Quote Originally Posted by FireGuy1 View Post
I am going to do you a huge favor. Take that concept and put it in your "myth" folder. The same folder that has "Behind the neck presses work rear delts" "Doing cardio PWO will make me miss my anabolic window" and "Do high reps for defined muscles".

Just because you have slept for 8 hours does NOT mean you are waking up in a catabolic state. It takes quite an extreme amount of time and effort to put yourself in a ketogenic state. Simply sleeping for 8 hours does not deplete your body of glycogen. Your diet the previous day will have much more influence on this than 8 hours of sleep.

I have stated before that cardio anytime is effective and your body will still burn some fat regardless of whether you just ate an hour ago or a day ago. But, if we want it to be optimal, empty stomach AM cardio and PWO are the MOST effective times to do it. Set aside, BMR, TDEE, Macro Ratios, and meal timing for 1 minute and remember this. Getting lean is about 1 thing and 1 thing only. Manipulating your body to used stored bodyfat as an energy source.

As also previously stated, if AM cardio was catabolic I should look like a triathlete and not a bodybuilder by now. Same with MrsFireguy. She does 60 minutes of empty stomach AM cardio 7 days a week. Check the recent thread in the Members Pics thread and let me know if you think it ate away her muscle. Oh, she was also doing 60 minutes PWO as well.

I know at least 50 competitive bodybuilders on a personal level. Ranging from IFBB Pro's, National Level guys and Regional and State level ones. Every single one of them, not most of them, ALL of them do empty stomach AM cardio. From a scientific perspective that doesnt make it right but it should tell you something.

Also, if you want to get lean be prepared to lose some muscle. I am not talking about 10-12%. I am talking single digit contest lean. We can minimize this with a dialed in diet and having as much muscle as possible to start with. If you are truly worried about your body ever breaking down any muscle during a diet then enjoy staying in that 10-14% bodyfat range. If you want the ripped look that "most" people here seem to apsire to then losing a bit of muscle along the way is part of it.
Some of the things I totally agree with, others I completely do not.

Catabolism occurs whether or not you have achieved a ketogenic state, so I dont know where you are going with that exactly. A nitrogen deficit alone could cause muscle breakdown, gluconeogenesis is also another form of muscle catabolism that could occur due to a lack of glycogen. But we are not talking about that. You could have a full glycogen reserve and still break down muscle.

Can you prove that it is a myth? The biggest problem I have is when someone on a competitive level discredits the science of something because of the common "It worked for me" response. fireguy, while your accomplishments are admirable, you seem to keep forgetting that most of these guys are not on a competition level, nor do most of them not aspire to be.