Collagen and Cardio: Protecting your Muscles

Is there such a thing as too much cardio? If you’re worried about protecting your muscles, that answer is yes. Cardio is any exercise that, rather than being strength-focused, produces an elevated heart rate for an extended period of time. Cardio can improve your heart health, help with weight loss, and increase your endurance. While cardio is clearly a great, and essential, form of exercise, doing too much could be getting in the way of your fitness goals or even eating away at your muscles.  Collagen can help you protect yourself.

After exercise, your body needs time to rest, recover, and repair itself. During this recovery time is when, with the correct support, your body adapts to the exercise by gaining endurance, shedding fat, and building muscle. Recovery time is key to reaching your fitness goals. If, instead of giving your body than time to recover, you push too soon into another workout, your body may not have adapted. This can lead to injuries due to over-exertion. However, it can also lead to bigger issues over time. While cardio is heart-healthy, too much cardio can actually cause the heart to change in dangerous ways that could lead to heart failure down the line. But your muscles may suffer a more immediate impact.

By not giving your body the time and support it needs to build your muscles, your body may begin to break those muscles down. To avoid losing muscle, focus on creating a healthy exercise balance and giving your body the nutrition and supplements it needs to get the most out of your workouts. Instead of thinking of yourself as purely a runner or cardio person, add some strength training into your routine to help your body build muscles. But also give yourself time to rest between workouts as well as proper nutrition to allow those muscles to grow.

A great addition to your exercise regimen is Gym & Tonic, a protein and collagen supplement that fuels your workout and does wonders for your muscles. Because collagen is the main protein in the body, your muscles need it to thrive. Gym & Tonic also contains 18 amino acids that your body uses to feed and repair muscles so that they can grow stronger and support your fitness goals. By mixing your cardio with strength training and using Gym & Tonic, you’ll be able to avoid the negative effects of too much cardio.