I had the honor of having an article featured in the prestigious Elite Fitness Systems (EFS) Newsletter.
Click on the bottom picture to read the article.
I sent this in a while back and also rather fast. After re-reading it, I wish I would’ve been a bit more in depth on when and where to do the exercises in relation to program design. Hind site is 20/20 right?
So, instead of adding stuff to it now I’ll expound on a discussion I had with a jiu-jitsu and kick boxing practitioner just the other day that relates.
This guy wanted a training program. When asked “so what is your primary objective”, he answered with “get stronger and more conditioned”.
Okay great.
Now here’s the thing and what I explained to him.
Both of these goals fall on opposite ends of a spectrum. To get strong you have to lift heavy weights (relative to you of course) with low reps (generally 1-5) and take long rests (generally 3-5 minutes). Heavy weights with lower reps to recruit type 2b fibers, long rest to allow recovery of the energy substrates being used (in this case Adenosine Triphosphate (ATP) and to allow your central nervous system to recover.
To become more conditioned, first you need to know the energy systems involved in the sport so you know what “conditioned” is. In this case, it’s basically mixed martial arts. Now we’re talking training with higher reps to accumulate waste by-products and short rests so that you can’t completely recover. Once a base line of recovery has been established, now you shorten the rest intervals and maybe even increase the working intervals to further increase the threshold to remove waste by-products.
If I lost you, here’s an example of a progression manipulating just the rest times.
Work: Performing 4 exercises as a circuit which takes 80 seconds to complete.
Rest: 30 seconds between exercises and 75 seconds after all 4 exercises are completed.
Progressing to:
Work: Same (nothing’s changed)
Rest: 15 seconds between exercises and 60 seconds after all 4 exercises are completed.
Here’s a progression just manipulating the work times
Work: Performing 4 exercises as a circuit which takes 80 seconds to complete.
Rest: 15 seconds between exercises and 60 seconds after all 4 exercises are completed.
Progressing to:
Work: Performing 6 exercises as a circuit which takes 120 seconds to complete.
Rest: Same
These are just examples to illustrate the time differences, and not based on where to start someone. That’s what you have to initially find out and what I mean when I say “establish a baseline”.
I’m not implying that you can’t get someone stronger and more conditioned simultaneously. If the person hasn’t been training with weights at all or has but with a pathetic program (or no program at all, which is often), than it will happen. But, they won’t get their strongest or their most conditioned possible. Like the old chinese proverb says, The Man Who Chases Two Rabbits Catches Neither.
The main reason for this is based on training economy. This refers to how much time one has to commit to training and what they should do based on that time. Essentially, what will give them the biggest return on their investment, which is the time.
The limiting factor regarding the time is largely determined by their recovery ability. You should still be training in your sport (with this example it was jiu-jitsu and kick boxing), so there’s some time already accounted for. And, your training sessions shouldn’t be to long (roughly 1 hour). Anything longer than this and stress hormones are through the roof, making it counter productive to continue. You can’t beat a dead horse.
So for argument sake, lets say this person is training for an MMA Fight that’s 8 weeks away and their conditioning isn’t to good. The training needs to be progressive (get harder to force adaptation) and eventually should be harder than the actual fight. You have no time to get them strong. This should’ve been the goal before the 8 weeks. Now you must focus on having the athlete as conditioned as possible, while trying to maintain the strength qualities that were achieved prior to now. If you tried to focus on both strength and conditioning right now the athlete won’t become his best at either.