GPP/Metcon/cardio

...whatever one chooses to call it; what approaches does the ausbb collective take to maintaining/increasing their 'fitness'?

Has anyone found that incorporating conditioning work into their strength program has increased or hindered progress? (and if so/not, in what forms?)

I see this discussion being related to strength performance as opposed to weightloss/cutting/general aesthetics but hey - whatever, it's all extra information for the archives right?

Fitness helps you develop strength, no doubt about it. You don't need to be able to run marathons, but if you cannot run 5km however slowly without stopping then you will simply not be able to handle heavy lifting to any significant degree.

Put another way, you might get from beginner to intermediate in strength without much fitness (though it will improve a bit even if you don't train it directly), but you'll be stuck at intermediate and never reach advanced if you don't do any fitness stuff.

If you do try to run marathons, you'll hinder your weight training. Your body can only muster so much resources for improvement, you can get both fit and strong, but unless your diet and rest and so on are absolutely spot on you'll find it hard to get very fit and very strong.

I find GXP suits me.

over the next few weeks i'll be putting together a whole stack of cool cardio type training, such as hill sprints (thank god i live in a city where hills are everywhere, at varying degree's) as well as medcine ball work. Kyle's right...if that helps me from going intermediate to advanced...than aaawesome

Everyone that starts at PTC cant lift heavy for an hour, so I get their fitness up with KB's, sandbags, kegs, sprinting.

It makes them stronger in the long run.

I sprint once a week now that I'm dieting.

If I had the time and finances I'd probably do sledgehammer and prowler work and a whole bunch of strongman type stuff x2-3 a week.

i think it is important. in terms of strength training and getting stronger your GPP should still involve lifting or moving something heavy, instead of running on a tredmill for an hour.
i recommend complexes as well as what Oliver and ptc said.

Its a given here.

Last night big Simon benched 180kg. He still finished his session off with a complex...hang clean/front squat/push press x 10.....then he shouldered my 80kg sandbag 10 times.....then he picked my 86kg and 93kg stones up to his chest.

The more of this kind of work he does, the stronger he gets.

When we talk about cardio we talk about improving ones heart, lung and circulation.
We tend to forget that the body is a system.
Having said all that it doesn't really take that much to maintain cardio health.

Want to run a marathon, powerlift? Different approaches.
Neither of these are healthy pursuits.