Balancing Energy Systems, Getting Bulky & A Little Bit Of Everything...
The longer the duration of your conditioning session, the lower the intensity. You can’t sprint for 90 minutes, but you can certainly plod along not really trying very hard.
A shorter time frame - like find a 3 rep max thruster, or max distance prowler sprint in 75 seconds - efforts like these provide greater opportunity for power than a typical 15 minute AMRAP of wallballs and burpees. Expressing greater power means expressing more work capacity, which translates as more muscle used, more energy required to perform, more energy required to recover, and more adaptation required of the body…
A long time frame comes with less intensity, so less muscle used, less energy
required to perform, less energy required to recover, and less adaptation required of the body…
Since higher intensity workouts elicit more change in the body, short intense workouts are therefore superior to lower intensity, longer duration workouts.
Yes, I have been very general here, and no, not all long workouts are inferior, and yes, obviously we want balanced athletes with balanced energy systems… But the point remains: it is intensity that forces the body to change, and shorter workouts are typically much better for the job.
The Energy Systems:
Phosphagen pathway - Anaerobic: 0 - 15 seconds (roughly)
Glycolytic pathway - Anaerobic: 15 - 120 seconds (roughly)
Oxidative pathway - Aerobic: 120 seconds onwards (roughly)
Using only a hinge pattern as our conditioning sample - purely for ease and simplicity of the explanation - here’s an example of how you could balance these energy systems:
Day 1/ Phs - Max effort deadlift
Day 2/ Gly - Max distance prowler sprint in 75 seconds
Day 3/ Ox - 2 km row
Day 4/ Phs - 5x 100m sprint repeats - 3 minutes rest between efforts.
Day 5/ Gly - Grace - scale the weight for a sub 2.30 time
Day 6/ Ox - 5 mile run
Since we are already lifting during a typical Blackbrook session, we are already hitting our Phosphagen and Glycolytic pathways. This is good. The Phosphagen and Glycolytic pathways are the ones that allow you to either outsprint a mugger or completely steamroll the c***... Your pick… And man, I love the glycolytic pathway - that’s where true adaptation takes place and where the will to win becomes apparent… That’s your money maker, right there.
As for longer duration WoDs, they build an aerobic base - something that aids greatly in recovery and is essential for those looking to compete in CrossFit… But they will never build powerful athletes… Athletes engaged in sports or training where a preponderance of the training load is spent in aerobic [the oxidative pathway] efforts will see decreased muscle mass, strength, speed, and power. It is not uncommon to find marathon runners with a vertical leap of only a few inches…
This adequately illustrates the difference between anaerobic and aerobic training...
The longer the duration of your conditioning session, the lower the intensity. You can’t sprint for 90 minutes, but you can certainly plod along not really trying very hard.
A shorter time frame - like find a 3 rep max thruster, or max distance prowler sprint in 75 seconds - efforts like these provide greater opportunity for power than a typical 15 minute AMRAP of wallballs and burpees. Expressing greater power means expressing more work capacity, which translates as more muscle used, more energy required to perform, more energy required to recover, and more adaptation required of the body…
A long time frame comes with less intensity, so less muscle used, less energy
required to perform, less energy required to recover, and less adaptation required of the body…
Since higher intensity workouts elicit more change in the body, short intense workouts are therefore superior to lower intensity, longer duration workouts.
Yes, I have been very general here, and no, not all long workouts are inferior, and yes, obviously we want balanced athletes with balanced energy systems… But the point remains: it is intensity that forces the body to change, and shorter workouts are typically much better for the job.
The Energy Systems:
Phosphagen pathway - Anaerobic: 0 - 15 seconds (roughly)
Glycolytic pathway - Anaerobic: 15 - 120 seconds (roughly)
Oxidative pathway - Aerobic: 120 seconds onwards (roughly)
Using only a hinge pattern as our conditioning sample - purely for ease and simplicity of the explanation - here’s an example of how you could balance these energy systems:
Day 1/ Phs - Max effort deadlift
Day 2/ Gly - Max distance prowler sprint in 75 seconds
Day 3/ Ox - 2 km row
Day 4/ Phs - 5x 100m sprint repeats - 3 minutes rest between efforts.
