klaatu21 wrote:But the question I'm asking is if I'm trying to slap on the muscle at the moment will cardio impare that?
Well, cardio doesn't help build muscle for the most part, and too much will start to eat into your gains (and also require you to eat more to keep balanced so as to still be able to gain mass and not go into a caloric deficit.) Usually, if you're trying to gain mass, keep the cardio low in time and intensity such as 30 minutes or less of walking with your heart rate around 65% of max (or, REALLY short in time if you're doing high-intensity cardio, like 10 minutes of sprint intervals for 30 seconds or something similar), and you'll be fine. You just don't want to start going for 6 mile runs every day or something similar if you're trying to gain!
"A 'hardgainer' is merely someone who hasn't bothered to try enough different training methods to learn what is actually right for their own damned body." - anonymous