Reply With QuoteRunning 3 times per week seems excessive. Eating 2200 calories per day seems low. What's your bodyfat like now? If you could stand to gain some weight, it would behoove you to up your calorie intake.
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Pros/Cons on Programming Running
All - I'm one of those military guys (39, 5'8", 175 lbs, active duty AF) who has been using a version of the CFWF program. I have always managed to keep my run times around 10:30 with ~60 pushups and situps each. My current setup looks like this:
Lifts are looking like this (5x3): Squat 235, Press 125, Cleans 105, Deads 255, Bench 195 with what feels like plenty of room to increase.
M: Jog 25:00
T: Squat,Pres,Clean
W: Pullups, 1/4 Mile Sprints x 8, 5x25 Pushups/Situps
Th: REST
F: Squat,Bench,Deads, 5x25 Pushups/Situps
S: 1/4 Mile Sprints or 20:00 Fartlek Run
Su: 1:00 Max Pushups/Situps
I'm really starting to wonder about my recovery on this type of routine. I'm feeling increased joint soreness and am feeling systemically 'tired'. I average about 2200 calories a day (AF has a waist measurement as a part of our annual test) so I have to watch how much I eat to keep my waist under 35 inches. I know, it sucks...
Anyway, with recovery being a potential issue, what are the problems with switching to something like this:
M: Squat,Press,Clean, 5x25 Pushups/Situps, Jog 25:00
W: 5x25 Pushups/Situps, 1/4 Mile Intervals x 8
F: Squat,Bench,Deads, 1:00 Max Pushups/Situps, 1/4 Mile Intervals or 20:00 Fartlek
I plan on only doing this type of programming for the two months before the test. Does anybody see any issues with running on the same days as my squats/deadlifts? Any additional recovery issues?
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Running 3 times per week seems excessive. Eating 2200 calories per day seems low. What's your bodyfat like now? If you could stand to gain some weight, it would behoove you to up your calorie intake.
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Hey mikiekimi:
Military here also (19yrs Navy). First, you know YNDTP, so there's going to be differences.
A few questions:
1) Have you dialed up food about 500 kcal yet to see what happens? That may be enough to help recovery, and still keep the waistline in check.
2) You can probably drop the LSD on Monday. It's pretty useless for both endurance and maintaining muscle mass. That'll give you two days of rest per week, and make a big impact.
3) What are your goals? Is it straight PFT related or are you trying to maintain the lifts (or improve them) while you get ready for the PFT?
Some issues with your potential plan pending seeing answers to the other questions:
1) Push-ups on Weds will interfere with the Bench on Friday, not to speak of the 3x/wk push-ups. Maybe drop that push-up out of Wednesday.
2) Are both squat days intensity days (heavy sets of 5)?
3) Again, I'd drop the LSD and concentrate on sprint intervals (these should be 90-100% RPE). Maybe run a mile and a half check each 3 weeks to satisfy yourself on progress.
Initial thoughts...
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My BF% is ~26% according to my scale (bio-impedence or whatever). I keep a strict diet log and I have increased my calories from where I was (around 1900 per day). When I get up to the 2700 cals a day range my waist starts to get big, fast.
I need to get my mile and a half timed run speed down (I'm at about 11:20 now) and want to keep it around 10:30 with the same pushups/situps. Naturally, I want to preserve as much strength as possible until I test at the end of the month.
I need to keep the Wednesday PT day because it's when our squadron does it. With my other committments I need to cut out the Saturday/Sunday workouts as well. I found that if I don't run three days a week my run times tank. I was at around 12:30 two months ago after cutting running to just two days a week.
It seems like I can get strong or I can get fit (military PT wise)...I guess I'm trying to do both but I'm finding that my body doesn't like it much. I'm at a point where I've been seeing progress in both areas, it just seems like I may need to cut my workouts down to three/week to keep the progress going.
My thinking is that using the CFWF programming, squatting one day, then running the next one or two days my legs never fully recover. I'm having consistent joint pain in my hips and my ITB kills me everyting I squat, despite me stretching.
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Originally Posted by mikiekimi
The program you've described above isn't the CFWF program. That program looks like this:
M: Squat, Bench, Deadlift
T: Conditioning
W: Rest
Th: Squat, Press, Cleans
F: Conditioning
Sa: Rest
Su: Rest
Notice that it only has conditioning twice per week. You can't progress well on SS while running 3 times per week.
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OK, this helps, cause now I understand better where you are at wrt the military standards. I think a look at John Shaeffer's stuff on diet to cut BF will be a good plan. 80-90% of your results here will be due to what you put in your mouth.
Ok, I here you. Seriously, sprints will do this. Go take a look at CFE (Military prescription) at http://www.crossfitendurance.com/pag...le&hide&id=232
A lot of people here may jump on this, but I am no kidding serious, this is your best bet for quick effective results while maintaining your strength gains.
Ok, take a look at the site above, and see if you think you could work those three sessions into that style of plan - the two intervals, 1 tempo/stamina per week is really pretty effective (I did it, and dropped my 5k time to 21 minutes, and I'm 40). Since you probably won't be CFing, I'd go with three session like above (although the CF-style conditioning workouts are pretty decent if they are more planned and less random). But you have to really bring it on the interval stuff to get the results you want in a month.
Yeah, this is a challenge. You may find that the military fitness requirements lead you to a more hybrid strength/conditioning program than you've been doing. I think there are ways to do this (I'm experimenting a little myself), but it's hard if you have a deadline or other issues.
Hope this helps some.
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I am in the process of beginning the WF conditioning program as well. (military as well) I am going to stay pretty strict to it besides a couple of things...
Besides the two conditioning WODs, I am adding at least one running session per week. Probably on the weekend so my legs have time to rest from the squat days. I differ with the usual CF view that LSD is useless for running...some can be very beneficial IMO.
I am also using the after "power clean" WOD recommended-200m sprints with 1 min rest in between. It seems like a good way to keep my running up...
Have you thought that maybe the bench workouts will take care of your push up portion of the PT test? I am not sure about this either but I am going to give the program a few weeks to test the theory.
Before this program I did SS...with GOMAD. For this program I am trying a half gallon a day of low fat milk. Going to keep track of my recovery and linear progression and adjust accordingly.
Just my 2 cents...
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LSD eats muscles for breakfast.
LSD eats recovery for lunch.
LSD eats your soul for dinner.
If the 1.5 mile run is indeed the longest you need to be able to run you should be more than capable of keeping your time respectable while doing short high intensity workouts.
Your strength gains should also carry over to your "fitness".
Running is not conditioning. It is very very different. Running is for runners. The only thing that LSD does is make you better at LSD.
You need to read this http://www.crossfit.com/journal/libr...metab_cond.pdf
That is the concept of "conditioning" referred to in the modified SS programs.
Sprinting is not running...sprinting is trying really hard not to be eaten by the thing that is chasing you.
Running is something that Bill Bowerman made up to sell Nikes to old ladies.
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"The most important point to remember is that high intensity efforts can produce dramatic aerobic benefit without the muscle wasting seen with endurance training."
Gregg Glassman on Metabolic Conditioning
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Oh, good grief, don't send him a link to @Fit resources. A lot of what they say about carryover is just lies and nonsense. Lifting a light weight lots of times does not carry over well to lifting big weights once. Doing hard work for 10-20 minutes does not carry over to running a marathon. But running 400m and 800m intervals does have good carryover to running 1.5m. And the term "metabolic conditioning" is just silly.
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