Holistic Fitness Master Guide, Part II: Cardio
This is part two of the four part Holistic Fitness Master Guide, aimed to help you create a fitness routine that covers all aspects of fitness, in as time-efficient a manner as possible while still delivering great results.
I originally planned on including Athleticism in Part II, but this would be an incredibly long newsletter if I did - I moved Athleticism to Part IV - Play, and it probably fits better there, anyway.
I use 'cardio' and 'conditioning' interchangeably throughout this post. For our purposes here, they mean the same thing - cardiovascular fitness.
Now, onto the guide.
Take Care of Your Cardio in 20 Minutes a Week (or less)
I do not like cardio.
At least, nowhere near the same level as I like lifting weights.
However, I have found that the more regularly I do cardio, the more enjoyable it becomes - at the very least, it becomes more and more tolerable.
I used to tell myself that my lifting 'was enough cardio'. Don't get me wrong, it does train your aerobic system to a degree, especially if you go from being completely sedentary to lifting weights. That benefit tapers off quite quickly, though. Unless you're regularly doing incredibly cardio-demanding strength training like hard, high rep squats, you're not going to be training your cardiovascular system that much.
... If you want to do effective strength training, that is. Sure, you could do non-stop circuits of exercises where you take no rest whatsoever and keep your heart rate very high, but guess what? You're no longer training your muscles very effectively anymore.
If you're lifting weights, but your breathing and/or heart rate are the limiting factor, rather than your muscles exhausting and becoming unable to produce enough force to lift the weight, then you're really doing cardio, not strength or hypertrophy training.
You're doing a mishmash of both at the exact same time, and getting a subpar benefit.
Don't mishmash.
Separate the two.
What You Should Do Instead
Don't worry about cardio.
... Not from day one, anyway. Get your strength training habit locked in first. Like I said above, if you're going from mostly sedentary to strength training, it will train your cardiovascular system, too.
Once you're doing that consistently for a month or two, then look at adding some simple, effective cardio. That's what we'll go over next: taking care of your cardio in 20 minutes a week.
When I say 'take care of your cardio', this is what I mean:
General health and disease prevention
Improved quality of life - everyday tasks become easier: walking, jogging, cleaning, playing with your kids, going up the stairs, etc.
Enhance your strength training by improving your endurance and recovering more quickly between sets
Improve carbohydrate utilization by training your body to use them (you do this through strength training, too, but this works in a slightly different way and improves it even further)
I am not saying you'll become an elite level endurance athlete with 20 minutes of cardio training per week. You won't. But that's not what we're going for.
This is great news, because just like strength training (and most things, really), you get the greatest benefit when going from 0 to 1. This means you don't need to do that much to get all of the above benefits. I promise you it takes less than you think.
Could you do more if you wanted? Absolutely. But the point here is if you've let 'I don't have the time' keep you from doing cardio (like I did for years even though I was lifting regularly), that's no longer a valid excuse.
I know you have twenty minutes a week.
Here's how to make it happen.
Method 1 - Post-Workout Conditioning
If you're strength training 3x per week, then ideally do these two sessions on Day 1 and Day 3.
This works especially well if you're running a 3 day training split that has a dedicated leg day as Day 2. You'll probably find it a lot harder to convince yourself to do cardio if your legs are already destroyed... So it makes sense to do it on the other days focusing on upper body.
That said, you might have a training split where you're hitting a bit of legs on a couple days, or even all 3 days. That's fine. You can still do cardio at the end.
Pros: no concern about the cardio session interfering with your strength training performance. This also means you can make these cardio sessions more intense.
Cons: it's easier to skip cardio when you're tired.
Sample A
Day 1: Stairmaster steady pace for 10:00. Over time, aim to improve your number of flights climbed.
Day 2: Rest.
Day 3: 10:00 jog, brisk walk or incline treadmill walk. Over time, aim to improve your pace, and if you are starting with walking, you can start incorporating mini-jogs, and take walking breaks when you need them.
If you're walking or jogging outside, you may find it easier to create a route that takes roughly 10 minutes at first, and then just improve your time on that same route. If that starts to become a very short amount of time, then look at creating a new route that'll take you roughly 10 minutes at your new pace.
