Jeff Roark
Level 7 Valued Member
Being new here and reading much more than posting, I'm still trying to grasp a lot of the info on here. This is probably not even remotely close to what the A+A stuff is about, but anyway here is what I've been doing lately.
I've been injured pretty bad the past several months due to rolling with a spaz (and a purple belt one at that) and got my knee popped really bad. Its really limited me to certain things as far as strength training but I can do easy cardio, which is what I learned that I needed several years ago, after doing killer Burpee circuits did nothing for my mat shape. I couldn't muster up anymore discipline to go harder on the burpees so I decided I was going back to my old Marine Corps ways and started doing good easy shuffle runs, formation run pace. After about a month my mat conditioning did a dramatic change. I was doing exactly the opposite of what the internet told me to do to be a mat killer. fast forward 3 years and here I am reading about the slow easy aerobic stuff.
So, I've been doing mainly the Airdyne and Rucking for my aerobic work. 2x per week on the air dyne and 1 ruck march. I found that I needed to do at the least 40 minutes of aerobic work to get anything out of it and the best at around an hour or so. Now for me, sitting on the Airdyne for a straight hour is a killer on my rear end and it makes it miserable. Reading about the S&S and the A+A stuff, I decided to do a set of Swings every 5 minutes. That little 30 second or so break for the swings makes it much more tolerable.
Here is something that I've noticed doing this. I can maintain my heart rate around 135 beats at a much easier pace when I do the swings vs. just straight pedaling. Watching my heart rate monitor when I do the sets of swings my HR will jump up to around 150 or so just for a few seconds and then drops super fast right back down to around 135 which is from what I can tell is close to the range I should be working at and I can pedal effortlessly and maintain that HR. Its almost like I only have to do just enough to keep the fan wheel spinning. I find this a much more pleasurable way to work on the Airdyne.
Nothing scientific or maybe of no use, but just wanted to share.
I've been injured pretty bad the past several months due to rolling with a spaz (and a purple belt one at that) and got my knee popped really bad. Its really limited me to certain things as far as strength training but I can do easy cardio, which is what I learned that I needed several years ago, after doing killer Burpee circuits did nothing for my mat shape. I couldn't muster up anymore discipline to go harder on the burpees so I decided I was going back to my old Marine Corps ways and started doing good easy shuffle runs, formation run pace. After about a month my mat conditioning did a dramatic change. I was doing exactly the opposite of what the internet told me to do to be a mat killer. fast forward 3 years and here I am reading about the slow easy aerobic stuff.
So, I've been doing mainly the Airdyne and Rucking for my aerobic work. 2x per week on the air dyne and 1 ruck march. I found that I needed to do at the least 40 minutes of aerobic work to get anything out of it and the best at around an hour or so. Now for me, sitting on the Airdyne for a straight hour is a killer on my rear end and it makes it miserable. Reading about the S&S and the A+A stuff, I decided to do a set of Swings every 5 minutes. That little 30 second or so break for the swings makes it much more tolerable.
Here is something that I've noticed doing this. I can maintain my heart rate around 135 beats at a much easier pace when I do the swings vs. just straight pedaling. Watching my heart rate monitor when I do the sets of swings my HR will jump up to around 150 or so just for a few seconds and then drops super fast right back down to around 135 which is from what I can tell is close to the range I should be working at and I can pedal effortlessly and maintain that HR. Its almost like I only have to do just enough to keep the fan wheel spinning. I find this a much more pleasurable way to work on the Airdyne.
Nothing scientific or maybe of no use, but just wanted to share.