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.

Adversity Creates Perspective: Dominick Cruz

The last WEC bantamweight champion and the first ever UFC Bantamweight champion, Dominick Cruz, has been through hell and back (athlete's hell). Name another athlete that has had 3 ACL surgeries and a torn groin, and still come back to their sport and perform at the highest level. If you've been following the lead up to the TJ Dillashaw vs. Dominick Cruz fight, you might have seen several of Cruz's interviews. Hes gone on about how hes changed his mindset after experiencing multiple career-ending injuries: he worked diligently on his rehab, he also decided to improve himself in other areas of the sport, by becoming a fight-analyst for FOX (with perhaps one of the highest fight IQs in the sport, I see Cruz being a great coach). 

When discussing the growth and evolution of the sport, many people attribute it to more conditioned/stronger fighters, more accurate strikers, higher level grapplers, and a general increase in the skill ceiling of fighters. Its easy to forget that the mind set of fighters also evolve (at least it needs to). Arousal levels, self-efficacy, and self-doubt all play a role in sports performance. How fighters deal with adversity, and how they react to devastating losses and injuries can make or break his/her next performance. On top of that, MMA is a rather unforgiving sport, getting tapped out or knocked out in front of millions of people can damage one's ego beyond repair. Most fighters think they're prepared for it... until the moment actual comes.

What has the champ Dominick Cruz learned from his injuries and his time off?

The greatest moment in my life was realizing that I didn't need a belt to be happy
- Dominick Cruz, post-fight

The way Dominick acted and his expressions before the split-decision announcement by Bruce Buffer made me believe hes really telling the truth. When you realize everything that comes with success in sport can be taken away from you by an injury, you start to appreciate life more. I'm sure that Cruz's mindset has been very much process-oriented and driven by small improvements in all aspects of his health and fight game. This, paired with his high skill level and ability to read his opponents, in my opinion, makes him one of the best pound for pound fighters in the sport. He's ahead of his time, like how GSP was ahead of his time (incooporating gymnastics training, olympic weightlifting, well-roundedness), like how Anderson Silva was ahead of his time.

I don't care if you scored it 3-2 for TJ or 3-2 for Cruz. What Dominick Cruz did on Sunday night was one of the greatest performances I've ever seen, especially given the circumstances he was in.

So what can we learn from Dominick Cruz?

1. Adversity creates perspective
You see things differently when you're put into positions you're not comfortable in, circumstances you've never been in before. Don't take losses as the end of the road, keep on improving. The best fighters have been created following losses (GSP vs. Matt Serra, Anderson Silva vs. Ryo Chonan, Conor McGregor vs. Joseph Duffy, etc).

2. Mental Toughness
Mental toughness can come from peace of mind. Realize and appreciate the opportunities you are given to train, fight, compete. The journey and the process is more valuable than any successful outcome that is handed to you on a plate.

3. Stay creative
Cruz has been known to take techniques from boxing, specifically from Muhammad Ali, and incorporate them into his repertoire of skills. His movement, footworks and feints are all unseen in the sport. While straying away from the fundamentals and conventional skills can bite you in the ass later down the line, don't be afraid think outside the box and apply things that aren't normally considered or suggested (in your respective sports).

4. Better strength & conditioning practices/protocols
Its not surprising that Cruz's footwork and movement has contributed to his ACL and groin injuries, but theres no doubt in my mind that the severity or frequency of those injuries could have been prevented with better strength & conditioning practices. MMA is still considered a young sport, and we are just now seeing more qualified and thoughtful strength & conditioning coaches working with top level fighters. I wonder what Cruz could have done differently with his strength training or conditioning training to prevent his ACL injuries. More on this in another blog post.

5. Sport psychology moving forward
I'm not too up to date with research on sport psychology, but I believe there will be more advances and more ways to improve mental, and emotional states of mind during training and competition, in order to improve performance. An iron mind might be the key to "unlock" performance potential and minimize the barriers between athletes and their true potential. This may come from improving pre-existing visualization techniques, or improving focus and relaxation pre-competition. Psychology and mindset should also adapt and change relative to an athlete's periodized plan.

6. Don't play the victim role
Stop feeling sorry for yourself, don't be the victim. Pick your ass back up, believe in yourself, set goals, achieve them. Simple is that. No one can help you, but you.

Thanks for reading!
 

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Notable Quotes from Dominick Cruz:

I had to show something to myself, thats what this was... I've seen different guys that move like him, DJ's faster, Benavidez hits hard, Faber as much as I don't like him, hes a tough guy. All these guys built me into who I am right now, and TJ just added to that. Now, I'm at another level

Remember, ring rust is nothing more than mental weakness.

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