Questions about cardio affecting strength

I turned 40 and I started putting on fat. My activity hasn’t changed but I need to do more or eat less to keep it off. I eat once a day around 8pm and I’ve been doing that for the last 10 years or so.

Now that I’m 43 ive gotten tired of the belly so to get that weight off I started doing jump rope HIIT workouts and I’ve really loved them. The fat is burning off very slowly but it’s working.
Problem is I’ve lost so much strength for my bouldering. I have always been able to get V6 if I give it a couple of tries. Now I’m having a full try hard time on V4,s.

So my question is, have I been burning my muscle off? I want to be healthy but really I want to climb more. I don’t understand the way cardio affects the body and I’d love it if someone could explain what’s actually happening. Maybe cardio isn’t as great as I think it is? Thanks for any replies. 

hard not to lose some muscle while losing weight, unless you're strength training. Based on the info given, I'd guess you're increasing your overall physical load while (maybe) reducing or maintaining calories. That new caloric deficit/increased load in combo with more endurance exercising is likely causing your weakness. Your body is adjusting to the new stimuli. I'd bet you'd gain back the strength quickly if you returned to your previous habits.

Skipping rope is a goat exercise (are you going to zone 4/5?), but perhaps try reviewing/adjusting macros and swap some rope work for some strength training? Part of it is just that you're cutting weight -- it's gonna take time for your body to adjust to the new caloric balance and exercise demands.

Thank you for confirming my suspicions. I always weight train on the side but it’s all based off high reps with the only dumbbells I own, 20lbs. Also do pushups and sit ups all throughout the week  

 I don’t know what Zone 4/5 is. (Just looked it up. I’d say Zone 3/4)  I do 3min sets with 1 min rest in between for 38mins. (To be real, jump roping is awesome, I had no idea I’d like it so much ) I also do a 60sec jump combo with high knees, jumping jacks or mountain climbers and I do another one with a whole bunch of burpees intermingled. All high heart rate workouts.

I just had a gut feeling that my body has been consuming my muscles as quickly or more quickly than my fat stores. 

How much weight have you lost and how fast?  Losing weight (whether through caloric restriction or through increased exercise) will result in a mix of fat and muscle loss, but it's sorta surprising to hear that you've gone from V6 in a couple tries to struggling on V4.  I'd even go as far as to say that it's mostly technique and finger strength that makes the difference at that level - neither of which you should have seen a decrease in even if you are losing much muscle mass.

If preserving muscle mass is important to you (as it should be) AND you want to lose weight, the best exercise regimen would be strength training with heavy weights (like all the big compound lifts with a barbell) and caloric restriction with emphasis on protein intake.  There are lots of studies that show you can drop a lot of fat while losing minimal muscle (at least until you get into the low to mid teens of body fat %).

The way you describe your current workouts, I'm surprised you're losing that much muscle.  It sounds like maybe you're just constantly fatigued, or something else might be going on.  Have you been bouldering this whole time and you're seeing this huge drop in strength?  Did you take a bunch of time off and it's just that you're rusty?

EDIT: I forgot to add..  I've battled with my weight on and off for years and I keep fairly detailed records of my performance indoors and out vs my diet, body fat %, and activity level.  Even when I've done 36-48 hour fasts combined with lots of cardio to drop weight quickly (I know I was losing muscle) my bouldering level mostly stays about the same (or even improves) due to the weight loss. What suffers tends to be my endurance on roped climbs. My bouldering level is about the same as yours, I'm getting V5's and occasional V6's in a session with some work.  The only time I've ever seen my strength drop to V4's feeling really hard is if I'm coming back from a long lay off from bouldering (like 6+ months) due to injury.

I can’t imagine eating once a day is enough to preserve your muscle mass either.  Sure, you could slam 2000 calories and 150g of protein in that one sitting but I bet you aren’t.

skik2000wrote:

I can’t imagine eating once a day is enough to preserve your muscle mass either.  Sure, you could slam 2000 calories and 150g of protein in that one sitting but I bet you aren’t.

