Time spent conditioning?

How many hours a week would you guys say you spend conditioning?

All of them.

Last year and since about 2009 (besides some short breaks and limited time in the August-October parts of 2010), I probably spent about 10-15 hours in the gym training collegiate club.

Last year's training sessions were often encroaching about 4 hours per session. Probably about half that time was spent on physical preparation, strength building, and conditioning besides flexibility. 3-4 hours a night, M-F. Wednesday was an off day but I was still at the gym and quite often I would just do trampoline and handstand work, mobility and maybe some event work (which really varied since this was after coaching in the afternoon and evening so my energy levels varied).

2-3 hours a week up to about 4 or so might have been spent at the University gym doing 531 and assistance DB work. Sometimes this was done in the early afternoon before going on shift and sometimes this was done directly after gymnastics practice.

From 2009- middle of 2010, I probably spent a similar amount of time except I would rarely go to an extraneous gym. Sometimes on the weekend but rarely. So any lifting was done in the gym.

Nowadays, I work out MTuThFSa. About an hour to an hour and a half, sometimes 2- it will vary. Unfortunately, I end up having to do whatever the CF gym dictates but I generally come in early to do specific Olympic work (unfortunately no squat racks or stands as of yet). Then it's whatever CF BS is on the board. Sometimes it will be Cleans or Snatches so that can coincide with my lifting so I only have to be there an hour. Other times, I'll spend one hour lifting and the next class doing whatever is determined for the day.

On Wednesday, I generally stick around the house and do a bit of light gymnastics. Presses, one Arm HS on the wall, L work. On Saturday I generally do DB assistance pressing and rows couple with pullups and dips and sometimes lunges and goblet squats. Maybe throw in some HLL and core work.

So maybe 8 hours a week not including cycling from point A to point B which is about 5 hours of cyling a week at a moderate relaxed pace. Fast enough to get there but not really push too hard to save energy for working out.

In the spring when I was mainly Olympic Lifting, I worked up to 4 sessions a week around 3 hours or so. MWFSa. Which is about the same I was doing in the Winter. I tried a MTuThF schedule but it was too much at the time (I probably should have worked more lifts from the hang instead of the floor to regulate intensity). Saturday was a short assistance day of 60-90m. Eventually I switched to lift MWF, TuTh do light conditioning of bag work and skill work and Sa do assistance work.

Pretty soon I will probably move and change my training schedule. I'm thinking of lifting Monday-Saturday with light days on TuThSa (no strength work, just skill). Saturday might become a max day or I will make MWF the off/light days. I may consider double days but it might be too much time wasted commuting and all in the city. Depends on work schedule.

How do gymnasts condition like that for hours? Isn't their bodies sore from yesterdays conditioning? Don't they get tired or develop fatigue from the first or second hour? Bodybuilders and weight lifters usually spend no more than an hour to an hour and a half in a gym. I learnt from my days of weight lifting its bad to exercise muscles that are already sore from a previous workout.

Should we stick in four hours a day in our own workout? After all, we're all trying to be gymnasts.

Sailor Venus said:

I learnt from my days of weight lifting its bad to exercise muscles that are already sore from a previous workout.

Nonsense. Working out sore muscles is the best way to get rid of the soreness. Soreness isn't really correlated to anything we know so far anyway, unless there's been some new research I'm not aware of.

What?????????

I meant soreness from lactic acid burns.

Say for example you were doing one legged squats. After a while your hamstrings are toasted from doing those squats. The next day the hamstrings are sore and you can feel it. I don't think its wise to do squats again to make the soreness go away. The hamstrings won't get strong from you doing one leg squats every fucking day. It don't work like that, you don't get strong from conditioning alone, it damages muscle cells. Rest is important as it'll give your legs time to repair the hamstring muscle and make it stronger than it used to be.

So... exercise/conditioning - muscle cell damage. Rest - repairs the muscles and develop new ones.

First Lactic Acid doesn't seem to cause soreness, I've even heard people say there's research suggesting it helps prevent soreness. A build up of hydrogen ions is suspected for muscular soreness as well as damage to contractile proteins. Anyway just really semantics at this point because we're talking on a practical level, we just want to know how to get rid of it, which through research and practical experience the answer seems to include active recovery as one of the most effective parts to that process.

