A Cardio Workout For Weight Lifters
Were you to ask someone the first thing that pops into their mind when they hear the phrase ‘cardiovascular workout’, you’d most likely hear running. That would be followed by other steady-state activities like cycling, swimming, rowing, and walking. While these are all great ways to achieve a cardiovascular workout, they also share the common trait of doing the same movement repeatedly for long periods of time. For some, this is a feature, a chance to lock in on what their body is doing and tune out everything else to focus on their work. For others, the thought of putting one foot in front of the other for miles on end sounds boring and tedious.
I am firmly in the ladder group, as someone who would much rather be under a barbell or swinging a kettlebell, traditional cardio has never appealed to me. However, this doesn’t mean you have to eschew cardio and the benefits it offers. While I’m a firm believer that everyone needs to incorporate at least some form of resistance training to achieve optimal fitness, it goes the other way too. The adaptations from consistent cardiovascular exercise simply cannot be replicated by strict resistance training alone.
- Increased stroke volume — This is the amount of blood pumped from the heart with each beat. The more blood sent out means more oxygen for your muscles to use as fuel. Basically, it makes your heart more efficient with each beat.
- Increased capillary density — capillaries are tiny blood vessels, so the more you have, the more places all that extra blood and oxygen can go to keep you moving.
- Increased mitochondrial density — Mitochondria are the powerhouses of cells and are responsible for producing adenosine triphosphate, or ATP. ATP is responsible for myriad biological functions, such as muscle contraction, nerve impulse transmission, and protein synthesis to name just a few. Once again, the more mitochondria you have, the more potential energy you have to use.
Resistance training will produce these adaptations as well, but not to the same degree as cardiovascular training, which is why it’s important to train both to be in the best shape possible.
The Best Of Both Worlds
You can still get an excellent cardiovascular workout without traditional cardio exercises. The following is a circuit that keeps your heart rate up and trains the entire body by working the push, pull, squat, and hinge movements. The format is as follows:
- 30 seconds of work, 15 seconds of rest, using 5 different exercises
- Bodyweight squats, push-ups, kettlebell swings, TRX or inverted rows, jumping jacks
- Doing all 5 exercises in a row counts as 1 round, which will take 3 minutes and 45 seconds.
- Perform 6 to 8 rounds total, resting as needed between rounds.
A few things to keep in mind while doing this circuit. This is not meant to be an all-out effort with each exercise, giving maximal effort will only lead to hitting the wall after a couple of rounds. All exercises should be done in a controlled fashion with a focus on maintaining proper form. The goal of each 30-second work interval is to move the entire time. Trust me, the first couple of rounds might feel easy but it will get harder. Also, as you get fatigued these exercises are simple to modify. For example, should your arms get fired from push-ups, you can switch to placing your hands on an elevated surface or do knee push-ups instead. Also, you can adjust the tempo. Slowing down the pace of your squats or rows will give your legs and arms a break. Remember, the goal is to be active for the entire 30 seconds, even if you’re moving slowly, keep moving and use the rest breaks to recover.
Should you want to make this more challenging, you can shorten or eliminate the rest breaks between rounds and use only the 15-second breaks as your recovery. Another method is to make the exercises harder. Push-ups could become feet-elevated or plyometric push-ups, or add a kettlebell to your squats to make them goblet squats instead, or mountain climbers instead of jumping jacks.
Another great use of this circuit is that you can repeat it and track your improvement by counting the number of reps you do for each exercise. When you get to your final round, count your repetitions for each movement, then do the same the next time you do the workout and compare the numbers. More reps equal more total work completed, meaning you’ve improved your work capacity.
Armed with this knowledge you’ve got no excuse to cut out cardio training, who knows, you might even start to enjoy it.
