The Right Training For What You Want!

Catabolic Vs Anabolic!

After thinking about your fitness goals, then next step is to plan your training plan! Here you need to think about what you want to achieve, how you’re going to achieve it and when. You need to consider the functionality of your training and think about the biology behind it to get the results you want.
Although of course everyone and their personal goals are different and these two goals do overlap, generally you can spilt people into one of two groups when it comes to starting training; the ones that want to build muscle mass and the ones who want to loose fat mass. From this you are instantly talking in terms of catabolism and anabolism.
Anabolism is the construction of molecules from smaller units- i.e. in this case, the building up of tissue, using energy. Catabolism is the opposite- i.e the breakdown of tissue to release energy. Different types of training force our bodies into either anabolic or catabolic states.
To build muscle we want our bodies to be in an anabolic state, promoting the build up of muscle tissue and increase muscle fibre size. For this we need to be doing resistance training (to build muscle size weight should be heavier for 6-8reps and to build muscle endurance 12-15reps) Resistance training releases testosterone in the body which promotes the anabolic state.
To burn fat we want our bodies to be in a catabolic state, breaking down triglycerides and fatty acids the burn off as energy. To do this we need to do cardiovascular training (this can be low or higher intensity but need to be long lasting- over 20mins) When we do CV training our bodies release cortosol which release fatty acids to break down for energy, hence fat burning.
These two metabolic states don’t work together, you are either in a catabolic or anabolic state. The cortosol released in CV work inhibits the anabolic process of testosterone.
So, if you want to improve fitness but also increase muscle mass CV work should be done on a different day to resistance training or at least 6hours after for optimum results. This way you get the health benefits of CV training, including fat burning to increase the definition of you muscles, without it inhibiting the hard work your are doing resistance training to build muscle size.
If you want to burn fat and improve muscle tone without massively increasing muscle bulk, do your cv training before the resistance training within your training session. This way you will get the toning benefit of strength training, but the cortosol inhibiting the action of the testosterone in your body will prevent your muscles gaining bulk- often relative to women (not to generalise!) that want tone but not a masculine shape.

So, before you think about your training sessions, think: what do i want? and so: do I want to be catabolic or anabolic?
Hope this helps!