Cardio & Workout...

[LittleBitch]

I have a problem. I have a 4 day split with my workout regime a the moment, but I also have muay thai 3 times a week which are fairly intense cardio sessions.

Muay Thai starts at 6 and finishes at about 730 each night on Mon/Tues/Thurs. I don't have set days for my workout apart from I don't go to the gym on the weekend, that is my relax period.

My goals are to bulk up.

Now I usually try to get the gym out of the way during the day, so I can have a solid few hours break between my muay thai. Sometimes due to other commitments this is not possible, or sometimes I am just a lazy prick.
Sometimes I either
A) Go to the gym at about 3.30pm and finish at 5pm-ish, rest for an hour then go do muay thai.
or
B) Do Muay Thai at 6pm, finish at 730pm-ish, then head to the gym at about 9pm.

I always have a protein/carb shake between the two different training sessions, and if there are potatoes available I'll eat a few of them as well between sessions. If there's no good carbs available, I'll just have an energy snack pack (for you Australians, think Milo Energy Yogo type stuff).

But apart from the fact that having one after the other leaves me fatigued and not able to push to my natural max. Now I was wondering how having these two types of workouts (intense cardio vs weights) that close together? How should I plan it out properly, and more to the point, why? What is the body mechanism that tells me I should not keep these two so close? What are your suggestions (apart from telling me to cut out the cardio if I want to bulk up... not an option, I want to be fit and muay thai is important to me)?

[LittleBitch]

no love

[jbarkley]

I'm wondering if you would clarify a few things....you go back to the gym again at 9? You're training 3 times a day? How many calories are you eating a day? What is your age? Is it difficult for you to get adaquete amounts of food (question this because of the comment about the potato's being available) What is your current weight and any additional stats you can provide?

[LittleBitch]

I'm wondering if you would clarify a few things....you go back to the gym again at 9? You're training 3 times a day? How many calories are you eating a day? What is your age? Is it difficult for you to get adaquete amounts of food (question this because of the comment about the potato's being available) What is your current weight and any additional stats you can provide?

Sorry if it wasn't clear...

What I meant was I do A "or" B, but not both. The maximum amount of times I train is twice a day (Muay Thai then Gym .... OR .... Gym then Muay Thai)

I currently weigh roughly 76kg (my scales are not reliable), height is 5'11". BFI is about 14%. Age is 21. I still live at home with 2 parents and 2 sibblings, so food is always available, and if it's not I drive to the shop to buy a healthy subway sub / pasta dish / whole chicken or something for me to feast on ***ending on what time of day it is. I only mentioned the potatoes thing because generally they're cooked ready for everyone else's dinner when I get home from muay thai or something and need to restock my body with good carbs asap. I'm not poor
I get about 7 to 8 meals in a day. My day yesterday was something like (timing may be off but its roughly correct.)

930am: Get out of bed
10am: 6 WeetBix (google it :P) + Low Fat Milk
12pm: ****
1pm: 2 Crumbed Chicken Breast + Glass of Low Fat Milk
4pm: Chicken Lasagna + Orange Juice (Good quality home made lasagna, low fat cheese used....not the microwave lasagna you buy at a service station)
5pm: Red Bak XXXL Mass Gainer Shake
6pm: Workout/Gym****
6.30pm: Red Bak XXXL Mass Gainer Shake
7pm: Slice of Wholemeal Toast with small dish of Extra Virgin Olive Oil condiment for dipping (mmmmmm so good!)
7.30pm: Roast Dinner compliments of Mummy (included ~200g Roast Beef, 3 potatoes, 2 Sweet Potatoes, Cooked Lima Beans, Carrots, Brocolli...)
10.30pm: Tuna Sandwich in Wholemeal Bread + glass of low fat milk
11.10pm: bedtime

* Through random times durin the day I usually drink about 2 lires of water as well.
* I'm allergic to nuts otherwise my day would be littered with nut style snacks.
* I'm still trying to get mum to get into the habit of buying tubs of cottage cheese, I just don't get to the supermarket that often :P
**** Where I have the four asteriks is where I'd usually have my gym workout, and where I have listed my gym workout is where I'd usually have my Muay Thai. Though sometimes as I said I have my muay thai and then go straight to the gym for a workout at 9ish. Hope that makes sense.

Feel free to make suggestions about my diet, I'm an amateur and always looking for improvement. Just don't hammer me about it if I'm doing shit wrong :P Hopefully it all made some sense. So yeah, whats the deal with cardio and weight training being too close together and on either side of each other?

[LittleBitch]

this little bitch needs some advice!

