Just a few days ago, somebody came to me with a question.
See she’s been working hard on getting her strength up and recently hit a 110kg double in the back squat. That’s a decent level.
She’s also been doing hill sprints once a week. She’s winning at training.
So what was the question? “I keep increasing the weights I lift, should I also increase the amount of hills I run?”.
Good question.
Answer is: it depends.
While you obviously have to increase the stress on the body to force adaptation, you also get to a point where you’re putting an unnecessary amount of stress on your body and not really getting closer to your goals.
For most people, working up to 15-20 short sprints (30-50m) once a week will be a sweet spot. There’s still plenty of days left to train your legs and to rest your legs.
There are obviously other ways to force adaptation than just doing more work – you can increase intensity (ie run faster), density (shorter rests) or volume (longer sprints, more sprints). But it all boils down to one thing – what are you trying to accomplish? How much stress are you willing to put your body under for cardiovascular purposes? Keep in mind that the more you stress yourself doing cardio, the less stress you can tolerate in the weight room.
Identify the goal and draw up a plan. More isn’t always better.
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