Aerobic conditioning and strength

[Donald Lee]

Originally Posted by James Evans

Joel seems a little ambivalent towards kettlebells. I can't remember the name of the method but he has those intervals where you hammer it for 12 seconds then recover for as long as it takes to get your heart rate back down. It hinges around his view that everyone has different recovery rates and therefore something like Tabata (or indeed any other interval protocol with fixed recovery time) becomes cookie cutter. He favours the spin bike on high resistance. Someone asked if kettlebells would be appropriate (say swings, Russian or American depending on your like see my tedious posts elsewhere ). If I recall he didn't think you would get HR up high enough, quickly enough in the time frame.

I've also seen him asked about C2s and he said he had little to no experience with them. I feel there is a lot you can do with a C2 if you want to tune up your engine. On the other hand Rob Shaul of Mountain Athlete/Military Athlete disagrees and feels they have little carry over for his guys.

So we have a few ideas that cost $$$$. Something that can be overlooked with Ross Enamait is his very firmly set low tech approach to training using equipment that is relatively available. And despite what many say Ross is not all out, balls to the wall every time you train by any means. I really like a lot of what I've seen from Joel and it's good to see aerobic work promoted again. Some of us aren't Rich Franklin though, are we?

Just to clarify on my two masters comments: we can get all funky with the hormonal impact of training but a big element is going to be how the fuel gets used. It's perfectly possible to get stronger and run, it's just not optimal for size gains or massive increases in strength. But that's not what you're looking for so go for it.

Joel has said the C2 doesn't provide enough resistance for the High Intensity Continuous Intervals. I'm positive he would not be against using it for cardiac output stuff.

Regarding kettlebells, it doesn't seem like the way kettlebells are used in America are used in the former Soviet Union. According to Joel, they were used mostly for throwing (i.e., explosive work) or for working the muscles around the ankle (i.e., sticking your foot through it and working your tibialis anterior). Besides those uses, I think kettlebells were used for shows. All the snatching, swinging, and clean and jerking kettlebells seem to have come from that.

Regarding the two masters thing, doing almost daily steady-state work doesn't really take away from strength or muscle mass, as long as it's manageable. Many bodybuilders do a ton of steady-state work. When you start pushing the intensity and/or duration, that's when you start getting problems.

[James Evans]

Originally Posted by Donald Lee

Regarding the two masters thing, doing almost daily steady-state work doesn't really take away from strength or muscle mass, as long as it's manageable. Many bodybuilders do a ton of steady-state work. When you start pushing the intensity and/or duration, that's when you start getting problems.

Are we talking walking on the treadmill? Because I don't think that's the kind of conditioning Joe is on about. Going shopping is walking.

[Ryan Hagenbuch]

As long as you stay with the cardiac output work, you shouldn't see any loss of strength. If anything your recovery will improve, both between workouts and between sets during the workout.

I wrote an article for eliteFTS regarding my experience with the cardiac output method. Just stick with his recommendations (duration, frequency and especially heart rates) and you'll be fine. When you start getting into some of his other aerobic methods (threshold, HICT, etc.), you might start running into recovery problems if you don't plan properly.

My cardiac output article

[Donald Lee]

Thanks for writing the article Ryan. I'm wondering, do you think your left ventricular volume would have stretched further if you were not lifting weights?

James,

I hope I'm not misunderstanding you, but steady state work usually refers to jogging. If you're out of shape or are carrying Brock Lesnar-like muscle mass, then you'd be walking. I cannot get my heart rate very high by walking unless I exert myself a lot (i.e., speed walking) or am wearing a heavy pack.

[Allen Yeh]

Ryan,

Interesting article, I haven't read up on Joel Jamison or his method at all so I'll take a look at the website you mentioned.

A synopsis of your method for the 9 weeks, lifting and then:
2 days of 1 hour walking or stair climbing getting up to 120
Added 1 day jogging to get up to ~140 and then walking until 120 and repeating. eventually pushing this to 150 and walking until 135

I'm curious what type of exertion you had for those time periods? Was the walking a very fast paced walk? When you started doing the 140 BPM jog do you have any mile/minute estimations? i.e. 8min/mile pace during the jogs...etc

[Ryan Hagenbuch]

Originally Posted by Donald Lee

Thanks for writing the article Ryan. I'm wondering, do you think your left ventricular volume would have stretched further if you were not lifting weights?

Possibly, but it's hard to say for sure. Most of the LV improvement comes after the first few months of training, but I'm pretty sure my years of weights and high intensity intervals probably decreased the elasticity to some degree.

[Ryan Hagenbuch]

Originally Posted by Allen Yeh

Ryan,

Interesting article, I haven't read up on Joel Jamison or his method at all so I'll take a look at the website you mentioned.

A synopsis of your method for the 9 weeks, lifting and then:
2 days of 1 hour walking or stair climbing getting up to 120
Added 1 day jogging to get up to ~140 and then walking until 120 and repeating. eventually pushing this to 150 and walking until 135

I'm curious what type of exertion you had for those time periods? Was the walking a very fast paced walk? When you started doing the 140 BPM jog do you have any mile/minute estimations? i.e. 8min/mile pace during the jogs...etc

I lifted 2x/week followed by cardiac output work and did a third, longer day of just CO work.

I started by walking and then started jogging until I hit upper limit of heart rate and then walked until I hit lower limit of heart rate, repeating until I put my time in. Eventually I would run/walk.

The exertion level was not very high and if I had to do the workout again right after, I would have been able to.

Unfortunately when I did this, I was using a cheap HR monitor that only gave HR and time. I had no idea what my pace was, but like I said, the exertion level wasn't very high and this work was/is very refreshing. Since then I got a Garmin GPS HR monitor and in about an hour I usually cover about 5 miles.

Since I have no interest in becoming an endurance athlete, I have since cut back on this doing 30-45 minutes 3x/week using either my airdyne or jogging after my weight training since this is what my schedule allows.

For the cadiac output work, it doesn't matter what activity you do, as long as you keep your heart rate at 120-150. At times I did bodywt exercise circuits, kettlebell work, or stairs if the weather wasn't nice or I didn't feel like walking. Most of my work was walking/jogging.

A simpler method I now use to stay in the aerobic range is the Maffetone formula.
180 - your age, (for me 142 HR). Don't go above that HR.

Again this is just for my goals. Different goals would require different planning obviously.

[Joe Hart]

Ryan,

Thanks for posting the article. It was interesting and helpful to figuring out what I was thinking.

[Ryan Hagenbuch]

Joel wrote 2 articles about the importance of cardiac output training that you may want to check out. He said his heart rate recommendations from the article (second one) were meant for the general population, not athletes.

Understanding the Cardiovascular System, Part 1

Cardiovascular System Training Principles, Part 2

[Anton Emery]

I have been reading Joel's book, and asked him about KB's on his board. Dont have a sled right at CF Portland, no spin bikes, etc. I forget his protocol, the one where you get your HR up as high as you can for 12 sec, then recover. I figured HR is HR, so i used a 70lb kettlebell for swings. Seemed to work well enough, according to my HR monitor.

At the moment i finished the general endurance block and am about to move onto general strength. I have been trying to incorporate this all into my BJJ practice, which is 3x a week. Does anyone know if Joel suggests 3x additional S&C workouts along with combat sport practice, or should one mix some of these modalities in with your sporting practice? I probably need to go back and look at the book.


Anton