Background + Mistakes
I came from a wrestling background. And at around the same time as I was wrestling, in my mind I was going to be in the USMC. I imagined myself as combat arms, often times going all out and saying I’d be Spec Ops. Thus I took my PT seriously, and always wanted to be a physical workhorse. At the time I was between 175 and 195lbs.
As time went by I stopped wrestling, didn’t enter the military, and as I gained weight while lifting I made a huge mistake. I stopped doing the cardio, conditioning, and work capacity work. I allowed my stamina, and ability to do tons of work to regress. I’d become complacent.
So here I was focused too much on scale weight, and 1 rep maxes. Can I still sprint? Yes, but not near as many repeats as in the past. Can I still wrestle? Yes, but not without gassing hard.
I allowed myself to not do the work that I view as the suck, relying on my high rep calisthenics to be my conditioning. While high reps can work, they’re still only up and down, you need movement in the lateral plane too. Hell, remember how bad grass drills from football or the military were? How bad chain/line wrestling drills were? All that movement really sucked.
I know from experience aerobic work helps with ability to train hard in the weight room. As a senior in high school I ran bleachers for 5-20 minutes post-workout daily, and at the time hitting 20 lifts at 90% roughly EMOM was fairly easy.
I’d even noticed walking a few miles makes loads of difference. You could even blend weights with this by doing heavy sled pulls/drags, or carries. Think Strongman, or Lumberjack. Weighted aerobics may be the best of both worlds.
But you can still go old school.
Lace the shoes, and hit the pavement.
I’ll admit, I need to start.
The Epiphany
For a while I stopped doing the volume in the weight room, that I’d done in the past. Combine this with not having taken cardio seriously for a few YEARS and I noticed that my work capacity was way down.
Then the last straw, my maxes started getting lower, or harder effort wise as I wasn’t doing the required smaller stuff to build strength over the whole system.
So, I started walking a bit more, then added some sled work at the gym, next came actual conditioning, stairs, jump rope, bikes, rowing.
I’m heavier now, running is still a bitch. I can row well, the fat man’s version of running, but running is not where it needs to be.
Will it affect my squat? No, not if you choose not to let it. I’ve done this in the past to good effect, sprint, lift, run.
Short+fast, then heavy, then slower +longer
A couple days ago my gym got AirDyne bikes.
Perfect tool, at a perfect time.
Structuring the Session
- Warmup with Weighted Aerobics, Sled Work fits perfectly.
- Light rep work for the intended bodyparts
- Big lift, low reps
- Big lift, back off sets,optional
- Light rep work
- Work capacity,conditioning, and/or cardio
An example:
- Moderate weight sled pulls, a few trips
- Hamstring pump, 1-4x 10-50
- Squat up to heavyish 1-3
- Squat rep sets, 1-5 sets of 10-20
- More hamstrings, lower back, abs
- Airdyne Tabata x 3, 4 minute rounds
- Play a bit more (optional)
Will This Work + Programming
I’ve done similar things in the past, and to good success. I hate programming to the point that I don’t know when I’ll hit legs, or push at the gym right now. My focus really is on fat bar deadlifts, forearms, core,and conditioning.
Life has me lifting at the gym every other day for the most part. 50% or more of these are pull days right now. I press or legs when the mood hits. Often as lighter secondary work to the pull.
Every session right now has lower back work. If I remember I do abs as well.
Conditioning from this point on is mandatory. I can easily mix the machine I use, or don’t, and where on the conditioning-cardio-work capacity spectrum each days work falls.
For example: If I want easy, jump rope, to me it’s a more mentally stimulating version of a jog. If I want to feel like death Prowler sprints. Just pick the spot on the spectrum and hit it.
You can’t tap into your full potential without the conditioning to support it. This statement can be flipped to strength as well. You need to build a base of all physical attributes. I’ve neglected conditioning, maybe you neglect strength. No more though. Do the work.
-J