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So I have always noticed that my endurance-oriented friends have always been more vascular than me at similar bodyfat levels. I stumbled upon the term, Angiogenesis, in another post on this site so I did a little bit of reading up on it.

I was wondering though, is there an optimum level of aerobic exercise needed to induce an increase in vascularity via Angiogenesis, while not hindering lifts in the gym? My motive is purely for aesthetic purposes, but I compete in powerlifting in the offseason so I wouldn't like my lifts to suffer from too much aerobic exercise.

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  • Your muscles adapt to the stresses placed on them. There is no guarantee that angiogenesis would create vessels where they would be visible. They will grow where needed to meet the demands of your activity. I don't know the level needed, as that would be individually variable, but I do suspect it would be of a level where it would take time away from your lifting.
    – JohnP ♦
    Mar 26 '13 at 20:14
  • I guess optimum was a little misleading or wording, I guess I was looking for more of a rough estimate of order of magnitude. Essentially, all sources I found said something like "in response to aerobic exercise", but no note of duration or intensity of aerobic exercise.
    – Brent Hronik
    Mar 26 '13 at 21:52
  • That's because it's like anything else, it's highly dependent on each individual's response to exercise.
    – JohnP ♦
    Mar 27 '13 at 4:19
  • It is my impression that vascularity, at least the kind we're talking about vis a vis bodybuilding, is pretty much strictly a function of (low) body fat and raw genetics. If you find some information differently, I'd like to read it, because I'm interested, too.
    – Chris B. Behrens
    Mar 28 '13 at 13:53
  • Define more vascular? Do you mean that they have more visible veins or larger visible veins?
    – user2861
    Jun 14 '13 at 3:25

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