Powerlifting and Cardio

[COBBER]

Lately i have been doing very little cardio. How important is cardio in relation to Powerlifting?

I train like an animal when lifting which gets the heart pumping...But is it still necessary to go for a quick run or whatever a few days/week?

Just want to know if I am actually meant to include some kind of cardiovascular exercise...

[Fluster]

Depends on your goals, but not being a fat bastard and being able to run a mile or three can't be a bad thing.

[Heavy_Beats]

Lately i have been doing very little cardio. How important is cardio in relation to Powerlifting?

I train like an animal when lifting which gets the heart pumping...But is it still necessary to go for a quick run or whatever a few days/week?

Just want to know if I am actually meant to include some kind of cardiovascular exercise...

Cardiovascular exercise is not important for powerlifting but it is important for your health and well being.

Don't just run though, running sucks. Do a sport that benefits from strength training like Judo for example. Chris Jenkins is a pretty strong powerlifter that does Judo.

The guy with the white belt is Chris Jenkins.

[slothguy]

To repeat what was said, find a sport you enjoy doing and play that at least a couple times a week. If you aren't playing sports, I'd do some running or biking or something a few times a week to prevent yourself from becoming completely out of shape. Endurance can help with powerlifting anyways.

[IggMonster]

If you enjoy doing cardiovascular training, who the fck cares... As stated above, its not necessarily going to help, but it certainly doesn't hurt as long as you're doing cardio in moderation. For the obvious reasons, cross-country distance running would not be beneficial to weight-training. Specifically in terms of growth and recovery. But there are many benefits to having a couple 20-30 minutes sessions, several times a week.

[arian11]

Lately I've switched over to no cardio. Need to recover as much as possible. Plus I've always been skinny and its hard to eat alot so the less calories I burn from cardio the better. Don't really get winded during workouts so its fine for now.

[IggMonster]

One thing I should mention as another benefit to cardio, specifically PWO; I've noticed overall better recovery from just doing a 15-20min session on the elliptical. Again, this is PWO. Research would support that this can be beneficial by opening the capillaries and allowing blood/nutrients to flow a little easier.

With that being said, I trained for a long time without doing any cardio and I did fine, but now I notice better recovery. Although stretching and foam rolling work as well.

[muscle_g]

I like to walk for 20-30mins on the treadmill on my off days, I also love using the exercise Bike.

[corozco]

I would say that cardio IS important for powerlifting. A perfect example would be my last meet.

Instead of getting my first attempt overturned the ****gy judges gave me a fourth attempt. Usual procedure is to take a 4th attempt after having the the entire flight go over again. I was last in flight anyways and was given 4 minutes between 3rd and 4th attempts instead of having a flight take their lifts.

Got under 705 and breathing heavy as fuk while setting up fuked me up bad. Have been doing cardio ever since in case a stupid scenario like this shows up again.

[theduffman]

I would say that cardio IS important for powerlifting. A perfect example would be my last meet.

Instead of getting my first attempt overturned the ****gy judges gave me a fourth attempt. Usual procedure is to take a 4th attempt after having the the entire flight go over again. I was last in flight anyways and was given 4 minutes between 3rd and 4th attempts instead of having a flight take their lifts.

Got under 705 and breathing heavy as fuk while setting up fuked me up bad. Have been doing cardio ever since in case a stupid scenario like this shows up again.

tru dat. Being in good shape can definitely help in powerlifting. If you have better conditioning, you can recover faster from your workouts, and cardio can function as active recovery so that you can work out again with higher intensity faster. It also can improve your muscular endurance, as well as your general conditioning, and there are two main benefits to this
a) you can do more reps which even at a low rep level increases neural efficiency (will make you stronger)
b) You need to have good conditioning so that by the end of your meet, you still have some gas left for deadlifting. This is why a good deadlift in a full meet (without token lifts) is so much more impressive than a deadlift only meet.

[blastbeats_stl]

look better and get sponsored by muscletech

[COBBER]

Cheers guys. Before the earthquake (I live in Christchurch) I used to go to the swimming pool and do some HIIT training on my off days with resistance paddles (murders your shoulders). But now that pool/stadium is destroyed. Don't wanna waste more petrol driving accross town so i suppose i'll have to start running again.

Would you say doing 20 minutes x 2-3 days/week is enough?

Also is it better to do a form of HIIT rather than just a consistent light run?

[simp3204]

Cheers guys. Before the earthquake (I live in Christchurch) I used to go to the swimming pool and do some HIIT training on my off days with resistance paddles (murders your shoulders). But now that pool/stadium is destroyed. Don't wanna waste more petrol driving accross town so i suppose i'll have to start running again.

Would you say doing 20 minutes x 2-3 days/week is enough?

Also is it better to do a form of HIIT rather than just a consistent light run?

In my opinion HIIT would be better, but it is also normally sport specific. It is definitely a more athletic exercise.

[A_Hard_Rain]

i think it's important, i don't like having to take huge breaks between sets because i can't catch my breath.

recently i've been doing barbell complexes at the end of my upper body workouts 2x a week. don't do much, usually 2 rounds of back squat->deadlift->bent over row->clean and press. 10 reps each exercise with 65 lbs

very intense cardio

[GetHimABodyBag]

Tire drags/sled drags..heavy and moderate..Prowler too if you have access

DB Swings

those 2 will bring up your conditioning..guarantee

[someonefat]

do 20 rep squats

best cardio I've done

excessive cardio can have a negative effect on strength and muscle size a bit. Yet I still do cardio from time to time-mostly sports based cardio, grappling, kickboxing, swimming, basketball ext- I like to be all around athletic.