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strength

Rest Time

February 18th, 2009 | Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments
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So you’ve just squeezed out another set. You’re feeling strong. Strong like bull. Pretty soon, your body is telling you it’s ready to go again; so you do. And so on. Nothing wrong here, right? Probably not, but – depending on what your goals are – there may also be an abject lack of anything right.

When it comes to rest periods, I see most people to be divided into two basic camps: those who adhere to a schedule and those who don’t. Even magazines like Men’s Health tell you that it takes 3-5 minutes to replenish ATP stores (of course, they usually gloss over where this is appropriate), so some people stick with those numbers – typically on the low-end. Other people hate sitting aroud and will pretty much lift again as soon as they think they can. I feel an example coming on . . .

We’ll take two guys with identical workout plans in terms of exercise selection and order. Guy A is sticking with the magazine-recommended rest period. Guy B hates sitting around, so he’s keeping things around a minute. Who’s right, who’s wrong?

“Both. Neither. Shit. Is this a trick question?”

Longer rest periods lend themselves better to strength development, so if Guy A has selected an appropriate intensity (something he can do five reps of or less ), his seemingly leisurely pace will pay off in an ability to lift those heavy-ass weights for multiple sets.

Shorter rest periods lend themselves better to conditioning or hypertrophy (I’ll leave the conditioning stuff for a future article). So if Guy B has decided to prioritize getting bigger, then he’d doing the right thing.

But wait! What if Guy A is lifting (relatively) light weights (say, something he can do more than 10 reps of)? Well, there’s a very simple answer to that: he’s making poor use of his time in the gym.

And what if Guy B is lifting heavy weights (something he can do no more than five reps of)? The forecast is no better.

The reason for Guy A’s inefficiency is that he’s not utilizing an intensity that maximizes strength. Don’t get me wrong; he’ll probably get stronger, just at a much slower pace than he could be. The truth is that he doesn’t need that much recovery time – his lifts just aren’t intense enough. Yet, at the same time, he’s not stimulating his muscles enough to faciliate much in the way of adaptive changes, so he won’t be putting on much size either. To sum up, Guy A is taking way too long to accomplish way too little.

Over to Guy B. The reason for his inefficiency is that even though the weights he’s selected are fine, he’s not resting long enough to be able to lift them repeatedly. In theory, this means he’ll fail at every set after his first. In practice, this usually translates to him dropping enough weight to lift again within his desired time period. And while this will help him put on some size, this may not be his goal . . . Especially if he’s a competitor trying to stay under a certain weight.

Is there a moral here? Yes. It’s that you need to examine your goals before you determine how long you should be resting.

Let’s make it easy and organize things according to goal

Objective                                Intensity                           Rest Period

Strength                                   <6 reps                             3-5 minutes

Strength/size                            6-8 reps                             2-4 minutes

Size/strength                            8-12 reps                           2-3 minutes

Strength endurance                 12-20 reps                           1-2 minutes

While this is far from being an all-inclusive list in terms of approaches and rest periods (among other things, it assumes a standard lifting cadence), it does provide a good general guideline for those sticking with the basics in terms of lifting. Here’s to not spending any more time in the gym than you need to!

A Big, Tough Baby: why MMA conditioning is in its infancy

February 17th, 2009 | Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments
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When it comes to most sport-specific training, knowing the position of a player is generally enough for a basic plan. In football, an elite-level offensive lineman, for example, will be expected to weigh in between 280 and 330 lbs, demonstrate decent relative strength, explosive starts, excellent footwork and great agility. Done and done. Training them for performance may not be easy, but it is relatively straightforward. You’re working with a specific body type and set of attributes. Not so for MMA athletes.

While the first UFC introduced MMA to North America in 1993, it’s only been over the past few years that it’s began to gain widespread attention as a sport. It’s still young enough that we see a wide range of natural physical ability (with world-class genetics still being the exception, not the rule). Likewise, the sport-specific training necessary to maximize MMA performance is still a veritable baby. Training methodologies from Olympic lifting, wrestling, powerlifting, boxing and many more have infiltrated the scene. However, the best way to string things together is a challenge that no one seems to completely agree on. There’s a good reason for that: strength and conditioning for MMA is more challenging – and more complex — than for any other sport.

What makes training MMA athletes so different? The sheer number of variables for starters. Let’s break it down a bit.

Physical Base

Before we even get started, we’re going to have to look at an athlete’s physical status. A lot of people assume that you should jump right ahead to maximizing existing physical attributes. What’s missing from that equation, however, is a hard look at injury prevention. The truth is that sports generally emphasize certain attributes out of proportion to others. Are you a boxer? You’re doing a lot more pushing (that is to say moving your hands away from your body) than pulling. Are you a boxer that works behind desk (slumped shoulders and all)? Well, guess what? Before we get to even more of the same, we’re going to have to counterbalance both your training and lifestyle factors. That means increasing range of motion and balancing strength in all planes. That’s assuming that there aren’t existing injuries to rehab on top of everything else.

