Additional Conditioning on S&C II

Is there harm to getting more than the recommended conditioning on this program?

I ride my bike to the gym, and I noticed that on the Zone 1 training days, I’m getting more training stress from the transportation than from the programmed conditioning. If I really focus, I can mostly stay in Zone 1 on the bike, but left to my own devices I am mostly in Zone 2.

Am I supposed to count the “incidental conditioning” like this that I get throughout the day? If so, I could probably almost complete the conditioning part of the program just by riding to the gym on my lifting days.

Finally, I want to be able to play 30 minutes straight of full-court 5v5 basketball at the end of this program. Is the program likely to “get me there” as written? Or should I consider adding more conditioning? If so, would there be a benefit to having a closer match between the intensity/duration of conditioning sessions and the actual game of basketball?

Lankmaster,

I don’t have a problem with the additional cycling from a health perspective, as I think it likely is beneficial in this regard. Depending on the amount of cycling you do weekly and how long you’ve been doing that for, I would consider lowering the volume of conditioning in the program. If it’s less than ~ 2 -3 hours per week, I probably wouldn’t worry about it. The conditioning recommendations in the template are in addition to whatever activity someone is currently doing in most cases.

As far as prep for basketball, I think this is a good entry point, much the same way that good strength programming is an entry point for powerlifting. In both cases, I think some considerations should be made to individualize the recommendation. However, the gen s/c II template is setup for really developing 30-minute conditioning. Between that and basketball practice, you should be good to go.

-Jordan

Thanks for the advice! I am enjoying the program and so I’m glad to hear that I don’t need to reduce it.

I think some considerations should be made to individualize the recommendation.

I was thinking about substituting or adding in some higher-velocity exercises (like from your article on plyometric exercises). But I feel like that might complicate things in ways that are hard for me to foresee. For example, I have a feeling that RPE doesn’t make much sense for the medicine ball chest pass exercise, but rather cutting off the set when your throw drops below a certain speed. I’m hoping to learn more about this type of training in the future.

I might do some experimenting with my programming, but ultimately it’s not going to be the end of the world if it isn’t tailored for basketball, as I have no overwhelming need to specialize.

Yep, you could definitely put some of that in there if you need/want more upper body power development. I’d probably sub out the isolation arm work for that if it were me.

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