Quality > Quantity

Quality conditioning is beneficial to all trainees and necessary for some. “Conditioning” itself is a vague term; any adaptation is a conditioning to a stress, but we use it to imply an adaptation to “work capacity” and is therefore a sub-set of “endurance”. The act of ,and adaptation to, conditioning can aid in recovery as well as express the application of all physical ability. In other words, light conditioning can help the system recover and being “more conditioned” can facilitate shorter rest times between sets and more energy for a training session. Conditioning also expresses strength, power, speed, mobility, etc. in sustained activities whether they are a strongman medley, working construction, or being in a fire fight.

However, the key is on quality conditioning.

We can think about this in two ways: 1) the quality of the conditioning programming and 2) the quality of the movements while conditioning. I’ve written about both of these topics for at least four years, but let’s expand on them.

Quality Conditioning in a Program

It leaves the scope of this post to try to make a comprehensive review of how to program, but the basis for any program is strength acquisition. Strength is a fundamental capacity that facilitates the development and application of other physical attributes, including conditioning. Several years ago I wrote about how CrossFit programs needed to sprinkle in conditioning with a barbell strength program — the same thing that strength and conditioning coaches have been doing for over 50 years. The article was rejected from the CrossFit Journal on bounds that it didn’t contain “observable, repeatable data” (it did), so instead I made a very basic article that turned into the “Strength and Conditioning Program“. Not only have thousands of people used this and accumulated success, but CrossFit Football launched with a similar style of program and has had the same results — strength programs with conditioning yield better athletes than programs with a high frequency of conditioning. Everyone learned this on their own over the last four or five years.

But let’s get back to why and how to program it with quality. A quote from my pdf:

Metabolic conditioning is a collection of movements and activities that are organized to A) produce and maintain a high metabolic output relative to the amount of time it is performed and B) minimize any necessary recovery, if any, between those bouts of high output. Subsequently the body mobilizes and distributes resources more efficiently and effectively – an adaptation that is gained and lost quickly. Even though metabolic conditioning is an important aspect of performance, it must be understood that its expression is strength-dependent. As strength improves, the effort to maintain an output becomes a smaller fraction of absolute strength, and/or there is a reduction in effort to maintain a higher output. Therefore, recovering for strength training maintains precedence over conditioning in this program.

 

The strength training must maintain priority in a training program. The only exception I can think of is if an athlete or applied fitness trainee (a term we use in FIT to represent fire fighters, LEO, military, etc. — people who require a given fitness level for their job or life) who is peaking for a specific event (like a deployment). In that case, their final phase before the event will consist of ‘sport specific’ activity as it weens off of traditional strength training. But, again, this depends on the individual and the circumstances.

Good guys that do bad things to bad people need to keep their structures adapted year-round.

What’s important is the presence of the strength training. The act of actually lifting is just as important as the adaptation to being strong. The fact that a trainee loads their entire body and takes it through a full range of motion to have all of their muscles working together is necessary. It not only maintains strength or lean body mass, but it keeps the muscles, tendons, bones, ligaments, and nerves adapted to the activity. It also provides a systemic stress and subsequent adaptation that will keep the body adapted to work. And obviously the result of being strong will make someone more capable — nobody denies that.

If we accept the above, then we know the presence and recovery from strength training needs to maintain priority in a training program. This starts with the placement of training days and what occurs on those training days. In the S&C program, there are four, maybe five training days with two to four of them consisting of lifting. Yet the actual lifts done on those days will vary so that the same movements or muscle groupings aren’t repeated on consecutive training days.

When the strength training is programmed, the conditioning must be sprinkled in intelligently. It shouldn’t specifically go on rest days, because then those days are no longer rest days. The type of high intensity conditioning can vary — in FIT I define six different types of endurance training with five of them in the high intensity realm. How they should be implemented is explained in immense detail in FIT, but they shouldn’t be erratic or random. Conditioning workouts should compliment the strength training by not abusing the same musculature in the same day, by fatiguing muscular for a future session int he week, and the type of the conditioning should depend on the volume and intensity of the strength training itself.