It can be done, but he said he's been following that eating plan for the last 10 years.  Things change as you get older, but still doesn't explain such a large drop in bouldering performance.  

Yeah. I know that my eating habits are a bit weird. I can’t eat breakfast because my stomach can’t stand food in the morning and I found out after working construction for 25 years that it’s easier to not eat lunch than it is to get back to work after eating. I know eating small meals throughout the day is the most efficient and healthy but….its hard to be perfect  lol.

I don’t have a scale so I have no idea how much weight I’ve lost. I do know that my fat tire has gotten considerably smaller which is what I’m going for.

Yes I’ve been bouldering consistently during this whole cardio experiment. I’ve only been doing the HIIT workouts for the last 4 months. I’m visibly loosing muscle mass. I’ve watched my biceps and pecs become smaller. I’ve started weight lifting with more intention (but I haven’t considered increasing the weights yet) and regularity in response but like I said, bouldering is feeling way more difficult and after climbing for the last 16 years and having, I believe, an familiar awareness with the nuances of climbing, it feels to me to be a strength issue.

 Fatigue is definitely a possibility I didn’t consider.  
 I’m going to look into heavier weights. It’s probably time to invest in some new equipment.

Jon Hartmannwrote:

Yeah. I know that my eating habits are a bit weird. I can’t eat breakfast because my stomach can’t stand food in the morning and I found out after working construction for 25 years that it’s easier to not eat lunch than it is to get back to work after eating. I know eating small meals throughout the day is the most efficient and healthy but….its hard to be perfect  lol.

I don’t have a scale so I have no idea how much weight I’ve lost. I do know that my fat tire has gotten considerably smaller which is what I’m going for.

Yes I’ve been bouldering consistently during this whole cardio experiment. I’ve only been doing the HIIT workouts for the last 4 months. I’m visibly loosing muscle mass. I’ve watched my biceps and pecs become smaller. I’ve started weight lifting with more intention (but I haven’t considered increasing the weights yet) and regularity in response but like I said, bouldering is feeling way more difficult and after climbing for the last 16 years and having, I believe, an familiar awareness with the nuances of climbing, it feels to me to be a strength issue.

 Fatigue is definitely a possibility I didn’t consider.  
 I’m going to look into heavier weights. It’s probably time to invest in some new equipment.

You could try some small things during the day if its possible for you like a protein shake or bar to space out the calories a little, keep your metabolism up while not getting full. Old habits are hard to break but sometimes its worth it, bodies change when they age and we gotta figure out how to keep working with it. Are your workouts/bouldering occurring before or after your single meal? Also, is the bouldering feel like there's just nothing there when you try to pull? Have you seen a decrease in your number of good attempts? Since you're upping your cardio output, if those are the case its probably fatigue from calorie deficit. You could look into calisthenics as an alternative to weight lifting, since you only have the dumbbells, rings would probably be a good addition and super cheap.  

I’ve always known my once every 24hours eating habit was going to catch up to me at some point.
I eat my meal after climbing so as to not get bogged down.
Yes, pulling is significantly harder and not due to finger strength, I’m just weaker.
I have a set of rings in the garage I could pull out but I’m already doing so much with the pushups, curls, shoulder and tricep sets plus the burpees and jump roping that I thought calisthenics might be kinda the same thing.

I am interested in looking into heavier weights as when I did weight lift in high school that was obviously how to got stronger. I guess I thought that doing high reps with lower weight would be similar and thus complimenting climbing but maybe I’m looking at it wrong.

 Fatigue could definitely be the culprit.
I guess originally I started this thread because I don’t know if my body was consuming my muscle or fat during my cardio. I read online that first you burn off recent fat cells, then it starts eating into your muscle before going for your deep stores of fat. I guess I thought I could circumvent that by weight lifting but it seems like maybe the weight isn’t heavy enough to promote muscle growth? Am I understanding the process correctly?

