Does cardio kill your gains?

Doing cardio will kill your gains. At least, that’s what you have likely been told at some point in your life. While this can be true, it does not have to be true, and by understanding the interference effect and how to avoid it you can progress much faster as a hybrid athlete.

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The interference effect refers to the phenomenon where concurrent training of both strength and endurance can lead to diminished gains in both compared to what you would see if you trained for one vs. the other. 

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There have been several studies showing that endurance training will prevent you from being able to build strength and muscle, (Kikuchi et al 2016, Kraemer et al 1985) but these studies all have one underlying thing in common: the people in the studies trained like shit. The important thing to understand is that interference effect is real and a poor training plan will certainly elicit it, but there are ways to train concurrently that avoid it completely.

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There are several variables that impact the degree that cardio impacts strength gains.

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The type of cardio you do

The most popular forms of cardio are running, cycling, swimming, rowing, and skiing. Of these, running causes substantially greater muscle fatigue and damage and thus is more likely to elicit the interference effect than the other lower-impact forms of cardio.

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The volume & intensity of cardio you do

The more load you’re putting on your body, the more likely you are to experience the interference effect. Your body needs the chance to rest and recover to get stronger. The amount of cardio that can be done before experiencing the interference effect is dependent on the type of cardio and intensity of the workouts, but generally speaking the interference effect doesn’t begin to have a major impact until you’re over 6 hours of cardio in a week.

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The timing of your workouts

Stacking strength and cardio workouts on the same day that focus on the same muscle groups (ex. Leg day lift and a run) has a significantly higher interference effect than working them on different days. Even one day apart is enough to make the interference effect almost negligible (though may not be enough to reduce likelihood of injury). If you’re going to do two workouts in the same day, it’s always best to (a) avoid doing leg lifts and a high-impact form of cardio on the same day, (b) to do the strength training first, (c) to separate the workouts with as much time as possible and, (d) to eat carbs between workouts.

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The number of calories you consume

Concurrent training puts an extreme amount of load on your body and your body needs to be properly refueled to recover effectively and build muscle. Being in a caloric deficit while hybrid training magnifies the impact of the interference effect.

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The biggest takeaway here is that if you train right and plan your workouts thoughtfully you can avoid the interference effect and progress faster. This is core to our mission at HYBRD as we develop the tools to help every hybrid athlete unlock their full potential.

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