I’m starting my recently purchased GPP Endurance today as I move on from SSLP and I was wondering what distance prescriptions you gentlemen had for the testing in Week 1 using with a recumbent stationary bike (what I would go with from a preference standpoint) or elliptical machine as they are my only options currently in my home gym. Also, is there a strong long term value to having a rowing machine at some point due to that cardiovascular modality involving much more upper body musculature to help drive tissue level adaptions in the the whole body versus primarily the lower body?
I would use the rowing distances for the bike and the running distances for the elliptical. I think the rowing machine is a great conditioning tool, but conditioning adaptations are relatively specific to the modality that they’re developed by. I wouldn’t necessarily recommend the rower over the bike without a clear user-level preference for one or the other.
Starting the Endurance template before an upcoming Army Physical Fitness test. Mostly running with a little rowing and swimming. “Every 2 min x 20 min, sprint 30 seconds” does that mean I walk 1:30? Will there will be 10 intervals in 20 minutes then?
And final (hopefully) question: How do I warmup when the first lift listed is a set of 1? Is part of the point to warm up with single reps moving up weight to avoid less useful fatigue?
Should I do light 5s until I’m warm and then do heavy singles until I hit my rpe?
That’s so funny. I was just about to ask a follow up if I should be doing nothing like back in swim practice or very low effort like in a Tabata and it’s already been answered. Same goes for the 4 minutes on 2 rest day as well I assume.
Yes. I would recommend calculating what your 1 @ RPE 7 (or whatever is 1 RPE less than the prescribed exercise is) and doing that as your first warm up single. Judge from there if you should go up on your planned 1 @ 8 or temper your expectations.
For the AMRAPs I’ve been doing pull downs instead of chins or pulls because I can only hit about 3 reps at a time so it lets me accumulate a lot more volume during the time. I’m thinking better to try and push my cardio vascular system with the more reps and the more volume to drive more hypertrophy because size eventually drives strength and I can learn the more specific movement pattern when I have more size to manage more reps. Good thought process and plan or just do what I can actually hanging from a bar?
Two divergent questions that have come up now about half way through my 7 weeks.
First, I had an issue last Monday (3/11) where I had set the pins one higher than normal and while going for my 1 @ 8 on Squats. I ended up with the bar on the pins so I was in a weird position but still tried to stand back up and I think there may be some slight bruising to one or two of the floating ribs on my left hand side from my belt. Some pain/discomfort if I lie down on my left side plus when I got under the bar this Monday (3/18) with the belt back on and tightened up for my singles and work sets it seemed to aggravate the issue. There is no loss of performance (I still squatted in the same weight on 3/18 as on 3/11 without it at the same RPE) but to reduce the likelihood of continuing to irritate the area I did my deadlifts today without my belt (modulated the weight to hit the same targeted RPE). Should I continue training beltless for all exercises until the pain and discomfort has gone away? This may take longer because I’m in a calorie deficit of usually around 1.5 lbs a week lost. I’m 31, 5’10" 192 lbs with 21% BF per Navy calc for reference if needed.
Second, I’m not sure if I’m using too much resistance on the bike during the HIIT or if I just need to wait on more of the tissue level adaptations to occur. As I go through and do my intervals, I feel more and more difficulty with continuing to pedal more because my quads are exhausted than feeling exceptional cardio respiratory fatigue. I feel like I get a massive pump because it seems like my quads are going to explode by the time I finish the last interval. If I do need to modulate down the resistance, I feel like would then need to be pedaling faster and I’m not sure that I can churn out more than 130 rpm so I worry that I won’t be pushing myself do to limit in how many revolutions I can smash out. Keep on chugging where I am or do I need to change something?