What do you guys think this theory of cardio? The goal is not to burn calories during exercise, but do an extremely short burst of high effort to hopefully get your metabolism raised for a few hours. I mean go all out and make the heart redline. As weightlifters we hate using a high volume of cardio. What I’ve been doing is 30 jumping jacks (to warm up, not beacuse I’m a fag) and then 30 up downs as fast and hard as possible. Its basically brief GPP but 100% effort (or what the cliche jerks call 110% effort), and afterwards I feel like I’ve just run 5 miles. Since you’re only doing like 2 minutes of work, you can do it 3 times a day and accumulate no soreness. But I feel like its expanding my anaerobic threshold (work capacity… VO2 max). And beacuse the work involved is so little, this shouldn’t interfere with the weight training so it wont lead to overtraining. I’ll do it for about a month and let you guys know how its working. I’m sure there has got to be some good out of pushing the envelope of your heart rate even if the volume is nil.
i think youll get catabolic if you do any type of exercise without postworkout nutrition. That said, the period of activity you speak of is so brief it may not accelerate the metabolism and increase insulin sensitivity enough to be able to eat heartily and not get fat. Try doing your program for a total of 15 ass-kicking minutes a day, divided into two parts, each followed by an influx of about 50g simple sugars and 50g protein.
Catabolic you say? I cringe at the though, but I’ll go ahead and try this for a month anyway, and see how it goes.
I admire your dedication but why not utilize this fitness area to improve your lifts and assist in recovery. You can do this by expanding the variety of exercises you perform. I hope to be of help. In faith, Coach Davies
coach davies is right you should do some cardio to help is recovery it wont affect your lifting as you may think but help it more. sound crazy but if your heart pumps more blood
around your body then you can recover weight training only helps to pump blood harder and not real more the heart contraction forces the blood so if you expand your heart through cardio the the weight training can be improved.
there is a thing labeled EPOC excess post oxygen consumption meaning that the hard you train the more oxygen is consumed by the body after training, so that the body burns more energy, but why not see a dietician to work out an EATING plan so you dont over eat and most of all dont waste hard training by under eating the what training you do wont matter because you’ll have it covered in the eating plan
Totally agree that this is not long enough to really make a difference in your BF.
Try this routine and I guarantee you’ll shed the fat and won’t loose any muscle:
run for 4 minutes at 50% of perceived maximum intensity(warmup), the next 4 minutes is where it really gets tough you sprint at 100% of perceived maximum intensity for 20 seconds, stop and catch your breath for 10 seconds, run for another 20 seconds, stop for a 10 second breather until you reach the 8 minutes mark. For the next 4 minutes run at 50% of perceived max intensity. That’s it your done!
Total lenghth of cardio workout: 12 minutes including 4 of the most unpleasant minutes you will ever experience. The benefit? Your metabolism will be on overdrive for up to 48 hours after that.
My recomendation is to do this workout three times a week every second day, but MAKE SURE YOU ALREADY ARE IN SHAPE, this is not intended for novices.
Coach D- What Alcatrz has described is the Tabata protocol tested by Dr Izumi Tabata a japanese researcher at the institue of health and nutrition in Tokyo. he used the technique on japanese peed skaters. I am currently using the protocol and was wondering what your thoughts were on it. Also would this be significant enough for fat loss and fitness progress. i was thinking of doing it twice a day during my fat loss phases on off days. Thanks alot, Mike
Alcatraz- how long have you been using this protocol and how has it worked for you, fitness and fat loss wise. Thanks, Mike
Mike - This approach is basically 4 minutes of 20 second max effort intervals of 10 second breaks with equal (by time)sub-maximal runs “bookending” the workout. It will be effective in many ways on general conditioning but it really depends on your goals. I utilize similar sprinting circuits (but not down at 100%) but is not the crux of the training program. I personally would rather see most people utilize non-weighted GPP calestenic type drills or rope skipping as it will assist in recovery, have a reduced factor of injuries (many people arent prepared for the demands of 100% sprints), enhance motor skill development as well as the original concern of conditioning. I will be pleased to discuss as it pertains to your goals. In faith, Coach Davies
The following worked well for me. Superset 3 chest exercises w/ 3 back exercises on monday, ex. bench 225 x 8 right into chinups at bodyweight x 8. Tues. 20 minutes of cardio on an elliptical trainer- 10 minutes at a warmup pace, then another ten minutes alternating 30 second bursts at 80-90% intensity w/ bursts at 40-50% intensity. wednesday- 3 shoulder exercieses supersetted w/3 leg exercises. Example- shoulder press w/60lb dumbbells right into a set of squats at say 315 for six to eight reps (the weight will obviously be different for everyone). thursday- do cardio as on tues. Friday- 3 biceps exercises w/3 triceps exercises. For example, go from standing ez-bar curls to skull crushers. Saturday do cardio as you did the other two days.