Say for example you were doing one legged squats. After a while your hamstrings are toasted from doing those squats. The next day the hamstrings are sore and you can feel it. I don't think its wise to do squats again to make the soreness go away. The hamstrings won't get strong from you doing one leg squats every fucking day. It don't work like that, you don't get strong from conditioning alone, it damages muscle cells. Rest is important as it'll give your legs time to repair the hamstring muscle and make it stronger than it used to be.

Yeah I gues if Olympic Lifters took some rest days between their session rather than training 6-7days a week they would actually get strong and be able to lift some serious weights.

All of it is adaption, one has go through a hard period of struggle and keep going through it to reach a new level, some strength coaches actually suggest it's a good sign if on a new lifting cycle you are sore after the first few workouts as it means the body is adapting to a new stimulus.

Ed

Sailor Venus said:

What?????????

I meant soreness from lactic acid burns.

Say for example you were doing one legged squats. After a while your hamstrings are toasted from doing those squats. The next day the hamstrings are sore and you can feel it. I don't think its wise to do squats again to make the soreness go away. The hamstrings won't get strong from you doing one leg squats every fucking day. It don't work like that, you don't get strong from conditioning alone, it damages muscle cells. Rest is important as it'll give your legs time to repair the hamstring muscle and make it stronger than it used to be.

So... exercise/conditioning - muscle cell damage. Rest - repairs the muscles and develop new ones.

This works really well for steel mill workers/anyone in physical labor jobs.

This type of rest whenever sore training leads to poor results.

You can train the same movement/muscle 5-6 days a week, if you change intensity from workout to workout and rarely do all out effort.

A light squatting session the next day helps prevent soreness after a heavy leg training. It works at least for me.

ed x said:

A build up of hydrogen ions is suspected for muscular soreness as well as damage to contractile proteins.

Hmm, damage to contractile proteins seems very unlikely as the amount of muscular damage doesn't correspond well to DOMS (soreness). However, hydrogen ions are acid. If you want to find the pH (acidity) of a solution, you find the concentration of hydrogen ions (which we write as [H+]) and then apply pH = -log([H+]) where log is the logarithm base 10. So what you see if you know a thing or two about logarithms, is that as pH goes down (the solution becomes more acidic), H+ goes up. So that would contradict the hypothesis that it would prevent soreness.

I don't think its wise to do squats again to make the soreness go away.

Worst thing you can do is wait until the soreness is gone, since soreness is not correlated to progress in any way. Not to muscle damage, not to recovery time, not strength gains, nothing. As far as we know, soreness is useless if you're trying to judge training.

So... exercise/conditioning - muscle cell damage. Rest - repairs the muscles and develop new ones.

10 days. That's how long it can take to recover most of the muscle. You would agree with me that that's not a good timeframe to wait for, no?

Rest does not mean doing nothing. Movement means fresh blood and fresh nutrients. Many many studies have confirmed for example that a heav jump da followed by a squat day diminished the doms.

Lactic Acid burns.... Absolute crap. Now you can show some correlation of lactic acid to growth hormone response.

DOMS. Have you ever heard of hydroxyproline....

Muscle damage is needed to cause accretion and growth. Rest / recover is the most important factor yes but it still needs to be done properly.

It is not just about just muscles either. So many factors....

You can squat everyday and get beastly strong if yo do it right. Sorry to be blunt but some of these myths have got to be squashed.

Over time you build up your work capacity and ability to recover.

A lot of gymnastics skill work is easy to recover from, generally. There might be those days where you are just too exhausted to swing worth a damn but you try anyways. Some days you might not be able to tumble or vault worth a damn, but you can work trampoline or stuff on the tumble-trak or rod floor. You do what you can in that sense.

The S&C is what is hardest to recover from, not the event work. However, sometimes you have to give yourself time off the events if joint issues start popping up.

Bloody hell! I got refuted big time! If it ain't lactic acid that cause soreness, I don't know what does then. I'll try some light exercises on sore muscles next time and see if it helps.