Mobility and injury prevention/recovery don’t make a lot of highlight reels, but they’re an essential foundation. Once established, they’ll contribute to the lifetime of an athlete by minimizing breaks in training due to injury. Only with this base can an athlete really begin to make dramatic improvements in their sport-specific performance.

Technical Base

Is our fighter starting out with a set of technical skills specific to a particular sport? What physical attributes are worth emphasizing and maintaining? What types of motor patterning have to be revamped? How can we assist this process? For example, if we were working with someone with a wrestling background, we may wish to emphasize maximal power through a range of motion that synchs up with their go-to takedowns and throws. However, we may find them working from a deficit in the area of striking. Perhaps they have persistent difficulty in not leaving their punches hanging in mid-air. An over-emphasis on pulling (from maximal to power-oriented) in the same plane may help them overcome unfamiliar or unnatural movements. However, it’s a fairly delicate matter when it comes to deciding whether a temporary diversion from a fighter’s primary gameplan will be worth the time and effort in the long-term.

Physical development

A fighter’s technical development typically sets the pace for strength and conditioning. Sometimes, though – just like in judo – things (and people) get flipped on their heads. We occasionally find that the physical attributes of an athlete are substantial enough to supersede previous technical gameplans; instead, it becomes worthwhile to maximize development of a specific attribute and adapt their game to that. A good example is Georges St. Pierre’s transition into wrestling. Although his background was in Kyokoshin karate and Brazilian jiu jitsu, he demonstrated a natural explosiveness that arguably lent itself best to wrestling. Continuing to emphasize this aspect of his conditioning, his coaches also made wrestling an increasingly important part of his game. In this case, St. Pierre’s technical skill set changed substantially to emphasize his physical abilities.

Technical development

What new skills are we going to need to develop? What kind of base do we need to ensure that the upcoming stages of technical training can be carried out safely and efficiently? Energy system training will set an initial base for injury prevention by staving off fatigue, as will adequate pre-habilitiation work. However, it’s strength training that can truly help bridge the gap when it comes to developing and perfecting new technical skills.

Weight Classes

Listening to commentary on an MMA event, a friend once asked, “What does it mean when they say a fighter is a big 170? It’s like saying he’s a tall 5 foot 10.” The difference is that while a fighter’s height won’t change between weigh-in and the beginning of a fight, their weight can change substantially. And while standard practices are a debate all their own, it’s known that there’s an art to making weight. Many fighters have fallen to technically inferior opponents who surpassed them in maintaining their strength and conditioning through the weight cutting (and re-gaining) process. It’s absolutely essential to manage a fighter’s weight and minimize any diminishment in strength or conditioning between the time they stand on the scales and set foot into the ring.

Short-term competition strategy

For an MMA athlete, the ever-present question is, “Who am I fighting next?” The answer can mean dramatic changes in training approach. I’ll use a fighter we’re currently training as an example. We’ll call him “Roman McGnomey” (look: I’m making up the names and that’s the name I made up!) Roman has a brawler’s approach to stand-up striking with a good ground and pound strategy. He has a lesser emphasis on takedowns and grappling. His next opponent’s primary strength is as a wrestler. In many respects this is a bad match-up for him. His opponent’s technical strengths neutralize many of his own. Without getting into too much detail, our job is to minimize the likelihood of Roman a) getting taken down and b) being kept down.

When we look at what we’re capable of in the short-term, we have to be pragmatic. Outworking a conditioned athlete within their comfort zone is unlikely. Instead, we want to maximize our figher’s performance in the areas that his opponent is weakest in. From a technical perspective, we can make some educated guesses about where and how opportunities will appear. From a strength and conditioning perspective, we want to facilitate getting to these situations and then emphasize the energy system appropriate to them.

Clearly, strength and conditioning can’t be performed in a vaccum. Strength coaches need to be in regular contact with instructors to determine what approaches will work best. Refinement of these approaches is an ongoing process that requires a lot of evaluation and communication.

Long-term competition strategy

In theory, a long-term approach should be straightforward. In practice, there are a lot of issues that interfere with this. Where is a fighter ultimately going? Their next fight doesn’t always have a lot to do with that goal. We’re frequently faced with the question of how far we’re willing to veer off track from our long-term gameplan. From a fight-to-fight perspective, this can be substantial. As such, we sometimes have to make some hard choices – from turning down a fight to showing up at less-than-peak condition. Technical development, physical development and all the hard-to-predict factors (from workload and lifestyle to injuries and changing coaches or teams) all have a substantial impact.

