How to Balance Lifting and Conditioning: A Smarter Approach for Everyday Athletes
One of the biggest challenges for military personnel is balancing lifting and conditioning in the same programme and balancing them effectively. Too much cardio may lead to a lack of strength development and muscle growth. Too much lifting without conditioning will leave you unable to perform your job. It is important to train both as they are both essential for military personnel and will compliment each other if done correctly. Here’s how to build a programme that balances lifting and conditioning effectively
You need to have a slight focus on one or the other depending on your goal.
Before you combine lifting and conditioning, ask yourself: What’s my primary goal right now?
If you want to develop in one area you need to shift your focus of your training to improve that component whilst you maintain the other.
Is your goal to increase strength or put on some muscle to improve your leg strength when TABing? You’ll want to prioritise lifting, with conditioning that maintains your current level.
Do you want to improve your aerobic capacity or your 2 miler time? Conditioning should take the lead, with lifting programmed to maintain strength and joint health.
Conduct an assessment of your fitness to determine what you need to develop. For example if you are running a 17 minute 5k but can’t deadlift your bodyweight, you will probably see results from a strength focused programme. Conversely, if you are deadlifting 2x bodyweight but running a 25 minute 5k, then you will probably see more results on a conditioning focused programme.
Being clear about your goal helps you avoid a common mistake; Trying to train like a powerlifter and a marathon runner at the same time. Trying to develop both systems equally at the same time will likely lead to less than optimal development in each. Therefore, having a focus during each block of your training will allow you to get the most out of each block.
On the other hand, If you are not training for anything specific then a well balanced mix of the two is the right approach for you.
The Interference Effect
Strength and endurance training use different energy systems and stress the body in different ways. If you train both at high intensity too close together, they can compete with each other, leading to poor results or even injury. This is known as the interference effect.
Although we will never fully negate this as ultimately you are training both components at once but we can minimise its effect with good programme and effective scheduling.
How to balance cardio and strength throughout your training week
Should I lift first or run first?
Studies suggest you want to separate heavy lifting and intense cardio by at least 6 hours, or ideally train them on different days. However, if you have to combine them in the same session you are going to want to do whatever is the focus first. I.e. if you are in a block where you are focusing on strength you want to prioritise the strength and do the strength when you are fresh and vice versa if you are in a conditioning focused block.
Can you lift heavy and have a high intensity run on the same day?
It depends on what way works best for you. Some people like to do their lifting and then high intensity run on the same day. This way their easy day can truly remain easy and they can spread out the recovery throughout the week. A downside of this, you may struggle to find the time to train on the same day and one component could take a hit in intensity due to fatigue.
Another approach, you can give yourself at least a day's rest in between heavy lower body lifts and high intensity running to ensure you can complete each at the right intensity without fatigue.
Here is an example Weekly Schedule for Training on the same day:
Monday
Lower body lifting + Speed Work
Tuesday
Upper body lifting + mobility work
Wednesday
Easy run / zone 2 cardio
Thursday
Zone 2 Cardio (Zone 2)
Friday
Full body strength
Saturday
Long Run
Sunday
Rest
Here is an example Weekly Schedule for Training on the on different days:
Monday
Lower body lifting
Tuesday
Upper body lift and Easy run / zone 2 cardio
Wednesday
Interval Run
Thursday
Zone 2 Cardio
Friday
Full body strength
Saturday
Long Run
Sunday
Rest
Balancing different types of conditioning
It is important that you balance between steady state (zone 2) cardio and higher intensity cardio such as speed and threshold work. Steady state cardio should form the majority of your conditioning with high intensity work sprinkled in throughout the week. We will break this down in a further post.
Final Thoughts
Balancing lifting and conditioning doesn’t mean doing “half and half”, it means training intelligently based on your goals and knowing when to prioritise one or the other. Take a step back from your programming and evaluate what it is you need to improve the most and from there, put together a plan that best fits you. Or get yourself a programme that does it for you.
