What is Concurrent Training?

“Should I do weights and cardio in the same session?”

Traditionally training has been divided into Resistance Training and Aerobic Training.

• Inter session concurrent training= doing R.T. and A.T. in separate sessions, but within the same training period.
• Intra session concurrent training= mixing R.T. and A.T. within the same session.

However, for most sporting activities, this artificial divide has little relevance. If you think of a wrestling match, there is a huge demand on the aerobic system, but at the same time the wrestler is using his strength.

He doesn’t jog around the mat for one round and then lift his opponent repeatedly in the next. He uses both systems at once.

This divide has been encouraged by researchers who wish to have a clear measure of outcome to their 6-8 week study. The human body is more complicated than this.

Recently researchers have been looking at inter session C.T. on untrained and aerobically trained subjects. Little research has been done on intra session C.T.

I call intra session C.T. combination training and use it on experienced athletes who have the basic lifts down and a good base of fitness. All the sessions last less than 30mins and usually less than 20 and require a balance of aerobic fitness and strength.

This is much more relevant to most sports than just jogging on the treadmill one day and doing 3 sets of 10 reps on machine weights the next.

Disadvantages of doing cardio and weights in the same session

If we follow the specificity argument, then just playing sport would be all we needed to do to get fit.

It is difficult to develop pure strength and pure cardiorespiratory fitness together. Instead, we do need to Develop our strength and fitness separately in order to Express them in the sporting arena. 

So for beginners and at specific times in the season, I train the weights and cv fitness separately. I never leave it too long (2 weeks at most) without doing one or the other. 

So, we might concentrate on strength for 2 weeks, but still do 1-2 fitness sessions. Then we might focus on fitness for 2 weeks, but maintain strength in 1 session a week.

This topic is huge, and I will revisit it regularly.

If you want some specific training programmes on “Get Stronger” ” Run Faster” or “Jump Higher” with video clips see here.