I’m just finishing up Joel Jamieson‘s book Ultimate MMA Conditioning, and as I’ve mentioned in a previous post, it’s definitely an eye opener for me. There are many things about conditioning that I thought I understood well, and now I’m just starting to rethink everything. And to be honest, it goes far beyond just the conditioning part of training. I’m starting to rethink some of the strength stuff as well.
Ever since I read the Ultimate Off-Season Training Manual from Eric Cressey and after I interned at Robert Morris University a few years ago, I was seeing max strength as the answer to pretty much everything; if athletes just got stronger, everything else would just fall into place. I still think that max strength is a very important part of an athlete’s training program, and has profound effects on speed, power and agility. But I’m starting to realize that it’s not all…
With that focus on max strength, the emphasis is mostly on improving the efficiency of the nervous system, increasing the activation of the fast-twitch muscle fibers and recruiting more motor units. All of these effects are very important for any athlete if they want to improve their performance. And this is mostly how we usually see strength training; it’s all about the nervous system, the muscle fibers and everything in between.
What we, myself included, too often fail to consider is the energy systems part of the equation. And I’m not talking about how we condition our athletes. I’m talking about the implication of the energy systems in strength training. There is indeed a big neural and muscle fiber effect that comes from strength training, but there is also a energy system effect. Even if it’s not conditioning in it’s traditional form, your body still need to produce the energy necessary to lift the weights. When we lift weights and train for max strength, the anaerobic alactic system is going to be the one that is used primarily, which also means that we don’t have to worry too much about oxygen utilization, the number of mitochondrias in the muscle and that kind of stuff…..but that’s for one set of one exercise.
What happens when we run out of stored ATP after one set in the anaerobic alactic system? Your body needs to recover and regenerate that source of energy while you rest. And how does that happen? Because you’re resting and the demands on your body are fairly low until you start your following set, this recovery process will happen through the aerobic system. Now can you see where I’m going with this?
This is just one example to show you that your energy systems, and especially your aerobic system are involved in strength training even if you don’t think about it. Not because we’re using weights means no energy system work is happening. There is not a clear line between strength work and conditioning. There is some overlap, just like there is some overlap between each energy system when you condition AND when you strength train.
Think about the implication this can have on your max strength and ensuing effect it’s gonna have in the practice of your sport. Training for max strength is going to improve the efficiency of your nervous system and increase the percentage of fast twitch muscle fibers activation. But if you don’t realize the importance of the aerobic system in the recovery process after short bouts of intense activity (a.k.a the use of the anaerobic alactic system), chances are you’ll be performing your first shift (or your first play, your first punch, first set, etc) at a very high intensity and you’ll have an edge over your opponents…..and then it’s gonna go downhill from there until the end of your game, match, etc. because your body will not have been trained to recover quickly. If your body can’t recover as fast as possible every time, your performance will only get worse and worse as your game goes on. Nobody wants that!
This is why understanding the importance and the implication of ALL the energy systems is crucial for your performance or the one of your athletes. And that includes being aware of the implications of the energy systems on strength training and how to maximize the performance and recovery of each one of them.
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Single-leg exercises like reverse lunges, rear foot elevated split squats and 1-leg squats can have great value in a training program as it improves your strength, your stability and your balance on 1 leg, which is the way most sports are played. Whether it is when you run, when you change direction, when you skate (if your sport is played on the ice) or when you decelerate, all of these actions take place on one leg at a time.
For these reasons, single leg exercises might be more “functional” than 2-legs exercises like squats. Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely love squats, but they might not transfer as much as single leg exercises when it comes to developing strength, speed and power in a sport context. You just need to know which one to use and when.
Athletes still need to be able to squat as it is one of the most primitive patterns that the nervous system should control and master at a very young age. You could be surprised to see how many athletes have a hard time squatting properly. It can be because of mobility restrictions, stability or motor control problems, or other reasons, but it’s still a movement that an athlete (and any person as a matter of fact) should own.
If this isn’t textbook form….unfortunately I might lose this skill as he ages
That being said there is a strong neural relationship between single-leg strength and its carryover to sport’s performance. And these can be used as a main lower body lifts just like a squat or a deadlift. On top of being very beneficial in the transfer to sport’s performance, single-leg lifts can be great to reduce spinal loading (because you’re usually using less weight than double leg exercises) and to establish symmetry between both sides. Also everything changes from double leg to single stance; more stabilizer muscles are engaged, core muscle activation is increased and the foot’s proprioception is challenged to a much greater extent.
