Keys to Great Cardio, MMA Style

The term cardio doesn’t include just one aspect of fitness, like the name implies, and if you don’t understand how cardio is developed, you’ll never be in great shape.

Luckily, I’m going to tell you what you need to do.

So here’s how developing your cardio is more than just running, or intervals, or 5 minute circuits, or CrossFit:

Now let me tell you that these things are in no particular order, because the order in which it’s best to develop these aspects is different for each individual.

The first key is general strength.

If you’re weak, then you’ll be working closer to 100% of max strength than a guy who is strong. You can only last a short period of time working at 100% max strength (like 20 seconds) so then you’ll gas out quickly.

If you don’t quite get it, let’s make it even easier to understand.

Let’s say you can Bench press 100 lbs for 1 rep (you monster, you).

If a guy is laying on top of you, and you need to bench press him off (because your technique sucks) , and he weighs 170 lbs, you’re using 100% of your strength to try to do this.

You’ll be able to push with all your force ONCE, then every attempt after, your level of force will go down, until your energy supply runs out and you can no longer lift your arms, unless you rest them.

Now let’s say you can Bench press 250 lbs for 1 rep and the same guy is on top of you.

Now, his bodyweight of 170 lbs is about 70% of your bench, meaning that you’ll be able to bench him up and down for at least 15 reps before starting to lose strength and tire out.

Make sense now? Good.

Now let’s say you’re strong, but you’ve never trained or don’t know how to train your cardiovascular system.

What do muscles need to recover after they’ve been spent?

You guessed it.... OXYGEN.

The second key is to get blood to the muscles. This is where your cardiovascular system comes in.

Your heart has to be fit enough to pump blood quickly to the muscles that need it.

To develop your heart to do this you need to increase the amount of blood it pumps with each beat in 2 ways: increasing the volume of blood the heart can hold and increasing the % of blood the heart pumps out with each beat (heart strength).

Dreaded traditional steady-state cardio training improves the volume of blood, while strength training and hard interval training improves the strength of the heart.

The third key in the process is that your muscles need to be efficient at extracting the oxygen from the blood and getting rid of the waste products developed from contracting.

This is where specific local muscular endurance training comes into play, where the muscles are forced to recover faster through progressively longer sets and shorter rest periods.

The fourth key is that your lungs need to be able to efficiently take oxygen from the air and they have to be trained well enough to avoid fatiguing.

This is a relatively new concept but there is some good research that shows that specific respiratory muscle training can improve endurance. I just make sure to incorporate different lengths of hard intervals to get the lungs working at high levels.

So now you understand that cardio requires general muscular strength, and it also requires a 3-pronged attack to make sure you’ve got all your bases covered from a cardiovascular point of view.

Make sure you’re not leaving yourself exposed by neglecting any of these important aspects of your physical fitness, and you’ll be sure to keep going if the fight goes the distance.

[via Eric Wong MMA]

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Keep It Simple, Push-Up Variations

The Classic

Good for: General upper-body conditioning

Balance your weight on your toes and palms, with your hands a comfortable distance apart, probably just beyond shoulder-width. Your body should form a straight line from your ankles to your head. Squeeze your glutes and brace your abdominals, and keep them that way for the duration of the exercise. Slowly lower yourself to the floor, pause, and push yourself back up. Repeat a few hundred times.

Variations: Three-point pushup (place one foot on top of the other to make the exercise a little more challenging); decline pushup (set your feet on a bench or chair to strengthen your shoulders); and triceps pushup (place your hands close together, directly under your shoulders, and keep your elbows tucked close to your sides as you lower your body—an adjustment that shifts the work from your chest to your arms).

Rotational Pushup

Good for: Athletic performance in sports involving torso rotation, such as tennis, hockey, and baseball

Assume the classic pushup position, but as you come up, rotate your body so your right arm lifts up and extends overhead. Your arms and torso should form a T. Return to the starting position, lower yourself, then push up and rotate till your left hand points toward the ceiling.

Variations: One-dumbbell (grip a dumbbell in one hand, rotate to the dumbbell side for half your repetitions, then switch the dumbbell to the other hand); two-dumbbell (grip dumbbells in both hands, and alternate sides when you come up).

Plank

Good for: Posture; midsection endurance and stability

Lie facedown, rest your weight on your forearms and toes, tuck your hips, and hold your body in a straight line from ankles to shoulders for 5 seconds. Do a total of 10 5-second holds.

Variations: When 5-second holds are easy, progress to longer holds, until you can stay in the position for 30 seconds. Next, try a regular push up position with your hips tucked. When you can hold that for 30 seconds, try it on your knuckles.

Barbell Pushup

Good for: Stability of midsection, shoulder; grip strength

Get into the classic pushup position with your hands on a barbell (the kind that can roll away if you don't keep it steady). Knock out the pushups, but not yourself—keep in mind that one slip can send you crashing teeth-first into the floor.

