what you think of Layne Norton's opinion on fasted cardio. Thanks!

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Cardiovascular exercise has several myths surrounding it. The largest myth being that one should perform low intensity cardio in a fasted state. The logic being that if one is in a fasted state, their glycogen levels will be low and will force their body to burn fat. Unfortunately, this idea is misguided.

While performing cardio in a fasted state may indeed increase the amount of calories that are burned from fat stores, it will also increase amino acid oxidation. Cardiovascular exercise while in a fasted state is a great way to increase cortisol release. Cortisol will liberate amino acids to produce glucose (glucose cannot be synthesized from fats) and can lead to muscle loss.

Additionally, I find it ironic that many people take such great care to time their meals so that they do not go for more than 2-3 hours without eating in order to prevent muscle loss. However, they purposefully induce this state and then perform work on top of this!

Research has shown that the type of substrate used during cardiovascular work makes little overall difference on fat loss. This is most likely due to the fact if one relies mostly upon fat stores during cardio (i.e. low intensity cardio), the body will burn predominantly glucose at other times of the day. Likewise, if one mainly utilizes glucose for energy during cardio (i.e. high intensity cardio) the body will customarily rely on fat at other times of the day in order to spare muscle glycogen.

Training in and of itself causes the body to preferentially spare muscle glycogen and burn fat. It makes sense that one should strive to do their cardio on their 'off days' from lifting (as to not further hinder their recovery), and plan their carbohydrate intake similar to their lifting regime.

Cardiovascular work will increase nutrient partitioning towards muscle tissue and away from fat tissue. One should take advantage of this by consuming the bulk of their carbohydrate intake around this time. The benefits are that these nutrients induce fat storage, but will rather be stored in muscle tissue.

Why would you want to deny your muscles nutrients at the most crucial time of the day, but then provide them during rest? It does not make sense. Treat your cardiovascular work like your lifting.

Another question that often arises regarding cardio is the argument "Low-Intensity vs High-Intensity" cardio. Many people automatically assume that low-intensity cardio is better; citing that high-intensity cardio primarily utilizes glucose (anaerobic metabolism), while low-intensity cardio primarily burns fat (aerobic metabolism).

Once again, the substrate used during cardiovascular work is not as important as the caloric deficit created by the cardiovascular work. In actuality, high-intensity cardiovascular work is superior to low-intensity cardio for several reasons

High intensity cardio has a much stronger effect on GLUT-4 translocation in muscle cells due to the increased force of muscle contraction. This means that high-intensity cardio creates a much stronger nutrient partitioning effect towards muscle tissue than low-intensity cardio.

Low periods of low-intensity exercise tend to "overtrain" the fast-twitch muscle fibers and convert the intermediate muscle fibers to slow-twitch fibers. This is not a desirable effect as the fast twitch muscle fibers are those that have the greatest chance to hypertrophy. If your body has less fast twitch fibers, then you will experience less hypertrophy from training.


Understanding Muscle Fiber Types.
This article will deal mainly with how people think the muscle type makes no difference, how muscle type is over-rated and how it gets more credit...
[ Click here to learn more. ]


The body's hormonal response to high intensity cardio is similar to the body's hormonal response to resistance training (i.e. increased insulin sensitivity, gh release, Igf-1 release, etc) without placing the same strain on the nervous system as resistance training.

High-intensity cardio causes the body to preferentially store more carbohydrates and burn more fat.

High-intensity cardiovascular exercise increases oxygen expenditure and forces the body to adapt by becoming more efficient at oxygen transport (increase in VO2 max). More efficient oxygen transport to the muscles will increase fat oxidation as fat oxidation is dependant upon the presence of oxygen.

High-intensity cardio seems to be more muscle sparing. Several studies have shown that high-intensity interval training (aka HIT) burns less calories when compared to continuous lower intensity cardio. However, the skinfold losses were greater with the HIT group than in the continuous intensity group. This means not only did the HIT group lose more fat, they also spared more muscle tissue by burning less overall calories .

hmm...
well then slower cardio could be in
but i gotta do more research on it too...any good links on this for me to read?
looking in google mesti HIIT overrides slower cardio
cuz i need to understand the term slow cardio too and what it means
as in HIIT is measured by heart rate
how's slow cardio being benchmarked?
but one thing i agree about HIIT when it comes to myself is that while my legs are my strongest in the weight room, its the weakest on the track or treadmill...my ankles and shins and whatever not are busted due to long durations of HIIT uphill running
i burn calories yes but i could have done the same using slower methods albeit adding 20-30 more minutes (but without injuries)
and it is tried and tested today (cardio day) cuz i cant run therefore i busted my ass on the concept 2 rowing machine (not HIIT just normal cardio at low resistance but medium effort and burnt the same amount of calories i did for HIIT uphill running in the same amount of time (450kcal in less than 30 minutes)...

but the scientific gibberish...well thats not me for sure...i aint that smart and start spewing researches i barely understand

i also agree with you all along about basics
basics in diet, basics in bb, basics in cardio...
on a lighter note, what u said about the scientific crap could hurt the feelings of some people here (not me cuz i dont give crap too) but i know you couldnt give two hoots about that...   
HAHAHAHAHA...

but perhaps u cud explain about the previous post when bob said the timing your meal could only work on paper...

and about the pics thanks for the comments
i stated the year 2003 tu mase last i ate shit and crap from hell...
i started serious bb'ing in mid 2008 (august) and thats quite a long time a go also
like u said, perhaps i could have done some things right
but i learn through things via trial and error
now i know which workout works which workout wont work (like how my flexors hate barbells but at times i do have to force it especially in compound movements when im bored with db)
hehehe....

@ jon yeap
ronnie coleman (in an old muscle fitness released the year he conquered the olympia podium for the 3rd time and no i dont buy these mags, its lying around in the gym in wangsa maju) said one rep max is she*t
he wont do it if he cant do more than 4 reps
nanti kalau ade lagi i kasi pinjam