Tag: Play Hard

Many people think that conditioning is just cardiovascular work. However, to have complete conditioning, one must have not only cardio, but also muscular conditioning, strength conditioning, and power conditioning.

So, how to train these different modes of conditioning?

There are several different ways you could train each of these qualities individually, but there is a good way that you can get a better “bang for your training buck”.

Circuits (also called “complexes”) can do train all three at once. Circuits are pretty simple – just perform several exercises back to back with no rest. Now, when you hear the word “circuits” you might conjure up ideas of somebody doing endless reps on an old chrome universal weight machine, wearing some sort of ’70 jumpsuit. Nothing could be further from the truth.

The types of circuits I’m talking about are done with barbells, dumbbells, medicine balls, and/or bodyweight exercises. These circuits can either be done very high volume with several exercises, lighter weight, and higher reps to tax muscular conditioning. Or, they can be done with a medium number of exercises (say 4-6), heavier weights, and medium reps (say 6-8). This will tax not only muscular conditioning, but will tax strength/power conditioning more. Both will greatly tax cardio conditioning simply because you’re doing so much work without resting.

Another way is to do single, alternating-limb exercises. These are best done with full-body exercises, and, because of the nature of the method, heavier weights can be used, with higher reps. For example, take the Dumbbell (DB) Clean & Press. Grab a heavy DB, and Clean & Press it with your left arm. Set it down, and grab it with your right hand. Clean and Press. Set it down and grab with your left. Keep repeating until you do 20-30 reps per side. This allows you to keep your form tight, use high volume, and use a much heavier weight that if you were doing 20-30 reps consecutively. This method will tax not only strength/power conditioning, but muscular and cardio conditioning as well.

Probably the most beneficial aspect to these types of circuits is that they are such great cardio workouts. You get as much – or more – cardio benefit as you would any sort of “traditional” cardio (jogging, various machines, interval training, etc.), but you never have to do any direct cardio workouts. All the extra cardio you get is simply a by-product of all the work you’re doing.

Train Hard, Rest Hard, Play Hard.

In another article, we discussed Work Capacity, and determined that Work Capacity was one of – if not the – most important factors in improving your cardio.

So, now that we know that, let’s segue into the next logical question, which would be, “How do we increase Work Capacity?”

The main way would be to simply just do more work. Yeah, that’s right – condition yourself to doing more work, by…doing more work. You don’t have to do a whole lot at first – add small amounts to your overall workload.

There are a few ways to do this. You could add small amounts of “active-rest” to your workouts, so that you’re actually working while you’re resting between sets. (By the way, this is a tremendous way to increase your cardio with actually doing any traditional “cardio” work.)

For example, say you’re doing your weight training, and resting 60 secs. between sets. Spend 30 of those 60 secs simply doing jumping jacks. Or maybe do a couple burpees. Or a few jumps. Or 5 situps. Anything like that will work.

Another way to do this is to add in extra work throughout the day. During your everyday travels, figure out ways to increase your physical work. Take the stairs instead of the elevator. Park a few extra parking spaces away so you have to walk further. If you’re shopping, carry your items instead of using a cart. That sort of thing. Then you can add in small “mini-workouts” during the day, as well. 5 burpees, 10 push-ups, 10 situps, and 10 squats wouldn’t take over about 90 secs to complete. Do that 4-5 times during the day.

Doing any of these things will help you build your work capacity, and in turn, help you increase your cardio – even if you’re not doing specific cardio workouts. And when you increase your cardio, you’ll find that your overall quality of life will feel like it’s going up.

Train Hard, Rest Hard, Play Hard.

Conditioning is one of those words that gets tossed around a lot to mean one thing, but in reality, it means so much more.

For many people, when they think “conditioning,” they think cardio. This could be in the form of LSD (Long Slow Distance) jogging, interval training/sprints, skipping rope, etc – activities that get you breathing hard and sucking wind.

“Cardio” entails cardiovascular and cardio-respiratory conditioning, or, in other words, the ability of the heart to efficiently pump blood through the body, and the lungs to efficiently take in oxygen and discard carbon dioxide. If you’re not sure what this is, go outside and sprint to the end of the block and back as hard as you can. Go ahead – I’ll wait…Great, you’re back. Are you breathing hard? Thought so. This is cardio.

However, that is only one element of overall conditioning.

