im curious about this. i am a runner so i run alot . do some lsd and Hiit frequently. i do a crap load of pushups and pullups. if thats all i do, wat am i not conditioning. u can say abs, but truthfully the above 3 excersises all strengthen ure core and abs a bit and it adds up when u do alot. pushups and pullups = upper body cardio. and sprints and lsd= lower body.
is that all u have to do to be conditioned and to get good cardio?
I've read the follow up response and I think people are getting their wires crossed.
You state if what you do is enough to be conditioned and to get good cardio.
The answer shockingly would be 'good cardio and conditioned for what goal'.
Conditioning is very sport specific. Cardio (as in heart and lung efficiency) on the whole is not.
You can be an excellent runner, but that doesn't mean your swimming conditioning is up to scratch. Sure it will be good up to a low intensity/low volume point, because the muscle strain isn't going to be enough to slow you down because the cardio system can power you through. But if you say swim as fast as possible, you will fatique quickly (not sprint, that happens to even trained athletes, in this case swimmers), the same for if you swim a long distance. The muscular endurance specific with that activity won't be there so, even though your heart and lungs might be still fresh and raring to go, your shoulders and legs will be the weak link.
What one of the other posters was getting at re weights, was that weight baring strengthens the body that non weight baring exercises cannot. Walking and running and walking up and down stairs for example increases bone density in patients with osteoporosis, but in a healthy adults it will not as the strain involved in under the bodys theshold for adapation. However sticking your weight on your shoulders and squatting it (for example) will provide a strain on the body that will make it adapt by increasing in one example, the body density, so that it is more stable under those circumstances in future. The same goes for a host of other adaptions.
Push ups and sit ups will strengthen up the tendons and bone density to a certain level, but it will plateau because the weight it's having to deal with is constant (unless you put on weight, but 2-3 lbs over the weight bearing example of say 30lbs over a shorter span of time will yield more adaption, but I would hope that's obvious).
At the end of the day, having stronger joints, bones and tendons makes your body more resilient to lower levels of strain (which in untrained individuals, might be beyond their threshold and as such a tendon might snap or a bone might break).
Re core work developed through running. Again yes, but up to a very limited point. You've been walking and running since you were 1 year old. I think for those tasks the body is going to be pretty well adapted. An easy way to see how developed your core is would be to get a rucksack and fill it with 20-25kg and go walking. See how your core feels the next day.
