Best Time to Do Conditioning?

Training 5/3/1
1

During the winter, I usually do sprints on an incline on the treadmill, train at my MMA gym (2-4 times a week), use circuits at my gym (battling ropes, KB work, etc.).

Spring, Summer and Fall is great. I do the same work above, but there’s a park I go to where it has huge steep hills. I gather some of my friends and we do hill sprints and car pushes. I don’t have access to any prowler sleds unfortunately, but I find hill sprints and car pushes kick my ass good enough.

My question is, since I’m following the SST and 5’s pro for assistance, when is the best time to do any cardio? My MMA classes are always in the evening. Since I train legs Monday and Thursday, should I avoid running on those days at least? I deal with patellar tendonitis, it comes and goes; just want to work in my cardio where I can. I understand my strength training is important, but I want to keep working on my conditioning as well. I just want to figure out where I should apply my conditioning work.

Any suggestions?

2

If you are doing sport specific training and circuits at your gym you don’t really need to do additional cardio. In the last two months I have only ran during my morning PT and done the big 4 with maybe one or two assistance exercise and my endurance and strength are way up. The patella tendinitis is your bodies way of saying you are doing do much.

To answer your question more specifically do conditioning on your lower body days. It sucks for the first few weeks but you should get use to it.

3

get your conditioning in when you can. Do things that don’t irritate the tendonitis. Try walking with a weight vest, like in the beyond 5/3/1 program posted here.

And it’s just conditioning, it can pretty much be done at anytime. Just adjust the intensity if its the day before squatting or deadlifting.