I’m finally manning up and am making the decision to start hill sprints for conditioning. I’ve no shortage of hills where I live, many are around 100 yards. My question is when is best to include the conditioning? Below is my current split:
Mon:
Bench press - 5/3/1
Close grip bench - 5 sets of 10
One arm row - 4 sets of 12-15
Military press - 5 sets of 10
Wed:
Barbell squat - 5/3/1
Barbell squat - 2 sets of 20
Pause squat (5 sec pause at bottom) - 4 sets of 8-10
Ab circuit - 5 sets total
Thur:
Barbell shoulder press - 5/3/1
Chinup - 5 sets of 10
Incline press - 5 sets of 10
Incline curl - 2-3 sets of 12-15
Sun:
Deadlift - 5/3/1
Deadlift - 5 sets of 6-10
Good morning - 3 sets of 12
Barbell shrug - 1 set of 20-30
Ab circuit - 5 sets total
Is it best to include conditioning on non-training days or try to schedule it after a training session? Just wondering what other people have tried and found to be effective. Naturally you’d be setting yourself to fail doing hill sprints the day before squats.
Include conditioning where ever you can. It is good you are committing to conditioning, and the best time for YOU to do it is when it works with YOUR schedule.
I have had success with both doing condition after lifting and doing conditioning on a separate day.
I do try to avoid conditioning the day before lower body lifting, but if you have to condition before lower body lifting it won’t kill you. Eventually you will adapt and get stronger. In the article below (at the end) Jim talks about conditioning (mostly hill sprints) initially having a negative effect on his squat. Eventually though he got stronger and had some of his best squat workouts during heavy conditioning.
Good man,cheers for the response. Funnily enough I’ve just come back from my first session and man, hill sprints are hard work! I had nothing better to do tonight, so got stuck in! I used a steep incline and ran around 70m (80 yards)up it 10 times. The first 3 or 4 were grisly, but it got easier in the middle and hard for the last 2 sets. Boy was I sucking wind after haha. I’m going to add an extra set each week and introduce it slowly.
Would it be a good idea to add a protein shake for recovery after? I’ve just had once scoop of whey, 10g of eaa and 1/2 can of pineapple.
I have always lumped them along with sled/prowler work as a part of my lower body assistance work. I do them on the way home from the gym on the same day - before I eat. Just an extension of the squat/dl workout.
Not gonna lie, but I am loving hill sprints (in a sadistic way). A couple of times, due to convenience, I’ve done sprints on a high incline on a treadmill. They haven’t had an impact on my training yet. When did you notice, if at all, hill sprints affecting your leg workouts?
[quote]samking104 wrote:
Not gonna lie, but I am loving hill sprints (in a sadistic way). A couple of times, due to convenience, I’ve done sprints on a high incline on a treadmill. They haven’t had an impact on my training yet. When did you notice, if at all, hill sprints affecting your leg workouts?
[/quote]
Usually just the first 2-3 times I do a new activity. Once I get used to something (anything) on the conditioning side I find it doesn’t really impact my performance on the lifting side.
I still try to avoid doing heavy conditioning (hills, speed work, etc) on the day before squatting, but that’s typically my only limitation.