Conditioning Work

Thought I’d share:
For the beginning of a swim season, I thought I’d get some conditioning in as opposed to liftig heavy, and tabata was getting kind of old and easy, so I used the “300” concept, which was to do 300 reps of compound moves in minimal time.

This is the original workout:
25 pullups
50 deadlifts w/135
50 pushups
50 box jumps
50 floor wipers (some stupid ab move)
25 db clean and presses on each arm
25 pullups

I thought that it was kind of stupid. 50 reps of ab work?? And the single arm clean and presses, right before pullups? I’d have gone into the pullups with one arm shot.

So I switched it around:
25 pullups
25 power cleans w/135
25 deadlifts w/135
50 pushups
25 front squats w/135
25 box jumps (used my bench)
25 bent over rows w/135
25 push presses w/115
25 front squats w/115
25 dips
25 pullups

For the first run, I managed it in just over 35 minutes taking it easy a bit. I only managed 15 power cleans, and then switched it to 35 deadlifts yesterday, and 15 push presses and 10 pushups instead of 25 push presses.
Going to do this today and probably tomorrow, take a day off, and go back to lifting heavy. Swimming starts on the 13th.
Sub 30minutes is the goal for today.

Tell me what you think, how you’d change it up, if you care to try it out?
The first thing I’m going to change is upping the deadlifts to 185, because 135 is just a joke.

I hope you know that that “300 workout” outlined in the magazines isn’t meant to be a thing you should do several times a week regularly, but rather a “rite de passage” in which the crewmembers could challenge each other or themselves. Only few of them did it, though, and only as a one time thing.

I myself would rather stick to EDT for conditioning.

why not swim?

I’ve heard it was like that, but the original workout looks pretty easy if you ask me. It surely looks like a feasible way to train and switch it up for a bit to me.
Using my limited knowledge of EDT, which I believe is to set a time constraint and perform as many reps of an exercise as possible, I’d say that’s definately worth trying too sometime.
I feel that the benefits of the 300 way are that it’s total body and the cardio work that goes along with it.

About swimming, I can’t get into a pool yet, but doing a workout like this resembles the feeling of a mid distance race.

[quote]muscleshark wrote:
Thought I’d share:
For the beginning of a swim season, I thought I’d get some conditioning in as opposed to liftig heavy, and tabata was getting kind of old and easy, so I used the “300” concept, which was to do 300 reps of compound moves in minimal time.[/quote]

Tabata got easy!? Man, if it’s getting easy, you’re not doing Tabata anymore.

[quote]muscleshark wrote:
I’ve heard it was like that, but the original workout looks pretty easy if you ask me.[/quote]

So, you haven’t done it, yet? Maybe you should do it first, then come back and tell us if it was as easy as you say.

The workout looks pretty cool. How often will you do it? Will your goal just be to get faster every time?

[quote]muscleshark wrote:
I’ve heard it was like that, but the original workout looks pretty easy if you ask me. [/quote]

That workout is not supposed to be easy. Only a few memebers of the cast actually managed to do it (and that was after they had built up strength and were well conditioned).
If you are using proper weights, that workout should rape you.

Hey guys!

About tabata, without changing the methods, all you could really do is up the weight, and the article mentions guys who front squat 495 puking when using 95 for the method. I really don’t want to boast, but I would do it with 135, or 165 if it were back squats, or 205 if it were deadlifts. Two exercises a day for 4 consecutive days. For the 8 sets, it usually looks like 8-6-6-6-5-5-5-8 reps(I make the 8th set 30 seconds)

Rhundraco/der candy, you should re-read the post. I wrote up the original and then how I altered it, and after that, places where I fell short.
I would hope replacing ab work with bent over rows and push presses makes it harder…

Fighting Scott, For now the goal would be to do it sub 30mins and to do the 25 power cleans and 25 push presses completely. Going to do it again today.

