Starting weight training has cost me my cardio gains?

joowelz
joowelz Posts: 172 Member
in Fitness and Exercise
I work out five days a week.
Before i used to run four days and briskly walk on the fifth.
I have now hired a personal trainer to help me put on muscle. He trains me three days a week and i run on my own 2 days a week.
I have noticed that i am out of breath much sooner now on the treadmill and cannot run as far as before.

Is this to be expected?

Replies

  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 34,225 Member
    edited November 2022
    To some extent, yes. Physical fitness is not one homogeneous thing. Fitness can be surprisingly activity specific . . . and yes, if we don't continue to challenge some capability, we won't progess; and if we reduce our training of the capability, it will decline. I'd expect cardiovascular capability to decline if I went from 5 days of cardiovascular exercise to 2.

    It's more complicated than that, but that's the oversimplified version. For example, I don't see a lot of cardiovascular capability loss in the Winter when my workouts are shorter than in Summer (because machine rowing isn't as fun as on-water rowing, still oversimplifying). But I tend to increase the frequency of more-intense CV workouts in Winter, and there's some tradeoff between intensity and duration.

    I'm not suggesting that you increase your running intensity, because - now that you presumably have strength goals - ramping up the cardio intensity might detract somewhat from your overall recovery. It's complicated, and somewhat individual - I suspect - besides.

    Have you talked with your trainer about how to handle this? That'd be where I'd suggest you start.


    ETA P.S. Maybe think of it this way: Let's say you're a musician, a pianist, and you practice every day. Then you decide to take up the guitar, but you can't allocate more total time to music, so you cut back piano practice to a couple of times a week, and spend most of your time on guitar practice. You'd expect your piano skills to get just a bit rusty in that scenario, wouldn't you, even though both are music? This isn't really different.

  • Chieflrg
    Chieflrg Posts: 9,097 Member
    edited November 2022
    As a coach/trainer I would certainly expect it. You cut your volume, frequency, and dosage in half or more. Your body is no longer adapted to a certain stress dosage of running.
  • Retroguy2000
    Retroguy2000 Posts: 1,848 Member
    Already explained above.

    One more thing though. You can get back the previous aerobic performance quickly, much faster than the rate you lose it. If it's important to you, you should probably periodize, so every so often return your focus to running while still doing some weights, then vice versa.
  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,865 Member
    Yup, it's to be expected. You cut way back on your running. You have options though...as mentioned above, periodization works very well, especially if your running is training for endurance events like 1/2 marathons and such. My wife used to do a lot of 1/2 marathons and she periodized and trained seasonally.

    Basically she would spend the winter months when it's cold and dark hitting the weight room a few days per week and just running a bit to maintain some base level of running fitness. Then when running season rolled around she would drop her lifting to 1x per week and focus on her marathon and 1/2 marathon training for the season. I did similar when I was super into endurance cycling and just trained seasonally.

    If your running is more just cardiovascular fitness related and you're not really training for endurance events there is no reason you couldn't run more provided you are getting adequate recovery. I know plenty of people who go out for a jog most days and also hit the weight room 3x per week. My wife has since "retired" herself from marathons and halves, but she still runs a 5K 3-5 days per week and lifts 2-3x per week depending on the week and her mood.

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