"Cardio and Abs"

This post is for the average gym goer out there that thinks "cardio and abs" is a legitimate workout. These workouts generally consist of a few miles on the stationary bike followed by a million spinal flexion exercises.

I hate to break it to all of you, but crunches aren't going to give you abs. Its impossible to remove fat from a singular part of your body with exercises. It blows my mind how many people think spot reduction exists and I'm even more blown away by the amount of people who refuse to accept it when I tell them it doesn't. Sorry folks, thats just the way things are. You want a six pack? Do table push aways. Think about it.

 Second on the agenda, distance cardio. I hate distance cardio (and dont think I havent tried it. I ran cross country and was a rower). Everyone thinks that in order to get in shape you need to go out and run for an hour. This couldn't be further from the truth. All that distance cardio leads too is overuse injuries, and in the case of field sport athletes, it leads to you getting slower. You can get the same amount of aerobic benefit (and some anaerobic benefit) with a good, hard interval session. Unfortunately, many people avoid intervals because of the fact that they are hard. It's much easier to hop on the elliptical, Gazelle, or whatever for 45 mins than it is to go out and run hill sprints. It may suck, but you're going to get a lot more out of 10 hill sprints than you are out of 45 mins going steady state.


So, with that said, here's a look at my conditioning and core training from today:


Cambered Bar Yoke carries: x95,135,185,225,275,275,275,275,275,225

 



These might be my new favorite conditioning activity. You can hear "contract your core" or "squeeze your glutes" all day but you never really feel it until you have weight on your back swinging all over on a cambered bar. You need to keep every inch of your body rigid or you're going to end up on your ass.



Next, sled pushes down, drags back: 90,180,270,260,450,450,360,270,180,90

 
These aren't rocket science and they're by no means anything new. Get a sled, push it. Your legs are gonna burn, your heartrate is gonna get cranked up, and you're gonna feel like a badass afterwards.


Finally, bear crawls: bodyweight, 20lb vest, 40, 60, add 45lbs with a dip belt, 90 w/ belt, 135 w/ belt.





We used to do these for punishment in lacrosse and they sucked so I figured I'd load them up and see if I could make them worse. I succeeded. I think I can sum these up with the conversation I had with Ben Bruno (who you should Google!) after I got done. He came up to me and asked "Steve what are those supposed to train?" and I responded "I don't know they're just really damn hard"



Now by all means I don't expect everyone to go out and do this stuff. This is an extreme example. I'm just saying next time you're thinking of hopping on the elliptical for 45 minutes of reading on your Kindle, try cranking up the intensity and doing 20 minutes of hard intervals instead and see which gives you better results.