Day 5/ Gly - Grace - scale the weight for a sub 2.30 time
Day 6/ Ox - 5 mile run
Since we are already lifting during a typical Blackbrook session, we are already hitting our Phosphagen and Glycolytic pathways. This is good. The Phosphagen and Glycolytic pathways are the ones that allow you to either outsprint a mugger or completely steamroll the c***... Your pick… And man, I love the glycolytic pathway - that’s where true adaptation takes place and where the will to win becomes apparent… That’s your money maker, right there.
As for longer duration WoDs, they build an aerobic base - something that aids greatly in recovery and is essential for those looking to compete in CrossFit… But they will never build powerful athletes… Athletes engaged in sports or training where a preponderance of the training load is spent in aerobic [the oxidative pathway] efforts will see decreased muscle mass, strength, speed, and power. It is not uncommon to find marathon runners with a vertical leap of only a few inches…
This adequately illustrates the difference between anaerobic and aerobic training...
|
Note how anaerobic training is the dogs b****cks…
To deliver the best results, we need to favour anaerobic training.
Like I said earlier, the goal is to balance these systems so we can produce the best results, but balancing programming is not quite as simple as: Day 1/ Phosphagen - Day 2/ Glycolytic - Day 3/ Oxidative, as shown in the example…
Day 1/ Phs - Max effort deadlift
Day 2/ Gly - Max distance prowler sprint in 75 seconds
Day 3/ Ox - 2 km row
Day 4/ Phs - 5x 100m sprint repeats - 3 minutes rest between efforts.
Day 5/ Gly - Grace - scale the weight for a sub 2.30 time
Day 6/ Ox - 5 mile run
This is an example of how you can balance energy systems, however, in this example we have only used a hinge pattern, so the movements are unbalanced... And since Day 7 would be Sunday, it would be off… Meaning every Monday and Thursday are Phosphagen, Tuesday and Friday Glycolytic, and Wednesday and Saturday are always Oxidative; so now if you only train Wednesdays and Saturdays like some of our members, you would only be exposed to Oxidative [longer duration, lower intensity] conditioning. As for those who train every day, pretty soon they would figure out the pattern anyway and would start cherry-picking… And they would, and I know they would…
We also haven’t touched on intervals; conditioning with more than one movement and where and how these couplets and triplets fit in; conditioning performed for quality; unbroken reps that force rest periods; heavy holds and carries and their effects on your heart rate; etc, but this piece is already too long, and I’m guessing you’re already starting nod off… Just trust me - this is my art, and I'm all over it like a cold tramp on hot chips.
In brief: for conditioning the solution is to keep the pathways and movements balanced, hard(ish) to predict, challenging, interesting, and above all, intelligent.
Will favouring anaerobic training make me “bulky”?
Men will put on some size if they eat enough.
Women won’t get “bulky” unless they ingest testosterone on purpose, and even then, it won’t happen overnight…
Ladies, if you are worried about it, Jessica Ennis and Lauren Fisher are examples of multi-event athletes who favour anaerobic training… Chill with the whole “I don’t want to look like Arnold Schwarzenegger” thing…
Is conditioning really necessary?
Yes it is. Your heart is a muscle - you want it in good condition.
Obviously if you’re a beginner, your focus should be on building strength first - it’s arse-backwards to try and build strength endurance without any strength to begin with... Luckily, we’re f***ing good at this stuff, and beginners are our speciality. If you’re new, focus on building strength and executing quality movement... Don’t worry too much about your WoD times just yet...
And what about recovery?
The training goal is always to come back better / stronger.
A 75 second prowler sprint is low eccentric (low damage), low skill, and comes with savagely high intensity. It will get you fit, strong, lean and powerful, as long as you put the effort in for those 75 seconds…
150 wallball shots is high rep, high eccentric (high damage), involves some skill, and comparatively much lower intensity... This is 4 - 10 minutes spent facing a wall…
The prowler sprint won’t f*** up the work you did prior: say, 5 triples in the Front Squat... So for the next squat session in 3 or 4 days time you should come back a little better than before. The wallballs will likely be far too damaging for you to recover from in 3 days, so either we cut the wallball reps in half, you come back under recovered and a little worse than before, or the programming will have to allow extra time between “squat days”... See how it all works?
Too much crap will do too much damage. For more information, see here: www.crossfitblackbrook.com/gas.html
To summarize…
- The conditioning needs to be balanced, hard to predict, challenging, interesting, and above all, intelligent.
- Nothing will limit progress, enthusiasm and membership numbers like a steady stream of long duration, low intensity conditioning sessions…
- Ladies, you will get stronger, but you won’t get massive.