Mike, I have been of the Tabata protocol for 4 weeks now, and I love the results. Personnally I don’t think putting yourself through this drill more than once every two days is good (chinsplints). Hope this helps.
If shinplits are a problem, try running on grass. I used to get them within a minute of running. The grass helps alot.
I am aware of the Tabata protocol but as 20 seconds of maximal effort sprinting probably amounts to anywhere between 160-180 metres for most people, I require a lot of convincing that anyone can repeat 8 efforts with only 10 seconds rest without being reduced to a jog after 2 or 3. Of course the original protocol was performed on an exercise bike where the overall demand permits faster recovery.
A hard run 400 meter sprint burns about 50 calories and takes under a minute yet keeps the metabolic rate elevated for a good while. Imagine if you did 4 of these per day. So I’d say yes your idea does have some validity and would probably help.
Does anyone have an opinion about an intense lift instead of sprints? Power cleans for instance. Or better yet, because of the benefits of sprints, two-a-days with sprints and power cleans? 20 seconds of cleans would be what, a set of 4 or 5?
Rather then do intense lifting with weights for cardiovascular purposes you might want to try higher rep, submaximal lifting such as done with the kettlebell type workouts. Not only do they help recovery in the muscles trained but they’re one heck of a workout.
sounds like an interesting idea, derek…give us updates as to how your progress is going. Are you going to add reps in over time to account for greater conditioning, or just do the same amount as fast as possible? It’s an interesting concept to split up a cardio routine like that…I personally think we need more innovation in these areas.
As for the Tabata protocol, I did a variation of it for about 4 weeks (1-2x per week). I used a treadmill, but it only went up to 12 miles an hour, which is more like a 70% run for me. I also increased the length of each interval to 30 seconds while keeping the 10 second breaks. In week 1, all I could manage were 8 intervals at this speed. By week four, I managed 15, and could have done one or maybe two more. So it wasn’t exactly the Tabata protocol, but it worked EXTREMELY well (keeping in mind that I was in mid-season rugby form). Bottom line, give it a shot if you’re serious about increasing your anaerobic/aerobic capacity and lactate threshold. However, doing it more than twice a week is crazy due to the physiological and psychological demands. (even though tabata had the participants do the protocol 4 or 5 times a week…i think). Happy training, lads!
Thanks for the tip Jdog… I will give a try.
Peter, I won’t sit here and attempt to convince you of the effectiveness of this protocol, what I suggest is for you to give it a try for 8 short weeks and let us know what the results are. You will be convinced.
Good luck.
Alcatraz-I am not really doubting the effectiveness of the protocol as such except to say that I really cannot see it being performed utilising max effort (track)sprinting without a serious fall off in quality. A session of 8x say 160/170m flat out sprints with only 10 seconds rest is just not possible,at least with the athletes I know.If you can manage it you are in a class of your own! I think that 15/15 or perhaps 20/40 would be more realistic.
Incidentally with regard to using the power clean or other exercises with Tabata, some coaches e.g Greg Glassman at crossfit.com use Tabata as a conditioning tool especially for grappling by applying it to the following circuit:
Rowing machine squat pull ups press ups sit ups
Each exercise is worked for 4 minutes (8x 20 seconds with 10 seconds rest) with 1 minute rest between exercises or no rest,if you can manage it. Total time of 24 minutes with rests or 20 without. Good luck if you can do it. The interesting part of the approach is the philosophy that if you have to exhibit strength at high heart rates you had better devote some of your training to strength training while breathing hard.Separate cardio and weight sessions are not part of the philosophy. Thank you for the response.
Peter
Out of curiosity I used the protocol on a stationary bike (4 minutes 50%, 4 minutes worth of 20/10 100>%/50%, 4 minutes 50%). It was a great workout. I think its more suited to a piece of equipment like a stationary bike, because half way through running sprints, even your above average individual is going to be doing around 20 second 100m “sprints”. With a bike you can maintain an effort level of a higher quality, with the ability to adjust resistance etc. if needed. Running sprints would require an equal resting time, if not resting distance (more like Coach Davies’ runs), to recover in order to sprint well enough to justify the protocol. All that said, I did enjoy it on the stationary bike - much better than just sitting there for 30 minutes.
So I went to the gym at 5:15 AM, did one heavy deadlift set, rested mormally, one bench, ditto, then one set row, waited, did the protocol for 6 minutes, 1 minute warm-up, 4 minutes of alt 20 sec high intensity, 10 lower,
Holy crap. I was gassed. so what did I do? went back at 6 PM did a power clean set and military and pullup set, then again. Major DOMS. I am going to try this for two weeks, kinda like it.