Cardiovascular training is something we can all use more of. It strengthens the heart, improves endurance, and lets not forget the obvious, it burns fat. So why do so many of us slack when it comes to doing more cardio? Generally cardio can be boring especially if you are doing it the traditional way. Cardio also takes up a lot of time, something many of us with busy lives don’t have much of. It can also take away from the intensity we put into weight training. Lets face it we have unlimited excuses as to why we don’t do more cardio.
Let me ask you, if you could increase the amount of cardio you currently do while simultaneously building muscle would you do it? How about improving your athletic performance on top of it, all while decreasing time in the gym. Do you think you would have an excuse not to do it then? Lets take a look at how to accomplish that.
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Explosive Movements
Big compound lifts like the clean and press or the snatch require much more speed and technique to be performed than smaller isolation movements such as a leg extension. Even with lighter weights, cleaning a bar off the floor and pressing it above your head requires virtually every muscle in the body to be worked. Combine that with the amount of speed necessary to move the weight such a great distance you can bet the heart, lungs and circulatory system are going to be worked just as hard as those massive muscles you will be building. There’s a reason the clean and jerk is a favorite among crossfit athletes.
Cut down on rest times
Doing a set of dumbbell curls and then sitting down on your butt for 2 minutes before repeating generally does nothing to improve cardio. It also eats away at precious time in the gym that could be spent on improving other areas of the body. Cutting the rest time down to 30 seconds or less will keep your heart rate elevated all while shortening the workout, allowing you more time to work on the areas you tend to neglect. You can even train more biceps with that time if you must.
Supersets
Pairing two exercises to be performed consecutively without rest is a great way to keep the heart rate up and to cut down on time. When you do a set of bench press you must rest the muscles of the chest, shoulders and triceps before attempting to get under a heavy load again. During the time resting you can work an antagonist muscle group at rest. Try completing a set of pullups between every set of bench press..
Circuits
If you are an extremist you can take supersets to a another level without resting during your entire workout. This method is brutal but very rewarding. Like supersets, exercises focusing on opposing muscle groups can be done back to back with no rest included. During a circuit you can alternate each exercise you have planned for the day with no rest until you are done. This can be done with just two muscle groups back to back such as biceps and triceps, or you can do a more traditional approach such as full body alternating each muscle group. Whichever you choose this is sure to keep your heart rate up the entire workout and to cut down on gym time.
Drop Sets
A big argument against using supersets and circuits are that combing exercises results in using less weight on each exercise due to cardiovascular and systemic fatigue when no rest is given. As a bodybuilder you may not want to sacrifice heavy weights but still want to increase work done in a given time frame. So how do you keep the weights heavy but increase the amount of work? Drop sets. Drop sets are done by lifting a heavy weight for the prescribed amount of reps and without rest immediately lowering the weight to a fraction and continuing the sets. This allows both heavy weights to be used and the set length to increase.
Short on time or just want to increase your overall conditioning? Try any of these tips during your next workout and let us know what you think. Also, be sure to follow Generation Iron on Facebook and Twitter.
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