Benefits of Including Cardio Into A Strength Training Routine

Admitting to your mistakes is the first step to self-improvement. In the personal training, performance and nutrition industry, you either learn and adapt, or you get left behind. As a trainer and coach, there are many things I've gotten wrong in the past. This series will cover topics I've been wrong and misinformed about, how I changed my stance, as well as how my practical recommendations and advice have evolved over the past months and years in light of newer information.

Cardio Training

Avoid cardio at all costs.
The treadmill are for cardio bunnies.
Cardio will make you smaller and steal your muscle and strength gains.

When I first started to strength train more seriously, these were the quotes I saw all over the internet. The young lifter that I was, I followed this advice and worst of all, I bought into the anti-cardio mindset. During my time powerlifting, I even read some advice from a big name saying something along the lines of: "The best thing you can do in terms of recovery from powerlifting is sit on your ass, the more time you spend resting, the more strength you'll gain". Ridiculous right? Well, at the time it didn't seem too ridiculous to me. 

I grew up practicing martial arts, I ran track in elementary school, I was an explosive, high energy athlete as a kid. My whole life I didn't believe I was good at prolonged low-intensity cardio, so I did everything I could to avoid it. I didn't leave my comfort zone, simple as that. After injuring myself through powerlifting, I wasn't able to do what I loved. I knew the rehabilitation process would take a long time. Something had to change.

If I truly wanted to become the best personal trainer and the best coach I could be, why am I neglecting cardio? Why am I neglecting the science of endurance training and conditioning? A lot of people call themselves strength & conditioning coaches, yet only know how to strength train; I didn't want to be one of those people.

That's when I bought my first bike. I put in the hours on the pavement, flats, uphill, downhill; I fell in love with endurance training and the challenges that come with it. Taking time off strength training and putting more emphasis on conditioning helped me grow as a trainer, and as a strength & conditioning coach. It taught me how to be unbiased when designing a training program, and how to take the best pieces from each modality of training (strength training and endurance training) while discarding the misinformation, myths and negative mindsets that come from the strength training-only and the endurance training-only cultures.

it's all about the mindset

As someones who's been through it AND studied the science, I get where this anti-cardio mindset comes from. Strength athletes are still not buying into the benefits of cardio. I understand there are other ways of improving general work capacity other than jumping on an elliptical or stationary bike. But the biggest problem I see is that many recreational strength athletes and so called "fitness coaches" are neglecting cardio all together, and it's a shame. Not only is this anti-cardio mindset detrimental to the physical and the cardiovascular health-related attributes of an athlete, I have seen it manifests itself in the form of mental weakness and laziness; lifters that complain about 8 rep sets, lifters that embrace the unhealthy and overweight strength training lifestyle, lifters that have to demonize other forms of exercise to feed their own ego. If you're a fitness trainer and you preach an anti-cardio minset, you're not taking client's health seriously. 

Over the last few months, I've realized muscle mass, strength and conditioning are not mutually exclusive, and you should as well. I've taken inspiration from some of the best MMA fighters, "hybrid athletes" like Alex Viada to top level Crossfit athletes.

Low-intensity cardio training is a lifters best friend. Here are some benefits:

• Increased blood flow into working muscles for recovery in between lifting sessions

• Great for cardiovascular health (low intensity training induces adaptions in the heart that high-intensity training simply can't)

• Act as an anti-depressant and improves mental health and short term memory

• Can be used as a form of active-meditation

I'm not telling you to hop on the elliptical for a 2 hour aerobic training session, just perform some type of steady state training 1-2x a week and acclimitize your mind to longer, prolonged efforts of physical activity. 

Practical Recommendation and Takeaways

Perform 30-60 minutes of steady state low-intensity cardio on rest days to improve blood flow and muscle recovery.

Feel free to use several modalities, you don't have to just stick with one. Here's an example:

• 1 Modality Training
  Stationary Bike - 45 minutes at low-intensity, conversational pace

• 3 Modalities
  Stationary Bike - 15 minutes
  Skip Rope - 15 minutes
  Incline Treadmill Walk - 15 minutes

Much like strength training, progressions can be planned, intensity can be undulated throughout the week. Here's an example from 1 week of training

• Workout #1 Moderate steady state
  5 minute easy warm up, 45 minutes at 75% of your maximum heart rate, 5 minute easy cool down

• Workout #2 Easy steady state
  70 minutes at 65% of your maximum heart rate.

