New summer gym program

Now that I'm done doing weightlifting competitions for a while, I'm going to shift gears a tad in my gym program. Basically, I want to devote a little more of my focus to cardio for the next several months. We hope to find an Olympic lifting meet or two this summer, but they'll be minor ones and I won't go into serious training mode for those. In late November I plan to do another bench meet. But in between I'm going to ramp up the cardio. (One deliberately keeps cardio a bit light when trying to maximize strength build-up.)

Today I began a 32-week, 4x/week cardio program. Basically, it consists of:
Monday -- long day Tuesday -- interval day Wednesday -- rest day Thursday -- easy day Friday -- threshold day
This program can be adapted to different forms of exercise, but it specifies the duration of exercise and various other things like the nature of the intervals. Elise is doing this same program (or was, until her knee surgery) using mostly the elliptical trainer. I will mostly run, but will probably bike on the easy day.

The first "long day", which I did today after work, was a 30-minute run. This was pretty tiring for me, as I hadn't run more than a mile in the last several months. But I managed to complete it okay. (Of course, I also walked at lunch time. Tom has sort of recommended dropping this, but I enjoy the break and my friend Ted needs the exercise . )

I'm not giving up strength training at all, but I will not work out with Tom on Wednesdays, making that a complete rest day (except lunchtime walks when we can do it). My complete program for the week will be:

Monday: before work: bench & upper body workout w/ Tom; after work:
long run

Tuesday: after work: Olympic lifting (OL) w/ Ahmed, followed by interval workout

Wednesday: rest

Thursday: after work: OL w/ Ahmed, followed by easy day workout

Friday: afternoon: OL & agility work with Tom, followed by threshold workout

Weekends off, as now. I hope to do some biking on weekends sometimes.
And Ted and I will continue walking on days we're able to -- work schedule and weather permitting.

(This week Tom is away and he has recommended I skip the Monday and
Friday strength training to rest up a bit after the meet this past weekend.

hey Chris you are doing great. I have started back to exercising and am getting up early before i go to work in the evening to do it. I was also thinking of starting running as well. I have been walking now 1.5 miles for a couple of weeks and can do it without stopping. Keep up the great work

Yeah, I've gotten pretty familiar with handling overtraining, as I've gotten close to it a few times in the past. I can tell now when I need a break, I think. But it's good advice to remember.

thanks for the site i will check it out. i have it bookmarked and when i get a chance tonight i will take a look at it. thanks again angie

Sounds like a great plan. It seems everyone is going to be doing some biking this summer. We need to find a trail and have an ASD bike ride.

Basically, it's a short workout at the maximum intensity you can do for that time -- typically around 15 minutes. There are variations as you go through the 32 weeks, like negative splits and tempo runs.