Strength and Conditioning: Everyone should be doing both. Strength is a life long pursuit that is pretty straightforward but not easy. Do compound exercises, add weight, eat and rest. Repeat. Conditioning is a totally different animal. There are usually two sides to this debate.
Mind Numbing Cardio
OR
Balls to the Wall Conditioning
Sometimes you have to somewhere in the middle. Recently I have been kicking around some conditioning ideas. I had a prowler made and it was no joke.
If that's your only option it could be tough on your body and make it hard to recover. I wanted to find something to do that was less stressful but still got results. I decided to go with some stadium stairs at the local high school.
Programming was pretty simple. 30 minutes up and down as many times as possible. That was pretty good for a while but as any male can attest it was time to mess with it. Now there are many things you can add to do some stadium stairs but I wanted to keep it simple. Enter the vest.
Not this
More like this
I decided to add a 20 lbs. weighted vest would make things interesting. However, I didn't want to spend a bunch of money. The vest was 20 lbs. for less than $40. It is constructed well and is not cheap. There might be cheaper alternatives like loading a backpack but you don't want to mess around with cheap when you climbing up and down 25 stadium steps.
Next was deciding on a protocol. I knew 30 minutes was a good place to start so I kept that. After some experimentation I cam up with the "30 for 30". I know not too original since it was a television show on ESPN. Pretty simple. 30 minutes. 30 times up and down the stadium stairs. Up and down=1 rep. Using this method give you a goal in reps as well as a time limit. As with anything else you can work to lower your time. My best time is 24 22 minutes. This is pretty tough and I told myself sprinting or walking will work to get the reps. Now before you jump up to the stadium stairs you can always work up to them. Find a hill.
I did bodyweight stadium stairs then weighted hill walk and finally weighted stadium stairs. That give you 3 options each with its own intensity. Depending on what you have coming up next in your training week you can choose wisely. So if you have squats or deads coming up weight stairs could make you next lower body session lacking. This is where you uses your head and look at the entire picture not just blasting away.
To recap there are many conditioning options out there. Why not do something outside that is always going to be there and doesn't cost $$? Always keep in mind what you have coming up so your not wasted for upcoming sessions. After completing this conditioning you are left with a sense of accomplishment and a puddle of sweat.
