Jack Up the Heart Rate, Jack Up the Gains
Does Conditioning Really Matter?
If your sole purpose is to get jacked and strong as hell,
does conditioning really matter? After all, it's possible to avoid fat gain and
get lean with very little cardio, or none at all. That's largely a diet issue.
So why should someone wanting to squat a ton or gain a lot of muscle even
bother with it?
The truth is, cardio and conditioning are not just about
leanness, but about being in shape. Smart conditioning means more energy, more
muscle mass (yes, really), and the ability to do more work at a higher level of
intensity. It's the ability to kill a grueling set of 15 rep squats then feel
completely fine a couple minutes later.
Years ago people called it GPP (general physical
preparedness) but we don't need an acronym to simply say "in shape."
But conditioning is a far better term than cardio. Cardio makes most people
think of drawn-out, overemphasized movement done for weight loss. And there is
a big problem with doing THAT kind of cardio.
The Cardio Dilemma
The body has a beautiful way of becoming efficient. It makes
physiological adjustments in order to meet the demands you're asking of it.
Then as the same tasks become less strenuous, they also become less beneficial.
With steady state cardio, the more you do the more efficient the body becomes
at performing it. Then over time you actually burn fewer calories than you were
while doing the same amount of work. So your only choice is to increase the
amount of cardio you're doing in order to get the same effects.
Unfortunately, this will apply to every form of conditioning
you do. So in order to cause more energy debt for fat loss, you're basically
left with no option except to do more, go harder, or change it up and become
inefficient again.
But remember, your function becomes your form. So if you're
a person who does a lot of cardio, you're going to look like a person that does
a lot of cardio. And no disrespect to runners, but most of them don't exactly
resonate a look of strength and power. So if you're a lifter who wants more
mass and strength, how does conditioning even help?
You Can't Get Better Without Conditioning
When your conditioning is on point, a significant amount of
power can still be generated throughout most, if not all, of the training
session. This means more volume with more pounds on the bar, in the same amount
of time you were training before.
Being in good condition is an important part of getting
better. The ability to do a significant amount of work in a training session
will pay dividends in both the strength and hypertrophy departments. Even if
you aren't in the business of trying to get leaner, then conditioning should
STILL be a part of your programming.
How Work Capacity Works
Here are two factors to take into account in regards to training workload:
The tonnage used during each workout.
The total amount of tension in that workout.
Your ability (or inability) to recover between sets or
perform a given amount of work is related to the amount of stimulus that was
done during any given session. Here's an example.
Fred, a strong but out of shape lifter, does 5 sets of 5 on
squats with 500 pounds. That's 12,500 pounds worth of work. These 5 sets take
half an hour to complete because Fred has to rest fairly long between sets. The
next half an hour Fred does some other leg work to finish off his workout, but
his gas tank is mostly tapped out and his ability to generate force is
significantly diminished.
Few sets are performed, his execution is sloppy because he's
tired, and the weight used for the extra work is sub par. The amount of overall
tension generated for the training session is fairly low due to all of these
factors.
Fred then decides to add some progressively harder
conditioning work over the next several weeks. Soon he's able to complete the 5
sets of 5 reps in a much shorter period of time. For the rest of his workouts
he has energy to spare for the movements performed after squats, and he can now
do more sets using more weight and great execution. The amount of tension
generated for the entire workout is significantly higher than when he was in
poor condition.
After a few weeks, Fred is now doing 8 sets of 5 with 500
pounds in the same amount of time it used to take him to do 5 sets of 5. Why?
Because he's recovering faster between sets. Now his tonnage on squats alone
has risen from 12,500 pounds to 20,000 pounds worth of work. He's still able to
go on and do the extra work with a high degree of intensity and poundage. He's
doing more work – better work – in the same amount of time, sometimes less.
Total tonnage increased and overall training tension
increased. Not only that, Fred's training sessions don't take the same systemic
toll on his recovery curve as before. His body adapts to doing more work in
less time because it now has the capability to do so.
If you can do more work in the same amount of time and
increase tension and total tonnage, that means your body has increased its work
capacity. And that will mean more growth.
Squat
Conditioning and Muscle Growth
The biggest players in the muscle growth game are frequency,
volume, tension, and intensity (weight on the bar). To maximize hypertrophy,
you need to be able to train often, with a great amount of volume, creating a
significant degree of tension through proper movement execution with the
appropriate amount of weight. Of course, all of this has to be dialed in so
that you can actually recover from it.
For muscle growth, a very efficient method of training is
required in order to elicit the greatest degree of stimulation with the least
amount of systemic fatigue. After all, if you can't recover properly, then
growth will not take place.
