It’s hard to believe that summer adventure season is almost here already! But once again our intrepid Breakthrough Adventure Team will launch a cardio and strength-endurance-focused training cycle to prepare for a another wilderness trek; this time to reach a waterfall in beautiful Point Mugu State Park. The quick-peaking program will take full advantage of our special cardiovascular training methods using heart rate monitors, metronomes, and even mini indoor obstacle courses!
The principles we apply for this type of training might seem counter-intuitive to many hard-working athletes in that working more efficiently is prioritized over working “harder.” This paradigm helps us noticeably increase our endurance capabilities in the span of just one month! For those interested in finding out more as to how we accomplish this, here’s a snapshot of what’s “under the hood” in this training engine.
- “A training session should contain no more than three training modalities (usually one dominant, the second one compatible with the main purpose and the third one a modality of technique/tactic improvement or restoration.) Approximately 65%-70% of total training time of the developing program should be devoted to one or two training modalities.” – Dr. Vladimir Issurin, coordinator of the Elite Sport Department of the Israeli Olympic Committee
Heeding this good advice, three training modalities will be used for our adventure prep. To toughen up the team for the rigors of hiking, several sets of continuous step ups superset with Turkish Get-Ups, will be employed as our primary training modality. Powerful bursts of short, hard intervals with heaver loads or more challenging exercises (ie. KB swings, explosive push ups etc.) will be used as a secondary one, and for our third modality we’ll include just enough strength maintenance; emphasizing stability and balance training for technical skills improvement and joint restoration. This triangle of modalities will also be used to diversify our energy output into maximal, near-maximal, and sub-maximal sets, keeping the training sessions results-focussed but uncomplicated and always fun!
- “Repetition of the same stimuli is the main condition for triggering adaptive reactions.” – F.B Vashlyaev, Ural State University of Physical Culture, Chelyabinsk
The step up and Turkish Get-Up protocol will be repeated on two of our three weekly training days, providing plenty of repetitions with the same stimuli to trigger a positive adaptation. The improvements from step up training carry over quite well to hiking, of course, and the get-ups will vary the experience just enough to allow for a more full-bodied movement practice.
- “A Rest Interval = By its end, the athlete’s work capacity approaches the level before the previous exercise bout to the point where neither the quality nor the quantity suffer.” – Strong Endurance (StrongFirst, School of Strength)
And here lies one of the real “secret weapons” that can make all the difference for strength endurance work. Training to a very specific and individually customized level of exertion that minimizes the body’s acidity levels, but doesn’t avoid acidity entirely. Rest intervals governed by heart rate data for all sets of our program will ensure ample aerobic recovery so that each bout of exercise can burst again into anaerobic ranges when called upon to do so without sacrificing any technique or number of reps. We’re shooting for pronounced fatigue, but never too much acidity. Avoiding work that is too hard is the real game-changer!
So what exactly do we mean when we say that we might be training “too hard?” Well, in this case it comes down to a bit of body chemistry. Simply put, human beings do not tolerate a state of high acidity very well. Medical research has revealed that many of our health problems might be exacerbated by the consequences of our internal body chemistry becoming overly acidic. It would seem that our internal processes perform better in a more neutral (alkaline) environment. Complications arise when we are exposed to high levels of stress. Vigorously contracting skeletal muscle (as in physical training) under low oxygen conditions (as in getting out of breath) puts the body’s cells under oxidative stress.
Oxidative stress creates a chemical reaction within our cells (the transfer of electrons) which causes acidity levels in the blood to rise. While low levels of this reactive oxygen species (ROS) can trigger positive metabolic adjustments (i.e.. more powerful mitochondria in the cells of our muscles), excessive amounts of this chemical reaction can wreak havoc; compromising the function of our mitochondria, which are the energy production centers within our cells.
As such, the overuse of hard bursts of exercise with compromised rest periods in our physical training regimen can stop doing us any good and start damaging our bodies at the cellular level. We should be doing some training that makes us get out of breath, of course, but we just shouldn’t be doing this excessively. The trick is to appropriately throttle the intensity of our training along with adequate rest periods to allow our chemical processes to effectively buffer the acidity levels in the blood.
To get a little deeper on this topic, it helps to understand that the body’s energy system which causes much of the chemical difficulty is called glycolysis. This is when sugars are broken down to be used as a quick source of energy while we’re low on oxygen. During this reaction, pyruvic acid is created. While we do want some of this going on, too much training in this glycolytic state can cause cellular damage and prevent progress. With the help of heart rate monitors and some clever calculations to set specific thresholds for work and rest intervals, we know how to make careful use of this energy system and avoid abusing it too much. So what does all this mean to an athlete? It means less training discomfort (provoking a less acidic response in the body) and better physical endurance, recovery and overall health. This specialized anti-glycolitic training also stimulates the production of stronger mitochondria which might even help us slow down the aging process!
At Breakthrough Strength & Fitness, we’re all about training that develops a wide range of athletic qualities, with an emphasis on power, while minimizing fatigue, soreness and leaving plenty of energy for other pursuits. The Adventure Team’s programming is designed according to this master plan, and we couldn’t be happier with the results. Training not just for its own sake, but rather physical preparedness in service of living a more adventurous, healthy lifestyle; now that’s an exciting perspective to have on how to use the gym. Hope you can join us on our next adventure!