My experience with cardio and climbing is that you need to structure the climbing before the cardio during the day. My layman understanding is glycogen is the fuel that makes our muscles feel energized, and it is primarily stored in the big thigh muscles. When we run/ski/bike/HIIT we deplete these stores, then when we go to climb we feel weak even though our upper body muscles are rested. I expect a 20% reduction in bouldering power during ski season with the understanding that it will come back as soon as I stop depleting my glycogen stores by doing leg exercise. 

If you're eating at 8pm I would try climbing first thing in the morning, then doing your HIIT right before eating again. That way you're climbing with max glycogen stores, and replenishing them promptly after depleting them.

Jon Hartmannwrote:

I’ve always known my once every 24hours eating habit was going to catch up to me at some point.
I eat my meal after climbing so as to not get bogged down.
Yes, pulling is significantly harder and not due to finger strength, I’m just weaker.
I have a set of rings in the garage I could pull out but I’m already doing so much with the pushups, curls, shoulder and tricep sets plus the burpees and jump roping that I thought calisthenics might be kinda the same thing.

I am interested in looking into heavier weights as when I did weight lift in high school that was obviously how to got stronger. I guess I thought that doing high reps with lower weight would be similar and thus complimenting climbing but maybe I’m looking at it wrong.

 Fatigue could definitely be the culprit.
I guess originally I started this thread because I don’t know if my body was consuming my muscle or fat during my cardio. I read online that first you burn off recent fat cells, then it starts eating into your muscle before going for your deep stores of fat. I guess I thought I could circumvent that by weight lifting but it seems like maybe the weight isn’t heavy enough to promote muscle growth? Am I understanding the process correctly?

If you're climbing right at the end of your fasting period, the fatigue could be related to glycogen levels and that would be worth looking to for more information on how that whole system works. It would be the same for your HIIT workouts as well and could be a factor in the muscle/fat loss ratio from those workouts. As you can see from the replies it's all very tricky, otherwise everyone who worked out would be in amazing shape and we would all look exactly how we wanted. As for the muscle growth, or hypertrophy, I see your point with the rings and didn't know you were doing some many other body weight things. For hypertrophy, the three most important factors are: diet (need a lot of protein, aminos for growth), rest (time for torn fibers to repair), and stimulation. There's a bunch of new studies on stimulation that free weights vs. machines vs. body weight, number of reps per set, and number of sets per workout are less important than reaching failure at the exercise. That being said the best hypertrophy gains seem to come with generally heavier weight and lower reps (15 and below) for most of the population. 

There's also a basic adage for muscle growth that you bulk then trim back down. You're going to lose some muscle and strength in the trim or cut phase. Trying to gain muscle and cut fat at the same time is a very difficult achievement, compounded in difficulty by age and the fact that you're already in good shape. To distill this whole thing down, as others have already mentioned, I think you're probably in a calorie deficit which inherently causes fatigue and muscle loss. The style of your diet, and maybe what the diet consists of, is probably a major factor as well. Doing the amount of cardio you're doing shouldn't affect your strength as much as it has, and its likely related to the other mentioned factors. Best of luck my dude, I've been struggling with similar things as I'm the same age. 

Ok. All these things make sense to me. More protein, heavier weights, energy is stored in my legs which I’m depleting, need to eat more regularly. Maybe spend the next couple of months focusing on cardio and then after fat is lost transition back into climbing and strength training. Thank you everyone!! I’ll use all your information to do some more specific web crawling. 

All of the above, but, not "heavier". Heavy. Do some reading up. Like, 3 reps, not 12. 2 sets, with a rest, and that 3rd is a real struggle. 

Also?

Don't look back, look forward. In your 40s, you are setting up your body for life after 50. In your 50s? Same idea. Each decade is very valuable prep for the life you want to live.....for the rest of your life.

In your 40s, and even 50s, you might still hit some real milestones, great high points. Many do. But, you simply aren't living in the same body as when you were 30. Or 20.

Okay, super broad advice, widely accepted, watch your diet, eat more protein, cardio for health, strength training too. But? Hydrate! Are you getting plenty of sleep? 

