A few gym days:

[The Creature of the Night]

good morning, lads.

So along with my running (of which I’m pleased how it has progressed); I’m starting to go to the gym after my runs

What things should I focus on within the place? Obviously for my cardiovascular, I stick to running on the road and intervals but was wondering whether I should be looking at weights (my upper body is not mascular at all), or perhaps other forms of cardio? I quite like the look of the bench press however, I got TMU’d for my medical because of my BMI so don’t want to put on too much muscle if it equates to me being deferred again

Sorry if this has been posted before

Best wishes:
The Creature of the Night.

 

[Illustrious]

Get rowing! Big proponent of it, your CV system will thank you, as will your core. It also translates well to running, at least for me as I sit at a sub 9 min BFT without doing more than 1 longish run a week and one tabata circuit.

 

[Hyperhippo]

@Illustrious

Have been meaning to ask you this for a while now, here seems like as good a time as any.

How do you work out what splits to aim for and maintain for shorter and longer rowing pieces? I enjoy rowing but I just struggle to find the right to split to maintain, I’m either going all out or I’m not there’s no imbetween. Typically I do a 30 minute row for distance, a 5k for time, 10 X 500m efforts and every now and then I’ll do a 2k.

Any help will be much appreciated.

 

[Bellionaire679]

Resistance training can help you on the togher stuff like Bottom Field and the EC. As well as strenghen your joints.

Prioritise your Big three - Bicep Curls, Bicep Curls, Bicep Curls Press ups, Sit ups, Pull ups. These are what you'll be tested on so remember to keep on top of them.

You won't turn into arnold by doing a few sets on the bench press a week. Train in the correct volume, and intensity and you'll see good progress for your muscular endurance or strength depending on what you want to work on.

Here's what the National Acedemy of Sports Medicine have to say about the rep ranges:

Muscular Endurance: 12 -25 reps, 1-3 sets, 40-70% intensity, 30-60s rest
Muscular Strength: 1-5 reps, 4-6 sets, 85-100% intensity, 2-5 mins rest.

Also here's a list of my favorite exercises I do in the gym:

Press Ups
Sit Ups
Pull Ups
Deadlift
Dumbell Press
Squat + Varitations
Overhead Press
Lunge Walks

Its up to you how you want to train although id personally train endurance. However if you feel you need to up your strength then do it.

Best of Luck

 

[Illustrious]

@Illustrious

How do you work out what splits to aim for and maintain for shorter and longer rowing pieces? I enjoy rowing but I just struggle to find the right to split to maintain, I’m either going all out or I’m not there’s no imbetween. Typically I do a 30 minute row for distance, a 5k for time, 10 X 500m efforts and every now and then I’ll do a 2k.

Ideal way is to work it out using your heart rate as a base starting point, ie 60-65% for your longer endurance pieces and higher for your shorter interval pieces.

Once you have that established, then you can work on lowering your splits.

For example, for my 8x500m pieces, I will maintain a steady split of 1:40 something for 7x500m then for the last piece, go hell hell for leather. The combined average split rate for the whole session will be the new split pace the next time for the first 7x500m then the final 500m piece will again be max effort.

That make sense for you?

 

[Hyperhippo]

Ideal way is to work it out using your heart rate as a base starting point, ie 60-65% for your longer endurance pieces and higher for your shorter interval pieces.

Once you have that established, then you can work on lowering your splits.

For example, for my 8x500m pieces, I will maintain a steady split of 1:40 something for 7x500m then for the last piece, go hell hell for leather. The combined average split rate for the whole session will be the new split pace the next time for the first 7x500m then the final 500m piece will again be max effort.

That make sense for you?

Yep that’s great. Will look at getting an HR monitor

 

[Squatmonkey]

do upper body weights if you want but theres no need, pressups and pullups are great by themselves

maybe some leg presses to build up your lower body conditioning to improve resistance to injury. no need to go crazy in the gym

 

[Billyboy114]

Get rowing! Big proponent of it, your CV system will thank you, as will your core. It also translates well to running, at least for me as I sit at a sub 9 min BFT without doing more than 1 longish run a week and one tabata circuit.

After training I was taught “arms and chest, forget the rest”