Tempo Intervals for recovery and improved aerobic fitness aka Charlie Francis recommendations

As a continuation of my last post I wanted to post some training sessions that are great to work on recovery and aerobic fitness and that can be used on your general off days from training for recovery instead of just doing nothing at all. The tempo runs I will describe is from information I researched from Charlie Francis well known sprint trainer and conditioning coach to a number of former world Olympic athletes and Joel Jamieson, trainer to world class MMA fighters . Doing tempo runs involve doing a 12-15 second run at about 70-75% speed and about 60s rest in between reps. 

Doing these intervals are a good form of active recovery and HRV measures will noticeably improve on days following tempo runs compared to rest days where nothing at all was done. A lot of this simply has to do with activation of the body’s aerobic and adaptive mechanisms combined with a minimum of residual fatigue from the loading.

This is really what active recovery does in general, it activates the body’s adaptive biological systems and “jump starts” them if you will, while keeping fatigue to a minimum. The result is improved recovery and when performed at low to moderate volumes, tempo runs are an effective form of this.

Aerobic Fitness

In whatever sport you practice, in order for the tempo method to have a more aerobic bias you should perform the tempo intervals in higher volumes and also incorporate more sport specific drills say for example as an MMA athlete you could incorporate specific MMA drills like bag and pad work. This tempo method can be used 1-3 times per week and should be performed on typical of days or at the end of other training sessions.

When used in higher volumes, somewhere between 20-30 minutes of the intervals per session, notable improvements will be seen in aerobic fitness as well as increased work capacity. During the rest intervals as well it is better to keep moving rather than doing nothing as the pace is just slowed dramatically.

Recommendations

If you’re looking for a good form of active recovery and to build some work capacity – then try using tempo intervals at a low to moderate volume on your off days. Something like 15-20 minutes generally seems to be about right and for this purpose, I think more generalized training like running can be used.

If you’re working on improving aerobic fitness, try increasing the volume to 20-30 minutes and get in at least two sessions per week.

Also, for this purpose I suggest keeping moving during the rest interval. A good example would be to do some low intensity runs at about a 70% intensity for 12-15 seconds and then do any low intensity exercise like medicine ball core work or jumping rope for 60s or so. You can then simply repeat this for however long you want.

One of the keys to doing tempo intervals is using the right training intensity. You shouldn’t feel exhausted or worn out when you’re done with this type of work. You should feel like you worked, but not anything like after a heavy sparring or grappling session. This type of training should be around a 5 or 6 on a 1-10 scale of overall intensity.

Other sample tempo sessions I have come across:

5 x (100 +100+200+100)

+denotes a 50m walk 

Other low intensity work to incorporate in rest periods

-plyos

medball core work

Give them a shot and feel free to post your comments to let me know how they work.

Rant over bootcamps, CrossFit and high intensity training

Its been a while since I wanted to write about intensity training and when I mean intensity I mean the high intensity type which has been advocated and taken up by so many people in CrossFit, bootcamps and a lot of combat sports especially MMA where fighters and coaches dedicate their time somewhat blindly to pure high intensity exercise. There are so many articles out there which point to the fact that high intensity exercise has so many benefits we all want to believe that the secret to maximum results is high intensity. This is a get rich quick scheme and we all know that anything that promises results in such a short space of time and results that are so sustainable are rarely ever true. The reason I feel that most people have become hooked on high intensity programs is simply because they do not understand the big picture about training nor do they have the faintest idea of developing their energy systems which is paramount for success. Without this knowledge you are basically training blind as what the majority of athletes are doing.

The best place to start this discussion on intensity is with a brief discussion on what training is all about in the first place. Getting caught up in all the details of training, it can be easy to lose sight of the big picture and forget that your body does not care if you have big or small muscles, a low or high body fat percentage or how many kettle bell swings or pull-ups you can do, the only thing your body cares about is keeping alive.

On the most fundamental level, it is the innate drive of the body to stay alive and maintain equilibrium within all of its systems that creates the opportunity for performance or physique improvements to be made. Adaptations to various training stimuli is nothing more than the bodys defence mechanism working to protect itself and keep you alive.

When you lift weights you place a stress on the body or doing some form of cardiovascular activity and the body in turn responds to this stress by adapting to it is better suited to reacting to the same stress again the next time around. THe adaptations that occur will very much depend on the type of training stress that you put your body under, but the end result will be the same. The next time you train, the body will be better equipped to handle the stress that you put it through. Because of the bodes increased capability to handle the same level of stress, the same level of stress now has a lower level of physical stress which he body perceives that you are placing on it. Therefore in order to continue to see results, you inevitably have to place a greater stress on it so to force the body to have a reactive response and adapt to that change. This process of repetitive stress and adaptation is the foundation for improved performance.

