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An intense cardio workout just once a week?
First of all I'm not trying to train for it at all (Just trying to get a bigger vertical!) but I have been doing P90X's Plyometrics which is pretty intense for me. I know it is making my legs much stronger but I don't know if it's helping my cardio out that much since I only do it once a week. Will these intense exercises increase my cardio even though I'm doing it once a week? I'm just hoping an increase in my cardio will be a bonus from these exercises.
P90X's Plyometrics consist of 55 minutes (3 30 sec. breaks which I usually extend to about 3 minutes so I can catch my breath) of nothing but jumping exercises/leg exercises. Between the exercise instruction/breaks I think it's about 50 minutes of pure exercise.
Most of the exercises are a lot of jump squats, lunges, jumping jack squats (you squat while you move your legs apart then close together), leapfrog squats (you squat, jump forward 2x then backwards), 180 squat jumps, etc. I'm pretty sure it'll give just about any conditioned athlete a good workout.
These tire me out really good, and I'm breathing very hard throughout the entire 55 minutes. At first I couldn't get through the first 25 minutes, my 2nd workout I got to 30 minutes, my 3rd I got to 35 mins, my fourth I finished the DVD and yesterday (5th) I finished the DVD again.
It's getting A LOT easier, my legs are much stronger and don't burn as much as they used to. I don't have as much trouble breathing as I did before either but I'm not sure if this is due to my legs being stronger or my cardio improving or both.
First of all I'm not trying to train for it at all (Just trying to get a bigger vertical!) but I have been doing P90X's Plyometrics which is pretty intense for me. I know it is making my legs much stronger but I don't know if it's helping my cardio out that much since I only do it once a week. Will these intense exercises increase my cardio even though I'm doing it once a week? I'm just hoping an increase in my cardio will be a bonus from these exercises.
P90X's Plyometrics consist of 55 minutes (3 30 sec. breaks which I usually extend to about 3 minutes so I can catch my breath) of nothing but jumping exercises/leg exercises. Between the exercise instruction/breaks I think it's about 50 minutes of pure exercise.
Most of the exercises are a lot of jump squats, lunges, jumping jack squats (you squat while you move your legs apart then close together), leapfrog squats (you squat, jump forward 2x then backwards), 180 squat jumps, etc. I'm pretty sure it'll give just about any conditioned athlete a good workout.
These tire me out really good, and I'm breathing very hard throughout the entire 55 minutes. At first I couldn't get through the first 25 minutes, my 2nd workout I got to 30 minutes, my 3rd I got to 35 mins, my fourth I finished the DVD and yesterday (5th) I finished the DVD again.
It's getting A LOT easier, my legs are much stronger and don't burn as much as they used to. I don't have as much trouble breathing as I did before either but I'm not sure if this is due to my legs being stronger or my cardio improving or both.