If these factors are accounted for, a trainee will get stronger and either maintain or improve his conditioning. This is paramount to applied fitness trainees like soldiers who cannot avoid conditioning for the sake of barbell training; at the very least they need to maintain a structural adaptation to their job. The same goes for athletes; it wouldn’t behoove an American football player to show up to pre-season training camp de-conditioned — at worst he’ll be extremely sore, fatigued, and injury prone and at best hurt his chances of achieving a starting position.

Ray Lewis conditions throughout every off-season and is in his 17th year in the NFL with 13 Pro Bowls and over 2,000 tackles.

There are a few instances where conditioning can be ignored, but most of the time it’s inclusion will only benefit the trainee, provided it is programmed and performed with quality.

Quality of Movement When Conditioning

Too often we cringe while watching videos of people performing exercises under extreme fatigue, yet this is an acceptable norm in the realm of conditioning. There are several reasons that higher technique standards should be used while conditioning  It’s actually quite amazing that there aren’t more injuries, yet the weight is relatively light and injuries do develop with chronically poor mechanics. This is one reason “mobility” has been such a hot thing — not only will normal athletes need maintenance, but trainees who perform thousands of reps with crappy mechanics will eventually need repair.

Injuries are certainly debilitating to training, but what’s more important is using efficient mechanics to move a load. Poor technique does not distribute the force application throughout the necessary muscles and instead focuses it on a single or group of muscles that did not evolve to handle the effort. For example, it’s not uncommon to see a lack of hamstring involvement in CrossFit to result in an over development of the quads and under development of the posterior chain. Not only will the musculature itself be trained poorly or incorrectly, but the trainee is not performing as well as the could have.

If a trainee has adapted to conditioning with proper mechanics — and proper force distribution across the muscles — then they will be using the maximum number of muscles in a given movement, therefore applying more force and improving the economy of effort. They will either use less energy or become more resistant to fatigue since one specific muscle group is not bearing the bulk of the load and fatiguing quickly.

In other words, proper mechanics will yield better performance — in addition to decreased injury and better muscular development.

Note that using proper technique for the first time may result in slower conditioning times. This would be a result of the “muscles not being developed correctly” thing and will improve with consistent, quality technique and better strength training.

When I have to coach conditioning workouts (it’s not exactly fun), I coach two things: movement mechanics and overall economy of effort. The movement mechanics are the same, if not a more simplified, version of coaching the barbell lifts. “Knees out”; “chest up”; or “elbows up and in”. The difference is that I do not allow trainees to do it incorrectly. It’s the coach’s job to yield a quality training session for quality results. I’ve stopped the workout before to emphasize a point. I’ve lowered the weight (much to the trainee’s chagrin). I’ve made them stop moving or put the bar down for a short rest. Whatever I do, it’s to get them to move with efficiency.

Coaching “economy of effort” is easy, but surprisingly poorly done. During breaks I coach people to take a certain amount of breaths — between one and five breaths. They will do this at logical pauses in their sets. If they need to do a set of ten, they’ll stop at 5. If they are doing a set of 15, they’ll stop at 8. If the weight is simply too heavy to be performed, then we know I didn’t program the workout because if the weight is too heavy it’s not a conditioning workout. There are guidelines in FIT for that too.

Whether a coach or trainee, quality technique in the actual conditioning workout is the difference between a spaz session where everyone gets sweaty and an effective, muscle developing conditioning session that will improve performance in the future.

Summary

Conditioning is both loved and hated in the training community. The truth is that it’s a quality addition to most programs, but only if it’s done right. To do it right, it needs to be programmed and executed intelligently. If the time is taken in order to actually do it, then we should optimize our effort with the best results possible. Results start with good programming and end with quality execution.

 

Simple Strength and Conditioning Program v2.0

An Effective, Yet Simple Strength and Conditioning Program

I devised a program in 2009 for my CrossFit class that placed an emphasis on getting stronger. I created a .pdf of the outline and sent it around the internet, and it has been floating around since. I’ve wanted to update that file to clarify some concepts as well as improve the writing style. I’ve also made a small amendment to the program. What used to be known as the CFWF program is something I just call the Strength and Conditioning Program (SC&P) — my friends at Amarillo Strength and Conditioning/CF Amarillo started the name, so I’m just going to keep it.

