Gymnastic Bodies + Cardio

What's up guys. 

I've done GB off and on for the past several years, but now I have a question. 

For the past several years I've been following the Foundation course, 3  days a week. Personally, I also love all kinds of cardio and playing sports and would incorporate running/cycling/swimming etc. into my off days and routine as well. 

I now have all of the GB courses on hand, and have been following Coach Sommers recommended schedule. My question is, will I still be able to make progress with GB if I continue to alternate cardio days with the days that I work on GB stuff? Or do you think this will be too long of a layoff from the same workouts to make progress? 

An example: 

Using Coach Sommers recommended schedule, say I perform the Core workout this past Monday, 1/22/2018. Realistically speaking, if I work on my GB training and cardio 3 days a week with a rest day, it's possible I may not repeat that same core workout for two weeks until 2/5/2018. 

Just looking for any opinions. I would love for this approach to work, as I really enjoy being able to include my cardio workouts for some variation and different training, but I want to make progress with GB as well, however the only way to incorporate both would be to continue to alternate days. 

Any opinions are welcome and greatly appreciated! 

Thanks! 

- Connor

Hi  Philip the answer it is pretty simple, the body reaches one result at the time and for this reason, you can optimize one bio-motor quality at the time OR you can reach average/acceptable results in both. This reflects exactly the theory or programming and periodization where for the max result the basement, max strength and after conversion are trained one after the other. when the sport needs more competition there is an integrated programming which put all of them together but the results will never be like if you focus on one thing at the time.

If I was you, I'd think about doing fewer GB programs, but doing a better job with them. So you might start with F1 and Middle Split. You could do a cycle of them, doing two or three F1 a week, and the one MS, and then start a new block a few months later. Say this might be only one of each F1 session every two weeks, just to keep you at the same level, but two HS1 and a different stretch series.

Another approach, if you have time to do both on one day, is to do one (cardio or GB) in the morning and one in the evening. A full day would be enough recovery time. Or you could do a cardio session, then a stretch series. 

Given time and recovery you could get very fit, very fit and very flexible (it would help if you're also young!) but it's hard to get all three.

Hi Phillip, 

As I understand, you want to do one week of Foundation and one of cardio?  So, doing each of them every two weeks or twice a month?  Is that right?

At the risk of being repetitive, I will spare you my usual spiel here. I know sometimes the search function doesn't work so well.  See the following thread:  

On 1/26/2018 at 5:26 PM, Fiona Silk said:

If I was you, I'd think about doing fewer GB programs, but doing a better job with them. So you might start with F1 and Middle Split. You could do a cycle of them, doing two or three F1 a week, and the one MS, and then start a new block a few months later. Say this might be only one of each F1 session every two weeks, just to keep you at the same level, but two HS1 and a different stretch series.

Another approach, if you have time to do both on one day, is to do one (cardio or GB) in the morning and one in the evening. A full day would be enough recovery time. Or you could do a cardio session, then a stretch series. 

Given time and recovery you could get very fit, very fit and very flexible (it would help if you're also young!) but it's hard to get all three.

I've considered both options. Of perhaps going back to just focusing on F1 perhaps 3 days a week and working on cardio/sports the other days. I also considered the two-a-day option, but realistically don't have that kind of time do dedicate to exercise. Nor do I really want to dedicate that much time to it lol too many other parts of life I enjoy. I do love to run. I also enjoy the variation having access to all courses right now. 

I've decided for now to continue with training as I have been, including all courses and seeing how the progress goes. If I feel I'm wasting my time, I'll move back to just working through the Foundation progressions.