WHAT IS INTENSITY?

Intensity is generally accepted as a relative gauge of how hard you are working. Regardless of the specific exercise or activity you are doing, higher intensities are closer to your maximum effort and lower intensities are a lower percentage of your capabilities. Running long distances at a slow pace for example is considered a low intensity effort, while interval sprints are high intensity because yo are running at speeds much closer to your maximum effort. While this definition of intensity is generally well accepted and understood, I think it does not paint the whole picture accurately. A more accurate way to think of intensity is not just as a gauge of relative effort, but rather as a gauge of the amount of stress imposed on the body.

Higher intensities represent a larger stress placed on the body. The higher the level of stress, the greater the disruption of the bodes equilibrium and thus the more marked the bodes adaptive response. In other words, the body perceives a greater stress as more of a threat t its survival and will therefore adapt to it faster. In a nutshell this simple principle is the reason why everyone has been jumping on the high intensity bandwagon for so long. Higher intensity does lead to faster results.

THE INTENSITY THRESHOLD

So the more intense we train, the quicker the results come however the downside now comes in that it is not always so easy to see results changing so quickly and it is also not possible to train hard all the time as it is physically demanding and you would probably end upon hospital overtrained and overworked. Yes the results have come quicker but at what price and inevitably the results which you saw increase immensely at the beginning will have probably stopped and the intensity that you will need to get the body to adapt you will not reach. This is commonly known as a training plateau. Obviously the longer you can keep this from happening, the longer you wil continue to see results from your training efforts. This principle of how the body works is the most important piece of training advice you have probably never been given: always use the lowest intensity necessary to stimulate adaptations to training. Contrary to what the experts in the field are telling you, I am advocating the use of the lowest intensities that you can use that will get the job done. Use intensities higher than necessary and you are sacrificing your long term development for short term gains.

This is what is happening in most gyms all over the world who are following the latest articles from the latest fitness magazines who are advocating high intensity exercise all the time. So what we are getting are beginners who are doing 1-3 rep maxes ad fighters who are foregoing age old roadwork for sprints and Tabata intervals.

This approach is shortsighted and based on marketing hype and selling products and programs.

THE RESEARCH

If you look at the Tabata research that everyone looks to as the holygrail of high intensity training. Joel Jamieson rightly pointed out hat the higher intensity interval group did in fact see the majority of their improvements within the first three weeks of the study and then their improvements reduced significantly. According to the study itself, "after 3 weeks of training the VO2 max had increased significantly. It also tended to increase in the last part of the training period, but no significant changes were noted."

This meant that they spent the second half of the training without seeing any significant improvements in VO2 max from their high intensity intervals, not to mention that the subjects who took part in the study were almost all untrained athletes so it would have been easy to see big gains in VO2 max from such a group.

The lower intensity group saw improvements as well but not as significant, the difference was that their gains were shown throughout the whole 6 week period. It is also important to note that at the end of the study the low intensity group still had a high VO2 max, higher than the high intensity group. It is also worth noting that the high intensity group also included 30 minutes of low intensity exercise every week which was never mentioned in articles. You see that the flaw in this article at the same time is that the good athletes train year round and not only for 6 weeks at at time. As you can see it is always important to go over the facts yourself and not just take someones word for what they feel works.

RECOMMENDATIONS

High intensity work does have a place and yes it does work but at the expense of long term gains.The truth is that day after day working at high intensity will almost drive you into the ground and into the well known territory of OVERTRAINING which is highly advisable zone not to get into as it can take days or even weeks to get out of. High intensity work provides its benefits at the beginning but who wants to train hard all the time, just to end the motivation to do that is hard enough and will ultimately lead you to despise training in the end. So whether you are an explosive athlete who likes his speed and high intensity work it is better to mix things up with high and low intensity days. The same applies to endurance athletes who say lack strength and explosive peer it would be good for them to mix in the high and low intensity as both have their place. Look back at the athletes in the 70s and 80's who often used slow tempo runs aka Charlie Francis it was never just hard, hard hard, they did the log road runs as well. Indeed, training myself in the gym I have felt the difference of training with the low intensity work has helped me greatly in my progress and development. However when I say do mix up some low intensity work, please do not take this to the extremes by running slow for 2 hours and then writing to me telling me your knees are hurting. Do things in moderation and have a plan. In my next post I will be posting some articles in regard benefits of long, slow distance runs and provide you with the overriding evidence to support the fact that when performing in explosive activities or sports your aerobic capacity plays a major role.

If you have a comment or question you would like to ask, please feel free to leave one here.