I blatantly point out that this program is for a strength novice who has neglected strength training. It may not be optimal for certain athletic specialties, yet I see it as a preparatory program for sports in general. I’ve had lots of people get pretty strong using this — one friend took his 400x1RM deadlift to 450×5 while gaining 20 pounds of muscle, and maintained or improved benchmark CrossFit workouts.

The conditioning workouts can be tailored to fit a personal style or goal. Someone needing to prepare for a PT test would condition for the test using the principles I lay out in the outline. If someone wanted to prepare for specific sports, events, or military obligations, shifting the ratio of strength:conditioning would be necessary. I’ll update it soon with workouts I and others have created and used while doing it.

Basically, if you’re someone that needs to increase strength while keeping conditioning in a program, this is for you.

A Case Study With Dr. Lon Kilgore

Dr. Kilgore and I did a preliminary case study in 2009 to determine if there was a correlation between oxygen saturation (in this case a lack thereof) and conditioning improvement. Kilgore himself was the subject and we had very interesting pre and post data points. He had been on a strength program for five or six months and the case study was a four week conditioning storm that included one day each of squatting, pressing, and deadlifting per week. We were still active with CrossFit at the time, and there are a couple benchmark workouts we used as tests. However, the four weeks consisted of carefully programmed conditioning workouts that wouldn’t have been possible to do had Kilgore not been so relatively strong.

Kilgore posted about this on his fitness related blog a few weeks ago. Let me know if you have any questions, and if there is a question for Kilgore, then I can probably have him jump in here and answer it. I’ll elaborate in this entry throughout the day if necessary.

Questioning the Fit” post by Kilgore that includes the pre/post .pdf sheet.
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This post is perhaps one of the most relevant and important things to be put on this site, so I guess I’m going to have to explain why.

1. Dr. Kilgore was 50 years old in the first run of this case study. He had zero conditioning adaptation. After having an important surgery that halted other things in life, he was on a strength program for about half a year. Thus, he was as de-conditioned as you can get. We repeated the case study a SECOND time about a year later. Lon was equally de-conditioned (the last time he did conditioning was the first run through of the case study) and he was weaker (hadn’t been strength training up to the second run through as he had the first run through).

2. What we were specifically looking at was trying to bring down his oxygen saturation. The hypothesis was that this is a relevant metric for inducing a stress for improved adaptation. It may not even be an important metric, but there aren’t many that are testable regarding conditioning. The way I have thought about is that if we achieve a significant desaturation of O2 (in this case, we were shooting for at least a 4% reduction, hypoxemia in normal circumstances at sea level), that creates a deficit in substrates. A significant deficit in substrates is something that the body isn’t used to (especially in Lon’s case), so it must go through the adaptation process. In other words, O2 lowers (and whatever else that may be going on that we can’t easily measure), the body freaks out and goes, “Holy shit, we aren’t used to this, let’s improve the relevant physiology so that we can handle this same work load in the future or, god help us, handle a higher work load.” We show that in four weeks this was a very significant method of stressing Lon’s body to hugely increase his ability to do work.

2a. No, we aren’t saying the results are generalized to a greater population. We aren’t stupid. However, there are many people that have attained very good fitness or conditioning levels with high intensity exercise. Most of us have seen this work before, but never really quantified it.

2b. No, we aren’t suggesting that 02 saturation is a giant cog in the metabolic process. However, I think that it should garner relevant attention.

3. The pre/post tests were done in a specific order. I just realized that all of these aren’t in the document, so I’ll do my best to elaborate.
We tested ‘strength only’ with the lifts. We tested ‘endurance only’ with the run and row (although in retrospect, I would have increased the rowing distance from 1,000m to 2k or 2.5k to improve the relevancy of the test). Then we had an assortment of conditioning workouts from CrossFit. One was solely calisthenic based (“Cindy”), one was calisthenic and lifting based (“Diane”), and another was completely implement based. If you look at the first page of the document, you’ll see vast improvements in the tests that are included and Lon did not do worse on any pre/post test.

4. You’ll notice his results weren’t as good after the second run through. Lon and I are of the opinion that since he wasn’t as strong, he wasn’t able to push as hard in the workouts to achieve similar stresses.