Summary

Truth be told, when I started this article, I was planning on giving a way more generic overview of sport-specific training for MMA (and why it’s so god-damned complicated). However, what I quickly realized that I — along with our other trainers — make it that complicated. Certainly, it’s possible to hand someone some weights (or a tire, for that matter) and tell them to go as hard as they can for as long as they can. Lord knows plenty of people do. And while going balls-out may feel right (that is to say adequately hard), it’s an approach that misses out on a whole lot of stuff. The details above, despite barely scratching the surface, should give you a sense of what some of that stuff is.

Geoff

Strength Without Size: A Primer for Women Afraid of Getting Bulky

December 10th, 2008 | Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off
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Part 1

The first thing I want to tell you is that this article is for women. I am — in case you’re wondering — a man. I hope that’s cool. I’m writing this because you’ve come to this site looking for advice on strength and conditioning (or maybe just getting “toned”), but may not really believe that lifting heavy things will help you. You may actually think that doing so will make you bulky, unfeminine or some other terrible thing. I want you to be clear on what proper training will and won’t do. And I want you to maximize your potential.

Staying weak because of how it might make you look is the same as staying illiterate for fear of appearing nerdy. Stop it. You’re better than that.

I see you made it to the third paragraph. Welcome! This is the part where I tell you that women have somehow been sold a false bill of goods when it comes to working out. Guys certainly have their own douchebag idiosyncrasies, but that’s for another article at another time. In this one, I’m going to tell you that high reps with very low weight do not “tone.” They do not strengthen. They pretty much just waste your time. Below I’ll provide details for some of the things that do not waste your time. If you want to know why flapping your arms around with purple dumbbells is not typically helpful, you should be able to do the math on your own by the end of our magical journey.

I don’t have the space (translate: patience) here to detail an approach to every possible physical goal, so I’m going to focus on the following:

  1. Looking better naked

  2. Getting stronger

  3. Not gaining unwanted muscle

I am going to help you with the items above. But before I do, there is another list of things that we need to be clear on:

  1. Lifting heavy things is essential for maximizing strength

  2. Looking better naked can be achieved far more efficiently if you’re already strong

  3. It’s possible to get strong without significant gains in size

  4. Being strong is, in fact, pretty awesome

Now is the time for you to get over any pictures of female bodybuilders you may have been unintentionally scarred by. These women don’t look masculine because of strength training; they look masculine — first and foremost — because they take male hormones. Don’t want to look masculine? Don’t take androgens. It’s pretty simple.

Even if you’re not a fan of bodybuilders, it’s an insult to all their hard work to think that you might look anything like them without years of ungodly dedication, unwavering adherence to programs specifically designed for size gain, great genetics and (most likely) some unnatural supplementation. Without embracing the lifestyle wholeheartedly, the closest you’re ever likely to get will be a bad spray-on tan. So, put that stuff out of your head.

This may come as a bit of a surprise, but most people who train for performance (aka athletes) don’t actually want to put on size. With a few notable exceptions, carrying unneeded muscle around makes about as much sense as strapping a car engine to the back of your bicycle. So instead of packing new muscle onto to their bodies, athletes make the most of what they already have. In other words, they get stronger by becoming more efficient. Like most good training, this involves fine-tuning the nervous system.

To give you an idea of how nervous system-focused work impacts strength development, I’m about to drop science on you like a clumsy chemist, so if your eyes are going to glaze over, just skip the next section. If not, here we go…

the science of strength

Signals from your brain travel from your spinal column into motor neurons. Motor neurons connect to multiple muscle fibers. This little assembly is called a motor unit. Bear in mind that multiple motor units comprise any given muscle. If your brain is the boss and your muscle fibers are workers, then motor units are middle managers – overseeing numerous team members. If one of them isn’t working, then their entire team (in this case, the entire group of muscle fibers) won’t work. There’s no halfway here; it’s all or nothing.

In an untrained person, motor unit recruitment is generally pretty lackluster. The brain will send out the signal for a certain movement (the ubiquitous biceps curl, for example), but only about half of the motor units assigned to that movement will be activated. By tapping into these dormant muscle fibers, we are able significantly increase strength with a minimum of outward change. Cool, no? It’s kind of like discovering a superpower. Before we start jumping over buildings, though, we need to understand why so much strength has been lying dormant within you.

To further stretch out an already fatigued analogy, your middle managers have been taking three-hour lunch breaks for years and no one has even noticed. Why? There’s been no need for adaptation. If you don’t consistently challenge your muscles with enough weight to require full recruitment, this adaptation will never occur. No heavy weight with any consistency = no need to lift heavy weight. It’s simple.