The part where growth stimulus gets short-circuited is when
guys aren't in good enough shape to perform all-out sets to failure within high
enough rep ranges with a significant amount of volume, and can't do so
frequently enough – either on the big movements or the smaller ones.
You've probably been told that lifting heavy is the key to
muscle growth, but this is misguided. Sure, progressive overload is
foundational in growth, especially in the beginning stages of your training.
But once you reach a much higher level of development, there's a few caveats
that come with it.
The first is that once you start reaching the ceiling for
your maximum strength potential for your degree of muscle mass, increasing
maximal strength does little to increase overall muscle growth. There comes a
point of diminishing returns in regards to adding pounds on the bar with low
reps and increasing muscle mass.
Getting stronger within a rep range that produces enough
time under tension to create the stimulation for growth is far more effective,
especially if we're taking other factors into consideration like training
volume and frequency. For muscle growth, a routine based on singles, doubles,
or triples is significantly inferior to a routine based around rep ranges in
the 8-20 range.
And no, adding 30 pounds of "bodyweight" while
doing a powerlifting routine on doubles and triples doesn't mean it was an
effective hypertrophy plan. Diet the fat off and tell me where you land after
that. My guess? Same place you were before.
Maximal strength has a huge neurological basis that requires
a completely different type of training to maximize it. This is why it's
important to decide whether you're going to train for maximal growth or maximal
strength. You can't maximize both at the same time no matter how many times
you've read you can.
Give me an out of shape guy who's been doing nothing but
power-based training using sets of 3-5 reps and have him perform tough sets of
15 on squats, leg presses, and stiff-legged deadlifts and I can promise you the
amount of volume he'll be able to perform will be limited.
Not only that, but systemically his ability to recover from
it will suck ass as well. Meaning, going back to the gym the next day to repeat
such efforts will be diminished because of fatigue. And if you're looking to
maximize growth, then frequency might just be the biggest component in speeding
up the growth process – even more important than volume or pounds on the bar.
This doesn't mean training like a pansy while making a bunch
of visits to the gym. It still requires training incredibly hard and using
appropriate loading so that movements can be done properly within the desired
rep ranges. But if you can train hard often, your body is going to grow. And
grow fast. And this is where conditioning plays a major role in that process.
Where To Start
So let's say you've been a 3-rep sloth for months on end.
You're the guy who thinks, "Anything more than 5 reps is cardio."
What should you do?
If you haven't been doing any conditioning, build your base
on walking. Now, I'm talking about a brisk walk at a meaningful pace. Not that
shit you see old people doing in the mall before the stores have even opened.
There should be some knee to chest action going on here.
A simple and easy way to approach walking is to find a
distance to walk and just decrease the amount of time it takes you make that
trek. Leave your house, walk 10 minutes, check the spot you made it to in 10
minutes, then walk home. From there, simply work on decreasing the amount of
time it takes you go the same distance without actually sprinting at any point
on each walk.
Once you go from 20 minutes to around 15, throw in a casual
run at some point along the walk. Again, casual. So basically, a bit of a jog.
It doesn't have to be a long jaunt. Just get it in. After a few weeks of this,
throw another one into your walk.
Once you're able to do this same distance in 10-12 minutes,
you're ready to actually implement an interval plan that will really increase
your work capacity and translate into far more productive weight room sessions.
Sprinting Plan
This is a very easy plan to apply to your training. It can
be done twice a week on non-weight training days.
Week 1: 10 sprints @ 60% speed @ 40 yards
Week 2: 10 sprints @ 70% speed @ 40 yards
Week 3: 12 sprints @ 70% speed @ 40 yards
Week 4: 15 sprints @ 75% speed @ 40 yards
Week 5: 20 sprints @ 80% speed @ 40 yards
Week 6: 20 sprints @ 85% speed @ 40 yards
Your "rest" is simply the 40 yard walk back to
start. Then you sprint again.
Remember your purpose here. You're not trying out for the
NFL. Nor are you trying to prepare for the 100-meter dash in the Olympics. The
purpose is to simply increase your conditioning so that weight room work
becomes far easier to recover from.
You don't need to do more conditioning over time either. You
simply need to get in good enough shape and maintain a level of conditioning
that complements your lifting.
However, if you do want to increase the amount of conditioning
work from week 6 on out, then simply increase the number of sprints you do, or
the distance you're sprinting. I don't advise full-out 100% sprints as it's a
nice recipe for an injury. But you can do these uphill which actually makes
them slightly safer by shortening the stride length and lessening the chance
for a pulled hammy.
The sled or Prowler or bike all work as well. You can use
the same outline above for the sled or Prowler with some minor adjustments. For
the stationary bike, my recommendation is even easier.
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