I remember reading this a while back, and thinking about what relevance it had for sports. From what i understand aerobic capacity is fairly generalised, and improvements in it improve your bodies ability to absorb and transport oxygen around your body during workouts.
But anaerobic capacity is a lot more specific. So that doing sprints will result in the muscles used in sprinting becoming more efficient at clearing lactic acid, etc, but will not do a whole lot for the anaerobic capacity of your upper body.
If this is the case, then wouldn't it make more sense to stick to traditional LSD training like swimming or running to improve 'wind' and more specific movements such as sparring, hitting the bags, sharkbait, etc, to improve the specific anaerobic capacity needed in fighting?
It just seems like the logic behind replacing traditional roadwork entirely with interval training hasn't been thought through entirely.
Have you looked at the info on the Tabata interval study?
If my understanding is correct you get some Aerobic improvement due to the short rest periods not allowing your heart rate to go down significantly.
And to tell the truth I feel that using other training methods other than LSD training and specific fight training for conditioning is needed to keep things interesting and break the monotony of day in day out training.
But I'm mainly just bumping this for the smart folks.
Do a little more research: interval training has a greater effect on improving aerobic capacity than the other way around, for the simple reason that your heart rate reaches anaerobic capacity during the exercise...then dips to aerobic target heart rate when you're resting. So both aerobic/anaerobic are worked during intervals.
The same cannot be said of pure aerobic sessions like LSD protocols - such sessions are designed to have the athlete stay STRICTLY in the aerobic zone.
^True, but if an athlete is also performing many sessions of skill
training (anaerobic SSP) and doing some strength training . . . How
much additional anaerobic work can they really do? Some LSD fills the
gap here because it will not eat into recovery reserves like intense
circuits/intervals.
In many ways old-school boxing training was sound --
Spend most of your time in the gym on sparring, drills and bagwork
(SPP).
Do some practical training for strength/local endurance: push-ups,
dips, chin-ups, abdominal work . . . maybe some
sledghammer/medball work (GPP).
Roadwork, ropework for general endurance and restoration.
Maybe if there is a problematic strength deficit or the athlete is
young/underweight more intensive strength training can be employed
. . . this was covered pretty well in the recent run of endurance
threads -- there's really no need to make GPP more complex than is
practical.
Elaborate circuits or high-volume ballistic lifting mostly just
complicate the process and take the focus off fighting.
No doubt for general health and fitness circuit training and intervals
can be great. But if you're training to fight, it might not be smart to
spend your recovery resources on more anaerobic conditioning.
"Do a little more research: interval training has a greater effect on improving aerobic capacity than the other way around, for the simple reason that your heart rate reaches anaerobic capacity during the exercise...then dips to aerobic target heart rate when you're resting. So both aerobic/anaerobic are worked during intervals."
Yes you train both anaerobic and aerobic during interval training, but the benefit you get from the anaerobic exercise is specific to the exercise (or at least the area) you are working. Hence my point about the most worthwhile anaerobic drills being those that imitate fighting, and not sprinting or running intervals. While any improvement in aerobic capacity will be generalised to all other exercises.
About interval training giving a greater boost to aerobic capacity than exercise aimed directly at improving aerobic capacity, have you any evidence?
"The same cannot be said of pure aerobic sessions like LSD protocols - such sessions are designed to have the athlete stay STRICTLY in the aerobic zone."
This sin't really relevant to what i'm discussing here, but during most traditional roadwork routines there will often be sprints, hills, etc, that can send you into the anaerobic zone.
Harry, I agree in essence. I don't believe in "replacing" old school roadwork, because that IS a GPP/Interval training modality.
However, the anaerobic portion of the roadwork can be more specific (as opposed to adding more) in addressing the athletes general deficiencies.
For example: An interval of jogging/pushups/jogging/shadowboxing/jogging.
Pushups can be replaced with sledgehammer/tire work if the athlete requires greater core coordination/force generation...and actually have the attributes developed crossover into their punching prowess (since punching is primarily a hip rotation movement). A good example of this is Kelly Pavlik.
I don't think this necessarily over-complicates the issue for the athlete. It just requires more attention to detail (and a good screening method) on the part of the coach.
I think it's a good example of how anaerobic/movement drills, incorporated into an interval protocol, can augment the specific skills of the athlete, while building anaerobic/aerobic base.
"However, the anaerobic portion of the roadwork can be more specific
(as opposed to adding more) in addressing the athletes general
deficiencies."
Agreed, but I think it's easy to push this beyond the point of
diminishing returns.
An interval workout like Crossfit's 'Fight Gone Bad' is ironically bad preparation for fighting . . . it requires more resources and recovery
than trad roadwork but none of the movements are specific to fighting.
"but I think it's easy to push this beyond the point of diminishing returns."
I see your point, but I think this is simply a matter of bad coaching.
Having an athlete do jogging/combos/jogging/pushups can also be as bad as having the athlete do jogging/sledgehammer/jogging/sled drags...if the coach does not observe that the activity is no longer producing a desired training effect.
I'm only familiar with FGB from a cursory standpoint, but from what I've seen...I don't see how it's different from Randy's circuits. Just saying.
I appreciate we're not working along entirely different lines. But you still haven't answered my question about intervals producing greater aerobic capacity benefits than purely aerobic workouts. Either they do or they don't.
If they don't then they're not any better than traditional roadwork at all for gaining 'wind'. The best anaerobic drills are sport specific. Other than that, conditioning work would seem to be better aimed at improving aerobic capacity than worrying about sprints, intervals, etc.
"But you still haven't answered my question about intervals producing greater aerobic capacity benefits than purely aerobic workouts. Either they do or they don't."
