I lift 3x per week and do cardio 5x per week (31-36 minutes each cardio session, 160+ minutes per week). My cardio HR, depending on what I’m doing, ranges from the upper 140’s to well into the 150’s, steady-state if you will.
I’ve been doing a Krav Maga class once a week for an hour. Now, my instructor believes in using that time for actually learning Krav and not the first 15 or 20 minutes as a “conditioning” class like many dojos do. I’m glad, as although many folks only get their exercise from their martial arts class, I obviously keep in shape on my own. That said, he keeps the pace up but it isn’t grueling. Sure, there are lower-intensity periods where he is explaining or demonstrating something and you’re HR slows a bit and you catch your breath, but then you’re back at it again. While I haven’t done a scientific study of it or anything, I’d guess that the hour of slow down/pick it back up pace should roughly equal one of my 31-36" steady-state cardio sessions.
I turn 50 in a few months and consider myself to be in decent shape. One of the reasons is that I do NOT cut myself any slack.
So, would I be cheating myself by dropping one cardio session per week and “counting” the Krav class as one? Working a full-time job like most of us do and weaving in a total of 8 workouts a week (5 cardio, 3 weights) is getting taxing enough…and now I’ve added essentially another PT session with the Krav, so 9 workouts a week.
Obviously totally depends on the MA class as to whether it’s intensity and duration equals some form of cardio, but I’d have no problems at all dropping all traditional cardio in favor of the exercise benefits of resistance training and MA. Some are totally beat after BJJ classes I have seen and clearly didn’t need much in the way of additional cardio type work after that.
Totally depends on the class. When I taught (3 hour classes) - the first hour was PT type stuff (often a thousand punches and a thousand kicks). YES - that was a cardio workout. I did it to be able to assess my students to see how their out-of-class workouts were progressing. We then did a 2 hour karate class (Isshin Ryu) for the remainder of the evening:) - john
No, my class is not the intensity of your first hour (I wouldn’t even be floating the question if that was the case). Basically your first hour was a conditioning class, like one of those “cardio-kickboxing” classes…so yeah, I’d count that big-time. Not having attended one of yours, namely the subsequent 2 hours, I’d have to speculate that my Krav session is similar but only an hour as opposed to two. Having trained in Wado Ryu Karate and TKD a number of years ago I’d say mine is on par with a standard martial arts class minus any specific conditioning period; the usual moving/punching/kicking/blocking/short sparring/mat work routine is there though.
Yes, it’s obviously a cardio workout. No, you would not be cheating yourself by counting it as such. I’m guessing that you’d do more harm than good by not dropping something to keep a balance.
This perspective is from someone currently sitting on his ass for a 3 day weekend waiting for some prescribed steroids and NSAIDS to finally take the edge off of tendonitis earned on a balls to the wall workout three months ago. This workout included interval mile training on a treadmill at 3 to 3.5 incline followed by a 12 mile bike ride.
Last weekend was two 18 hole disc golf sessions sandwiching another (slow) bike ride. Didn’t want to wait for healing, paying for it now.