I cut the cardio out of my routine for the last 6 months to really concentrate on building strength and mass, but now it’s really obvious that I’ve lost a lot of my endurance in the process. So, I want to slip the cardio back in–not for fat-loss or cutting purposes–but preserver my mass and strength. In order to do that, should I just up my calories for those days and use supplements that help preserve muscle and promote t-production?
If you want to maintain strength while improving your endurance, I assume you play some kind of sport that requires you to posses aerobic endurance. Reduce your strength training volume while increasing your cardio volume, but it is important that while reduce your strength training volume you increase the intensity level. So you will be doing short workouts of maybe 35min after warmup an your average rep range will be 5 or less. You could probably get by on 2 or 3 days a week to maintain your level of strength, don’t expect any improvements. On three of the other days of the week do your endurance work. do this type of training for 4 to 8 weeks. By the end of this period you should be able to increase endurance a lot while maintaining strength. Of course anything like methoxy-7, tribex, or androsol/nandrosol will help you maintain your strength during this period. don’t forget to get enough protein. Hope this helps you plan out your goal.
Tex, how about a little more information on your goals? Why do you want better endurance–for health? For a particular sport? To further your weighttraining goals (train slow-twitch fibers, enable longer workouts in the future, etc.)? Anyway, I agree with the last post that the key to maintaining mass and strength would be to cut back overall weight workout volume, but to keep intensity high. You might try to read some of the writings by Stuart McRobert on the Hardgainer website, as he espouses abbreviated workouts with multijoint exercises, but not to the lunatic level of abbreviation that Mike Mentzer rants about (e.g., 1 set for calves every 3 weeks ;-). If you’re used to longer workouts, the “Hardgainer” type of training would leave your strength intact and allow more systemic recovery for endurance.
Endurance for fighting and wrestling. I’m not really doing crazy marathon running stuff, but I need to be able to last in competition for up to thirty minutes of grappling and strength holds. So you can see, I need to keep my weight and strength up but still have enough gas in my tank to actually use it. Does that help?
Hey Texas,
Where in Texas are you from? I’m a martial artist and strength trainer located in East Texas. I sure could use a fellow T-Man to help me in my fighting/training journey’s. I’m also a 2nd year Exercise Physiology major so I know a thing or two about this stuff. Let me know if you are interested.
Take it easy,
Dustin
I’m in total agreemen with Brian… head over to hardgainer and check out some of Stuart McRoberts’ suggestions about abbrevieated training. I currently train according to similar guidelines that he recommends, and it works very well. Thats my advice. good luck man.
If you’re involved in submision fighting I change my previous recomendations a bit. when you reach a strength level that you feel is acceptable try to work on anaerobic strength endurance and opposed to cardiovascular endurance. Charles Poliquine’s German Body comp would be a good place to start. Or you could try some things like trying to work at doing a heavy weight for as many reps as possible within a certain time frame. For instance you could do as many chins as possible within 2-3 minutes. also, things like high rep breathing squats. drills like wind sprints, where you sprint for 10sec jog for 20sec then repeat. local muscular endurance would also be an option. You could work in a rep range of 15-20. Any of these things would help. so try that for say a month and then do 3weeks of maximal strength work, then back to strength endurance. I feel that this would probably help you more than cardio. You could do some cardio as well but try this kind of training for a couple of month first and see if you get where you want to go. Good luck.
If you’re a submission or NHB fighter or similar, strength will most likely be much more important for you than the endurance. Also realize that endurance adaptation generally comes quicker and goes quicker, so you would want to focus more on endurance for the final weeks before a competition to maximize both strength and endurance. I would build the base of strength and hypertrophy you want first with minimal cardio work (twice per week as a maximum). Then, once you’re satisfied with your power output and the look of your physique (which is a crucial psychological component of grappling sports), start focusing on your aerobic capacity while maintaining your strength qualities. You can start with 3 days a week of a lower volume German Body Comp style workout with 3 days a week of longer aerobics sessions (I’d start with 30 minutes each). I’d do this for four weeks. For the next four weeks, take your strength training down to two workouts per week separated into upper and lower body workouts, but take the weight down to the range of 4-6. At the same time, increase your cardio to 40 minutes 4 times per week. For the final four weeks before your competition, up the cardio again to 50 minutes, 4 times per week, and again strength train twice per week. This time, use reps in the range of 8-12.
Thanks guys, that’s exactly the type of info I was looking for. I should have been more specific in my intital post, as it would have helped cut to the chase a little quicker.
another consideration when formulating your regimes is…will you be using steroids as part of your prep? use or no use has implications for recovery and training response.
not prying friend - just asking!
Mr Santillo - what sort of routine/regime do you recommend for the period you mention where the aim is to build the strength base/and hypertrophy? thanks.