Developing an effective training system

There are so many people out there who are beginning there training programs but instead of having a PLAN, they have no plan and no idea where they are starting from and no idea of whether or not they are improving and to say the least having a plan is better than having NO PLAN AT ALL. What all this means is that the majority of athletes, weekend gymgoers are training but do not really have a clue how to measure the effectiveness of what they are doing rather like shooting a dart at a dart board and hoping for the best. I would like to be the first to say that many years ago I hardly ever wrote down my training schedules nor had any real idea of what I was really looking to achieve I just trained and trained without any real direction effectively wasting a lot of time and we all know how precious time is.

The formula for developing effective training programs is actually a very simple 7 step process and is fairly easy as well as long as you take the time to note down your workouts and starting and finishing points

1. Assess where exactly you are at to begin with (make sure you are using the right assessments)
2. Determine where it is you need to be and set your training goals accordingly
3. Outline the methods that are most effective in achieving the changes that are necessary to reach your goals
4. Develop a training schedule taking every aspect of your training program and timeline into account for example the training schedules and competitions you will enter for in the near future and how much time you have available to train each week due to different constraints like work, travel, kids etc.
5. Implement your training program
6. Manage the training process to make sure you are making progress and make changes to the program as necessary (this is the hard bit most training programs are great when you see results but what happens when these results start to taper off and what you are doing does not have the same result. This is when you will need the knowledge and help to put your program back on the right track to help you keep gaining better results
7. Finish your program and assess its effectiveness (have your assessments ready, if you are working on your general endurance or strength, do the right assessments).

Following this step process will help dramatically improve the effectiveness of your training programs. If you look at most programs out there, they are invariably missing one or many of these steps and thus they do not achieve the best results.
Next time to you begin to develop a training program I would suggest looking over this process and see what you are doing well and what you could improve on. Do you train with a purpose? What are your training goals? Have you taken your work schedule, football / soccer schedule as well into consideration part from the general fitness training have you set aside time as well to do your sport specific training? Are you using effective assessments? Are your training methods actually accomplishing the physiological changes you need them to? How will you know if you need to change your program along the way or not? Answering these questions will go a long way towards making sure you are training smart not just training hard, and I guarantee it will dramatically improve your results.

So write things down, use your assessments, be logical and be effective and your hard work will pay off and with it you will reach your training goals.

Training with World & European No.3 Junior Waterskiing Champion

In my last post I talked about designing effective training programs.

Recently Luis Noguera Spanish, World and European Number 3 junior waterskiing prodigy came to me and asked me to help him in his preparation for the coming waterskiing calendar. I was somewhat amazed to learn that this guy had managed to get through all his 21 years and reach such heights in his sport without any kind of physical preparation through pure talent, grit and determination and for sure the huge help of family and friends.

We needed a plan. We decided we needed to work on his muscular endurance building on his aerobic capacity. We decided to split his training into blocks and spend several weeks in each block and have a total of 3 workouts per week devoted to S & C and anytime else devoted on the water improving his waterskiing skills. We really wanted to concentrate on improving one thing at a time instead of trying to improve strength, endurance and power all at once.

Our baseline assessments included

• Resting heart rate - we checked his resting heart rate with a monitor we want to see a drop of resting heart rate rate of anywhere from 5 to 10 beats per minute
• Modified Coopers test - in his test we got Lluis to run as far as he possibly cold in 6 mins and recorded his distance
• Heart rate recovery - after getting Lluis to do a bout of intense activity we looked at how fast his heart beat could get back to normal. In general terms if you

One of our methods of training aerobic capacity is using Cardiac Power Intervals. This involves using any high intensity exercise that maximally elevates the heart rate such as sprinting as well as various high intensity waterskiing drills can be used. This was aimed at helping to improve oxygen supply at higher intensities and improve the power endurance of the cardiac muscle

The guidelines for carrying out these exercises were that

• heart rate should be maximal in each rep
• rest intervals should be 2-5 minutes or HR 120-130
• 4-12 reps per session
• 1-2 sessions per week

This is an example of one of our training sessions but already we have some kind of starting point in our assessments. Throughout this training block we can then analyse our training sessions always keeping note or our baseline measurements and progress our exercises accordingly. A game plan is always needed.

Recovery methods: using the sauna

In this post I really wanted to go through the use of saunas described by Joel Jamieson in his excellent blog and my own experience of saunas as a physical therapist, fitness trainer and sportsman. I will also add in recommendations I have come across from other experts in the field including Dave Tate, Eric Cressey and Charlie Francis the well known trainer who trained a host of top sprint athletes including Ben Johnson and Donovan Bailey.

I think there is quite a bit of confusion out there about what works and what doesn’t work and without the use of heart rate variability to measure response to the various methods, most people are just guessing so I can see why.

