Topic: Endurance related question

[NOS - from Parkour Mumbai]

Okay, so I've seen some conflicting and confusing information about cardio-respiratory endurance in my time on these boards, so I would like to clear out a few concepts.

This question is mostly directed at Seven, Chris, Andy, Rafe, etc.

Assuming a normal person beginning his physical training has these broad goals of increasing his strength and stamina (cardio-respiratory endurance), and assuming he is already on an SS routine for strength, what is the best method for improving stamina? Because (from what I could make out), you guys here seem to be closed to the idea of running for improving cardio-vascular endurance.

[Woody369]

Run if you want to get better at running. However running 10miles in many peoples opinions isn't directly useful to most aspects of parkour, and doing sprints helps your cardio for longer distances anyway, along with weight training (Tabata, HIIT).

If your goal is endurance in body weight exercises, like 25pull ups, then do them. I'd recommend this along side heavy lifts too though.

I dropped many of my previous numbers for endurance in press ups/pull ups etc when I started focusing more on weights, but now I have started to do both to keep a balance.

Personally I think Deadlifting 2+ x bw or clean+jerk 1-1.5 x bw for example would be better than 100 pressups. (unrelated exercises but I still think it's a a valid point)

However what is the point of being able to jump straight up a flight of stairs if you get too tired running half way up a building. Or come back down the stairs carrying a person.

This has drifted all over the place. Pretty much, it depends on your goals, I train to be useful, which involves a balance. 

[NOS - from Parkour Mumbai]

Which is why I specifically mentioned Cardio-Respiratory Endurance, and not Muscular Endurance.
I don't want to get better at doing a hundred pushups or fifty consecutive pullups, they are very specific skills and won't help anyone in a real-life situation.

I mean cardio-vascular endurance, so that a guy does not start breathing heavily after attempting even a little high-intensity activity (which could be anything - doing parkour over a few obstacles, going round in circles attempting a circuit of anything (obstacles, weights, bodyweight exercises), run half-way up a building etc).

[Chris Salvato]

For beginners, broad spectrum MetCons (metcons that use a wide variety of tasks) that are in short duration (5-10 minutes) are ideal for a novice that just wants better CV endurance - especially for power biased sports like Parkour.

Anything beyond that is moving on into specificity.  If you want to get better at running, then run.  Rowing, then row.  Swimming, then swim.  Jump rope, then jump rope.  All of those?  Then MetCon.

[Steven Low]

Do 400-800m and you'll get good CV ability,

Or 100 burpees for time.

Or string together some circuits.

Doesn't really matter. Mix it up.

[NOS - from Parkour Mumbai]

Thanks guys.

[Dan Shoupe]

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There was a sticky in the general discussion about using the search button and posting updated questions in existing threads rather than making a new one. Whatever though

To improve cv endurance, would you reccomend doing 400-800m sprints even if sprinting 300m requires a lot of recovery? Basically, should I sprint longer distances even if my cv endurance sucks and my sprint will detiorate to an exhausted jog halfway through? Currently, I do sets of 200m sprints and even one set takes a good amount of time to recover from (though I can keep the dead sprint pace throughout)

Thanks and sorry if I should be paying attention to that red warning thing!

[Steven Low]

" The following error or errors occurred while posting this message:
Warning: this topic has not been posted in for at least 60 days.
Unless you're sure you want to reply, please consider starting a new topic. "

There was a sticky in the general discussion about using the search button and posting updated questions in existing threads rather than making a new one. Whatever though

To improve cv endurance, would you reccomend doing 400-800m sprints even if sprinting 300m requires a lot of recovery? Basically, should I sprint longer distances even if my cv endurance sucks and my sprint will detiorate to an exhausted jog halfway through? Currently, I do sets of 200m sprints and even one set takes a good amount of time to recover from (though I can keep the dead sprint pace throughout)

Thanks and sorry if I should be paying attention to that red warning thing!

Depends on what your distance(s) you're running (if you're competitively running).

Anything 400m or below with enough interval repeats should be enoguh to get you down UNDER 5-6 minute mile times.

Considering I don't run anymore than 400m, 70-80m repeats are the longest I'm going to run.

So basically... depends on what you're training for.... hwihc is why it's good to have specific goals.


If you're a 400m sprinter you're going to have phases where you run a couple 350-250m runs or something like that, and then days where you'er going to work on max sprinting ability in the 40-70m range, then days where you lift heavy,work on your start, etc.

All sub 50s 400m guys can easy get sub 5 miles.... just based on how fast they run 400m. So in generally, if you're going to run intervals you want to do between about 1/4-1/8th of the distance you're training for. For pure sprinting speed you're goign to want to stick with 30-70m or so with FULL rest (1 min for every 10m you run),.

[NOS - from Parkour Mumbai]

Okay, I have another confusion.
You guys state that if someone wants to get better at running, he should simply practice running.
But, asking this from an efficiency point of view - if a completely untrained individual wants to be able to run two miles without having to take several pauses in between or end up panting heavily (this doesn't mean his goal is to be able to run two miles, his goal is simply increased general cardio-respiratory endurance with a 2 mile run as an example), what would be a more efficient and faster method to achieve this?
Should he simply practice running non-stop for as much distance as he can and increase it to two miles over time, or should he do HIIT and broad-range metcons as suggested above, and would doing these HIIT and broad-range metcons for 5-10 mins each day over a shorter period of time give him enough increases in his cardio-respiratory endurance that when he next tries to run 2 miles, he finds that he can easily go the distance?

[Andy Animus Tran]

I wouldnt'do HIIT every day by any means.  But yes, HIIT and metcons for the novice trying to reach two miles.  Specificity only comes into play at more advanced levels, so a runner with the endurance to run 5 miles wanting to do a 10-miler would have, y'know, train running.

[NOS - from Parkour Mumbai]

So if you can't do HIIT everyday, how often should it be done? What sort of programming would you recommend for a novice trying to get general cardio-respiratory endurance?

And Andy/Steve/Chris, do you have any good reading material for me to research more on HIIT/Metcons? My knowledge in this area is very limited and I would like to learn more.

[Steven Low]

Depends if strength training is integrated in.

HIIT can generally be done 2-3x a week (for 2 mi stuff from 400-800m intervaling is generally effective), and you can throw in a longer run in there if you wanted.