Sample B
Day 1: Rower steady pace for 10:00. Aim to beat your rowing distance.
Day 2: Rest.
Day 3: 10:00 stationary bike, aiming to beat your previous distance at the same resistance setting, or about the same distance at a higher resistance.
Method 2 - Pre-Workout Warm Up
Choose this method if you want to get cardio checked off first, especially if you're concerned you are likely to skip it if you save it for the end of the workout.
Since we're doing this first, and we don't want it to negatively affect our strength training that is up next, we have to be more careful about the intensity of the cardio.
Whereas you could do some style of high intensity intervals or even do a 'final sprint' toward the last 30 seconds in Method 1, you run the risk of sapping some of your energy for strength training if you do it first.
You still want it to be moderately challenging, but you're best off sticking to standard, steady-state cardio here.
You can put these 2 sessions on any 2 days since they won't interfere with anything and you won't need much recovery time between sessions. You can even use them as a 'leg day warmup'! I'd pick something like an incline walk, stationary bike or stairmaster for this, and make sure you're not pushing it so hard that your legs or lungs are exhausted by the end!
Pros: functions as a nice general warm up as well as some cardio. Cardio gets done first = less chance of skipping. Serves as an 'easy/brain-off' transition from the real world to training time - a great time for mental preparation.
Cons: you probably won't want to push these to the same intensity as Method 1, as you could interfere with the quality of your strength training. So while you'll still get all the benefits we talked about, you won't be pushing your cardiovascular fitness quite to the same degree as with Method 1.
Sample A
Day 1: Rest.
Day 2: Stairmaster steady pace for 10:00. Aim to break a sweat and get your heart rate up, but not to a point of labored breathing or exhaustion. This can serve as a great leg day warmup.
Day 3: 10:00 Stationary Bike.
Sample B
Day 1: 10:00 outdoor brisk walk or brisk walk on an incline treadmill.
Day 2: Rest.
Day 3: 10:00 outdoor brisk walk or brisk walk on an incline treadmill.
Yes, it can really be this simple. This is especially nice if you a) don't have access to any cardio equipment and/or b) running is rough on your joints.
Look into getting a weight vest to up the intensity a bit. And really, this is something you could work up to doing every day, and unless it's very hot outside, you probably won't need a shower after a 10 minute walk. It's also incredibly easy to incorporate these at almost any time of day, since all you need are your feet and the ground beneath them.
Method 3 - Sprints
This method has been slightly revised from the original version.
Not recommended for beginners. You need to build a baseline of cardiovascular fitness and understanding your body’s limits before doing this.
That said, ‘sprints’ are scalable. Even if you’re in excellent shape, these sprints probably shouldn’t be literally all out, saber-tooth-tiger-chasing-you, do or die sprints. They should be between a 7-9 out of 10 in terms of all out effort. Maybe the 3rd and final round can be a 10.
You know you’re doing it right if you NEED the rest periods in between each round (and wish they were just a little bit longer…)
Do these 2-3 times a week, AFTER your lifting is done. If you did these first you would likely significantly impact your lifting performance.
6 Minutes total. 30 second sprint, followed by 90 seconds rest. Repeat for a total of 3 rounds.
If you think that sounds easy, then you’re not sprinting. This should fucking suck. But, if you like the challenge of intensity, this might be a more ‘fun’ way for you to get conditioning done. And if you’ve read or watched enough of my content, you will know that making things more fun or enjoyable will make it easier to stick to.
It also takes like no time at all, so that’s a huge plus.
Track metrics like total distance and top speed. If you want to get real fancy and have a fitness watch, then keeping track of things like Max HR achieved and HR recovery - how quickly and by how much your heart rate comes back down between sprints - is a good idea.
If you have a dedicated leg day, start with 2 days a week on the non leg day training days. Up to you to decide if you’re savage enough to do this at the end of leg day afterward. Maybe use the rower or some other upper body conditioning tool.
Pros: least amount of time required.
Cons: for this to be effective, it has to be hard. There’s absolutely no room here to be reading or watching a show while doing these sprints.
Additional Notes
'Does it have to be done on the same days as my strength training?'
