Cortisol Damages Muscle Growth in Intense Activity?

L

lynn

Guest
Hi to Cathe or anybody else in the educated crowd:

I was talking to an exercise physiologist about my fitness regimen. He cautioned me against doing more than an hour of intense exercise activity at one time because after this amount of time your body releases a hormone called cortisol that has a tendency to break down muscle growth.

He said that to promote maximum muscle gains it would be best to do 30-40 minutes of heavy strength training and then 20-30 minutes max of cardio per day. He said that the muscle growth gained with the strength training would increase your metabolism enough so that the minimizing of the cardio time would all equal out.

I would sure appreciate any information anybody has on this subject. I had never heard this before and I really rely on (and trust) the people who post info here.

thanks for your help!

Lynn
 
On another forum I visit several of the women are follwing a plan called Natural Hormonal Enchancement from a book by a bodybuilder named Rob Faigin who promotes this theory also. Supposedly your body considers exercising for more than an hour to be stress and any stress causes the release of cortisol which inhibits muscle growth and causes you to store more abdominal fat.
His whole program is based on hormone management and it's way too complicated and strict for me but if you're interested I think his website is www.extique.com and he used to have a Q & A section so maybe you can get more details there.

Tami
 
Quote from Men's Health

Here's a quote from Men's health that I was reading on the very same topic:
"GROW MUSCLE, SAVE TIME

Keep your weight workouts under an hour. After 60 minutes, your body starts producing more of the stress hormone cortisol, which can have a testosterone-blocking, muscle-wasting effect."
 
RE: Quote from Men's Health

I'd love to see some scientific evidence here. I am always leery of some of these ideas that are promoted where you supposedly workout less and get better results. Some, but not all of these ideas, seem to cater to the basically lazy American public most of whom want great results without having to do anything hard.
Exercising is stress, from the first minute until the last minute. You are putting your body under controlled stress in order to effect a change. So, what's so great about the 60th minute that starts all of this cortisol production? Also, define stress. I am sitting in my chair here at work snowed under with stuff to do. Does that mean my body is producing cortisol and I should quit my job or I will eat all of my muscle away? ;-)
I think in the end personal experimentation is what most of us end up having to do in order to find workouts that work for us.
Just my 0.02 cents! :)
Trevor :-jumpy
 
RE: Quote from Men's Health

Hi! I just wanted to add my 2 cents here. I took a graduate class on Stress and Health. When your body is under a great deal of stress for a long period of time it releases the hormone cortisol which can cause you to gain weight around the middle. You would have to be under stress for days and maybe even weeks to see this. Exercise was discussed as a good stress (even though it released the same hormone) because it was for shorter periods of time. It did not pinpoint an exact amount of time to do exercise. I personally don't think an hour of cardio and 30 minutes of weights is going to cause any harm or weight gain around the middle. I work out over an hour at least 4 days a week. I have a 25.5 inch waist ( I know genetics is part of my body build too).

Interesting stuff.

Beverly
 
Hmmmmmmm. I know I asked this question myself several months back, and hope Cathe sees this.

This makes me wonder about distance runners. They put in more than 60 minutes of running per session almost daily and they're some of the leanest people around.

But, then, these runners are in such excellent cardiovascular shape that running for lengthy periods of time is not extremely stressful for them. So, maybe stress is relative?


"Pain is weakness leaving the body."
 
Hi MadnNatsmom;

Your observation on long distance runners is a good one!

If you look at "iron men" contestants, and long distance runners, they are extremely lean, but typically don't have a lot of muscular development.

That definitely support the cortisol theory..any muscular gains get taken away due to the increased amount of cortisol in their body due to all of the extreme activity.

On the other hand, it could also be that those type of athletes don't really spend too much time lifting weights? Arrgh, its so confusing!

Lynn
 
Lynn,

Yes, you're right. These elite runners eschew strength training since the lighter they are, the faster they run.

I also read that when these elite runners stop training so exhaustively, they put on weight (I guess since they're consuming the same amount of calories but have decreased their activity).

"Pain is weakness leaving the body."
 
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