Be that as you may, it has not been discussed yet! And, with your dismissive response here, I can readily see the ostrich still has her head buried in the sand!
So it’s obvious that in your opinion the metabolic challenge doesn’t come up to snuff as far as cardiovascular fitness is concerned. So what is your solution, add a 20 minute all out erg session or peleton cycle session to each workout?
Scott
I am glad you asked such a pertinent question.
To be honest, I do not know!
I am quite sure a good number of people have insufficient answers either.
There are many factors involved!
Just my opinion but l think the guys who frequent this site or any other muscle building related site are mostly looking for ways to build muscle and improve their health. If they get get some residual cardiovascular improvement they’ll gladly take that too but I don’t think they are looking for a huge improvement in that area.They are not looking to work the heart and lungs to get their conditioning to be comparable to a top rower who have incredible cardio fitness so even if a routine was conceived that could build huge muscles and top level cardio conditioning at the same time I doubt very few on here would be interested in putting forth the effort required to obtain that condition. For most on here it’s about building muscle with a sane amount of effort. When I was young I was among the athletes doing triathlons , marathons , cycling etc who were in top cardiovascular condition . It was insane training and I’m not including the HIT training I was also doing .
Scott
I try not to speak for others, but I agree with your views mostly.
However, this is setting the bar very low!
There is a forum on T-Nation called “Conditioning”:
Post your questions about cardio/conditioning exercises and plans, bodyweight-only training, kettlebell and other non-barbell lifting methods, obstacle racing, and any training that pushes the endurance just as much as the muscles.
Nice diversion attempt. Quite shows your deviant attitude to re-route this topic.
From the article posted by jtbrown0511:
Quote:
Nautilus had the resources to fund a study at a major university to demonstrate the effects of training with no rest between exercises. We could then show that brief high-intensity workouts on Nautilus machines could increase muscular strength, joint flexibility, and cardiorespiratory endurance from the same workout.
End Quote!
As you can see, I did NOT bring this issue here!
I merely challenged this concept.
Is this concept above challenges?
If so, this concept can not survive!
Dr. Darden should create a 6 week course for losing fat at home with “quarantine workouts” and title the book “6 Weeks to Flatten the Curve”
Seriously? I was responding to Scott, who mentioned that this site has a bias toward muscle building. But it still manages to host a forum devoted to conditioning. Since he is new the site, I thought this might be worth mentioning.
You insist that HIT doesn’t provide proper cardiovascular conditioning, so some kind of traditional cardio should be done. But when asked how much, and what kind of cardio is proper, you defer and say you don’t know. So you know HIT doesn’t provide enough, but you can’t say what is enough? Logic suggests that if you don’t know how much is needed, you can’t say for sure what constitutes too little.
So VO2 max is the gold standard… meaning that it is viewed as the best physiological test to assess cardio respiratory ability. Fine. But most people train for endurance, not for maxing out a physiological parameter. And while high VO2 max is associated with endurance performance, it also is not 100% correlated with athletic performance. Runners with a lower VO2 max have been known to beat guys with higher VO2 max. So it might be an important number for an endurance athlete, but it is not the only thing that matters when it comes to actual physical performance.
And none of that tells me what my VO2 max I should be if, for example, I am mainly interested in being healthy and have no athletic aspirations. Without a standard, how do I know what to train for? So what is that number? Can some people get to that number doing only HIT? If my current VO2 max is 30% below whatever standard you choose to name, do I even have a chance of getting to the standard with any amount of training? After all, most exercise interventions seem to produce improvements more in the 5-15% range (and a significant portion comes down to genetics)? Let me guess: you don’t know.
With regard to VO2 max improvement, there are a range of outcomes possible with various kinds of exercise. Walking is aerobic, and improves your health, but it won’t boost VO2max much. Weight circuits and HIT can improve VO2max somewhat, especially for people who are deconditioned to begin with, and it will also make you stronger in the process. So a sedentary person might be better off doing HIT 3 times per week, than walking 3 times per week.
Sure, grueling hours of intense cardio, or grueling HIIT sessions will do a much better job of boosting VO2 max than HIT or a weight circuit. But outside of people who want to compete in those sports, how much of that is necessary? Let me guess: you don’t know!
BTW, you say that HIT doesn’t work. So I just looked at the West Point Study again. The Cadets that exclusively trained with the Nautilus circuit shaved something like 88 seconds off their time in a 2 mile run, an 11% performance improvement. Using the correlations found on the ExRX site, the data suggests that speed increase implies an increase in VO2max from 55 to 60 ml/kg/min. They did that without doing any traditional cardio. If HIT is so useless, why did their endurance performance increase? Let me guess: you don’t know!