The other reason I posted was if members could rewrite it better than I did. I did my best to keep from working the same muscle groups consecutively and about the same amount of work per major group, but it could be better.

And lastly, could I get weaker from doing this? Getting any heavy lifting in during the swim season will be near impossible.
(I normally would only train this way/tabata for a week at a time)

[quote]muscleshark wrote:
Hey guys!

About tabata, without changing the methods, all you could really do is up the weight, and the article mentions guys who front squat 495 puking when using 95 for the method. I really don’t want to boast, but I would do it with 135, or 165 if it were back squats, or 205 if it were deadlifts. Two exercises a day for 4 consecutive days. For the 8 sets, it usually looks like 8-6-6-6-5-5-5-8 reps(I make the 8th set 30 seconds)

Rhundraco/der candy, you should re-read the post. I wrote up the original and then how I altered it, and after that, places where I fell short.
I would hope replacing ab work with bent over rows and push presses makes it harder…

Fighting Scott, For now the goal would be to do it sub 30mins and to do the 25 power cleans and 25 push presses completely. Going to do it again today.

The other reason I posted was if members could rewrite it better than I did. I did my best to keep from working the same muscle groups consecutively and about the same amount of work per major group, but it could be better.

And lastly, could I get weaker from doing this? Getting any heavy lifting in during the swim season will be near impossible.
(I normally would only train this way/tabata for a week at a time)[/quote]

try tabata with 135/165 and go for 8 sets of 12. report back

oh, and I hope to god you have been stretching throughout the off-season. getting back in the water is going to really suck if you haven’t done so.

Update:
I took yesterday off, and did the workout again today.

I decided to eliminate the 25 power cleans for safety’s sake (or for the sake of biting off more than I could chew, your pick), but did manage all 25 of the push presses.
25 pullups
50 deadlifts w/135
50 pushups
25 front squats w/135
25 bench jumps
25 bent over rows w/135
25 push presses w/115
25 front squats w/115
25 dips
25 pullups
Time: 27 minutes 15 seconds

Good stuff! My kind of cardio!
I invite you guys to try this out if you care to work on conditioning a bit. If you get into the proper mindset, the time goes by pretty quick.

I teach my student something we simply call a ‘combat pyramid’. All it consists of is Hindu squats, Hindu push ups and a crunch. It is simple but builds functional strength and endurance. It goes like this;

From standing, do 1 Hindu squat

Drop down and do 1 Hindu push up

Roll over and do a crunch

Stand up and do 2 - 2 - 2 of each then 3 - 3 - 3 and so forth up to what ever number is your goal then start back down till you get to 1 of each again. As an example; going up to 5 and back down is 25 of each. Up to 10 and back down to 1 is 100 of each. Up to 20 and back down to 1 is 400 of each. It is one heck of a workout.

You could use any combination of exercises, but I’ve found the Hindu squat and push up combined with a crunch to be optimal as is really works the whole body. Top it off with some handstand push ups and your done…literally for the day.

Hope this may have been helpful to you.

[quote]muscleshark wrote:
… tabata was getting kind of old and easy…[/quote]

Tabata can get old if you do it all the time, but if you’re doing it right, it should never be easy. If it is, up the weight and/or hasten and increase the reps per set.

[quote]muscleshark wrote:
… guys who front squat 495 puking when using 95 for the method…[/quote]

Yes, because they weren’t used to it. You apparently have great conditioning and a lot of experience in Tabata and other conditioning stuff to do what you can do. Thumbs up, man.

thanks ,but I really didn’t mean to make it sound that haughty, because it does.

Ok, I’ve got to bring this back. I did a third workout like this yesterday, and it’s doing wonders for my energy systems/energy levels.
To illustrate, I threw in an extra 100 reps to make it 400, added weight to everything, and consequently had 4 hours of sleep that night. I woke up and feel perfectly fine. No signs of soreness or fatigue. I’ve energy to waste.

In other words, I strongly recommend training this way for about a week for the benefits it seems to bring.