Cardio and gymnastics

[Chris Hansen]

Nice work Longshanks! I've definitely found that this is a pretty surefire way to ease into what ends up being extremely high-end training. It probably takes about 6 months to really be doing a lot, but you never get tired along the way. It never gets in the way of other work.

Lower intensity, higher rep work does increase bloodflow in the joints as well as lubrication, this has been well documented in research studies. Throwing some in there, especially for lifters, helps the body regenerate tissue faster. I remember reading a good study about this concerning barbell back squats. There was one group that did low rep high intensity work and another that did low intensity high rep work. The findings were that the high rep group had healthier knee cartilage than when they started the study, and the low rep group had some degeneration. I believe they did another experiment that showed that one workout a week of the high rep work was enough to maintain knee cartilage and prevent degeneration from the heavy weights.

That's interesting and is consistent with other things I've heard.

I just shared it with my friend who does a lot of heavy lifting and is starting to feel his age.

[Chris Hansen]

Nice work Longshanks! I've definitely found that this is a pretty surefire way to ease into what ends up being extremely high-end training. It probably takes about 6 months to really be doing a lot, but you never get tired along the way. It never gets in the way of other work.

Lower intensity, higher rep work does increase bloodflow in the joints as well as lubrication, this has been well documented in research studies. Throwing some in there, especially for lifters, helps the body regenerate tissue faster. I remember reading a good study about this concerning barbell back squats. There was one group that did low rep high intensity work and another that did low intensity high rep work. The findings were that the high rep group had healthier knee cartilage than when they started the study, and the low rep group had some degeneration. I believe they did another experiment that showed that one workout a week of the high rep work was enough to maintain knee cartilage and prevent degeneration from the heavy weights.

Do you know what the rep range was in the different groups?

I'm really interested in this stuff because I have family who is getting old before their time.

[Joshua Naterman]

I think the high rep range was 15-20 reps. I honestly don't remember what the low range was, besides being under 10. You can guess it was probably 4-6, but that's not very scientific. The main point coming out of the study was that light work seems to offset any damage caused by heavier work.

[Rafael David]

after all, is good or bad GBW + HIIT? :|

[Longshanks]

Since this discovery I found an article describing high rep ranges for treatment of tendonosis. He's a Dr as well as athlete coach and seems to advocate rep ranges of 30-40, even up to a hundred, and building up speed and reps rather than weight. I've started implementing this myself in exercises as well as rowing in the last few days to further help injury recovery. Don't know the results yet as its too early to tell but it hasn't made anything worse (and most things I've tried so far have). Here's a link to the article if anyone's interested:

http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/drryan13.htm

[Joshua Naterman]

It's ok. I've had greater success with my own personal injuries using higher reps, lower weight, and a very slow increase in the weight used. Some velocity work is good, but I can honestly say that by itself it did not work well for my elbow problems. In combination with the ideas contained in my first two sentences it worked well.

[Longshanks]

It's ok. I've had greater success with my own personal injuries using higher reps, lower weight, and a very slow increase in the weight used. Some velocity work is good, but I can honestly say that by itself it did not work well for my elbow problems. In combination with the ideas contained in my first two sentences it worked well.

Cheers for the heads up. I'll take that into account