I just got into O-lifting, cardio question...

[ehlpitel]

Today was my first session with a coach who trained me- told me to do overhead squats, snatch balances, front squats amongst other stuff.

The most amount of weight on the bar was 10 kilos(for front squats) and I sweated my nuts off- it was brutal and awesome.

Usually, during regular lifting I would do cardio on my off days just for regular fitness purposes and whatnot.

Would anyone suggest I keep doing cardio? Because the O-lifting is pretty strenuous and is almost a cardio excercise in and of itself.

What say you guys?

I'm so pumped from finally getting coached that I want to get in the gym tomorrow but I'm probably gonna be sore as hell.

[timeformegaman]

I certainly don't think the extra cardio could hurt, unless you went extreme with it. It will help with your conditioning on your lifts. That being said, Olympic lifting is pretty taxing, so you could probably develop a pretty sound cardiovascular system just with that alone.

[raffiki]

Lifting weights improves your cardio vascular system. If by "cardio" you mean aerobic training, it is unnessecary. Unless you just like running or biking. I go hiking on the weekends and it doesn't bother my lifting.

[ehlpitel]

By cardio I just mean running on the elliptical for 30-40 minutes at a steady pace, not sprinting my balls off, just something where I'm sweating at a nice pace, but not sweating nearly as much as my first day of real o-lifting...

If I have time, I'll probably opt to do it.

[PrivateBaldrick]

By cardio I just mean running on the elliptical for 30-40 minutes at a steady pace, not sprinting my balls off, just something where I'm sweating at a nice pace, but not sweating nearly as much as my first day of real o-lifting...

If I have time, I'll probably opt to do it.

You can do it, but don't expect it to improve your lifting at all. It may even hamper your progress a little.

[timeformegaman]

You can do it, but don't expect it to improve your lifting at all. It may even hamper your progress a little.

I bet it won't hamper his progress at all.

No amount of traditional cardio is going to help with your raw lifts, but it could help with your recovery time between sets, as well as how well oxygen is utilized by the body during the lift. If you got some spare time, do some cardio. If you don't, no big deal.

[GoJu]

I suggest complexes, that way you're getting cardio and working on your lifts, I've been doing lots of complexes in my training recently and when I do the traditional lifts by themselves I'm rarely out of breath like I used to be on a set of 3-5 on snatches or cleans, try this:

position snatch/clean: 1 from the floor + 1 from the knees + 1 from above knees

2 snatch pulls + 2 snatches

power clean + hang clean + clean

remember everything you read is ONE REP, try anywhere from 3-5 sets of 3-5 reps maybe at the start of your workout, you won't need to do traditional cardio IMO if you're doing these hard, try anywhere from 65-75% of your 1RM on the lifts.

[timeformegaman]

GoJu's plan works. That is how I get a lot of my cardiovascular conditioning. It is all about complexes and circuit stuff. Give yourself very little rest. I usually feel really spent after a session of this kind of training.