One of the reasons I condition is longevity. It prepares my body for the intense sessions. Also, it’s a lazy man’s way of burning calories. Sometimes, knowing you have a hard session coming can be demotivating. By doing a conditioning session, it feels good to not be pushing yourself to the limit. Don’t misinterprate this by thinking body conditioning is a substitue for hard work – it’s preperation for the hard work.
As well as this, it adds variation to my exercise routine. Conditioning allows me to target areas I don’t usually do, developing muscles I don’t usually use.
One of the downsides of conditioning is that it’s very time consuming. An upper body conditioning program take‘s at least 40 minutes. However, during this time my exertion rate is 30% if that. I stick to light weights and for the upper body I do 3 sets of 10 reps on the following exercises:
- Rear Flys
- Upright Row
- Lateral raise
- Front raise
- Shoulder press
- Bicep Curl
- Tricep extension
- Lat Pull-down
- Seated row