Getting fit with SwordsMaster

[Sasaki Kojiro]

About that weightlifting, I was referring more to high rep, low weight exercises so as to develop more muscular endurance and also to target areas like the forearms, calves, and maybe the shoulders and trapezius. It would be more for toning than anything else,

Well for toning you need heavy weight low reps, like 10x3 with 90% of your 1RM, if by toning you mean increasing resting muscle tension.

With the squats, I've read that one shouldn't lower the thighs past a level parallel with the floor when doing weighted squats. Does this carry over to unweighted squats?

Squat to parallel is the powerlifting squat, squat all the way down is Olympic squat, like so:



The olympic squat is better. Powerlifters only squat to parallel because that is used in competition to determine completion of squat.

The program outlined was an endurance/cardiovascular routine, I seriously doubt you could gain much muscle by working the off days. You're going to have to focus on one or the other.

Not necessarily. You can do both if you want to. Usually athletes dont do both at the same time because if they are training to put on muscle they do it as fast as possible and then go through a cutting period to minimize fat. It is impossible to put on serious muscle without eating a LOT and that means putting on some fat too.

I did both at once when I was doing crew, and gained mass at about a sixth the rate I am now in summertime. You burn to many calories with the endurance cardio to gain much mass, and the weights make you tired when you're donig the endurance cardio. Much more efficient to do one at a time.