Next, there’s muscular conditioning. This is the ability of a muscle (or group of muscles) to contract repeatedly over a given period of time. If you’re not sure what that means, hit the floor and do as many pushups as you can. Go ahead – I’ll wait again…how was that? Likely you’re not breathing as hard as you were from the run, but your arms and chest are probably burning pretty bad – much more so than your legs were from the sprint. That’s muscular conditioning.

Then there is strength/power conditioning. This is sort of the next step after muscular conditioning. Now, instead of your muscles just having to contract repeatedly (were the amount of force they have to produce isn’t an issue), they’ll have to contract at near maximal force repeatedly. Or, in other words, how many times (within a given period of time) can you lift a weight that’s really close to your maximum?

So, if repping out on pushups was muscular conditioning, loading the most you can bench press onto the bar minus 15% or so and doing as many reps as you can with that would be a measure of strength conditioning.

And along those lines, a power-based movement (say box jumps) done for max reps would be a measure of power conditioning.

To have complete conditioning, you must train all these elements – not just cardio, as many people would think.

Train Hard, Rest Hard, Play Hard.

There are a million ways to do cardio workout plans. One can run, use various different gym machines, or even bodyweight calisthenics. Sometimes, though, the best cardio workout plans don’t even involve cardio.

Huh? How is that?

Simple – cardiovascular benefits are simply had and achieved through other activities.

For example, say you are doing strength training workouts (which you should be doing anyway, regardless of your cardio workouts). Do a real heavy set of a compound exercise.

(A compound exercise is one that uses more than one set of joints. Curls wouldn’t be a compound movement – they’d be an isolation movement. However, exercses like presses, rows, squats, etc. would be compound movements.)

Anyway, do a real heavy set of a compound exercise. You’re breathing hard, aren’t you? Darn right you are. And this is all you need to achieve benefits similar to doing specific cardio workouts – to get yourself breathing hard.

So, you do a set of a compound exercise, and now you’re breathing hard. Instead of letting yourself rest completely, hit it back with your next set before you get back to breathing normally again. Keep that up for your entire workout.

I guarantee you’re getting a cardio workout while you do your strength work. Now you’re getting double benefit.

Supersets – coupling two strength training exercises together with no rest between – are another way to achieve even better results. Want to ramp it up even more? Then go directly to circuit training. This is a style of workout where you do sets of many (say 5-8) different exercises all in a row with no rest in between.

Now, it’s easy to half-ass this kind of training, so make sure you keep working hard, and keep your training loads (i.e. – weights) heavy. If you don’t, then the cardio aspect of your workout plans will be lacking, simply because now you don’t have to work hard.

And if you’re not working hard, you’re not getting in better shape.

Train Hard, Rest Hard, Play Hard.

Take a look at the word “workout”. The word “workout” is simply a compound word, meaning it’s made up of two smaller words – “work” and “out”. And that first one – “work” – is a word that nobody likes.

It’s also usually associated with any sort of exercise – especially cardio workout plans. “Workouts” generally mean that “work” is involved…and we all know that work sucks, right?

As ESPN’s Lee Corso might say, “Not so fast my friend!”

Cardio workout plans can be a lot of fun. You just have to make them that way.

There are many ways to make your cardio workouts fun. First, you could do them with friends. Make little competitions out of it. This will tend to work better for the guys than it will the women, but anybody with a competitive spirit and a good cardio workout plan can benefit. See who can get the most work done, or better yet, find ways to work out together. Work harder to make everybody work harder.

For instance, say you are doing a sprinting workout of some sort. Try to get your sprints done faster than your parter so they can rest less, and it makes the workout harder for them than it is for you. You could do the same thing in a cool circuit training cardio workout, or anything similar.

The basic camaraderie can also make your cardio workout plans a lot of fun. Don’t underestimate the bond that can be forged when people endure hard work together. (If this wasn’t such a big deal, new members of the military wouldn’t build such camaraderie while being worked so hard in boot camp…think about it for a minute.)

If all that doesn’t work for you, then consider finding activities that you and your friends find fun. This can either be the cardio workouts themselves, or something you can go do afterward. Maybe once per week you go, get a hard cardio workout in, clean up, then go out to see the new movie out in the theater. It makes an “event” out of the whole experience.

There are several ways to make your cardio workout plans fun – find one and get to work. Or is that get to fun?

Train Hard, Rest Hard, Play Hard.