Not Just For Making Weight
Although the sauna has been used over the years mostly for dropping those last few extra pounds of water weight, I’ve found that it’s best use is really for recovery/regeneration.

The sauna has been used most effectively with athletes during periods of intense training. I’ve been using it myself and with athletes I train for over ten years now and all I can say is that it works. I’ve made a few modifications here and there over the years, but the method has stayed the same.

Using the sauna for recovery is most effective during periods of parasympathetic overreaching. You wouldn’t really want to use it if you’re sympathetically overworked as it wouldn’t really be of much help. Some of the symptoms of parasympathetic overreaching/overtraining are: general lethargy, lack of motivation to train, drop in morning resting heart rates and lowered heart rates during training, excessive sleep, etc.

The sauna works because it provides a very mild sympathetic stimulus that essentially triggers the body’s adaptive mechanisms without really placing much physical stress on the body itself. It’s akin to jump starting a car really, it gets things going. This is pretty much how all recovery/regeneration techniques work for the most part.

Using The Sauna the Right Way
To get the most out of the sauna method, you have to be pretty specific in how you go about using it. Just hopping in for a few minutes and then getting out probably won’t do a whole lot for you and is mostly a waste of time.

You also want to make sure that you’re using a dry sauna for this method, not a steam room, wet sauna, or infrared sauna and the hotter you can get it, the better – preferably over 200 degrees. If not any good dry sauna that gets very hot will work.

Next, you also need a shower close by to really do the method correctly. Fortunately, most saunas tend to be in locker rooms or near a shower anyway so it shouldn’t be an issue. Assuming you have a dry sauna that gets very hot and a nearby shower, you’ve got everything you need to use the sauna to promote recovery so you can keep training or get back to it.

I most often recommend and prefer to use methods such as the sauna either towards the end of an intense training cycle when I want to promote recovery and regeneration as I take the athlete out of the loading phase, or whenever I see an athlete is moving too far towards overtraining. Charlie Francis pointed out that saunas can be used at anytime except before an intense workout but that most people preferred to use them at night. I personally don’t believe in using these types of methods all the time as I believe that you need to overload an athlete/individual to force adaptation and if you are constantly trying to promote recovery all the time, there is a point where you will be losing this benefits of the loading.

It is also very important to note that if you overuse a recovery method and try to do it all the time, it will lose its effectiveness. I like to rotate recovery methods and use different ones depending on the athlete and the situation. You can use the sauna for a week or two at a time and then use something else the next time you need to promote recovery. Don’t overdo it or just like anything else, your body will become accustomed to it and it won’t have the same effect.

The Ultimate Sauna Recovery Method
To perform the method correctly and get the most out of it, make sure to follow these specific guidelines as close as possible:

1. Pre-heat the sauna to the highest temperature possible, at least 200 degrees is preferable
2. Begin by getting in the sauna and stay in until you first break a sweat and then get out
3. Rinse off for 5-10 seconds in luke warm water and then get out of the shower, pat yourself off, wrap a towel around yourself and then sit down for 2-3 minutes
4. Get back in the sauna and stay in for 5-10 minutes. The original method calls for staying in until 150 drops of sweat have dripped off your face, but I’ve found for most people this is 5-10 minutes
5. Take another shower, this time make it as cold as possible and stay in it for 30 seconds. It’s most important to let the water cover your head completely the whole time
6. Get out of the shower, pat yourself dry, wrap a towel around yourself, and sit down and relax until you stop sweating completely and your skin is dry. This typically takes anywhere from 3-10 minutes
7. Return to the sauna, this time stay in for 10-15 minutes and then get out
8. Repeat step 5-6
9. Get back in the sauna for another 10-15 minutes and then get out
10. Take another shower, this time make it fairly warm and stay in for 1-2 minutes
11. Dry yourself completely off, lay down and relax for 5-10 minutes

Well there you have it sounds pretty simple really, give it a go and let us have some feedback as to your thoughts. I recently read some of the work done by Charlie Francis who also has some comments of the use of ice baths and saunas as recovery methods and will post some of these later.

Our sponsored athlete Luis Noguera finishes 3rd at Undr 21 World Waterskiing Championships in Russia

Great team photo with our sponsored athlete Luis Noguera

Congratulations are in hand to our friend and sponsored athlete Luis Noguera who finished third with the Under 21 Waterskiing team at the Under 21 World Waterskiing Championships in Russia. Great work. Luis first came to us at FisioNostra looking for ways of improving both his flexibility and mobility after suffering from problems in lower back. Looks like our hard work has paid off wit the help of TPT products and the GRID in particular.

If you are interested in finding out some more about TPT products, give us a call or go to the TPT main website www.tpttherapy.com.