Physiologically speaking? No, not at all.
But we're going for practicality here.
If you were to do your cardio on separate days... That might be another shower you have to take. Another trip to the gym. Another thing to try to squeeze into your schedule.
All things that are going to make it harder to fit into your life - and make it harder to ever get started in the first place.
Even if you didn't need to shower, or you work out at home and don't have to travel, it tends to be easier mentally to habit stack all of your 'fitness stuff' together.
I mean, that's a large reason why we structure training into sessions in the first place. Imagine how scattered and chaotic it would feel taking this approach:
‘okay, at various points throughout the day, I need to do push ups, incline bench press, rows, bicep curls, tricep extensions, leg raises...’
Instead of doing them scattered throughout the day... It just makes sense to group these activities altogether and call it a 'training session'. Now it's one thing you need to do, not six things. Easier to wrap our brains around, and less overwhelming.
I used to think that doing a bit of moderate cardio before strength training would ruin my workouts... As long as you aren't going all out or doing very long sessions, it won't. In fact, in the long run it will enhance your strength training.
I also thought that the 'interference effect' would cancel out any potential gains from strength training, if I did cardio right after.
Nope.
The interference effect refers to the fact that building muscle and improving cardiovascular endurance are somewhat competing adaptations... But this only matters in extreme cases, where you're trying to push one of them to the absolute limits of performance. Think bodybuilder vs marathon runner. Adapting to the extreme in one direction would make the body worse at the other.
But that's only true in extreme circumstances, AND only if you are trying to reach your absolute genetic potential on one end of the spectrum.
I thought I needed to get to the kitchen ASAP and slam down protein, or else I would miss out on gains.
Nope.
You don't need to drink a protein shake 10 seconds after your last set. Should you probably eat within a couple hours after the workout? Yeah, but you have time for 10 minutes of cardio. Or do the cardio first.
Just get it done. Pick the most practical, sustainable method of the above. That might mean you need to experiment a bit with all 3 methods over a few weeks to figure out which one is best for you.
You've got plenty of time to figure this out. Don't let perfection or over-analysis stop you from taking action and just trying stuff.
No Matter Which Method You Choose...
You might think '20 minutes a week of cardio? There's no way that's enough'.
That is what I thought at first, too. I always thought, 'what's even the point unless I'm doing several 30+ minute sessions per week.'
If you go from being very sedentary, to simply walking for a few minutes a day, you will notice a difference - and very quickly, I might add.
I would know because I've experienced this firsthand. In fact, I wasn't even totally sedentary, since I was lifting weights, and yet I still noticed improvements in my cardiovascular fitness just from making it a point to go for a walk each day.
At first I'd notice my elevated breathing at the end of say, a 10-15 minute brisk, but still casual walk.
After even just a week of doing this consistently, I'd notice that I simply could not get my breathing elevated from that same walk. I'd have to speedwalk, or jog a bit, or add a weighted vest to get the same effect.
This shows you how little it takes to cause a positive adaptation, especially at the start.
If I run a mile once a week, it notably improves my cardiovascular fitness for basketball, and makes it much harder to get my heart rate up doing steady state cardio, for example on a stairmaster - due to increased cardiovascular fitness.
20 minutes of lazy cardio isn't enough. Reading your phone or a book while you barely pedal on a stationary bike is barely going to do anything for you.
Just as with our strength training, you need to be intentional with what you're doing. You can't just check off a box because you sat on a bike for 10 minutes.
Even though we're not trying to push any of these cardio sessions to the point of passing out, you are still striving for improvement over time.
Eventually, you'll reach a point where it becomes pretty challenging to continue to improve your pace, distance, etc.
And at that point, you'll be in pretty damn good shape. And now, you can simply maintain your cardio routine to maintain your damn good shape without any need or pressure to improve performance.
Perhaps mix it up to keep things interesting - been doing steady state cardio for several months? Switch to intervals (most cardio equipment nowadays have options to easily set this up). Or switch from the treadmill to a rower, or start walking or jogging outside. Otherwise, you're set.
That's it for Part II. Part III covers Mobility.
Thanks for reading.
-Shane