Even if spinal loading is not as great as with regular squats, you can still get a tremendous effect out of single-leg training and gain a lot of strength. If you’re not convinced, just check out this video of one of our hockey player at Endeavor doing Reverse Lunges with 255 pounds for 6 reps!
Even Coach Jorts from CoachJortsTraining.com can’t squat as much double leg! (barely 225! Pfff, those jorts don’t even make you stronger)
In all seriousness, my friend Kevin Neeld just released his Ultimate Hockey Training book last week and he goes into great details on the benefits of single-leg lifts. Make sure you get a copy; he’s still selling it at the introductory price (less than 35$!!)
Kids are starting to strength train younger and younger these days. Is it a bad thing? Not necessarily. Then, is it a good thing? I’m not sure either. Here’s the thing: despite many old beliefs that have been proven wrong through research, IT IS safe for kids to strength train as young as 6 years old. The fact that it affects growth is a myth, that is if training is done in a safe way and in a supervised environment.
Although it is technically “safe” to do it, does it mean all kids should start lifting weights at 6 years old? I don’t think so. What it comes down to when considering if your kids should start to train or not, is really their mental maturity. Strength training requires a great level of focus and seriousness. If your kid can’t focus focus for 30 seconds straight, how do expect him to be able to perform an exercise the right when he is required to think about keeping his weight on his heels, sitting back, keeping his chest up and keeping his eyes straight ahead, all at the same time?
Strength training at a young age is not so much about getting the kids stronger, as it is to teach them correct movement patterns and to move the right way. Gains in strength will be minimal before puberty anyway. The goal is to have them master those movement patterns, so they can minimize injuries and get stronger at a much faster rate when they’ll hit their puberty. If your kid is weak and slow at 9 years old, chances are he’s going to be weak and slow for a coupe of years. But with proper training that reinforces quality movement, they have a chance of becoming much better athletes when they start to grow.
Might not be as easy as it looks for a kid to master this movement?
Does that mean every kid should start lifting before 10? God no! Like I said, it all depends if the kid is mature enough to enter a weight room, be serious, be focused for an hour and understands that it’s a process that is going to make him better in the long run. And if your kid is not mature enough for it, guess what? IT’S NO BIG DEAL!! Kids are kids and they should have fun! Kids should play different sports and games and acquire as many new athletic abilities as possible through that.
I am a strength coach and I’m training kids as young as 12 years old. I can’t send them home if they want to be there, because if it’s not me training them, it’s going to be someone else. And with the quality of training offered in most sports training places, I’d much rather see them at Endeavor, learning to move well and becoming better athletes than being run through cone drills, and agility ladders until total exhaustion by some dude who doesn’t know what he’s doing. And if they’re not going to train and they don’t want to, it’s fine; let kids be kids, and let’s let them play!
I came across a study yesterday (thanks to my colleague Kevin Neeld) on ice hockey and the relationship of physiological components with actual on-ice performance. Before discussing the results of the study, what I found especially interesting with this specific study is that they were interested in the actual on-ice performance during games. Most studies measuring physiological attributes (such as strength, speed, VO2 max, body fat, etc) usually relate these aspects to on-ice performance, but not very often to actual in-game performance; results will most of the time be compared to on-ice skating speed, endurance and the like.
In this study by Peyer et Al., the physiological measures were compared to in-game performance in the form of plus/minus scores. The characteristics measured were:
Age
Height
Weight
Body mass
Body fat %
VO2 Max
Repeated off-ice speed test (in the form of 12 x 110 meters sprints)
Strength tests (in the form of push ups, chin ups, leg press and bench press)
On-ice speed tests (dot-to-dot, short lightning, and lap sprint)
Plus/minus on the ice during games
A significant correlation was found between the repeated off-ice sprint test, 3 strength tests (chin ups, leg press and bench press) and the plus/minus scores. The players who performed the best on the repeated sprint test and the 3 strength tests had a better plus/minus score. What is equally interesting to me is that body fat percentage and Vo2 max, which are two highly rated and utilized tests in the hockey community, had no relevance whatsoever with actual in-game performance.
Good Predictor of Hockey Performance?
