Getting that balance right...

Morning all

After a month travelling in Australia I came back in a drastic state of fitness - amazing how quickly it leaves you, isn't it?

My weight was up from 12.5 stone to 13 stone, and now with my participation in my second Tough Mudder event on the horizon it's time to get back in to some proper training.

I'm looking to return to around 12.5 stone as it's where I feel I'm in best shape - I feel lean enough but still solid (6ft tall just for reference).

As it stands I've started doing something along the lines of the following:

Monday - either cricket nets (only occasionally) or gym
Tuesday - gym
Wednesday - 5 or 6 mile run
Thursday - squash
Friday - day off
Saturday - gym
Sunday - either some hill sprints or a 3 mile run (sometimes nothing, depending on hangover...)

The balance between cardio and weights is something I'm constantly weighing up in my mind...I want to retain a muscular look with low body fat (as we all aspire to) whilst training for functional fitness. How does that look to you guys? I'd be interested to get a variety of opinions.

As an aside, do you think such aims will be greater aided by undertaking more bodyweight exercises in the gym as opposed to looking to lift heavy, or do you feel this is irrelevant? As it stands I mix it up...a standard chest workout for example will include 3 x 10 bench, 3 x 12 incline dumbell press, 3 x 12 dips, 3 x 20 pressups, 3 x 12 cables (followed by a drop set where I do 3 x 10 concurrently in slightly different areas).

Look forward to a few thoughts.

Gym three days a week.............I imagine you do back and legs on the other two days......

I think you're overtraining.....personally...........I'd suggest you take Sunday's off as another days rest.......

Resting is so important.......Usually the one thing people forget to do..........

Weight training is great for the engine and cardiovascular system........Plus you must be covering a few miles playing squash.......

Sometimes less is more Mate...........and you're not as young as you used to be!! 

Personally i'd shelve the pressups.......Dips are good enough.....If you want add some flyes instead.. Though I only do four exerrcises for chest...

If you feel good and you look good........Then you're doing something right...

Go with the feel..

Cheers Truss.

I don't specifically train legs to be honest - as I say it's functional strength that I'm after and I think squash combined with a decent run gives them enough of a workout. Interested to get your thoughts on that.

My three gym days generally consist of chest, back, shoulders with a little bit of abs thrown in now and again.

I might be way off the mark here FoF, but since you're doing only 3 gym days a week, and are looking more for that functional strength physique, have you tried doing a push-pull sort of split between the 3 sessions? Adding in less conventional exercises, and keeping the rest periods to a minimum or even super-setting most exercises would surely give you the results you're after? Keeping heart rate high, burning calories, but developing your muscles in a more functional way?

I guess that's covered by doing back (pull) in one session and chest (push) in another, or am I misunderstanding you bluestone?

My muscles are well developed in a functional way, I'd say, but I guess what I'm aiming for is to a) not put on any more size (controlled mostly by diet, granted), and b) lower body fat whilst not losing that muscle mass.

I'm fairly happy with my gym workout routines, it's more the amount of cardio and whether I'm getting that right.

Ah sorry, think I misunderstood regarding the weights-cardio balance.

Yeh, the push pull split effectively is a back/biceps, and chest/shoulders split, though you can play around with it a fair bit. We used to do pre-season push and pull weights training, which was really good, but mainly incorporated less conventional, more explosive movements. We did like push press superset with push ups and dips on pushing days, but focused on speed and control of the weight. On pull days we did loads of high pulls, and bent over rows. It's a nice change at least, and still something I like to go back to.

Anyway, sorry to rant.

Looking at your routine, it's certainly a good mix of cardio and weights. Not just that, but it's a good mix of different types of cardio. Maybe Truss is right in that depending on what you do during the week, you could possibly be over training?

What happened to the boxing?

Rest is important but I think because your workouts are quite different just the one day is fine, providing your body is giving you the right signals.

In terms of the amount of cardio, you're not going to get supremely fit with the small amount of training you are doing. It will be enough to maintain a decent physique if your gym sessions are hard. Of course a lot of it is genetic...

Ah I've had to knock it on the head, LJ I've been working away plenty of late which means I've missed the midweek slots at the gym, and then recently the gym I was training at closed so it's just fallen away.

I see what you're saying about fitness, but I feel that adding another day of cardio in would start to see my body shape change fairly significantly. Hopefully the squash takes care of the high intensity cardio with the distance run taking care of stamina.

@Fists

What is a Tough Mudder? If you up for another cardio session per week why not check out some circuit training or fighters fitness classes that a lot of the mma clubs run, you're in Brum so must a be a lot of these clubs about. Also check out some of Geordie Falcons post on this section guy knows his stuff. With regards to the gym why not cut it down to two sessions & just do the big compound exercises, like Truss says you do get some cv/conditioning benifits from them, cable crossovers are just for bodybuilders, you'll be cut from decent cardio & diet.

http://toughmudder.co.uk/

Great fun, 12 mile assault course pretty much. Did it last year, I'd highly recommend it although things like being electrocuted weren't that much fun...

Problem with that sohotnot is that I'm not too keen on things like deadlifts...always worry about my back, so my back workout generally consists of 3 x 10-12 pull ups, dumbell rows, lat pulldowns, cables (on the bottom with hands crossed over).

Must admit I do miss the circuit type training from boxing..it was excellent.

I'll check that out later, interesting bit about being electrocuted!

I don't think you have anything to worry about with regards to DL's & your back, learn the technique properly, use light weights to begin & increase the weight gradually or until you feel confident to bump it up. Squats, power cleans, high pulls, bent over row are all good exercises to do, just get the technique right & don't feel embarrassed to start with lower weights. I find you can really condense the workouts in the gym & get excellent results.

I have been doing Kick Boxing again recently with a 1 to 1 session where as well as technique/pad/bag work I do conditioning training using some lighter weights & higher reps whilst doing compound exercises & I have found my fitness increasing very quickly. Check out rosstraining.com for some tips & youtube for some conditioning workouts.

Adding another cardio session won't change your appearance. People often worry about this but speaking from personal experience I haven't noticed a great deal of difference.

I too have up boxing (something about blak eyes looking unprofessional) and weights as well. I cycle for hours at the weekend and have only lost body fat since I've started cycling and stopped weights. Keep eating and training and one day extra cardio won't matter.