[AandF6969]

930am: Get out of bed
10am: 6 WeetBix (google it :P) + Low Fat Milk
12pm: ****
1pm: 2 Crumbed Chicken Breast + Glass of Low Fat Milk
4pm: Chicken Lasagna + Orange Juice (Good quality home made lasagna, low fat cheese used....not the microwave lasagna you buy at a service station)
5pm: Red Bak XXXL Mass Gainer Shake
6pm: Workout/Gym****
6.30pm: Red Bak XXXL Mass Gainer Shake
7pm: Slice of Wholemeal Toast with small dish of Extra Virgin Olive Oil condiment for dipping (mmmmmm so good!)
7.30pm: Roast Dinner compliments of Mummy (included ~200g Roast Beef, 3 potatoes, 2 Sweet Potatoes, Cooked Lima Beans, Carrots, Brocolli...)
10.30pm: Tuna Sandwich in Wholemeal Bread + glass of low fat milk
11.10pm: bedtime

**** Where I have the four asteriks is where I'd usually have my gym workout, and where I have listed my gym workout is where I'd usually have my Muay Thai. Though sometimes as I said I have my muay thai and then go straight to the gym for a workout at 9ish.

What is in the Red Bak XXXL Shakes you drink?

You said you usually have your gym workout at 12pm and Muay Thai at 6... if you're looking to burn fat more effectively at night while youre doing kickboxing or whatever I'd skip the carb shake before... your body is just burning glycogen during your workout.

Also I'd get more protein in meal 1 and drop the carbs at 10:30pm.

It'd be good if you could total up a sample day's protein/fat/carbs and total calories. It's hard to know where you should go if you don't know where you are. Check out www.fitday.com for a database of foods.

Also there a couple diet threads
http://forums.steroid.com/showthread.php?t=39010
http://forums.steroid.com/showthread.php?t=113010

[LittleBitch]

Red Bak is an Aussie supplement company who's products I find have worked rather well for me. The Red Bak XXXL is a Mass Gainer 50/50 (40g protein, 36g carbs). Something like 0.7g fat, which I think is alright. It's got all your essental and non essential amino acids in there as well as a bit of glutamine and also all your vitamins (average 10% RDI of each vitamin).

I swapped from Muscle Tech Nitro protein to Red Bak and haven't looked back, I've found better gains and quite frankly Red Bak's Cookies and Cream flavour kicks the shit out of what muscle tech calls their "Chocolate" flavour (seriously... thats supposed to be chocolate? :P)

One of the reasons I dump carbs before my cardio is basically I don't want to risk burning protein. I'm ok with putting on a bit of fat, as I've got a fairly good level of definition as it is so I'm not too fussed. I've got more of a concern about catabolic effects during cardio if I don't have a big enough energy source to begin with (trying to keep the protein burning to a minimum). On top of that, I don't have the money to go blowing on Glutamine supplements.

Um, as for the tips, thanks! Yeah I'll definately look into adding some more protein into my first meal. Any suggestions for breakfast protein? Everynow and then I try cook myself up about 3 eggs and bacon on top of my weetbix, but if I'm in a rush it could be a bit hard.

As for ditching the wholemeal carbs at 1030, I use the bread to toast it because at the moment thats the only way I enjoy my tuna. I'll work on getting to like it better but until then, maybe you've got some good ideas for tuna recipes? what do you personaly eat as your last meal of the day?

Cheers for your help

[AandF6969]

Rather than 3 eggs you could go with 1 yolk and a bunch of egg whites... to equal about 30-40g protein. There's also cartons of egg whites that they sell that make it real easy, you don't have to crack 8 eggs every day. You can even drink the egg whites mixed with protein (it really doesnt taste bad).

For my last meal i usually either eat a 6 oz steak, 1 1/2 cans of tuna + flax seed oil or 1 1/2 cans of tuna + 2 tbsb peanut butter.

[LittleBitch]

See this is one thing that I've never really looked into, so I'm goin to be lazy and ask you here seeing as I'm lazy :P
What's wrong with the yolk of the egg? Why does everyone go for the eggwhites, but ditch the yolk if possible? WHY CAN'T I JUST ENJOY MY WHOLE EGG?

[AandF6969]

Well once you get over about 2 egg yolks in a meal, its getting to be quite a bit of fat and cholesterol for a single meal. Plus, there's not really much protein in 3 eggs.. Wheras with 1 or 2 yolk + whites, it tastes almost the same (trust me) and you can add however much whites you want to get up to 40-50g protein. To get that amount from full eggs, you'd have to use 7 or 8 eggs, which gets you between 40-50g of fat as well. waaaaaay too much.