5. More importantly, in order to achieve greater stresses strength was necessary. If you don’t have adequate stress, you aren’t able to push as hard or as long, and therefore can’t impose an adaptive stress on the system. Furthermore, if you are weaker, you are going to be a helluva lot more sore than if you were stronger. Lon experienced this firsthand, and during the first case study, he even said, “I couldn’t imagine being able to do this not being as strong as I am.”

6. Yes, Lon go weaker during the first phase, but what do you expect? He was squatting once on Monday, pressing once on Tuesday, and Deadlifting once on Thursday. This case study along, with my observations of the CrossFit class I had on similar programming, clearly showed me that this wasn’t enough strength training to improve strength, let alone maintain it. However, that point is relevant to the person(s) on a given program. If someone required significant conditioning increases and was already strong, they could achieve significant conditioning adaptations in a very short amount of time.

7. This case study has many limitations but it creates many questions. If you look at it from a hard science perspective, then there needs to be follow up research. If you look at it from a practicality and experiential standpoint, you know this kind of thing is already happening. There are certain requirements that will make it so:
7a. The program is very, very carefully programmed.
7b. Each workout must achieve an intensity level that is a ‘significant stress’. Recovery between these bouts of high intensity should be minimized over time. In other words, higher outputs and minimizing recovery are the goals. You can’t do this in workouts that are longer than 15 minutes — you can’t sustain such high outputs that long. Most workouts Lon did here (and what I would program) are under 12 minutes with the majority around the 8 minute mark.

There are many more conclusions and questions that I can draw from all of this, but I won’t spoon feed you any more. I’m open to productive discussion.

Barbell Complexes

In the 70’s Big Workshops I go into depth on the topic of conditioning and programming it in a strength program. I always mention barbell complexes and their effectiveness regarding conditioning, especially with a person who lacks conditioning.

Dan John is known for his use of complexes, and they can be traced back to Istvan “Steve” Javorek’s creativity. This article by John is a nice introduction to the complexes. Here is some stuff by Javorek, and this is a list of Dan John’s favorite complexes. A barbell complex has the lifter performing multiple reps at sub-maximal weight in different exercises. An example of one of John’s complexes is doing reps (5, for example) on a bent over row, power clean, front squat, military press, back squat, and good mornings. Running through each exercise at five reps each would be considered a “set”, and you would do 3 to 5 sets of them.

Barbell complexes are pretty useful for a few reasons. They have the lifter performing a lot of volume in a relatively short amount of time. If you did the above complex at 8 reps each, that’s almost 50 reps on your entire body. From a conditioning standpoint, complexes use a lot of musculature and keep the muscles working for 2 to 5 minutes at a time. This creates a deficit in energy substrates, and the deficit is the stress that the body adapts to over time to get conditioned. Also, the high reps on full range of motion lifts helps maintain lean body mass when in a conditioning phase, and potentially will increase the LBM as well.

Gant used barbell complexes and prowler work to condition for Judo season earlier this year to great success. Even though he dropped the big lifts (he was already strong and needed to cut to 220), he actually gained a bit of muscle while dropping body fat. Gant does really well with creating conditioning programs for combative sports, so if you ever need help, he’s the guy to talk to. He made a good point to me on the phone last night. If you are doing a complex for five sets (with roughly 50 reps per set), and each set you increase the weight 10 pounds, then you increase the tonnage by a ton (2000 lbs.) throughout the workout. And that’s not even counting the tonnage you’re doing with the movements themselves. It’s not surprising that he built some muscle doing a month of barbell complexes.



I differ from Dan John in that I don’t program barbell complexes for the sake of LBM or strength gain. Dan runs a high school weight room, so he has to have quick workouts to make progress and keep kids motivated — the logistics probably get hairy and I don’t have to worry about that. If I’m working with a person that is sedentary, de-trained, or just de-conditioned, I’ll get them strong for a few weeks and start introducing some basic conditioning where I vary up the work to rest ratio. I have used a pseudo barbell complex before, and it’s simply doing 5×5 squats, 5×5 presses, and 5×3 deadlifts at a lighter weight on the minute. This is challenging enough where the person gets a little sweaty and breathing hard, and then I once they do this a few times, I’ll make things more complicated. Generally speaking I’ll get someone strong, then use stuff like barbell complexes or interval training to start getting them conditioned.