If you’ve been using a no-nonsense approach to training hockey players (prioritizing strength, using an interval-based system for conditioning, etc) you’re probably not very surprised by the results of this study. It’s interesting to me that the research world is actually coming up with concrete results that support and back some of the stuff we’ve been trying to spread in the strength and conditioning world.
It is obvious that there is a need for more research to be done on physiological components and their relation to in-game performance, as this study (like any study out there) has its flaws. The first one is the fact that the study has been done on only one college hockey team (NCAA D-1), so only 24 players were part of the study. In an ideal world we would want a bigger sample of players to contribute to the results. Also, the in-game measure that was used was the plus/minus score of each player. Although the plus/minus score gives a good idea about a player’s offensive and defensive abilities and reflects on-ice performance decently, there are other factors that affect this score. For example, the goalie’s performance can positively or negatively affect the outcome of one player’s plus/minus; if the goalie is really good and allows very few goals during games, even when he faces a lot of shots, it can positively affect a player’s plus/minus score. And the opposite is also true if the goalie is terrible and allows many goals, the plus/minus score will be affected negatively.
In conclusion, this study gives us a good lead on what might be more appropriate tests that actually co-relate to in-game performance and what physiological attributes might be more relevant for hockey players to focus on.
References
Peyer KL, Pivarnik JM, Eisenmann JC, Vorkapich M. (2011). Physiological characteristics of national collegiate athletic association division I ice hockey players and their relation to game performance. Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, 25(5):1183-92.
Lunges are a staple exercise in every single-leg training program. Most of the time it is the first exercise we teach our athletes and clients. It’s a basic exercise, it’s efficient and it’s functional. But one question stands: reverse lunge or forward lunge? Here’s a in-depth comparison of both that should give some answers.
Reverse Lunges
The reverse lunge is usually a better option for beginners. You don’t have to decelerate your body weight as much with your front leg as you do with a forward lunge. Instead you’re stepping back and keeping your weight on your front leg the whole time.
Your body is not traveling forward, so no deceleration, which is part of the eccentric portion of the movement (and the hardest part of the movement to control). Because of that, the eccentric portion (when you go down) is easier with a reverse lunge. On the way up, you’ll need to get a big push with your front leg to push yourself straight up (think of it as being axial loading, referring to the load vectors principle).
You’ll also get a significant push off from your back foot to help propel you forward and come back up in the starting position. Because of the axial loading (straight down) on the front leg and the big push off from the back foot, you can load a reverse lunge a lot more than you can load any other type of lunges, whether it is with dumbbells, with a front squat grip with a barbell or with a back squat grip. It is not uncommon to see beginners go up in weights very quickly with reverse lunges once they’ve mastered the movement. I’ve seen many kids (younger than 16) get up to 70 pounds dumbbells and with 155 pounds on the bar for reverse lunges within 3 months of training.
To recap:
The reverse lunge is easier to learn;
It has more of an axial loading vector;
You can load them up more than other types of lunges.
Forward Lunges
The forward lunge is definitely more difficult to perform, and to master as well, than a reverse lunge. By taking a step forward, you are propelling your body forward, and therefore need to decelerate this forward momentum of your body weight with your front leg from the instant the foot touches the ground and all the way down to the bottom of the movement.
That portion of the movement alone makes a forward lunge a lot more challenging than a reverse lunge. The concentric part (the push off to return to the starting position) is also more challenging. The loading is more postero-anterior (again, referring to the load vectors theory), which means you need to push yourself up and back to return to the starting position.
Your body actually has to travel back to its original position, and therefore you need a big push off with your front leg. Your push off also needs to be quick and powerful if you want to generate enough force to propel your whole body back. Because of that increased need for a quick and powerful action you won’t be able to load a forward lunge as much as a reverse lunge (think of it this way: the heavier the load gets, the harder it is to move it fast. The opposite also being true; the lighter the load, the easier it is to generate force quickly). Another factor that’s going to limit the amount of weight you can use with a forward lunge is the fact that you don’t get much help from your back leg, because you’re actually pushing back. A very important thing to note is that because you can’t load a forward lunge as much as a reverse lunge, doesn’t mean it’s an inferior exercise. The deceleration (or increased eccentric) part of the movement makes it a great exercise to improve decelerative abilities for athletes. Deceleration is a HUGE part of any sport, and crucial in quick transitions and efficient change of directions (athletes need to decelerate fast, and accelerate fast in order to have optimal quickness and agility).
