Why Jogging to improve your Cardio SUCKS!!!

Hi, welcome back to the blog.

Over the past 8 weeks, I have conducted my own little experiment on how you can improve your running without running!

Sounds weird, right?

If you follow any of my posts/ blogs you will know I’m NOT a massive fan of jogging – I think it’s a waste of time. I concentrate on improving people’s body composition as well as their performance and jogging is SHIT for improving both!

If your sport is marathon running, sure you’re going to need to spend some time pounding the pavement but if your goal is better body composition or athletic performance I would steer clear!

The Experiment:

At the start of the 8 weeks, I completed the beep test which is a 20m shuttle running test, I got a score of 10.11 which is considered good according to the results chart for my age.

The Training:

Over the 8 week experiment I did not run once, not even across the road or to the shops or for anything really – I just didn’t do a single second of running to ensure I could prove a point when it came to this blog.

What I did do though is 1 x heavy sled, prowler and weighted carry session per week for the 8 weeks which generally lasted between 15-20 mins very similar to the work we do with our group training clients.

I also did the Dallas test on the rowing machine once per week . The Dallas test consists of 3 x 1 min rows with 30s break between each set for a grand total of 3 mins work, it’s actually a bit harder then it sounds.

On top of this I concentrated on getting stronger by simply following a strength program 4 days per week.

The Result:

After the 8 weeks of training I increased my score to 12.1 with not one single running session. This score is considered to be very good verging on excellent according to the results chat.

How can this be you ask? You didn’t run at all.

Conclusion:

Focus on getting strong first. You don’t need to jog to improve your cardio / conditioning. Gaining strength is the foundation to building better conditioning.

Note:

I like sprinting not jogging! Possibly if I added sprints I could of improved this score further but I wanted to exclude any type of running for this experiment.

I hope you enjoyed the read and feel free to leave a comment.

– Dean.