Then there's also oddball stuff to consider.

Have you ever had covid? It can have long term, weird effects on people. 

What about stress? Depression?

Are you happy? Enjoying this?

That last, gets more and more important.

H.

Thanks Lady H. I love life so the mental aspect isn’t an issue. ;) Also I drink about a gallon a day so I’m nicely hydrated. Good things to keep an eye on though.
I’m not gonna lie, heavy weights situation is something that I’m worried about because I put on muscle and get bulky quick. I only weigh 165 but I used to bench 215, deadlift and and squat in the 300lb range and if I started lifting heavy weights, I’m afraid of what the result might end up being. That’s why I’ve always been trying to keep light weights on the roster after I started climbing. 

How much of the rope jumping are you doing? And when are you doing it, relative to climbing? As others have said, the timing would be important, especially with your once-a-day eating habit. 

A little over year ago I had started doing regular cardio, for similar reasons. Modest weight loss was a goal, yes, but also I felt that I really, really was neglecting my cardio fitness over the years. I have increased the amount of protein I eat. Nothing crazy, 0.7-0.8g per pound of body weight. When I started, I was about 120-122lb, which for me was slightly higher than the stable weight of 108-110 lb I had maintained for decades without any diet, until about 5 years ago (thanks, pandemic, and aging).  So I was aiming for 90g of protein. And I made sure I was hitting all the macros within reasonable total calorie goal. For the first time in my life I started tracking calories.

My cardio goal was laughably-small, too, by some people's standards. I wanted to hit 30 min on a stationary bike (husband has a Zwift, so I can easily do HIIT workouts), on my NON-CLIMBING days.

I lost 12 lb in a few months with this regimen. Have maintained 108 lb since last fall, close to a year now. Have kept up the 30 min cardio goal, gradually increasing the intensity, while staying withing my 30 min target.

Not only had I NOT seen any negative effects on my climbing, quite the opposite, actually. My climbing has improved dramatically. I had jumped two bouldering number grades on the boards, and have sent a new grade on ropes last fall, too. Had a great spring season also. Have now sent 3 routes above the max redpoint grade that I was stuck at for several years.

So, what I'm trying to say, I don't think you should be seeing such a dramatic drop in performance from rope jumping. I would take a really hard look at the diet habits, and the timing of your cardio workouts, so they don't interfere with climbing.

I work construction 8hrs then on Mondays I boulder, I rope climb on Thursday and Saturday (sometimes ropes, sometimes bouldering). Tuesday, Friday and Sunday I do a 40min jump rope combined with the burpees, jumping jacks, high knees to chest etc. After the cardio I do curls, pushups, crunches and a couple of different shoulder barbell workouts. Wednesday is a rest day even though I still worked.

Lena, in the beginning of my cardio experience, I had more energy and it was way easier to climb because my endurance was fantastic. This is the new part of it where my muscles seem to be shrinking. So I also had wonderful climbing results until I didn’t. 

