The biggest fear of any bodybuilder—or any strength athlete at all, for that matter—is muscle loss while dieting. While trying to get lean, a lifter's worst nightmare is losing muscle, undoing the months and years of hard work that went into building it. This is why lifters put so much focus on nutrition and supplementation during fat-loss phases.
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Justin Harris says this concern is overblown; if you're eating and supplementing correctly, you don't have to worry much about losing muscle. It's when you screw up your eating or your training that you need to worry. In this video, Justin and Dave talk about timing of cardio and how to perform it to achieve the best results without muscle loss. Justin explain why he prefers fasted cardio in the morning, which can help put your body into Elevated Post-Exercises Oxygen Consumption (EPOC). He says that you should wake in the morning, perform your cardio immediately, and not consume any food until after. He points out that one of the best ways to heal a muscle is to bring as much blood and nutrition into the muscle as possible without causing pain.
WATCH: Justin Harris Shoulder Training
Similarly, Dave says that lifters should perform some form of cardio for recovery purposes the moment they get out of bed — he even says that for most people, a walk around the block will be helpful. This helps blood circulate early in the morning and help your body start its daily recovery process as soon as you wake. Dave also discusses his most recent training block, which was pure strength. He explains the issues that he encountered while training for strength and how he had to alter extra workouts (both feeder and recovery) to help him keep training heavy.