HULC, let me clarify a few points.
Since we are talking about combat sports here, for pure development of "wind", intervals is the way to go. "Wind", in combat sports, is an optimum relationship between anaerobic and aerobic capacity.
Now, if we're talking about marathons...then the answer is obvious. No, interval training will not produce optimum results for aerobic capacity for the marathoner.
For the combat athlete, interval training will more than suffice, since the sport demands from both anaerobic and aerobic energy sources.
Conditioning work, by and large, looks to improve both the anaerobic and aerobic capacity of the combat athlete. This is why sprinting during a boxer's roadwork has been a common practice in the sport.
I think your definition of aerobic drills vs. anaerobic drills is a bit too narrow: jogging is aerobic, sprinting is anaerobic, but they share the common activity of RUNNING (which is a generalized activity for the combat athlete). Energy system training does not have to be activity-specific for the sport.
"Energy system training does not have to be activity-specific for the sport."
But would the results in practical terms be better if it was? I would propose that they would be.
"So that doing sprints will result in the muscles used in sprinting becoming more efficient at clearing lactic acid, etc, but will not do a whole lot for the anaerobic capacity of your upper body."
Agreed.
If this is the case, then wouldn't it make more sense to stick to traditional LSD training like swimming or running to improve 'wind' and more specific movements such as sparring, hitting the bags, sharkbait, etc, to improve the specific anaerobic capacity needed in fighting?"
"But would the results in practical terms be better if it was? I would propose that they would be."
Propose it...for which part of the athlete's training cycle? Early? Middle? Late? Or throughout the entire cycle?
"Better" depends on where in the cycle the athlete is; it's not a situation that requires absolutes.
If an athlete is preparing for a comp, generalized aerobic activity/sports-specific anaerobic protocol works best in the first few weeks.
E.g.: Jog/high-volume-short-rest-thai pad drills/jog.
Close to his last two weeks, it's the opposite:
Keep the athlete in an aerobic state during the thai pad combos (to preserve the technique)
Generalized activity for anaerobic training (sprints)
So an interval, later in the athlete's cycle would be to have him sprint 100 yards to the trainer, then the trainer holds pads for the athlete, keeping him in an aerobic state. This way the athlete still gets energy system/work-capacity training, while keeping the technique pristine closer to the event.
4Ranges - Both examples you give integrate sports-specific components to achieve the desired effect; I don't think we disagree?!
To my mind, non-sports specific (for a combat athlete) would be,asper HULC's example, just using running sprint intervals for anaerobic conditioning.
HULC asked ". . . wouldn't it make more sense to stick to traditional LSD training like swimming or running to improve 'wind' and more specific movements such as sparring, hitting the bags, sharkbait, etc, to improve the specific anaerobic capacity needed in fighting?"
My answer would be "yes", and that sports-specific energy system work will be "better" for the sport than non-sports-specific. Just my opinion, if yours differs then no problem.
the difference is the the sport-specific activities are interchangeable between aerobic/anaerobic modalities, based upon the cycle and how close the athlete is to peaking.
HULC recommended a fixed modality: LSD for aerobic, sport-specific movements for anaerobic, throughout a cycle, without variation.
From my experience training athletes, this will have diminishing returns closer to the end of an athlete's cycle, and often results in overtraining or injuries. There are other considerations, such as preserving the athlete's movement patterns the closer they get to an event - hence switching the sport-specific movements to an aerobic modality.
In terms of implementation it seems our views are somewhat along the same lines.
It was more your initial statement that "energy system training does not have to be activity-specific for the sport" I disagreed with, as I believe the better results will come from integrating sport-specific movements and activities - as per your own examples! - than merely training the energy systems via more general activities.
The approach outlined by HLime will, providing the padwork, bagwork and (especially) sparring is of sufficient quality and quantity to achieve the desired conditioning effect, also produce better results than more generalised energy system work in addition to raising sports-specific skill levels which genralised work can never do.
IMHO, Anaerobic training can be very specific depending on the sport / event etc.
I feel that training the Aerobic, and Anaerobic systems has a carryover or overlap just as the systems themselves overlap. We are essentially never truly 100% Aerobic or 100% Anaerobic.
When you are creating a program that has the aim of preparing one for a specific energy output then you should mimic that output in training. This being said I do my best to ere on the side of Anaerobic rather then Aerobic training because in my experience it is Lactate threshold and not VO2 Max that separates the winners from the losers in most events (this is a bit of an over simplification but I stand by it).
Ultimately it takes a combination of well thought out training along with individual experimentation to create the best prescription for each person.
Sorry for taking so long to get back. The new forum design has removed the paragraphs for me, so every post looks like 1 big long run on sentence, which makes it a bugger to read. Anyway...
- "Wind", in combat sports, is an optimum relationship between anaerobic and aerobic capacity. -
Agreed. But as far as i can tell it's a relationship between the aerobic capacity, and the anaerobic capacity at a specific activity. So intervals will increase your aerobic capacity, but will do little for your anaerobic capacity to carry out the movements you'll use when fighting.
- HULC recommended a fixed modality: LSD for aerobic, sport-specific movements for anaerobic, throughout a cycle, without variation. -
Actually i didn't, you're only half right there. I said any anaerobic drills being used should be very sports specific, such as the examples i listed above. As far as the aerobic aspect is concerned, any activity which gets the heart rate up could conceivably work.
So your example of keeping skill work within the aerobic threshold wouldn't go against anything i said. In fact all skill work is best done first in a very easy manner to learn and hone the technique to begin with. What i would tend to disagree with is the value of doing anaerobic sprint intervals as a fight gets closer. As i don't believe the anaerobic improvements made will be that useful come the fight.