to much cardio?

[steppingrazor]

this is my current routine copied from another thread

monday-thurs 1 hour mma, 1 hour jiu jitsu, 1 hour on the bags and shadow boxing, half hour work out or cardio if I'm up for it. i have been doing this about 6 months, before that i was training 2 hours a day for about 6 months working out 1 hour mon-thurs. still some how my cardio isnt all that great, not to mention I'm 155. friday i try and go hiking in the mountain near my house or get some sort of cardio and saturday i workout. i would love to train full time, hopefully that will workout eventually

let me add i fucking hate cardio, and it seems to show. my routine is very high paced and i work hard without slackin but it still isn't where i want it to be(better then average it seems). i live in az so its about to get hot, the place i train keeps the a/c off so the summer is insane, today it was 100 i believe. as i said before i want to step up my cardio so I'm thinking in the mornings and later at night i should go run these stairs near my home till I'm worn out (there four story's up and after a few minutes at full speed your pretty worn and doing this every day, is that to much? i have my first match in the near future so I'm tryin to step it up a little

[paolo27th]

I dunno man, you spend 3 hours in the gym a day. What exactly do you do? You are pretty vague. Especially what does your "workout" consists of?

But if you grapple consecutive 5 minute rounds it starts becoming an acceptable cardio workout after 4-5 rds IMHO. Also you can do burpees between rounds of bag or shadow? Say you do 5 min rounds again you could just do 10-15 burpees at 2 mins, then again at 4 and again during the break. After 4-5 rounds that can become a decent workout too. Then you can finish the sessions with suicides on the mats?

Just an idea, really. But that will save you having to wake up in the morning to do extra work. Also, what do you mean by your "first match"? Grappling? Pro mma? Amateur mma? MT....? You probably wouldn`t worry so much about conditioning if you were doing a 5 mingrappling match. Not as much as if you were doing a full 15 min pro mma fight.

[steppingrazor]

yeah that was vague, i kept it out because i figured it was getting to long, here is what it consists of, keep in mind this is a rough schedule so not everything matches up perfect, my coach switches shit up a lot but this should sum it up pretty decent

the one hour of mma starts with 15 minutes of warm up/shadow boxing usually 30 minutes of technique and then 15-30 min of rotating between muay thai for technique(sparring with kick boxing rules) one day predominately g&p and then the other rotation is mma sparring rules)

the one hour of jits is no-gi, i forget to mention that. we warm up first 15 minutes, spend 30 minutes running technique drills then we spend the next 15 minutes going through each position at full intensity each position 1 minute and we go through all for each person before a break we get 2 minutes drink break then we roll switching partners every 3 minutes, we go through a few times and i dont have another class after that so we often continue to roll. thursdays we work mainly take downs/take down defense

the hour on the bags/ shadow boxing i take at my own pace, i will hit the bags for a few rounds, start with heavy then work double ended bag. after a while of that i will shadow box or jump rope a bit

after that before i leave the gym i try and end with some weight lifting(3 times a week, once on saturday) or exercise cardio etc. manly the basics, bench, squats, dead lifts and different things with the dumbbells. or maybe some rope or more rolling. i start at 5 and usually run till about 8;30

friday i hike one of the two big mountains near my house, at my own pace, but i usually go full speed.

saturday as i mentioned is weight lifting

sunday is mainly chill, maybe run some stairs

as far as the match amateur mma, my coach has thought i was ready for a while but me not being a huge fan of crowds i wanted to wait till i felt ready, not that a year is a long time but i do pretty well imo. i figure some real experience should be good also a local jiu jitsu tournament but thats just for fun and to test myself a bit, my main goal and concern is to compete professionally in mma eventually. so you think that will prolly be overkill? thanks a lot for the help i appreciate it

[paolo27th]

You seem to do ALOT of work. If I were you I`d definitely chill on Sundays to start with.

Then considering how much you roll and stuff I wouldn`t add any extra sessions. Rather I`d look into transforming that last hour of shadow/bag work into cardio work. Like I said before add burpees and other bw stuff, punch out intervals... You could start doing this 2-3 times a week depending on how you feel.

Also, if your strenght is not holding you back you could drop one of the weights sessions so you have more energy/time for cardio.

And not sure about the hiking. It`s cool if that`s your hobby but if you`re concerned that you`re not training enough that`s something that will probably take a big toll on your system but won`t give you big rewards. How about you run up those mountains? I don`t mean all the way. You could start from doing 20 secs sprints and then walk for active recovery. Wear a hr monitor (you can find very cheap ones on ebay) so you know what your hr is while hiking. You do your sprint and then start walking again till your hr drps to that, and repeat and repeat again for maybe 10 -15 times.

These are just some ideas, hope they help.

[DrBdan]

What is your resting heart rate? Do you do much LSD/Tempo work? It sounds like you are doing lots of HIIT style anaerobic training so it could that your aerobic capacity is holding you back. I'd recommend that you read the two stickied posts by EZA at the top of this forum, they might help you figure out what's holding you back. I also second paolo's recommendation to get a HR monitor.

It just occurred to me, why do you think your cardio isn't that great? What is your frame of reference?

[steppingrazor]

oh haha, my version of hiking is very intense, i run as long and as hard as i can and then slow down just enough to keep going, i keep this pace the entire time, by the end I'm dead tired and unable to breath, last time i almost passed out and had to sit in my car a while before i could see straight enough to drive. i need to bring water with me when it starts to get hot(arizona is already pretty hot), i have never done burpees but i just looked them up and am going to try those out in my normal bag/shadow box hour, i figure i will throw that and jump rope in there in place of the shadow boxing or bags a few times a week

[paolo27th]

I was also wondering. With all the work you do you could actually be seriously fit and the problem may be that you`re expecting too much from your conditioning.
Remember that in a fight you have to learn how to pace yourself. Of course that pace depends on your fitness levels, however no amount of conditioning will allow you to fight like a madmad from bell to bell. Having good (read efficient) technique is extremely important. Plus you need to be able to remain calm and not blow your load in the first couple of minutes.

[steppingrazor]

Originally Posted by paolo27th

I was also wondering. With all the work you do you could actually be seriously fit and the problem may be that you`re expecting too much from your conditioning.
Remember that in a fight you have to learn how to pace yourself. Of course that pace depends on your fitness levels, however no amount of conditioning will allow you to fight like a madmad from bell to bell. Having good (read efficient) technique is extremely important. Plus you need to be able to remain calm and not blow your load in the first couple of minutes.

i do have a problem with pacing myself and not getting over excited, i also seem to gas out faster when i stay tense, i move around a lot when i fight as well which is also using up energy. i have worked on staying concuss of these things when i have been training but still have a lot of work to do on it, i am sure things will be a bit better after i get that under control. i also expect a lot from myself, i could very well be a lot better off then i think i am, i find i do that a lot

[steppingrazor]

Originally Posted by DrBdan

What is your resting heart rate? Do you do much LSD/Tempo work? It sounds like you are doing lots of HIIT style anaerobic training so it could that your aerobic capacity is holding you back. I'd recommend that you read the two stickied posts by EZA at the top of this forum, they might help you figure out what's holding you back. I also second paolo's recommendation to get a HR monitor.

It just occurred to me, why do you think your cardio isn't that great? What is your frame of reference?

i have no idea what it is(resting heart rate), i have never checked and im not really sure how to. im also not sure about the lsd/tempo workouts but im going to look into them and also get myself to really read those stickied threads.

[Ian Coe]

I'd be interested in your pace and time when you're running in the mountains (and their terrain ofcourse).