If we truly want to get stronger, we’re going to change the way we do things. Especially if we want to put down the purple dumbbells and reap the benefits of powerful, efficient workouts. Since the progression of motor unit recruitment (what gets turned on first) follows the transition from light stuff to heavy stuff, to access the whole workforce, we’re going to need something heavy. How heavy? The research tells us 80% or more of capacity (what you can lift for one repetition). In absolute terms, this translates to a big difference between, say, what a mighty lumberjack can lift vs. a self-cutting emo vegan. However, in relative terms, both should find their respective loads to be extremely challenging. Remember this: no matter who you are, these workouts will be tough. Strong people don’t get off any easier.

“Wait. Wait! Wait! Wait! How can all this not make my muscles bigger?”

Okay, I’m not going to lie to you. If you are weak and have never done any real strength training, you will see some adaptations pretty quickly. For example, you’ll need stronger forearms just to hold onto enough weight. Listen. Please. The gains you’ll experience will not be linear. They will not continue forever. Do not freak out about them or delude yourself into thinking that you will turn into She-Hulk overnight. Unless your mom and dad were both Olympic shot-putters or you gained superpowers in a freak atomic accident, the odds are far, far lower than you think. Far lower.

“Are you sure I won’t get bigger after this initial period of adaptation?”

Emphasizing or de-emphasizing size gains comes down to the following factors:

  • Caloric surplus: If you don’t exceed your daily caloric needs, you will not have the raw material to build new muscle. Although it’s rare to meet a female athlete who takes in enough protein anyway, suffice it to say that if you’re getting less than a gram of protein per pound of bodyweight per day (what is, in my opinion, the minimum required for maintenance), Ms. Olympia will not be calling.

  • Density: Two parts here:

    • Trying to lift maximal loads while fatigued is kind of like practicing chess while drunk. After months — even years — of this approach, you will still suck. As such, it’s essential to ensure that ATP (the fuel for muscular contraction within the cell) is completely replenished before you lift. This process takes between four and five minutes so I’ll give you some details on how to best make use of your downtime in Part 2 of this article.

    • Most of the stresses responsible for hypertrophy (increased muscle size) come from creating a stressful intracellular environment. Lowered PH (more acidity) and increased accumulation of waste products impair performance. Your body will respond by increasing its capacity to restore balance. It’s these adaptations that are largely responsible for size. So, to avoid them, you need to avoid stresses. By sticking with rest periods long enough to facilitate full ATP recovery, you will have also waited long enough for the cell environment to normalize.
  • Volume: Once again, the root of adaptation is stress. There are a number of peripheral factors (including the degree of damage inflicted on your muscles) that will accumulate in spite of lengthened rest times. To avoid these, we’ll reign total volume in somewhere between 24 and 30 total reps (that’s the total number for all sets of any given exercise). We’ll get into actual set numbers in Part 2.
  • Intensity: As stated above, we need loads in excess of 80% of our single-rep maximum for neurological improvement. You don’t need to be scared of big weights, but you need to be respectful and train safely.
  • Tempo: There’s a lot to be said for slow, controlled reps. I emphasize these for beginners because of what they bring to the table in terms of coordination and control. With those skills as a prerequisite, people training for performance, not size, should move fast. How fast? If we go by Canadian strength coach Charles Poliquin’s recipe for hypertrophy as being 30-70 seconds of time under tension, then having the total time for your set come in at under 30 seconds will be fine. For the type of lower-rep sets that we’ll be getting into, a fast lift and controlled eccentric (lowering) motion will be more than enough to ensure this.
  • Training frequency: Since training your nervous system for strength is similar to practicing a fine motor skill, there’s only one way to get to Carnegie Hall. Instead of practicing scales, though, you’re going to squat, deadlift, press and pull. The low volume of your workouts will help minimize the accumulated factors that contribute to hypertrophy.

Do you feel better? Do you at least believe that you can add strength without size? I hope so. There’s not a whole lot more that needs to be said. However, you may still have some questions about how heavy weights relate to looking hotter. Fair enough.

It’s like this: the amount of energy you expend correlates directly to the total amount of work you do. If you are so weak that you can only move itty-bitty weights and your fastest sprint is a lame jog then your workout productivity will be limited and you will be sad. However, if you are so strong that you can move great big weights and that your fastest sprint can blister the paint off of nearby houses, your workout productivity will be great and you will rejoice. In practical terms, when strong people perform energy-intensive work, they get more done in the same amount of time. These workouts are not easier, but they are superior.

Put into the framework of circuit training (performing groups of exercises), your strength development will translate into highly effective workouts that absolutely blow any kind of low-weight, high-rep program out of the water. Instead of performing bad cardio with minimal strength gain, you will be stronger and leaner in less time. You will develop the kind of muscle tone you’ve always wanted with strength to go along with it (surpass it, actually). Most importantly, you will begin your transformation into a bad-ass.

This concludes Part 1 of this article. We’ve gone over all the conceptual stuff. I’m hoping that any remaining questions you have pertain to the nitty gritty of working out. We’ll get to those details in Part 2.