Q:  I'm on a good growth cycle of 1000 mg Test, 500 mg of Deca and 200 mg of EQ per week. Can I still do cardio 3-4 times per week while on a cycle like this? I was thinking of doing 30-45 minutes 3x a week or so.. My hope was to put on about 15 pounds of quality muscle and drop from about 15% body fat to about 8% in 12-16 weeks. Is this realistic or will it hinder my gains?

A:  This is the age-old question: Can one build muscle and burn fat, simultaneously? Well, it may be best answered this way: It isn't that you can't do both at the same time, but you may need to adjust your goals in terms of actual numbers and realize that you can't have it all at the same time, all the time!  Or, forgo looking good and eat like a horse to get the most out of your cycle and work on your body fat levels gradually, by just cleaning up your diet over the course of 9 months to a year. You won't have to diet and you'll keep making gains. But if you're not up for that, consider that the best way to approach unfamiliar territory it to just jump in and see what happens by experimentation. Doing less or more cardio throughout the cycle will affect people differently. Diet is really everything with body fat loss, and muscle gain, so we think you ought to focus your efforts on heavy training and strict diet most of all. However, cardio does have its advantages to anyone on a cycle because it minimizes water gain and can really help in speeding up the process of fat loss fairly effortlessly. When you aren't holding water, and are losing small amounts of fat, steadily and gradually, it's easier to see exactly what kind of gains you're getting from a cycle. So while in your last cycle you may say, "Hey, I put on 20 pounds of mass" you may have only put on about 10 or 12, but because you had the extra heft and water adding girth to muscles, you felt like you were more successful. So you see, appearances are not everything. For a start, try keeping your calories high, but your food really clean, and do 3 days of cardio, at 25 minutes of high intensity work. Always do cardio on an empty stomach to maximize fat loss when insulin levels are lowest.