Improving cardiovascular fitness

[The_Don]

Hello all.

So i'm looking to improve my fitness after i noticed i couldn't play football for 5 minutes before gasping for breath and needing a lie down. Also i'm in my cutting phase now anyway.

I figured i'd weight train using full body workouts three times per week; Sunday, Tuesday, Thursday.
Then i decided i'd do some cardio on the other days; Monday, Wednesday and Friday. And i decided interval training 3 times per week should be good.

I'm slowly getting into it (don't want to overdo it straight away), and on average, i can do the sprint (ish) for 30seconds, and then recover with a jog for around 90seconds. This counts as one set, right? Doing this, i can last only around 8 minutes. I think. Plus a few minutes light jog warm up and cool down. Need to write a more detailed log next session. But anyway, you can see how unfit i am. Probably due to the fact i did basically no cardio during my bulking session...i regret it.

I'll do this same routine three times per week, with the same times/set scheme. Then the following week i'll be looking to improve, my only query is, what do i improve on week by week? Should I be looking to lower my recovery time, raise my sprint time, simply just add a set, or what?

I think i've seen something like this before, any thoughts on this?

Week1: Sprint 30 secs, jog 90 secs.
Week2: Sprint 30 secs, jog 75 secs.
Week3: Sprint 45 secs, jog 120 secs.
Week4: Sprint 45 secs, jog 90 secs.
Week5: Sprint 45 secs, jog 90 secs.
Week6: Sprint 45 secs, jog 75 secs.

I'm pretty sure there should be an increase in sets somewhere, but i'm not sure at which week and how many.
How does this look?
Anyone any other ideas or experience?

Cheers
TD.

[torofuerte]

Rather than trying to improve your cardio, you may want to increase your anaerobic capacity. Sprints are one way to go. How many sets will depend on how much your shins can take it

Also, instead of thinking on sets, think of time spent. See how many of those sets you can do in 10 minutes, then 15 minutes, then 20 minutes. What's important is not the number of sets but the total amount of effort spent in a given amount of time (for example, see how many burpees you can do in 1 minute, rest for 1 minute and repeat and see how much you can do) as in this clip:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=R4KRofyvRPg

Other exercises involving HIIT will increase your capacity to do work as well. These are some examples:

Judo Olympian Rhadi Ferguson explaining the use of treadmills for anaerobic conditioning

http://youtube.com/watch?v=FM-HkxsLRqw

HIIT on a bike

http://youtube.com/watch?v=Uv8m15ulCiw

Beyond Burpees from bodyweightculture.com

http://youtube.com/watch?v=HA5HzQQfOD8