Training Plan: Conditioning

You probably noticed I took some time off.

Because of that, I’ve screwed up hitting some goals I had for this year, so I’m moving on to putting together some for next year.  Since the primary goal is still a total, getting strong is number one.  But now I’ve got some time to play with, and I need to improve my conditioning and work capacity.  I also need to drop a little bodyfat.

I can’t just jump in to prowler pushing and sprints and running hills; I’ll overtrain and hurt myself.  So it’s a slow and steady build up over a couple of months.  The good thing is that conditioning tends to be something you can gain (and lose) pretty quickly.

For the first 4 ‘weeks’ of training (I train using an 8 day week), I will add a 20-45 minute AM walk on non lifting days.  On lifting days, I will add 20-30 minutes of steady state cardio.  This work will be monitored as best I can, with two days of work in  the ‘fat burning’ or ‘recovery’ heart rate, and two days in the ‘aerobic’ or ‘cardio’ heart rate.

The lower of the two is 60% of max, which for me is about 110 to 120.  The higher is about 70% of max, 130 to 140 bpm

Typically, I can get to 110 on a treadmill.  To get up over 130, I need to use an elliptical machine or a bike (or, FSM forbid, run).

The next 4 ‘weeks’ I will add in a 20 – 45 minute walk in the morning every day.  I’ll also shift all of the cardio after lifting to the higher heart rate.

The next 4 ‘weeks’ I’ll continue with this work, but add in at least one session of much harder work.  That work will be sprinting, running hills, pushing a prowler, pulling a sled, etc.  The added session will be on a non lifting day (probably a weekend day), and will replace the AM walk.  I may also add in a second day of this work in place of the post lifting session.

At that point, we’ll see where I am and what I need to do.

I’m going to couple this work with paying more attention to what I’m eating, so I would expect a nice slow change in body composition.  Lifting will continue on the Westside/Conjugate style using the template I’ve been using.