To recap:
The forward lunge is a more challenging exercise than the reverse lunge to perform;
You can’t load it as much;
It has more of a postero-anterior loading vector;
It has a big deceleration component to it;
It’s really effective for athletes to train deceleration.
In conclusion, there is not one exercise better than the other one; just a more appropriate choice depending on who it is for and what you’re trying to accomplish with it. I hope this clarified any confusion that you might have had with this exercise.
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We hear it all the time that athletes should train in a “sport-specific” way. They should perform exercises that are similar to the movements they perform in the practice of their sport, and training programs for different sports should be totally different. I flat out disagree.
We always see athletes performing these fancy exercises in the gym that reproduce the same movement patterns that they perform in playing situations.
Do you SERIOUSLY think this is gonna improve your slap shot just because it looks like it?
This kind of practice is FAR from optimal for a couple of different reasons: first, when you load a movement pattern, you affect the efficiency of it (for example, if you perform an exercise similar to a slap shot with a load, you’ll actually affect your original slap shot pattern, and you’ll be less efficient at performing it on the ice). Second, the more you stress the same structures the exact same way over and over, it will lead to overuse injuries a lot faster. But I digress.
Let’s take a step back for a minute, and consider what every athlete needs. I think it’s fair to say that what any athlete is looking for is speed, power, strength, endurance (relative to their sport, obviously) and a better level of conditioning (again, relative to their sport).
The hang clean will develop power for ANY sport!
Basically, all athletes are looking for the same thing. So why would their training be that different? You’re going to tell me that conditioning demands are different for a football player than they are for a hockey player. And you’re right. Conditioning demands are different, and the energy systems used are different. And the same thing goes for injury prevention; the overuse and non-contact injuries that happen in different sports are different, so therefore require special injury prevention strategies adapted to the demands of their specific sport. There are also variations that are gonna take place if you play a rotational sport (think hockey, baseball, tennis) in the way you train power. But the biggest differences pretty much stop there.
Rotational sports require more rotation-based power exercises like med ball throws
Strength training will never be “specific” to a sport. Like I mentioned above, performing exercises similar to sport movements in the weight room is far from optimal, and even detrimental to athlete’s performance. Speed, power, strength, endurance and conditioning are all developed through the same modalities (or pretty much) no matter what sport you play, because what you are developing when you’re training is not your sport-related skills, but rather your athletic qualities (muscular and cardiovascular), and those are not specific to one single sport, but common to most sports.
Like I’ve mentioned earlier, there are going to be some minor tweaks in the way you write performance programs for different sports, especially when it comes to conditioning and injury prevention, but the big lines and the structure of the programs might be a lot more similar than you think.
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This year marks the first time in probably over 10 years that I finished all my holiday shopping more than 2 days before Christmas! Hopefully you did too! But if you still have gifts to buy to people around you who are either athletes, a coaches or just fitness enthusiasts, here’s a couple of ideas that you might want to consider.
This might be the perfect gift for anyone who doesn’t have access to a good coach or trainer, or anyone who doesn’t want to spend hours writing his own programs and going through trial and error to find what works. Eric Cressey has done an outstanding job with this product, and he’s basically eliminating the guessing work one needs to go through when building his own training programs. Show and Go is a proven system that has been put to the test by many before Eric actually launched the product. It provides you with 16 weeks of programs that guarantee you the results you’re looking for. The whole Endeavor staff has been on the Show and Go system for the last 10 weeks, and we’ve ALL made tremendous gains in both size and strength! Click HERE to get your copy now!
This is a great gift idea for anyone involved in hockey training; whether it’s for a player or a coach, a membership to HockeyStrengthandConditioning.com is a gift that will help them get better. Some of the brightest minds in hockey training are behind that website; names like Mike Boyle (Boston University), Sean Skahan (Anaheim Ducks), Mike Potenza (San Jose Sharks), Darryl Nelson (USA Hockey) and Endeavor’s own Kevin Neeld are all contributing to the website to help develop better hockey players. For less than 10$/month (less than 100$/year if you pay all at once), a membership to this site will guide any hockey player in the right direction when it comes to his training. What’s even cooler is that you have the option of signing up and getting a 30 day trial for only $1! If you’re not satisfied with the content (which won’t happen trust me!) you can just cancel you subscription. Click HERE to get the 30 day trial.
