Training

Combining Cardiovascular & Strength Training

It’s important to vary your training in order to make sure that all of your body’s systems are worked equally. Only focusing on one muscle area, or sticking to just one kind of fitness, can seem appealing initially, but varying your training can make it easier to lose fat, tone up and feel stronger in your whole body.

Whilst strength training is ideal for improving muscles in isolated groups, cardiovascular training will help improve the performance of your body’s circulatory and respiratory systems. Combining strength and cardiovascular training is a brilliant way to achieve a fully balanced workout, resulting in a super healthy body.

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DIFFERENCES BETWEEN CARDIOVASCULAR AND STRENGTH TRAINING:

Cardiovascular training

• Includes exercises that use large muscle movement to increase your heart rate over a sustained period of time

• Typical cardio exercises include running, rowing, swimming, cycling and aerobic workouts

• Improves the health of heart, lungs and circulation

• Improves mood and growth of neuron-pathways in the brain

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Strength training

• Includes exercises that focus on building small muscle groups

• Improves general muscular strength

• Improves circulation, joint strength and ease of daily tasks

• Improves bone density and health

• Assists fat loss

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HOW TO COMBINE THE TWO

As with any change to routine, combining cardiovascular exercises into your strength training is all about making small but achievable changes. You can extend your current strength training routine to include cardio exercises, or alternatively you can dedicate each different session you do to a different type of workout.

We would recommend at least a 20-30 minutes session of cardiovascular training 3 to 5 times a week. And then supplement this with the same amount of strength training workouts i.e. 3 – 5 sessions of roughly 20-30 minutes.

Combining these two disciplines into one cross-training session is obviously a much more efficient way to use your time, and below are some popular ways to integrate your cardio and strength training workouts:

• Spinning classes, boot camps, tabata sessions and gym classes that include aerobic exercise and weights throughout are ideal

• Finish your normal strength training gym session with a bout of cardio. Most trainers will see that clients respond better to working on muscle strength and resistance training first, before moving onto cardio workouts

• Training for specific sports such as kickboxing, tennis or rugby can be another great way to combine cardio and strength into one session
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STAYING SUPPLE – YOGA TO TRY IT!

It’s really important to keep your flexibility up alongside your cardiovascular and strength training. Not stretching enough can negate the good you’re doing your body and you really want to avoid becoming too stiff and immobile.

Classes like yoga and pilates aren’t just about mental R&R, they are incredibly useful to incorporate into your workout routine. They really help you become more aware of your body, which in turn will really improve your technique in resistance and cardio training. They also massively help improve your flexibility and mobility, especially in areas such as your hips and other joints which can get tight due to reparative exercise motions.

Advice provided by Chris Odle & Alexa Garside

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