Steady state aerobic training can improve your mental game and mindset more so than your physical performance. Get comfortable with uncomfortable situations, be humble and be willing to do things out of your comfort zone to grow and improve as an athlete, no matter what the sport.

If you’d like to learn more about how to mix strength and cardio training together. Read my popular article on concurrent training here.

A Lifter's Best Friend [PART 1]

Picture courtesy of Crossfit Fanatico

Whether you're a bodybuilder, powerlifter, Crossfitter, Olympic weightlifter or strongman, there are always tools to help you reach your goals more effectively. Aside from perfecting your technique and consistently training hard and smart, the following is a list of the best sidekicks/pieces of technology that can make a lifter's life easier and their training process more fun and effective.

1. A Coach

It doesn't matter if you're new to strength training, or if you're a seasoned lifter. Hiring a coach can eliminate any biases your own program may have. Even if you're well-versed in programming, having another coach adjust your programming variables or monitor your progress can add some objectivity and accountability to your training.

Benefits of working with a coach:

• Objectivity, accountability in day to day training

• Planned progression --> know when to go hard, know when to back off

• Ability to learn from your coach --> pick his/her brain, don't be afraid to ask questions!

2. Cardio/Endurance Training

I'm very well aware cardio has been a controversial and often joked-about topic within the strength training community. Specifically, many lifters believe that performing any amount of endurance training will significantly hold back their powerlifting total and steal their hard-earned muscle mass gains: to the point where any mention of cardiovascular/endurance training in a strength training program can't be taken seriously among strength training circles. I'm not sure if this stems from laziness, a social stigma in strength sports, or just a case of misinformed lifters (I'd like to think the latter).

Without getting too much into detail about endurance and concurrent training in this post, the truth is: cardio will not steal your gains when done at the correct intensity and at the right time in your microcycle. 

So how will cardio/endurance training help a lifter? Some benefits include: 

• Increased general work capacity --> which means less fatigue over the course of a training session, more sets and reps can be done in each training session over time

• Quicker recovery in between sets

• Great for promoting blood flow and recovery after training --> cooldown

• Most importantly: mental health and cardiovascular (heart/blood vessel) health --> cardio can also be a form of active meditation (it is for me)

2.1. Heart Rate Monitor

As I mentioned above, cardio will not steal your gains when done at the right intensity. Similar to how weight on the bar is used to gauge intensity in strength sports, heart rate (beats per minute - BPM) is used to gauge intensity during cardio/endurance training. For a serious strength athlete looking to optimize muscle mass, strength, and power, LOW-INTENSITY steady-state cardio will be the best for maximizing aerobic adaptations without interfering with strength adaptations. Hard 30 minute runs or multiple sets of high-intensity intervals simply detract too much energy that could be used for strength training. Also, the recovery costs are also too high when performed on top of a dedicated strength training routine.

A heart rate monitor either in a watch-form or chest-strap will be useful for helping you pace/limit your intensity during cardio. The number to aim for is 55-70% of your Maximum Heart Rate for anywhere from 30 to 180 minutes (please note these values may change slightly depending on your level of fitness or any endurance sporting aspirations). The goal here is to work well below your anaerobic/lactate threshold; in layman's terms, work at an intensity where you can hold a conversation with the person beside you, and where you don't feel the burn in your muscles, as this may cut into your strength training recovery. 

2.2. Bike/Rower

Ah, the bike and the indoor rower, the two things I like to call a lifter's best friend next to barbells and freeweights. The bike and rower are a much more favorable modality of cardio/endurance. training as they have less of an eccentric muscle action component to it compared to running. While running, the ankle, knee and hip joint take much more of a beating due to contact with the ground with every step you make. This stress from having to decelerate your whole body is potentially problematic, especially for larger lifters. Biking and rowing has less of a recovery cost compared to running and won't cut into recovery from your lifting session to a significant degree. However, if running is preferred, I recommend starting off at a slow pace for a short distance, slowly increasing distance as your running technique and joint health improves.

-- In Part 2, I will talk about :

personalized intensity charts for each of your lifts,

the value of good training partners,

as well as other tools to help track your progress and to aid in recovery --

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