With the new year coming up, for all these people making fat loss related resolutions, the Precision Nutrition System is definitely the ideal present to guide them through their lifestyle and nutritional changes that will lead them to their results. The Precision Nutrition System includes everything you need to help you make necessary changes in your eating habits in order to get results; everything from cookbooks to online support through the Precision Nutrition website, everything is included. The price is currently down from $147 to $97 for the whole system, so order now!
So if you need a last minute gift for the athlete or fitness enthusiast in your life, one of these should be a perfect fit.
On a side note, as I’ve mentioned last week I’m working on a couple different projects. One of them is related to my website and my readers; stay tuned next week for a special announcement as well as a thank you gift for my readers who have been following my work!
Complex training refers to a form of training that uses a combination of a strength exercise and a power/plyometric exercise to improve total power output. The concept is to do a loaded (preferably a maximum strength exercise) followed by a power exercise like a jump variation for example. The science behind this method is that by doing the strength exercise first you will increase the efficiency of your nervous system by engaging a maximum number of fast twitch muscle fibers, and immediately taking advantage of this improved neural drive by performing a power exercise; the result being more fast twitch muscle fibers engaged in the power exercise, and therefore a better force output (resulting in higher jumps if you’re using a jumping exercise for example). This method is very effective to develop strength, speed and power.
Here is a good example of complex training by combining a Trap Bar Deadlift with Broad Jumps (Please note that in the video I’m actually doing the 2 exercises within 15 seconds apart from one another. In reality, you would want to wait longer, somewhere between 30 seconds up to 3 minutes) :
You want to keep the number of reps low on the strength exercise and the weight below your RM (rep max); the goal is to take advantage of the increased CNS (central nervous system) activation without creating fatigue, which would defeat the whole purpose of the method. Also you will want to use 2 exercises with a similar movement pattern because the increased neural drive will be movement specific to a certain degree; by doing this you will benefit the complex method the most.
The possibilities are just endless with the complex training method; your imagination really is the only limit. A great tool to have for complex training is the Vertimax platform. However expensive, the Vertimax gives a lot of options when it comes down to complex training.
My colleague and friend Kevin Neeld put up an awesome video on how we use the Vertimax with our athletes at Endeavor. Kevin talks about how to use the Vertimax for complex training, but also talks about how to use it for hockey-specific movements. The video is just great and it’s only 6 minutes long, so make sure to check it out:
Everyone who’s been lifting for a while knows there should be some ground rules about the way we should behave in a gym, some sort of etiquette. You know, the kind of rules that will help you be considered a normal human being even under heavy lifting conditions and more than aything else that won’t make you look like a douchebag in the gym. So that being said, I decided to put a list of my own. Here it is in no particular order.
1. Sleeveless shirt are not acceptable. I don’t care what your excuse is and if it is because you feel more comfortable with it, if you’re wearing sleeveless shirts to lift, you’re really just showing off.
2. On a related note, it’s not called an UNDERshirt for nothing.
I don’t care how jacked you are, you shouldn’t wear this to lift.
3. If you’re talking during a set, it’s not heavy enough. Females included. Period.
4. This is nothing new, but worth reiterating: doing curls in the squat rack is totally unacceptable. Bodybuilding enthusiasts need to understand this. I’m this close to exercising my vengeance and doing like this kid in every single commercial gym in America:
You think it’s ridiculous? So next time, stay away from the squat rack when you do curls, Johnny Baloney!
5. Speaking of curls, it seems to be every beginner’s favorite exercise. But honestly, if you can’t do 5 bodyweight chin ups, I don’t even know why you’re wasting your time doing curls.
6. Your cellphone should be turned off and put in your locker as you walk in the gym. It amazes me how it’s becoming such a plague among exercise enthusiasts to send text messages in between sets when they lift. How are you supposed to be focused and ready to lift heavy weights with such a distraction! Time between sets should be better spent doing stretches, corrective exercises and other “filler exercises” that are going to make your time in the gym more effecient and really help you in the long run. Plus, recent studies have clearly demonstrated that sending text messages between sets decreases your testosterone levels and makes you less attractive to members of the opposite sex.
7. You should be able to squat and deadlift wayyyy more than you can bench press. If that’s not the case, you know what you need to start doing more than once a week, right?
8. No crunches. I mean EVER! There is a time and a place for doing crunches; that time is never and that place is nowhere. Seriously, it’s 2010, and we know by now that there are far better options to work your core muscles other than doing crunches, which let’s face it are as useless as Kim Kardashian.
