Can I do Madcow and Sprint on Off Days?

CroSpartacus

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I am currently 6'3 and cut weight from 225lbs to 200lbs. I am happy where I am at and am wondering whether the following routine would be a well balanced approach to being overall fit.

My goals are to maintain my strength and continue to progress which is why I will be following Madcow 5X5 on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.

I also want to have decent cardio. I was thinking of running sprints on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Perhaps doing 5 sets of sprints across a football field on those days.

Would this routine be fairly well balanced to being both strong and overall fit?
 
Can you? Sure.

Only one way to find out.
 
In my experience sprints can interfere with my lifting, while jogging is either about neutral or improves my recovery depending on what tempo I use. You might recover better than me, though, so if you prefer sprinting you may as well try it out.
 
If you only want to maintain strength, I think that the progression in MadCow might be too aggressive. You're looking at weekly 3RM and 5RM PRs at a prescribed 2.5%. You cut for MMA, BJJ or Muay Thai? How many skill sessions do you get in per week?

Maybe 5/3/1 2-day split which will have more steady and sustainable progression. This would also give you more off days to do conditioning and skills.

I got 8 weeks of PRs my first go-through MadCow while in season, then only 3 weeks the 2nd time.
 
Just try it, shouldn't be impossible.

But as someone who ran Madcow, I can give you the advice: Don't do anything demanding around it, reap the fast gains and after you stall continue with a more balanced program where you can fit them in without a problem.

Programs like SS or Madcow can get really heavy really fast after the initial weeks, which makes running it for a few extra weeks difficult. So I would limit anything that cuts into your recovery.
 
If you only want to maintain strength, I think that the progression in MadCow might be too aggressive. You're looking at weekly 3RM and 5RM PRs at a prescribed 2.5%. You cut for MMA, BJJ or Muay Thai? How many skill sessions do you get in per week?

Maybe 5/3/1 2-day split which will have more steady and sustainable progression. This would also give you more off days to do conditioning and skills.

I got 8 weeks of PRs my first go-through MadCow while in season, then only 3 weeks the 2nd time.

I tried adding sprints and stuff to Madcow. The only advice I would give is that you shouldn't expect your returns to be as great as the spreadsheet says.
 
If your goal is just "decent cardio", I would be more inclined to do LISS or moderate-intensity stuff. Squatting or sprinting 5 days/wk seems pretty taxing; steady-state cardio on the other hand, could aid in recovery as opposed to compounding the physical stress. If you are set on sprints, why not do them the same days you lift?
 
I am currently 6'3 and cut weight from 225lbs to 200lbs. I am happy where I am at and am wondering whether the following routine would be a well balanced approach to being overall fit.

My goals are to maintain my strength and continue to progress which is why I will be following Madcow 5X5 on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.

I also want to have decent cardio. I was thinking of running sprints on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Perhaps doing 5 sets of sprints across a football field on those days.

Would this routine be fairly well balanced to being both strong and overall fit?

Not sure how it will effect your lifts but sprints aren't going to do anything for cardio really. You need to do aerobic exercise for that not anaerobic.
 
What worked for me: 1 day of sprinting.

2 days cut into my recovery.
 
Not sure how it will effect your lifts but sprints aren't going to do anything for cardio really. You need to do aerobic exercise for that not anaerobic.

I'm calling bullshit on that one.
 
+1

I did a month of max incline "runs" on the treadmill. 15 seconds on, 45 seconds off. Previously, I did nothing that even comes close to cardio for half a year or more.

I ran 3 miles in a 10min/mile pace a week into starting to jog again after the above. And the last time I tried a jogging program, I simply couldn't get past 1.5 miles before feeling dead.
 
My bad didn't mean to derail the thread and I didn't mean sprinting is useful. It's just when I think of cardio I think of endurance
 
Fartlek, a Swedish term that means "speed play," is a form of interval or speed training that can be effective in improving your speed and endurance.

Source
 
Of course you can. Start the sprints "light" (shorter distance, longer rests, fewer sprints), and eat a lot more.

Slowly increase your work capacity in this way and you should progress nicely in both pursuits. However, don't expect to progress as quickly as you would if you focused exclusively on lifting. But it may be possible if you're careful to manage the workload.
 

Fartlek runs are generally used by endurance athletes to increase speed. It's not the same as just sprinting. It's short sprints at intervals embedded in a longer run.

This ^^. I admittedly come from an endurance background (x-country and triathlon) we generally utilized sprints to increase foot speed (16x400, 6x800, ect) and overall speed such as with fartleks.

As scoopj pointed out we embedded them in longer runs. The sprint intervals were typically done at the halfway point of a 5-6 mile run.

To increase our cardio capability we would train longer distances than the actual event. Of course that was for shorter events like 5ks, you typically don't run much over 15ish miles even training for marathons as the breakdown of your body is more detrimental than what you get out of it.

Also doing high intensity interval training can be great for cardio but that's extremely short rests which the typical person does not do. It's my personal opinion that doing something like a 100 yard sprint with 2-3 min rests doesn't do a lot for your cardio.

If you've never run than yeah, you might see some increase in your long distance running too but that's more a result of you never training before. It's along the same lines of someone seeing increases from a shitty lifting routine simply because they have never lifted before.
 
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