This shall be to the point.

Cardio, historically, was always extremely simple (for the most part). It was basically anything that wasn't lifting, and it got your heart rate up for a while. If you were a bodybuilder, you would probably do some cardio in the form of walking or jogging before competing. If you were a weightlifter, you might have walked a bit and lifted a lot. If you were a powerlifter, you might not have done any cardio, but maybe your training was high volume. The bodybuilders all got ripped, the weightlifters were jacked, and the early powerlifters still lifted huge numbers.

Outside of the strength athlete, we could discuss the fact that athletic training in the United States was lacking in many areas up until the 1980's. Yet, conditioning was always used. Athletes would run, they would do sprints, and they would run the bleachers...and somehow they got conditioned enough to play football, basketball, soccer, etc.

My grandfather was a boxer. Boxers run a lot—they call it roadwork, and this has somehow worked well for over a hundred years. I mean, guys used to fight for 15 rounds because they had the stamina to do this. However, in addition to running, they skipped rope. This also has worked well for over a century.

Bill Pearl was a Golden Age bodybuilding champion. He lifted two hours a day for five or six days a week. He ate a high protein diet of real food and did little to no cardio. He cut calories when dieting to drop bodyfat, and his training was always very high volume. And guess what? He looked pretty good. His example is similar to many of the Golden Age bodybuilders—lots of volume, sensible eating, and staying lean year-round as a result.

Nowadays, though, it's not so simple. Cardio, conditioning, stamina, and endurance have been well studied and have turned into the science of energy systems with an enormous variety of methodologies that aim to achieve “sports specific conditioning.” This isn't a bad thing at all. On the contrary, it has given coaches the knowledge to better help their athletes. The downside to this, however, has been the utter paralysis by analysis of the general public—specifically to those who train only recreationally and are not professionally competitive. Even worse, this information has been relentlessly abused by the personal training industry, which has resulted in all manner of atrocities such as “tabata bootcamps,” “German Volume Interval Training,” and doing “plyos for fat loss.”

So, now we have reached a state where no one really knows what they should do for anything, but because they have the awareness of A-Z methods, they continuously try to create Frankenstein-like programs that somehow combine strength, power, cardio, hypertrophy, and fat loss...and they fail on all counts.

Cardio is cardio. Bad cardio=You get tired fast. Good cardio=It takes you a greater amount of time to get tired. It is being conditioned enough so that you can adequately perform your given activity without fatigue negatively effecting your performance. You can assign whatever complicated definition you want to this, but ultimately, it comes down to you getting tired sooner or later.

So, with that being said, I'm telling everyone to stop over-analyzing whether you need to do sled pushes combined with fasted morning cardio combined with timed Fartlek runs combined with barbell complexes. Stop trying to train for a mud run and logging miles each week while doing 5/3/1 for strength! Stop trying to push the sled four days a week while trying to bulk because you are afraid of losing your abs! And stop doing those fucking box jumps for cardio! Those aren’t improving your vertical—you are just doing low-grade jumps over and over again while wrecking your knees.

It's over complication, and it doesn’t need to be this way. So, here is my advice for figuring out what you should do:

  1. Are you needing or wanting to lose bodyfat? If yes, then fix your diet first. If not, proceed to step two.
  2. A) Whatever you pick must help your lifting. If it seems dubious, then don’t bother with it. This step applies whether you are a bodybuilder or strength athlete. B) If you are a competitive athlete in an organized sport, then it must help your sport. (If you are still hopelessly confused, then ask one of the coaches on the Elitefts Q&A)

So, now that we have some idea of identity, let's move on to what we should be doing for cardio:

1. If all you do is lift and if you are a fat bastard, then some slow to moderate cardio (30 to 60 minutes) would most likely help your heart to not explode. Start doing this once or twice a week.

2. If all you do is lift but are not a fat bastard, then you could stick with the slow stuff or try higher intensity work. Don’t let this interfere with your lifting though.

3. If you play a sport, then do what makes you faster relative to your sport. If you are already doing this, then maybe consider what will improve your stamina on the field. For instance, actually practicing the sport.

4. If you are a bodybuilder, then stick with the slow cardio. HIIT, in my opinion, is to be used sparingly, if at all. It just doesn’t fit into the goals of a serious physique competitor, as it both detracts from recovery, doesn’t promote increased hypertrophy, and is draining as hell to use during a prep phase. Again, just my opinion.If you are a strongman competitor, talk to Chase Karnes, Andy Deck, Clint Darden, or Stevie P. All I will say is that your event training will likely be your “cardio” so to speak. Moving on from there, now you get to pick something for your cardio. You pick one thing. Not three things, one thing.

Keeping it stupid simple:

  • Walking—because all you need is two legs and because you should never not be able to walk long distances. If walking for an hour is a daunting task, then this is your starting point. If walking works for you, then just stick with walking.
  • Running—if it starts interfering with your lifting or performance, then cut back or go back to walking. We're not trying to be runners, so I don’t care how many miles you go—just enough that you felt like you did something...and not so much that you start looking like a runner/doyouevenlift?-er.

You want to feel more “athletic” in general:

  • Jumping rope—pretty strong conditioning effect and great for people who are horrifically uncoordinated. Start with 5 to 10 minutes and build from there.
  • Doing sprints—make sure you know how to sprint before you start sprinting. Don’t be that guy who pulls a hamstring his first day running a hill.

You like beating yourself up, and you can already run fine:

  • Stadium steps—just like coach used to make you do.
  • Hill Sprints—Jim Wendler would approve.
  • Prowler®—it’s a Prowler®...you push it, and then bad things happen to you.

You hate cardio of any kind and just want to lift:

  • Barbell complexes—hey, it's still moving weights, right?
  • Farmers walks—great for your grip as well.
  • The Prowler®—it kinds of works for everything.

Questions? Refer to this handy guide:

  • I'm fat—Then you walk!
  • I'm not too fat—Walk more!
  • I'm a bodybuilder—You walk too, or you stepmill if you really hate life.
  • I want Abz—Stop eating like shit.
  • I'm an athlete—Talk to a coach. We have many on staff at Elitefts™.
  • I think I could run—Then run short distances.
  • I can run now—Sprint.
  • I'm tired of sprinting—Push a Prowler®.
  • I don’t have a Prowler®—Jump rope.
  • I don’t want to jump rope—Farmers walks then.
  • My hands are too weak for farmers walks—You’re just being a coward now.
  • But I really, really, really hate cardio—Then just lift more and up your volume and stop being a coward.

And that’s it. See, it's not so complicated.