Working out in the out if doors

WORKING OUT IN THE OUT OF DOORS


A lot of experts training MMA fighters and BJJ competitors recommend
against doing aerobic (i.e. extended duration) training and say that
you should only do sprintwork, but I don't find myself in agreement
with them. I've found that aerobic work really helps my grappling.

So far on my four day fitness blitz I've done a lot of anaerobic and
muscular endurance training. Today I wanted to do some aerobic work,
some 'cardio' in the purest sense. And I wanted to do it outside.

I love running outdoors. Most of the time when someone who tells me
that they find running boring I find out that they actually mean that
they find running on a treadmill boring. If I’m running on a
treadmill I have about a 20 minute attention span – any more than that
and I’d better have some really good music on my iPod. Running
outdoors, however, is an entirely different situation, and I’m happy
to go for an hour or more and never feel bored.

If you can pull it off, running outdoors on gravel or soil as opposed
to asphalt and cement is also a lot easier on the joints. Better
shock absorption characteristics and slight variations in the angle of
the terrain make running on natural surfaces much more joint friendly.

Part 1: 40 Minute Run
For this workout I picked a nice park that is located on my way to
work. I ran for about 40 minutes at a moderate pace on the trails
along the river and through the forest. Although I wasn’t running with
a partner today I went at an intensity that would have allowed me to
speak in short sentences, but not paragraphs. For me this translates
to keeping my heart rate at about 140 to 145 beats per minute (I
measure my carotid pulse for 10 seconds and multiply that number by
6).

Part 2: Bodyweight Exercises
After this run I found a good place to do pull-ups, and did 12
bodyweight pull-ups followed by 30 bodyweight pushups. I did this
twice, for a total of 24 pull-ups and 60 pushups, just enough to get a
little bit of a ‘pump’.

author : stephan kesting www.grapplearts.com