Its summer so a lot of people get all concerned about having their pretty little abs showing at the beach.

Because of this they crank up their conditioning and cut down on carbs.

That’s all well and good but that shouldn’t be the only reason you condition regularly. You should do it all the time with passion and intensity because it makes you more of a badass.

A guy who is big or can squat a lot of weight is pretty useless if he can’t make it up a flight of stairs or play some flag football or volleyball at the beach with keeling over and needing mouth to mouth.

The real badasses are guys who are strong and have sick conditioning. Hardgainers and those who live in deathly fear of overtraining avoid conditioning like the plague because they fear it will crush their gains.

Nonsense. The old time lifters did both. Adrian Peterson and every other jacked dude you see in the NFL or UFC does both.

If your conditioning sucks your health, training and life will suffer. With better conditioning you recover better between sets and don’t have as much drop off from one set to the next or from the beginning of the workout to the end. That results in a higher total tonnage being lifted during the session, which results in bigger, stronger muscles.

In addition to that it stimulates your appetite, which helps you eat more food, which helps you get jacked. See the beauty there?

With better conditioning your resting heart rate and blood pressure drop and you just feel better all around.

So take advantage of the nice summer weather and get outside to sprint, run hills, hike, climb stairs or ride a bike a few days a week. Get your heart rate up and do work for 20 or 30 minutes.

If that causes massive muscle and strength loss you’ve got more problems than I can help you with. And even if your strength gains slow down at first don’t freak out. It takes a little time to adapt to the extra conditioning then you’ll be fine. Don’t throw it out the window in a week because your squat numbers stop climbing as rapidly. It will all even out in the end.

Do that kind of stuff on off days or even immediately following your weight training workouts a couple times per week.

And don’t overthink it. I don’t know what the perfect work to rest ratio is for you. No one does. It depends on your weight, age, the weather and a variety of other factors. Just go out and run up your hill. Walk down, catch your breath and do it again. You’re not going to get any better or worse results by having your rest periods be plus or minus 23.6 seconds. Just get it done.

If you don’t have hills or stairs nearby you can hit some high intensity finishers in the gym. You can use kettlebells, sandbags, jump ropes, battling ropes, sleds or even just your own bodyweight.

Hit it hard. Become a bad, bad man. Rest and repeat.

PS. Renegade Cardio has 52 high intensity finishers you can do after training or on off days to jack up your conditioning and burn fat. Click HERE to check it out.

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