And no, crunches won’t shed off the fat around your midsection. Add to the fact that a hgh volume of crunches will make your posture significantly worse because of the attachement point of the rectus abdominis on the lower ribs. Also, crunches are really just a flexion of your lumbar spine, which according to the most knowledgeable researcher in the world on lower back, Dr. Stuart McGill, is one of the most common injury mechanism on the lumbar spine.
9. Unless you’re hitting a PR, there is no reason why you would grunt and moan on every single rep of an 8 rep set of DB chest press. Yes I’m talking about you Matt!
Granted on the video he’s hitting a PR (405 x 5, which is more than I can do!). But now imagine him, doing every rep of a scap wall slide making the same noise! Nothing will get you demoted faster at Endeavor. (Kidding Mat…not really!)
10. Proven fact, you need to include one or more of the following on your workout playlist if you want to make substantial gains: Slipknot, Rise Against, Marilyn Manson, Busta Rhymes, Eminem, DMX, Lil Wayne, Linkin Park, Rage Against the Machine, System of a Down and Phil Collins (I might have forgotten a few acceptable options…)
One thing that people overlook too often is the reason why they’re training in the first place. I see too many people who don’t keep their goal in mind when they train. And I’m not only talking about the athletes or fitness enthousiasts themselves here, I’m also talking about the coaches and trainers. Everybody wants to workout hard and do unique style training using all kinds of fancy equipement that they perceive as being magical tools to achieve their special needs.
Impressive….but stupid
Too often people will judge of the training they’re doing by how tired they are at the end of the session and how sore they are the next day. How ridiculous is that? A wise man once said:”every trainer can make you tired, not every trainer can give you results.”
Google “workout tired”….this is what comes up
This couldn’t be more accurate. Whatever you do, make sure you ALWAYS keep your training goals in mind. Never judge your level of fatigue after a workout as an accurate measure for your goal achievements. Never use soreness either as an indicator of your progress.
If you’re training to improve speed, it doesn’t make sense to do interval based work with short rest periods; you will get tired quickly and you won’t be able to give a 100% on every effort. Same thing goes for people who do crossfit type training (as it seems to be the new trend) and are looking to increase their strength and power for sports peformance.
What’s all the hype with that crossfit stuff anyway?
I do think that there are many pros and cons to consider with this crossfit thing before you get into it, but using crossfit for sport-specific performance is totally ridiculous; doing tons of reps with minimal rest is not going to improve your strength and power for anyone with more than 2 years of lifting experience. Also the risk to benefit ratio with crossfit is not worth it if you’re an athlete, as you often perform complex movements with a high level of fatigue. And as I’ve mentionned times and times before, doing distance running or aerobic based training to improve sport-specific conditioning for anaerobic sports like hockey, football, soccer, lacrosse and the like is equally idiotic.
But I’ll stop here as I feel I’m starting to bitch a little too much here. The take home message is this: always keep your training goals in mind whatever you do. Consider what you really want to achieve; whether it’s to increase your speed, increase your power and strength, lower your body fat or gain muscle. Plan your training in a smart way and be consistent with your goals and train accordingly. Also accept the fact that it’s ok to leave the gym not tired sometimes, and it might actually be more beneficial to your results.
Ever since I read the Ultimate Off-Season Training Manual from Eric Cressey and after I interned at Robert Morris University a few years ago, I was seeing max strength as the answer to pretty much everything; if athletes just got stronger, everything else would just fall into place. I still think that max strength is a very important part of an athlete’s training program, and has profound effects on speed, power and agility. But I’m starting to realize that it’s not all…
What happens when we run out of stored ATP after one set in the anaerobic alactic system? Your body needs to recover and regenerate that source of energy while you rest. And how does that happen? Because you’re resting and the demands on your body are fairly low until you start your following set, this recovery process will happen through the aerobic system. Now can you see where I’m going with this?
This is just one example to show you that your energy systems, and especially your aerobic system are involved in strength training even if you don’t think about it. Not because we’re using weights means no energy system work is happening. There is not a clear line between strength work and conditioning. There is some overlap, just like there is some overlap between each energy system when you condition AND when you strength train.
This is why understanding the importance and the implication of ALL the energy systems is crucial for your performance or the one of your athletes. And that includes being aware of the implications of the energy systems on strength training and how to maximize the performance and recovery of each one of them.