Complexes are a great tool because of the higher rep volume the whole body receives. Because of this it can turn into a very effective conditioning tool. Plus it only requires the most basic gym equipment — a barbell. If you’re interested, try sticking in one of Dan John’s complexes after one of your training sessions. Start off lighter than you need to and take the rest breaks.

Last night I did a complex that I created. I haven’t been able to train a lot recently (lots of travel, contracting the plague, etc.) and don’t have access to a gym for a few days. I wanted some light, but thorough work on my body so that when I do get to a gym, I’m not too far behind. I also wanted to use a complex for some conditioning workout in the garage so that the Florida weather would provide extra stress. Turns out it was plenty.

I ended up doing five reps each of power cleans, front squats, presses, back squats, bent over rows, deadlifts, power jerks, back squats, and RDLs. I did that three times with 60kg (134 lbs.). The first set took me about 4 minutes. I rested 4 minutes in the garage (I wanted to have to recover in the heat/humidity), and the next set took me about 3.5 minutes, but I was sucking wind. Then I rested 5 or 6 minutes and finished the last set in about 4 minutes. Barely. Then I sprawled out in the A/C for 20 minutes.

I wouldn’t recommend doing something like that in your first conditioning workout. I have pretty good work capacity for a lifter and I also can adapt to things pretty quickly, but it still kicked my ass. If you haven’t been doing any conditioning, then it doesn’t take much stress to induce an adaptation. It’s always better to ease into things. Since my body went through that shock, I had a headache throughout last night.

In order to be “in shape”, the average lifter won’t need more than one or two conditioning workouts if you plan them well. Barbell complexes are already set up so that you don’t have to do a lot of planning or tweaking. If you have wanted to add some conditioning to your program and didn’t want to do any running, give complexes a try.

Arnold and friend hit up some barbell complexes



Gant’s note:

Complexes can be a good addition to any program. You can use them as assistance work, conditioning, or simply to add volume to your workout. Read the articles Justin linked and the list of Dan John’s complexes. If you must create your own, try to be reasonable. When I talked to Dan about them, he said “pass over your head once and don’t get stupid with the movements.” Can’t beat that.

My favorite one was Complex A for eights. I did this two ways. In one, I would work it like sets across with a five minute rest period (the minimum amount of time you get between judo matches). I can tell you now that five sets of Complex A at 60 kg will get your dander up in a big way.

The second way I did this was to do five sets and add weight each time, resting as necessary between sets. I worked up to 90kg, which was basically a three-minute slugfest.

Row x 8
Clean x 8
Front squat x 8
Military press x 8
Back squat x 8
Good mornings x 8

The Prowler

Note: The Prowler is not code for being a stalker.

We recorded a video talking about The Prowler sled from Elite FTS. I don’t really remember what we said about it in the video, but if I recorded the video now, I’d say that it is the PREMIER conditioning tool for the strength athlete.

The more I think about how to use The Prowler, the more I’m impressed. You can literally attack any part of the energy systems continuum by varying the weight and work/rest ratio. Put a medium amount of weight on, and do sprint repeats. Put a light amount of weight on and push it a long distance. Put a whole lot of weight on and push it a short distance. Vary the speed in all of those examples. And I’m not even scratching the surface.

The thing is versatile is hell, and now I have people using it on a regular basis. Kyle, a 15 year old weightlifter that I coach, gave some good insight after using The Prowler for the first time; “They should take people in prison and duct tape their hands to the prowler then release rabid dogs to chase them.” Crime rates would plummet since The Prowler is definitely an ass kicker.

Rip bought the Econo Prowler, which is a less expensive version of the original Prowler. You can read about it, see some videos, and see a review here. Again, I’ve never met anybody from Elite FTS, and nobody asks me to endorse anything (c’mon, this audience isn’t that big), but if I were going to have another tool in addition to a bar, plates, and rack, this would be it.

The Prowler from 70s Big on Vimeo.

If you own a Prowler or have used one, tell your stories in the comments.