I grew up working out in gyms. A Golds Gym in Long Island, NY to be specific. It was a great gym with old school bodybuilding charm(if that’s what you call it). The conventional wisdom of the day was that weightlifters should stay away from any cardio or conditioning. Failure to follow this rule would result in complete puniness. I obliged and stuck with weights.
Fast forward a few years. I was 16 and just started training in jujitsu. I was strong but had trouble holding my own. I was constantly winded and my strength was worthless after the first minute. The importance of conditioning hit me hard, literally as I couldn't hold my hands up to protect my face. Conditioning has been a mainstay in my training regimen ever since.
I look at conditioning as functional cardio. A method that helps make strength training useful. Strength without conditioning is worthless. What good is being strong if you get exhausted climbing a set of stairs, moving a couch or training MMA? All show no go, it’s worse than being skinny fat.
Cardio’s main goal is fat burning. Fat burning is not a realistic goal. The amount of cardio you must do to make up for a bad diet is insane. Four slices of pizza…that will be two hours on the treadmill. Save yourself the mind numbing experience of running on a human hamster wheel for 30 minutes while trying to read close captioned TV news, and go hit some sprints! You will get faster, stronger and have better applicable endurance. When your diet is in check, conditioning will make a big difference in how you look and how you feel.
Conditioning is the fun and easy part of training outdoors. It is also the part of training that I have always associated with outdoors. Training should be fun and indoor cardio sucks. Whether it is going for a ride, run, or some hill sprints, the time flies by and you feel awesome. That is the way it should be. It definitely beats sweating under harsh fluorescent lights in a germ infested gym. Wash your hands before you leave please.
I approach my conditioning with three types of activities. Short in length and high intensity. Moderate in length and moderate intensity. And long moderately paced efforts up to an hour. Each method builds off each other and will help overall conditioning.
Sprints are my favorite exercise of all time. They keep you strong, fast, and work your whole body. I always do my sprints outside and will continue through the OutdoorFitnessProject. Hill sprints keep the injuries down and workload up making them a great choice. Keep your effort between 80-90% and the sprints around 50 yards. I also do sprints on the bike. I shoot for two sessions a week, each one consisting of 8 to 10 sprints.
Interval training makes up the bulk of my moderate length conditioning. My favorite intervals are running a 400, burpees, jump rope drills, short time trial on the bike and steep hills on the bike. Keep these efforts between one and two minutes and your effort around 70-80%. I try and get at least one of these sessions in per week with 4-6 intervals.
Long and moderately paced cardio consisting of rides, fast hiking, trail running, etc. is vital for well rounded conditioning. I try and keep most of these sessions around an hour. My goal is one long session per week.
There are entire books written about each of the above conditioning methods. I try to keep it simple and not overthink it. If I feel good and have good wind I stick with what I am doing. If I am getting a little beat up or run down, I scale it back by taking an extra rest day or dialing down the intensity. Gotta go hit the hills!