Fitting in 2 days of conditioning

[Cousin Bo]

Hello Coaches,

Had a question regarding fitting in conditioning with a lifting schedule. For someone who is lifting four days a week (Mon, Tues, Thurs, and Friday) and wanted to add 2 days of conditioning, what would be the ideal schedule? Would conditioning be done on off days (Wednesday and Saturday) for active recovery or on days after lifts (Tuesday and Friday) to give a full days of rest? Or some other combination (Tuesday and Saturday)?

To give some additional details, the conditioning will mostly consist of intervals done on the prowler, erg, or hill sprints. The purpose of conditioning is to stay conditioned (duh) and help to stay lean while gaining weight. Right now I'm doing 1 day of conditioning a week on Saturday, either hill sprints or prowler pushes. I'm thinking of adding another day of erg intervals but rather not do it on Tuesday because that's when I squat a lot. I think erg intervals won't impact my recovery too much since they are low impact unlike hill sprints. Any suggestions are greatly appreciated.

[Michael Wolf]

I prefer the approach that allows complete days of rest, so Tues/Fri in your case. I know some suggest otherwise, but that's consistently worked better for me and the people I coach. Conditioning after heavy squatting shouldn't be a problem. Your absolute time/speed may be slightly lower, but in terms of conditioning effect it won't matter much.

I also recommend sticking with the prowler and erg. The hill sprints can easily interfere with strength gainz, so if strength is your main priority, stick with the erg and prowler.