Walking Pushup

Good for: Abdominal development; shoulder stability

Set up in the classic pushup position on a smooth floor, and place your feet on a towel. Walk with your hands across the room, turn, and walk back. Keep your back flat throughout the movement.

Plyometric Pushup

Good for: Developing upper-body power

Set up in the classic position on a well-padded carpet or exercise mat. Push up hard enough for your hands to come off the floor and catch some air. When you hit the floor, go immediately into the next repetition, pushing up again as hard as you can and catching more air.

Suspended Pushup

Good for: Upper-body strength and stability

Wrap a pair of straps (or chains) around a chinup bar or the crossbar of a power rack. At the bottom, the straps should be about 12 inches off the floor. Attach gymnastics-type rings (or a straight bar) to the ends of the straps. Grab the rings and do pushups, being careful to protect your lower back by keeping your core and glutes tight—as you should when you do any variation of the pushup.

[via MH]

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Active Recovery

Image via Wikipedia

After a hard workout, you might be dreading the soreness which will inevitably ensue over the next 24-48 hours. Your instinct could be to take the next day off from exercising altogether. Not so fast!

Active recovery allows you to keep the momentum in terms of your fitness AND can potentially decrease the lactic acid build-up that’s partially to blame for muscle soreness.

Instead of taking the day off, try following your high intensity training day with a low intensity workout. For example, if you did sprints on Saturday, you might just want to do an easy jog on Sunday.

The principle behind active recovery can also be applied within the context of a single workout. When used this way, active recovery refers to following an intense exercise with a less intense one.

Rather than simply resting in between sets of pull-ups, an active recovery workout might have you alternating pull-ups with a lower intensity exercise that allows your arms to rest while keeping your heart rate up, like jogging in place.

While I am a proponent of daily exercise, that doesn’t mean that every workout has to be an all-out balls-to-the-wall effort. Varying your intensity is the key to maintaining a daily workout regimen without over-training."

[via Al Kavadlo]

What to do First–Weights or Cardio?

When clients ask me about how to organize their exercise regimen, they usually want to know how to break up their strength training and cardio sessions appropriately.

There are basically two questions that come up: first, do I think it’s a good idea to do them on the same day; and second, which one do I do first?

The simple answer to the first question is, yes, it’s fine to do them on the same day. However, it’s a matter of priorities. This brings us to the second issue–what to do first?

I think of it this way; after you run 5 miles, you probably won’t have as much energy to devote to your strength training. Conversely, if you lift weights for 45 minutes first, your cardio session is not going to be as productive.

Life is like that though, there is no one best way to do anything. All situations have pros and cons.

This is why I typically like to alternate my strength training and cardio workouts. (Although that system isn’t perfect either!)

If you want to experience the best of both worlds, another possibility is to combine strength and conditioning at the same time by doing circuit training or kettlebell workouts. Just don’t get limited by only doing kettlebells or circuit training. They’re great ways to maximize your time, but they’re not the be all end all of fitness.

If you are training for improved performance in a given activity, be it a one rep max on adeadlift, doing 50 pull-ups, or running a race, you need to train specifically towards that goal and make it a priority. However, if your goals are more loosely defined, then feel free to experiment with different approaches to see what works best for you.

Like I always say, there is no better way to learn than through your own firsthand experience.

[via alkavadlo]

All About Australian Pull-ups

Australian pull-ups are becoming a very popular exercise. Like all types of pull-ups (and all types of exercises for that matter) there are many different ways to do the Australian, and it can be incorporated into a number of different contexts within a workout.

Using the Australian for Beginners
I first mentioned this idea in my introduction to Australian pull-ups. If you aren’t strong enough to do a pull-up (this goes for you too, ladies), this a great way to start to build toward it. Once you can do 3 sets of 10 without struggling (something that shouldn’t take too long for any reasonably fit, dedicated individual), it won’t be long before a pull-up is within your grasp.

Trainer Tip:
The higher up the bar, the better the leverage. Of course, this is only true up until a certain point--once the bar is too high, then you’re just doing a regular pull-up!

Using the Australian in a Superset
The Australian pull-up is a great exercise to use as a superset with push-ups, since they work opposite muscle groups. You will get a great pump from doing this and it also allows you to keep your heart rate up. Due to the fact that you’re allowing certain muscles to rest while you are using others, you can maintain that elevated heart rate without burning out your muscles too quickly.

If you are trying to really hit your back muscles, it can also be used as a superset after regular pull-ups or another rowing type of movement, such as a cable row.


Plyometric Australian Pull-up
I like to turn the Australian pull-up into a plyometric exercise by switching between overhand and underhand grips on alternating reps. You can also switch back and forth from a wide grip to a narrow grip in an explosive fashion to mix up this exercise with a plyometric spin.

The One Arm Australian Pull-up
Of course an Australian can be done with just one arm. This is another method to practice whilebuilding towards one arm pull-ups. Like any single limb movement, the one arm Australian pull-up requires a ton of core strength and stability. You can add an extra challenge by trying it on one leg also!