This has got my mind buzzing.You can certainly combine in rucking etc. with IC.
Or see if there's a larger sample space, i.e. are there students who are big endurance fanatics who could stand to benefit as well?This has got my mind buzzing.
Maybe have one of my students who is a cycling enthusiast spend a season on IC and we track the results
I'm just a sample size of one and I only did IC for about a month. But four weeks ago I knocked off one of my bucket list hikes of going from the desert floor to the top of our local mountain that dominates our skyline. It was 14 miles and 7000 feet of uphill climbing and took about 8 hours to do. To prepare I did my usual hiking on the weekends, rucking during the week and I did IC twice a week.Or see if there's a larger sample space, i.e. are there students who are big endurance fanatics who could stand to benefit as well?
Maybe have one of my students who is a cycling enthusiast spend a season on IC and we track the results
Well… I am also very intrigued about this. I’ve played around a bit with IC and I like it, and can certainly see its potential. My dilemma and I think you might find this in many locomotive endurance specialists… is that they (we) log a lot of hours in our chosen activities.Or see if there's a larger sample space, i.e. are there students who are big endurance fanatics who could stand to benefit as well?
In my own case it's logistics. Having a very energetic dog and living in a state with fairly high heat and humidity supports walking the dog (with me wearing a 20# weight vest) first since he can't thermoregulate like I can due to lack of sweat glands then doing Iron Cardio.I would hit an IC session and then ruck (or cycle) but experimenting with the order will allow you to find the right mix.
My idea is to do a block of alternating IC with KBSF LCCJ work (and doing the latter more freely, similar to IC, changing weights and patterns every session).
2 or 3 weeks, not entirely sure.how long blocks are you going to do? 2 weeks?
After my stretch with double KBs I decided to do a session with a single, for comparison. I matched number of presses per arm. So, last time, I did 30 sets with 20+20; this time I did 60 sets with 20.
Generally, the singles session felt more energetically challenging. I pushed myself to match the press volume. Rest felt much more compressed. Obviously, I did twice as many total reps per lift, even if the presses were split between arms. Time also went from 31:00 for the doubles to 34:12 for the single. The time increase was a bit of a surprise. I recently started using an HR monitor to record my sessions and review after the fact. HR was consistently higher for the single session. Felt like it, too.
Overall, I felt like I had less time to rest and that I had to keep pushing to do this session at this pace. Interesting stuff. As I posited in my last post, I definitely see how singles push more continuous work and doubles push more intense sets. I still think both are good.
I'm not sure which I prefer. But I think it's fine, because of the flexibility of this system. I don't have to do the same thing all the time. That said, I think I might spend a little more time with the singles. That was harder than I expected; seems like I might benefit from spending some time on this aspect.
Apologies if I'm missing something, but I wouldn't rush to characterise your progress as flat. Over the last 16 weeks have you increased the number of sets? Or have you increased the weight maybe? What's your rate of sets/min at 10,20,30 sets?Worthy of note: My overall progress on Iron Cardio is approximately flat. And I think I know why.
The blue line is the raw Sets / Minute score for all sessions
The Red line is where I try to account for additional reps and load in Traveling 2s, Alternating weights, Etc.
View attachment 21704
I've been looking through my log and I pulled this chart illustrating the session-to-session Set / Minute Density of each Iron Cardio Session.
In general - I think that I've been detracting from progressing in IC with a lot of my parallel training.
I've been including GPP, and or Carries. And, lately, I've been trying my hand at a Hypertrophy protocol.
MWF: Iron Cardio
TTh: Something else
It's my estimation that I think that a reduction in frequency may be in order, to allow for better recovery and adaptation.
Maybe i should just take a walk or stretch.
There's a lot of waviness and a relatively flat load line across about 50 sessions across about 16 weeks.
If nothing else, I appreciate the vote of confidence.Apologies if I'm missing something, but I wouldn't rush to characterise your progress as flat. Over the last 16 weeks have you increased the number of sets? Or have you increased the weight maybe? What's your rate of sets/min at 10,20,30 sets?
Of course, if you ramped up some other form of training, while maintaining everything else the same with IC, that's also noteworthy.