WOD's & Additional Cardio

Hello everyone,

Despite having posted only a few times, I have been closely following the forum for the last couple of months and learning a lot from it. Thanks to all of you who "give" without expecting to "get". I'm also getting more and more jealous by the day, especially after reading about the seminars. Now that I'm making plans to attend the next seminar in May, I figured I would start getting myself more involved so you guys wouldn't wonder who the heck I am when we meet...

I'll start with something I've been curious about... It's been about two years since I got my rings and the book. Prior to that I used to do modest resistance training 2 days/week and ride my road bike 4 days/week. After getting the book I designed a workout and started to do FSP's & FBE's 3 days. I like cycling very much and have been doing it for the past decade, so I kept that as well, also for 3 days. About three months ago I decided to follow the WOD's. I wish I had done that from the beginning, but I guess I was intimidated and didn't realize the power of scaling down. Anyhow, that being the case, I upped my BtGB to 4 days with the WOD's since that's how Coach prescribes them. That meant that my riding needed to go down to 2 days. Now here's what I'm curious about: those two days that I ride, I do intervals. 2 intervals, 20 min each with a 5 min rest in between. The usual deal is that I keep my heart rate around 170 bpm for the duration of both of those intervals. In general, how do you think a cardio work of this intensity would affect the overall strength gains? In particular, would you think eliminating something like the 60 sec Shuttle Run from a WOD like this http://www.gymnasticbodies.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=5111 is considered cheating?

For what it's worth, I eat mostly paleo. A couple of times a week I will eat a slice or two whole grain bread w/PB&J or oatmeal or brown rice and some dairy but the rest is meat, fish, fruits, vegetables, nuts, good oils, coconut milk... You know, the usual...Usually manage to get 8 hours of sleep a day. Just can't squeeze in more than that. Life just gets too busy sometimes. I feel OK, but not very energetic. There are days when I do, but I haven't been able to pinpoint the cause yet. I really wish I could... And oh, last but not least, I'm 48 years young

Thanks for patiently reading all this...

Not even a guess, anyone? Was this a tough question, or did I make it unnecessarily complicated by giving too much information?

I don't see how doing additional cardio should interfere with your strength gains (unless you do it right before the WODs and let it leave you so exhausted that you can't do them properly, but I'm sure that's not the case )

Eleminating the 60 second shuttle run in the start of a round is however not a good idea. The increase of the heart-rate prior to dynamic movements is critical for your performance and gains - I don't remember exactly why but it has been talked about somewhere on the forum.

Endurance adaptations and strength adaptations are opposite. The degree to which you can get both depends on how advanced each is. A person that is weak can get stronger while doing endurance training, for example. However, if you are really strong then endurance training will make you weaker.

In your case, cycling is lower body, and you're mainly using gymnastics for upper body strength, so you shouldn't see any interference with upper body stuff. With lower body strength and explosiveness, it just depends like I said above. With that said, I wouldn't expect a whole lot of interference since your endurance volume isn't that high, and lower body stuff in the GB WOD is on the back burner compared to upper body. You'll probably be fine, and can keep the shuttle run in when they come up.

Thanks guys, I like them both and want to keep both. It sounds like I can have my cake and eat it, too. I don't remember when and where, but I remember reading something about high intensity cardio work interfering with strength training. I just wanted to get some more opinions.

Thanks again

I once tried to incorporate metabolic conditioning, generally light or only bodyweight on my off days to the 4day GB schedule. I didn't like the results much, but enjoyed the conditioning.

Preferably, I enjoyed adding some conditioning to workout days and this was not as taxing. On the weekend, I'd spend another day perhaps sprinting or running.

Cycling is a lot easier on the body than doing any running/sprinting for you conditioning be it for time, distance or intervals. However, doing some short runs for distance on workout days or the rest days is doable as well.

GB WOD does have conditioning in them though. However, they aren't really long metabolic workouts ala CrossFIt. You either have the 4 round push/pull/leg WOD's that are 3-5m unless you do them without breaks. Ugh on that.

It may be best to do your bike workouts on the same days as GB with ample time and food and water between. 4 hours minimum, if not more. Depends on schedule.

Blairbob,

You're right about it depending on the schedule. This is the only way I could squeeze my biking in. Although I don't know how it would work out if I did what you suggested. I usually feel tired enough after my ride where all want to do is rest. But who knows, maybe it wouldn't be bad if I did one in the morning and one in the afternoon. I may try that when I'm retired or something. Incentive to get old...

My buddy loves riding though cycling really isn't my thing besides getting from point A to B.

Of course, riding at night really isn't the greatest idea nor is riding early enough in the morning when it isn't light. We have these 4 legged things called cougars around here. Of course you could just do it on a cycle at home.

I could see how if you do the cycling early on in the day you may be too tired later on which is why I would do the cycling later on. But I don't know your schedule or whether you ride outdoors, or on a course or in home.

During the summer I ride Wednesdays after work, and Sundays in the morning. In the winter by the time I leave work it's about to get dark, therefore Wednesday becomes an indoor ride. But weather permitting Sunday is still an outdoor workout. And no, fortunately I don't have to worry about any 4 legged animals on the road. So as you can see that leaves me M,T,Tr,F free for WODs' which I dearly love now...

Sounds good.