- Beginners should focus on strength and quality before worrying about their WoD times.
- The training goal is always to come back better / stronger.
- Too much crap will do too much damage.
- Getting it right for everyone is an art form, so please stop requesting certain workouts…
- This was far longer than I intended…
“Sit the f*** down and have a beer...”
~ Coach Collins
Copyright 2017
To deliver the best results, we need to favour anaerobic training.
Like I said earlier, the goal is to balance these systems so we can produce the best results, but balancing programming is not quite as simple as: Day 1/ Phosphagen - Day 2/ Glycolytic - Day 3/ Oxidative, as shown in the example…
Day 1/ Phs - Max effort deadlift
Day 2/ Gly - Max distance prowler sprint in 75 seconds
Day 3/ Ox - 2 km row
Day 4/ Phs - 5x 100m sprint repeats - 3 minutes rest between efforts.
Day 5/ Gly - Grace - scale the weight for a sub 2.30 time
Day 6/ Ox - 5 mile run
This is an example of how you can balance energy systems, however, in this example we have only used a hinge pattern, so the movements are unbalanced... And since Day 7 would be Sunday, it would be off… Meaning every Monday and Thursday are Phosphagen, Tuesday and Friday Glycolytic, and Wednesday and Saturday are always Oxidative; so now if you only train Wednesdays and Saturdays like some of our members, you would only be exposed to Oxidative [longer duration, lower intensity] conditioning. As for those who train every day, pretty soon they would figure out the pattern anyway and would start cherry-picking… And they would, and I know they would…
We also haven’t touched on intervals; conditioning with more than one movement and where and how these couplets and triplets fit in; conditioning performed for quality; unbroken reps that force rest periods; heavy holds and carries and their effects on your heart rate; etc, but this piece is already too long, and I’m guessing you’re already starting nod off… Just trust me - this is my art, and I'm all over it like a cold tramp on hot chips.
In brief: for conditioning the solution is to keep the pathways and movements balanced, hard(ish) to predict, challenging, interesting, and above all, intelligent.
Will favouring anaerobic training make me “bulky”?
Men will put on some size if they eat enough.
Women won’t get “bulky” unless they ingest testosterone on purpose, and even then, it won’t happen overnight…
Ladies, if you are worried about it, Jessica Ennis and Lauren Fisher are examples of multi-event athletes who favour anaerobic training… Chill with the whole “I don’t want to look like Arnold Schwarzenegger” thing…
Is conditioning really necessary?
Yes it is. Your heart is a muscle - you want it in good condition.
Obviously if you’re a beginner, your focus should be on building strength first - it’s arse-backwards to try and build strength endurance without any strength to begin with... Luckily, we’re f***ing good at this stuff, and beginners are our speciality. If you’re new, focus on building strength and executing quality movement... Don’t worry too much about your WoD times just yet...
And what about recovery?
The training goal is always to come back better / stronger.
A 75 second prowler sprint is low eccentric (low damage), low skill, and comes with savagely high intensity. It will get you fit, strong, lean and powerful, as long as you put the effort in for those 75 seconds…
150 wallball shots is high rep, high eccentric (high damage), involves some skill, and comparatively much lower intensity... This is 4 - 10 minutes spent facing a wall…
The prowler sprint won’t f*** up the work you did prior: say, 5 triples in the Front Squat... So for the next squat session in 3 or 4 days time you should come back a little better than before. The wallballs will likely be far too damaging for you to recover from in 3 days, so either we cut the wallball reps in half, you come back under recovered and a little worse than before, or the programming will have to allow extra time between “squat days”... See how it all works?
Too much crap will do too much damage. For more information, see here: www.crossfitblackbrook.com/gas.html
To summarize…
- The conditioning needs to be balanced, hard to predict, challenging, interesting, and above all, intelligent.
- Nothing will limit progress, enthusiasm and membership numbers like a steady stream of long duration, low intensity conditioning sessions…
- Ladies, you will get stronger, but you won’t get massive.
- Beginners should focus on strength and quality before worrying about their WoD times.
- The training goal is always to come back better / stronger.
- Too much crap will do too much damage.
- Getting it right for everyone is an art form, so please stop requesting certain workouts…
- This was far longer than I intended…
“Sit the f*** down and have a beer...”
~ Coach Collins
Copyright 2017
