Freestyle question about cardio

[mariep]

Hi, everyone--

I've been reading a lot on these forums about the Freestyle training method and am intrigued by it. I'm thinking of trying to do something similar, using Cathe's workouts. My question is about cardio. Ideally, I wouldn't want to do more than an hour total per workout, and I'd like to only workout five days per week. So for days when I do say IMax 2 or Kick Punch & Crunch, could I consider that lower body training for the day, or would weight work have to be added on?

A possible rotation I'm thinking of is something like this:
1.PUB/PLB combined (only for an hour, though, so maybe just the pyramid up part)
2. IMax2
3. Another total body workout, either Push Pull, Supersets, ME or PH
4. Kick Punch & Crunch
5. Lower body only workout, either LL, L&G, PS Legs, etc.

Would this be considered Freestyle training, or would I have to get some lower body weight work in on those cardio only days? Also, as I'm looking at this rotation, it looks pretty light on the cardio, doesn't it? Would adding on a short cardio blast at the end of at least two of the weight workouts be useful? Maybe the cardio only portion of Boot Camp?

All the info on this forum is so good and so bad all at the same time! I get such useful info, but it makes my head spin because I can't get organized with all the options that are out there!:+

Thanks for your help! I'm really intrigued by this method of training, but I also want to stick with Cathe's workouts!

-Marie

 

[Randi77]

Hi Marie,

Since I'm beginning a freestyle experiment on myself right now I thought I'd respond, lol . I don't have the book with me so I can't check and see what the author says regarding cardio. In the past few months I've reduced the amount of cardio I've been doing and it hasn't hurt my results, if anything it's improved them. So in that respect I'd think that it's more of an individual thing. I'm aiming for 4x a week, 30-60 min. each session.

As far as the Freestyle method goes, and anyone feel free to correct me if I'm wrong (again, don't have the book handy), the recommendation is 4-6 days a week of lower body training, and the author recommends a lunge w/o as well for the best results (this w/o is done with bodyweight only). My rotation for this week doesn't include the lunge w/o and I don't see why you wouldn't be able to use Cathe's workouts for all of the lower body work if you wanted to - my rotation this week is all Cathe fwiw. I'm also using no add'l weight for most of the LB workouts.

Hopefully this will help you. The book is good but I'm not sure that you NEED it to apply the principles of Freestyle training.

ttyl,

Randi

 

[rcook]

Well Marie ...
I, like randi don't have my freestyle book with me right now..... it does say 4-6 times a week depending on how much weight you want to lose. You do lower body weight training followed by cardo. They say that doing weight training followed by cardio, compromises the bodies ability to build large bulky muscle.
I like the freestyle training, been doing it for 4 weeks I think now. The first 2 weeks I done the exercises in the book, but now I do cathe's lower body exercises 5-6 days a week, followed by running.....
I would say order the book, lots of info in it...... Rhonda :7

they also say you should do at least 2 upper body workouts a week or 3.

 

[scm]

Rhonda, so a week would look something like this:

M PLB + SB
T PUB
W L&G + MIC
T MIS (no legs)
F PS Legs + BM (not the weights at the end)
S off
S PLB + SB

Susan CM

 

[rcook]

Susan, yeah something like that, except on the tues, I would have put in another leg exercise and done the upper body exercise later in the day.
Mine would look something like this, you could fill it in the way you would like it......

Monday: L&G leg press mania, then a run
Tues: PLB, then a run.. later in the day do a 30 upper body workout,
or change PLB to MIS and do the whole workout... plus cardio.
Wed: PS legs
Thur: L&G leg press mania, a run
Friday: PLB, then a run..... or switch it like Tuesdays
Saturday: L&G, a run
Sunday: OFF

sometimes I skip Wed also ... depends on how much time I have, I do my abs every day.......

You do 4-6 days a week, depending on how much you want to lose, if you don't want to lose just to maintain, then you only do 4 a week...

Susan, just listen to your body :7