IMO, this isn’t a black and white issue, or one that lends itself to absolute pronouncements. Until you can provide more specific guidance, and answer some of the above questions, maybe you should dismount from your high horse, and be a little more restrained in your criticism.
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I propose a new gold standard for VO2max testing that will stand up better than standard VO2max testing instruments to the riggers of metabolic workouts. Film yourself doing a non stop 15 second or less between sets 30-10-30 Metabolic Challenge 10 or 12 routine, and then summarize your views on the VO2max advantages of the metabolic workout while you do the last 30 second negative of the final set.
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Seriously though to give atp_4_me credit I think there may be some truth to metabolic workouts being the long way around for cardio. When I was the most into cardio I used to run up long steep hills, until my knee just snapped one day walking down the street. Could not even stand on the leg for months. From chapter 2 tip 10 of 100 high intensity ways to improve BB, move quickly between exercises, I got the idea a metabolic workout could potentially be worthwhile for cardio, which I had long understood was a loosing battle from other books of a much lower caliber. With my leg out it was my only chance. I did absolutely non stop routines which really did work very well for cardio. To work out this way ONLY for cardio may border on inappropriate, if the routine did not fit any other goals. For me such a routine does have many many other benefits though as I have rediscovered with 30-10-30 Metabolic Challenges.
Scott, I’m so glad you’re on this site posting some sense and balance. Thank you. It’s appreciated. Keep going!
Scott, I’m so glad you’re on this site posting some sense and balance. Thank you. It’s appreciated. Keep going!
==Scott==
Don’t forget Average Al, he’s the go to guy for studies and research !
Interestingly, cardiovascular improvement was a topic when I was in college and lifting weights at the local YMCA. Having read lots of Art Jones’ writings at the time, I would train at the Y when almost no one was there so that I could go from one exercise to another, starting with legs, with little rest time between exercises. I had no problem doing this because, in turns out, I have the genetics for it. In fact, I had a bet with several of my buddies at the time that I could, after training with weights at the Y, play a basketball game with them and others, full court, for an hour with zero rest - and I did it and won the bet easily. Now one of my brothers competed in triathlons and other kinds of competitions for years. He won the sea-level-to-Haleakala race several times ( Run To The Sun - Haleakala, Maui - HURT Hawaii. How much cardiovascular improvement one can make is probably limited by one’s genetics right out of the gate.
Quote-
“The Dolphins could’ve won by more than 50 points — and they should’ve — but they didn’t. What did they lack? They lacked the metabolic conditioning required for sustained high-level offensive drives.”
End Quote
Any workout plays a secondary role in “no-huddle” American football offenses. Football practice comprised of running several consecutive plays within a few seconds of each other will condition the hearts and lungs far more than any weight resistance method. Muscles worked hard need oxygen.
Chip Kelly while coaching at Oregon University proved this with Championships. A rush factor workout would not allow for enough cardiovascular conditioning by itself, but running several consecutive football plays would fit the bill nicely.
Football players do more than lift weights. Your argument does not make sense.
Chip Kelly was 11 when the Dolphins won Super Bowl VIII.
You have friends that put money on you not being able to play an hour of pickup basketball with them after lifting?
Seriously, you say “training with weights” like you ran the Iditarod.
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Best training method exist for everyone! But not everyone can fund , listen and follow to the other “” best methods " 
Hello Dr. D,
I’ve purchased multiple books from you. Many written after 1980’s… I find it odd that you state you wish you would have stopped failure training 40 years ago… Did you know that it wasn’t desirable? I’d like to purchase the new ebook but would like to know why the 30-10-30 or 10-30-10 (which I assume the 30 is negative) and all NTF is best… Also, why NTF is best. If you go for failure without contorting your body etc. - you know feel failure is bad? Bad how? It keeps you from making muscular gains? Also, the rush factor is important for muscular gains or just conditioning? Is one set NTF now the best or is multiple sets now the best?
I’m not trying to sound snide however some of this seems very strange from everything we’ve been following for years. Even the articles about “Big Jim” and him training someone and the last rep etc… seem so different than what is stated now…
Thank you,
Ron
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I’ve been over this several times. You can make a deeper inroad with NTF training, if you take advantage of the slow negatives at the end. And doing so taxes less of your recovery ability. You still require minimum sets.
Reread the article on “Hidden Principles.”
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