Cardio?

Recently I've taken to doing cardio before doing strength training. I generally do intervals jumping rope, usually five-one minute sets, and on days when I'm resting from strength training I do ten to fifteen sets. I was just wondering if it was bad to do cardio every day. I usually take sundays off, but I'd like to do cardio every day. Would that be to hard on the muscles in my legs or cause too much strain on my ankles and knees? Just wondering.

It depends on you. Five minutes isn't bad. I tend to do it before my workouts as a warm up. Fifteen minutes also isn't too long. But if you get out of bed one day and your knees buckle then you might start to wonder. I am going to assume this cardio is more high intensity since the times are shorter?

That amount really shouldn't be a problem.

I imagine many of us do a similar amount as part of warm up. I do jump rope, Hindu Push Up, Hindu Squat, Indian Club Swinging Circuits as part of my warm up, it sounds like a similar level of intensity, and does me nothing but good.

Coach Sommer also advocates light running on off days.

There are two things that you need to consider when adding cardio(I am assuming you mean metabolic conditioning) in.

1. The body has a limited capacity of recovery add more things in and others won't improve as much, how much before you notice a major difference? no one knows.

2. The reason for adding cardio? do you have a good one or are you just randomly throwing it in because that's what you think you are suppose to do? If you are adding for bf loss then that might not be as necessary as you think, most people can get very lean on strength training and a proper diet alone. Are you adding it in for health reasons? then high intensity conditioning isn't necessarily the answer either, walking or lower intensity stuff (I don't mean jogging here but perhaps complexes of assistance work will get the blood flowing and heart pumping without reducing your recovery capacity).

I don't have anything against cardio just most people seem to add it in randomly with no goals in mind just because they feel like they have to. And like I said before how much before you start seeing less progress on your strength training highly depends on your recovery ability which no one can know but you. However also keep in mind that most people at intermediate level of strength and higher rarely if ever do any type of cardio and if they do do-it then it is done as a specific cycle while keeping strength gains on the maintenance level. Most will do GPP work but that it very very far from being high intensity cardio.

Most athletes that do need to work both and keep both up simultaneously choose high intensity intervals like sprints or sled work because it raises conditioning without effecting strength gains as much endurance work like jogging does but it still interferes with strength work to some degree.

The Chinese, Russian and German National Teams all think very highly of running. The format is 3-5 miles performed two or three times a week. The intensity is generally low to moderate and the style of running is up to you; the Russians prefer cross country, the Chinese prefer a treadmill and the Germans love to run through the forest which surrounds their training center.

Yours in Fitness,

Coach Sommer