Geoff Asks: Hope life is good on the west coast! I was hoping to get your thoughts on the above. Normally, when training for WL I wouldn't entertain aerobics at all as it hinders my progress in the lifts but as I am now older (55) I find that the worry of heart attacks lingering in the back of my mind. My BP is excellent and my HR can reach 190 when doing sets of 5 on the back squat but I would like to do a couple of sessions of cycling on my mountain bike if possible.

The questions that come to my mind are what is the maximum number of bike sessions I could get away with without impeding my lifting progress and how may minutes per session? Finally, would the bike sessions be on the same day as a lifting session so my recovery days remain recovery days? I train 3 days per week and am following your excellent Master's program article.

Hopefully, your vast expertise of coaching can give some answers. Many Thanks.

Greg Says: This is a bit of a can of worms because the underlying assumption that cardio work is protective against heart attacks is dubious at best. That science is definitely outside my wheelhouse, so I’ll leave that to the real experts; but in any case, I would encourage you to do some homework on that issue itself. It may assuage your fears about not doing a lot of cardio work.

Assuming that you’re going to be doing some kind of lower-level endurance work along with your lifting, I don’t think you have to worry too much about the structure. Stressing out about coming up with the perfect program will probably give you a heart attack much sooner than not doing any cardio.

I can’t tell you the maximum number of sessions you can do without disrupting your lifting—you’ll definitely need to experiment a bit to see what works for you. There is also a broad range of intensities at which you could possibly be riding, and that will probably have more of an effect on your lifting than the duration and frequency will. For example, if you do maximal effort hill sprints on the bike 2 days per week, I would expect that to interfere with your lifting more than riding 3-4 days per week on relatively flat ground at a 60-70% effort.

If you’re getting your heart rate high during lifting itself, that base is covered, so your riding can be of the low-intensity, longer-duration variety. I would suggest starting with riding two days per week, 30-60 minutes, at relatively low effort—or at least spread out any brief higher-intensity efforts over a long period of low intensity work. Stick with that for a few weeks, take good notes on how you feel, how your training goes, etc. and if you feel no negative effects, you can try adding a third day if you feel it’s necessary.

I would do the rides on rest days between lifting days, or on lighter lifting days between heavier lifting days depending on how frequently you’re training. If it’s low-intensity, you may even find it helps you recover a bit for the next lifting day.

Paul Asks: Can you provide some suggestions on P Chain oly lifts that can strengthen my lower back? I'm finding that during various lifts - deadlifts, cleans especially, that i'm limited by lower back soreness. After particularly heavy workous I often need extended recovery and a trip to Chiro for adjustments to my SI joints. After listening to Greg on Robb W's Paleo podcast 115, and doing some research on the net I'm guessing my P-Chain muscles could be lagging.

I'd like to test the theory by working in more lifts to strengthen my entire back with a focus on the lumbar area. Questions:

1. Can you suggest some lifts / excercises? I heard glute ham raises, good mornings, stiff legged deadlifts and bent rows on the podcast - any others?

2. Any suggestions on how to work these into my program? I do crossfit 2-3 times per week, of which one of those classes are purely oly lift sessions. Would you suggest focusing on one of those lifts during the oly lift day? Or perhaps mixing multiple lifts into a met con workout? Or perhaps doing multiple oly lift days per week?

Appreciate any help you can give. I realize question #2 may be difficult to answer so if you want to just provide some guidelines that would be swell too!

Greg Says: If you’re constantly needing SI adjustments, I would assume the strength of your back isn’t exactly the problem; it’s more likely the problem is coming from muscular imbalance, tightness or weakness around the hip and even in the mid-back. Obviously I can’t diagnose the problem—I would suggest trying to get your chiropractor to nail down the problem. If he/she would rather just keep adjusting you multiple times per week instead of helping you diagnose and actually correct the problem, I would find a new chiropractor.

That said, strengthening your lower back and improving stamina probably won’t hurt anything. I would start with doing unweighted back extensions every day you train: 3 sets of 10-15 reps, just nice and smooth, no real strain. This will help develop a foundation of stamina and improve the back’s recovery. You can also do some unweighted or light reverse hypers daily or a few days per week just for some blood flow and to try to loosen up the SI joints. In both cases, make sure you’re moving the back through a full range of motion (assuming it’s pain-free).

I like good mornings a lot if they’re done well. Lock the back into extension and keep your abs tight. It should be a slow descent and controlled speed on the way back up. You can alternate doing them with a natural stance and slight knee bend, and doing them with the feet wide and the knees straight. These will help hamstring flexibility as well and possible relieve some of the imbalanced tension that may be causing or exacerbating the SI problem. If you really want to focus on the back, good mornings are preferable over RDLs or stiff-legged deadlifts.

Do these exercises at the end of your training sessions, although sometimes the light back extensions can be helpful as part of your warm-up. Make sure you’re also doing adequate ab work and flexibility work, focusing on hip and thoracic spine mobility.