Hi everybody,
--This part can be ignored just context
As it is my first time I'll do a (hopefully) short (enough) introduction to give some context as to where my training is.
I used to do chinese martial art ("a lot": ~2h/5times a week + 12h one week end a month) also did competition at some point. (actually started with other martial arts but settled on chinese ones in high school).
My only contact with gymnastic until pretty late was in PE class (enough to get a decent cartwheel on both sides and some basic skills, certainly not enough for the beginning of the start of an acceptable handstand)
I found a gymnasium with (more) serious gymnastic training when I was about 25 (did only 2 years due to professional obligations).
As I am in China since 2008 I haven't been training in any club or facilities (it is quite hard to find a place to train, as sport is usually considered as a profession and amateurs are rare in China). I've been on and off of "home training programs" since then (which includes HIIT training, calesthenics and self-made training from "the gymnastic body" book and other variants).
To summarize self assessment would be as this:
-My mobility is good to excellent (depending on the motion range considered).
-My lower body strength is good (used to do single leg squat for competition preparation, even though I didn't try in the last few month I'm pretty sure I coudl do a 3x3 session as last time I tried I was doing 1x10 without a lot of specific work).
-My upper body strength is so-so (I would even say bad considering the gymnastic standards) even though the situation is better I used to battle to do a single set of 20 push-ups.
-Core is OK but certainly not as good as it used to be (can do V-ups but certainly not the 3x20 from competition time).
-Big weakness would be explosiveness (I guess the high level of mobility makes it harder for me to have good control and to stay "compact" when "exploding").
Now I bought foundation one a week ago (I'm already starting to wonder If I shouldn't have bought the whole set from the start) and started last week.
I settled on these exercises for the first cycle: FL/PE1. sPL/PE1, SL/PE1, HBP/PE2, RC/PE2, SLS/PE1, MN/PE1. Some exercises (SLS/PE1, FL/PE1, MN/PE1) where clearly very easy, but I am a believer in foundations and wanted to start as low as possible with the material I have.
As I was already training ~50min/day 5-6days/week I considered myself as a fast recovery type and choose the 5 days / week schedule. I also added a 4th exercise on the MN|SL|SLS day it is a static leg exercise that I put on the 60s mastery template.
For the first week I wanted to see how my body would react as the foundation series is a (it seems to me) pure strength training program. But now I would like to include cardio/interval training as well (if I remember the full series is supposed to last 5 and 1/2 years and not doing any cardio/endurance training for this period is not an option for me).
Mixing Foundation with endurance
I see 2 ways of inserting endurance/cardio or interval training:
- Go on to an easier recovery template, say 3 days/week and do the other type of training on the off days.
- Stay on the 5 days / week recovery template and do the other training as well.
My preference goes to option 2 and I will certainly go for this option unless otherwise adviced.
Here is the way I would do it :
- Start by the foundation exercises (it is the ones that need to have as perfect form as possible with maximum focus/intensity)
- As my previous training was about 50 minutes I would keep the total amount of time around this and would complete my session witht the complement (1st week foundation was ~15min so would add a 35 min exercise).
Of course that implies that at the end of the cycle the endurance training part would be only a small fraction of the training (might even be null)
Questions
- As anyone tried either / both of these options?
- A few sources encourage avoiding mixing strength training and endurance training at the same time, how bad is it?
- Seeing how the progression is in the mastery template I have the feeling it is possible to follow without giving up on endurance training, how right/wrong am I?
- Going for option 2, does the order choosen seem sound?
- What sign might be a warning showing I'm exceeding my recovery capacities? (It seems to me that muscle soreness is really not a good indication, usually I get muscle soreness when starting a new type of exercise, but with foundation this only happens every 3months)