Off-season cardio minimums

[Himynamesjoe]

Hey everyone,

Im pivoting in my training and really respect the advice here, so want some opinions.

My coach has a roadmap for my next BB competition in 12 months. I've been doing powerbuilding 1 and about 5 hours of cycling a week. He really wants me to remove all cardio down to 1day /week. I trust his bb specific advice, he gets results, but I also value my cardiovascular health.

SO I've been coming up with ways to get my cardio up on weekly volume. It might not be perfect for performance but these bb goals are only a few years. (im 32 and competing naturally).

If I do 1x45 min easy z2 a week, and 1hour of easy walking a day/10,000 step count. What else can I do to manage my cardio and maximise recovery for hypertrophy?
I'm wondering about 10mins of cardio pre-workout in my warmups to get my HR up to 150bpm. That x6 is another 60mins. Not ideal in tiny blocks but still METs....

Am I over thinking this?

[Jordan Feigenbaum]

Hey Joe,

Your current conditioning plan would total > 500 MET minutes easily. I don't think you need to do more conditioning than that to get most of the health benefits from improved cardiorespiratory fitness. I do have concerns about coaches who recommend eliminating or reducing conditioning to under the guideline minimums.

[RVR]

I'm sure there are BBM resources on this that I've simply missed, but what's the most sensible way to scale cardio over time? The templates I have end on 1-2x 30 min steady state sessions and 1-2x 20 min higher intensity sessions (or some combo thereof, depending on the block), but meeting guidelines seems to entail adding a few more per week.
If, for instance, you're extending the last week of Block 1 of the Beginner Template and clipping along making progress for a handful of weeks, would it be appropriate to add another day of lower intensity cardio in addition to what's prescribed? The exercise guidelines are surprisingly difficult to attain, but then I'm not sure what the approximate conversion of 3x strength training/week plus GPP would be compared to 2x, or how it would combine with 1 or 2 sets of higher intensity work.

[Himynamesjoe]

Thanks Jordan.
in your opinion then, is 1x45min z2/3, 7x60min walks, and some additional cardio in my warmups sufficient to maintain the health minimums?

Obviously it'll be baseline, and is a long way from my usual 180minute minimum of z2, but ill get some level of 'aerobic efficiency' from my lifting/some level of anaerobic development from things like long lunge sets.

The only other consideration I had was adding a quick 5x30sec on/off x2 (10min) HIIT on the assault bike after one leg day which I don't think would overly harm recovery but get my HR right up once a week which I believe is important.

[Jordan Feigenbaum]

I'm sure there are BBM resources on this that I've simply missed, but what's the most sensible way to scale cardio over time? The templates I have end on 1-2x 30 min steady state sessions and 1-2x 20 min higher intensity sessions (or some combo thereof, depending on the block), but meeting guidelines seems to entail adding a few more per week.
If, for instance, you're extending the last week of Block 1 of the Beginner Template and clipping along making progress for a handful of weeks, would it be appropriate to add another day of lower intensity cardio in addition to what's prescribed? The exercise guidelines are surprisingly difficult to attain, but then I'm not sure what the approximate conversion of 3x strength training/week plus GPP would be compared to 2x, or how it would combine with 1 or 2 sets of higher intensity work.

Rohan,

We gradually build volume of conditioning over time. I do not think it is reasonable to dose conditioning for people who are new to training (or assumed not previously doing conditioning) at the level of the guidelines with the dose of RT right off the bat.

I would not modify YOUR training at all without knowing more about you, likely though a consult or similar.

-Jordan

[Jordan Feigenbaum]

Thanks Jordan.
in your opinion then, is 1x45min z2/3, 7x60min walks, and some additional cardio in my warmups sufficient to maintain the health minimums?

What is zone 2 and zone 3? I am very skeptical that people use a common definition for this.

Obviously it'll be baseline, and is a long way from my usual 180minute minimum of z2, but ill get some level of 'aerobic efficiency' from my lifting/some level of anaerobic development from things like long lunge sets.

I do not think your lifting contributes much, if at all to the level of cardiorespiratory fitness that benefits health unless someone has a very low level to begin.

The only other consideration I had was adding a quick 5x30sec on/off x2 (10min) HIIT on the assault bike after one leg day which I don't think would overly harm recovery but get my HR right up once a week which I believe is important.

I think this is likely to cost more in the way of fatigue than lower intensity conditioning. Yes I agree, you should be doing conditioning of some sort.

[Himynamesjoe]

Hi again Jordan,

By z2/3 i meant simply my hr around 120-150. No higher.

Was that once a week, then 7x 1hour walks 'enough'?

I'll forget any benefit from lifting and the HIIT.

Thanks so much for your advice.

[RVR]

Rohan,

We gradually build volume of conditioning over time. I do not think it is reasonable to dose conditioning for people who are new to training (or assumed not previously doing conditioning) at the level of the guidelines with the dose of RT right off the bat.

I would not modify YOUR training at all without knowing more about you, likely though a consult or similar.

-Jordan

Ah good to know. I thought the guidelines sounded a little on the strenuous side given a more full RT program. Looking at later phases of various programs, when I consider GPP days and the total volume on lifting days, I'm not sure I would "manually" increase cardio dose beyond what's in the template anyways, given the overall increase in workload of RT over time, and conditioning is already scaled well. I've been in rehab land for an annoyingly long time so mostly trying to stick to what I was doing before and still able to tolerate. Will probably just stick to prescriptions when I hop back onto the BT after rehab.

[Jordan Feigenbaum]

Hi again Jordan,

By z2/3 i meant simply my hr around 120-150. No higher..

This is not really zone 2 and zone 3 using the 5-zone model, nor do I think zone 2 and zone 3 provide similar adaptations.

If you're walking 7 hours a week at a brisk-ish pace, that's likely enough volume of conditioning.