Embrace the belly and send! It's a no brainer

Eating once a day at 8pm sounds like a terrible idea to be honest. If you want to lose weight its 90% diet. Cardio helps burn calories, but most people aren't going to come anywhere close to doing enough cardio to be able to eat whatever they want. There are plenty of free calorie calculator options to use to figure out around what you should be getting per day. This is the one I always recommend to people. If you're in a caloric deficit then you will lose fat and muscle, but you can minimize the muscle loss by strength training as well. At 5'9" 36 I went from 149lb to 127lb at my lightest (although I would not recommend going to this low of a body fat%) and was climbing the strongest I ever have at my lightest weight. I lost a lot of extra fat and got stronger the entire time from being consistent with diet and training along the way. There's more to diet then just calories. You also want to make sure you're getting enough protein to feed muscle growth, minimize muscle loss, and give you energy. Shoot for 0.8-1g of protein per pound you weigh. That's known to be a very safe number and there isn't really any evidence that consuming anything more than 30-35g of protein per meal has any real benefit. If you're in a caloric deficit, strength training, and staying consistent then you will lose weight and get stronger at the same time. Eating once a day is not going to provide your body with the fuel it needs to do what it needs to do. Cutting out sugar, alcohol, and processed foods will help a lot as well. The biggest factor I think is counting your calories and macros until you get a good grasp on it all. I highly recommend weighing and measuring your food portions for a few weeks and you would be surprised how off you are about what an actual portion is. I use peanut butter for an easy example. Go make a peanut butter sandwich and then go make another measuring out 2tbsp which comes out to be 180cal. Most people put 2-3 servings of peanut butter on their bread and already you're at 540cal plus 2 slices of white bread is 140cal. You're basically at 700cal for a quick sandwich. If you look at what an actual serving of peanut butter on bread looks like compared to how you normally make one, the actual serving size is borderline insulting lol. There are keto bread options like Nature's Own that are 70cal for both slices. If you start to read the nutritional labels along with measuring food portions, you'll very quickly see how many extra calories we generally eat. This helps you start to find things that are lower calorie and higher protein options. I've had many people tell me they get a lot of protein and when we actually look at the raw numbers they aren't getting that much at all let alone anywhere near what they should get. Personally, I do about 1700cal~ and 140g of protein every day through just clean food since I'm currently on a cut. Chicken, eggs, and 99% lean ground turkey are great protein sources. If you calculate your calories for your goal(lose, maintain, or gain weight) and hit good protein numbers(0.9-1g per lb you weigh) it all happens pretty quickly. Your body needs fuel and starving it is terrible for muscle growth and energy. ChatGPT is awesome for suggesting meal plans for your total calorie and protein goal for the day. You can tell it how old you are, how much you weigh, what your goals are, and help you come up with some 3 meal a day with 2 snacks to hit x amount of protein and calories for the day. You can ask it to even substitute certain meals or ingredients if you don't like something it suggests. I've found if you ask 4 fitness people a question, you'll get 5 answers but at the most basic level the science is proven that at the most basic level of diet, caloric intake, protein, cutting out sugar/alcohol, eating clean food, etc. is going to give you good results. 

So thanks to everyone’s reply and thanks to ChatGPT I have changed my diet and started eating mid morning and at lunch and an earlier dinner. I also stopped jump roping which was causing muscle loss, and instead started doing plank and abdominal workshops that I found online. I have not lost any weight, but all of my fat has gone and turned into muscle. I still weigh roughly the same since everything just seems to convert to muscle.

I’ve been climbing for over 15 years and I’m always stuck at the V6 level with occasional jumps into the V7 level due to dramatic weight loss. Thanks to the eating plan and abdominal workshop I have gone into the 7 range and feel very solid due to the new muscles around the spine thanks to the plank workshops. I never thought that my climbing ability would change so dramatically thanks to a non finger strength related workout.

Thanks to everyone’s replies and I have changed my ways and I’ll be sticking to the new eating plan since it regulates my mood better also.

Jon Hartmannwrote:

So thanks to everyone’s reply and thanks to ChatGPT I have changed my diet and started eating mid morning and at lunch and an earlier dinner. I also stopped jump roping which was causing muscle loss, and instead started doing plank and abdominal workshops that I found online. I have not lost any weight, but all of my fat has gone and turned into muscle. I still weigh roughly the same since everything just seems to convert to muscle.

I’ve been climbing for over 15 years and I’m always stuck at the V6 level with occasional jumps into the V7 level due to dramatic weight loss. Thanks to the eating plan and abdominal workshop I have gone into the 7 range and feel very solid due to the new muscles around the spine thanks to the plank workshops. I never thought that my climbing ability would change so dramatically thanks to a non finger strength related workout.

Thanks to everyone’s replies and I have changed my ways and I’ll be sticking to the new eating plan since it regulates my mood better also.

Psyched for you dude! glad you're seeing some improvements.

Tell us more about this workout to go from V6 to V7.    (Asking for a friend)