Valour Fitness Guernsey

Conditioning done right – Part 2️⃣

Lactic capacity intervals

What are they?

This modality of interval training is designed to improve your ability to tolerate the by-products of anaerobic metabolism that build up when you spend extended periods of time around your lactate threshold.

When your body breaks down sugar to produce energy for the work you’re performing it leads to the production of something called lactate. When high intensity exercise is sustained for a period of time that is beyond the rate your body can clear the by-products of lactate production (the burning horrible feeling people think of as lactic acid but is actually this accumulation of hydrogen ions that impair muscle contractions) this is the point you’ve reached this lactate threshold.

Who are they good for?

400 and 800 meter runners, MMA fighters, general population looking for fat loss conditioning style training. Anyone that has a sport or activity that requires then to produce energy in a fatigued state.

How do you perform them?

90 - 120 seconds of work followed by incomplete recovery of 60 to 120 seconds. You can still get the benefits of this method by extending the total work time of a circuit but still having short rests in between each exercise (example in the video) The KEY point with these intervals is the incomplete recovery and complete fatigue (at the end of your programmed session) in order to get the full benefit.

Example 1 - Middle distance runner 90 second Sprints at 800 meter pace followed by walking recovery for 60 seconds.

Example 2 – Rower – Row @ 90% max pace x 200 meters then recover by rowing 200 meters @ 40% pace

Example 3 - General gym goer – Fat Loss focus – A1) Narrow stance belt squat x 12 reps @ 4 sec eccentric (for all exercises) A2) Incline Swiss bar chest press with chains A3) Hamstring sliders prone curl A4) Overhand pull up

Example 4 – Strongman style – Standing log clean + press x 10 reps @ 50% 1 RM / Hand over hand rope pull x 40 secs / Yoke carry x 40 secs (no rest between each exercise) Rest for 60 seconds and repeat

Conditioning done right – Part 1️⃣

CARDIAC POWER INTERVALS

Who is this for?

You should really have a good grounding in other conditioning methods before trying this as it’s pretty intense and because of that can’t be done for long periods of time. MMA fighters would be highly benefit from this type of training but also sports like short distance swimming (especially where you would swim twice or more as part of a medley).

What will it improve?

The ability of your heart to work at higher intensities for longer which allows improved oxygen supply to the working muscles. The go It will also improve your ability to do this repeatedly, especially important for sports that require repeated bouts (or rounds) of high intensity work.
NB – It’s worth noting that this method is essentially achieving a very similar adaptation to a cardiac output (think 40-90 minutes steady state cardio) where the goal is to increase how much blood the heart can pump with each beat, but does so by increasing the size of the left ventricular cavity whereas a cardiac power intervals improve how ‘forcefully’ the heart contracts with each beat.

How do you perform it ?

Work up to your maximum heart rate over 1-2 minutes and then take enough time for your heart rate to drop back down to 120-130 BPM. To start with your recovery is likely to be 1:2 – 1:4 work to rest, so don’t rush back in until your heart rate has dropped back down.

Rather than spending 2 minutes sat purely on an exercise bike I prefer to keep the exercises I use as specific to the goal in question (when I can) As long as you work your heart rate up over the 1-2 minutes and spend at least 30 seconds in the power zone (this is based on your individual HR zones) anything goes with regards to exercise selection.

Example 1️⃣ - Strongman style🏋️‍♂️ - Axle clean and press x 8 reps – Farmer carry x 60 meters – Sled push + drag combo x 60 meters

Example 2️⃣ – Crossfit style - Barbell thruster x 10 – Burpee over barbell x 15 – Treadmill sprint 30 secs

Example 3️⃣ – General gym goer conditioning day 🏃 – Bike x 16 cals / KB Swing x 12 / Ski Erg x 8 cals

I N N E R A T H L E T E

Last chance to sign up to the first 8 week block of the inner athlete strength and power development program.

The first 4 weeks will focus on building strength and technical proficiency in the core lifts, introducing jump training and more explosive work, all with a healthy dose of practical carryover core training.

The last 4 weeks will develop power specifically towards improving vertical jump height, short burst sprint speed and pressing strength plateaus.

This program is geared towards improving all abilities of trainee. If you're able to commit to 3 sessions a week and work hard over 8 weeks you'll be able to seriously improve your raw power.

A snippet of my own training

Heavier Upper body day

This day is a lower volume higher intensity day following the Westside style conjugate of 2 heavier CNS days followed by the higher volume lower CNS demand days.

1️⃣Snatch grip high pull from the hang 6x2 (3x2 at 85%)

Less technical than a sn**ch, or even high pull from the floor, I personally find this movement does a great job at ramping up my nervous system for the heavy pressing. I want to keep the pull portion fast and think about pushing my hips through the bar, so although this is thought of as an upper body focused exercise the hamstrings and glutes have to forcefully extend to assist the movement.

2️⃣ Axle bar press – Ramped up to a 3RM

Final set 77 x 3

I haven’t overhead pressed for a little while as have been focusing on other movements. Having a phase of training that moves away from a movement (whilst still not departing that movement altogether) is highly effective at avoiding plateauing. The theory of adaptive resistance (in this context) could be thought of as not progressing in a movement as you’ve been doing it for so long. Specificity is important, but knowing when to switch exercises will help long term progress.

3️⃣ Incline DB Press with 65% of 8 RM

The aim here was get 50 reps in 3 sets. It's nice to use the heightened nervous system activation from the overhead press to carryover to a lighter and easier (but still similar) movement in the incline press.

4️⃣A) Weighted Chin up (3x3 with a 5 second top pause)

Pause reps focus you to get stronger at the toughest portion of the lift. Every rep needs to count here, especially as I only did 9 in total.

4️⃣B) JM Press – 3x8-10

The JM press helps to develop strength in the anconeus, a lateral tricep muscle that specifically relates to pressing strength, in particular with horizontal pressing movements like the bench.

5️⃣A) Axle bar curl 3x15

A curl variation, nothing too specific here apart from the fact that the thicker bar will help to recruit a little more in the way of forearm muscles.

5️⃣B Iso partial Lateral raise walk – weights held out to the side. 3x60 meters

Inner Athlete

The testing day (well part of)

Improvements in vertical jump height is going to be a big part of this program. We are going to test a squat jump (a lowering followed by a 3 second pause to jump) and a counter movement jump (a rapid decent to jump without a pause) using a jump mat.

Although we’d generally expect a CMJ to be higher because of the power stretch reflex of the stretch shortening cycle, comparison between the SJ and CMJ provide valuable insight into the trainee and the path the need to follow to see the quickest improvements in jump height.

Someone that possesses a good level of strength but poor ability to transfer this strength into a jump may find that their SJ is actually as high, or even higher as their CMJ. This person would benefit from incorporating more plyometrics and speed strength work to develop the elastic and coordination capacities that they are lacking.

On the opposite end of the spectrum someone that possessed reversed qualities (drop off in their SJ compared with CMJ) would need to work on improving strength characteristics such as maximal strength and strength speed training.

Finding out what to improve is one thing, but executing this correctly is as important. To fully improve a specific quality you need to know when to push and when to back off.

When performing a set of speed squats we use a velocity based device that will measure the bar speed. For example someone that is relatively explosive might adhere to the following numbers for the squat:

Dynamic Day – Strength-Speed – 0.75 – 1.0 meters per second

If the speed drops down before 0.75 meters per second we know that we’re now going to be training a different quality to the one we want and therefore not what we want.

Data gives direction. Power training is about quality, so knowing when to listen to your body rather than your ego is important for continued success.

Message to find out more