This weeks #workoutWednesday features part 2 in Trainer Toms series on metabolic conditioning: In part 1 of this series, you should have gained a basic understanding of the three ways that your body produces energy for movement and exercise. Now, let’s take a look at how you decide which one to train and when to train it according to your goals. You should be reminded that all of these energy pathways are “on” all of the time. By altering your work to rest ratio you can shift the focus from one to another. The most prevalent goal for most people working out is body composition change/fat loss. Most people believe that training the aerobic system (doing a “classic” cardiovascular workout) is the best way to accomplish this. The truth is that while training the aerobic system will help build your cardiovascular endurance to perform more intense workouts, body composition change is much more easily accomplished by training the phosphagen and glycolytic systems. This means shorter, more intense workouts. Any type of interval training where there are short periods (a few seconds to about 4 minutes) of intense exercise followed by a longer period (up to around 4 minutes) of recovery, repeated for a given amount of time, your body will burn a large amount of calories during the workout. But the biggest changes happen during the remainder of the day when your body is recovering from the intense workout and burning calories at an increased rate. With traditional aerobic/cardiovascular workouts, you burn a decent amount of calories during the workout, and then your body returns to its normal metabolic rate because the exercise performed was not intense enough to increase that rate while you’re at rest. Now, that’s not to say that aerobic training doesn’t have benefits. If your goals are performance related, such as training for a foot race or any other endurance sport or rebuilding your endurance after an injury, then aerobic training is needed. Training your aerobic system will also give you a base level of endurance, so you can perform more intense workouts. Finally, aerobic training is a great way to improve the function of your heart and lungs to improve your long-term health. Training the aerobic energy pathway is simple. You just need to choose an activity using large muscle groups moving in a rhythmical fashion that can be continued for an extended period of time. Walking, jogging, running, elliptical, any type of bike, stair climbers, etc. are all modes of exercise that fit the requirements for an aerobic training workout. As long as the effort you put out gets your heart rate into your aerobic training zone, and you maintain that work level for approximately 20 or more minutes, you will make positive adaptations in your aerobic conditioning levels. (To find you target heart rate zone, subtract your age from 220, then multiply that number by .6 and .85. The product you get from .6 is the lowest heart rate you want to achieve, and the product from .85 is the highest heart rate you want to achieve.) As stated earlier, the glycolytic energy pathway is important to anyone seeking body composition changes. It is also important to the individual seeking to improve his/her performance in activities lasting up to about 4 minutes. Virtually every sport falls into this category, as most sports require movement for a brief period followed by a few moments of down time before the next play. Improving your body’s ability to obtain energy in this fashion will also improve performance in aerobic based sports like foot races and cycling. Training your glycolytic energy pathway is simple - just a bit more demanding in the effort needed. Any of the activities listed for aerobic training would be great for this type of training, as is circuit training in the weight room. To perform this training, you need to put out a near maximal effort for a time period of 10 seconds up to 4 minutes, and follow that with a rest period that lasts 1 to 3x’s the amount of time for the intense work period. The longer the hard part, the shorter the rest period should be. For example, if you sprinted for ten seconds, the rest period should be about 3x’s that (30 seconds). If you do a hard interval on the elliptical for 2 minutes, you rest period would be about 4 minutes (2x’s). If you did a long interval of 4 minutes on the stair climber at the highest rate you could maintain, a 4-minute rest interval would be adequate (1x’s the length of the intense work). The big caveat is that the hard interval has to be hard. Be honest with yourself when determining what is hard for you to ensure you make the progress you are seeking. This type of training will also benefit your long-term cardiovascular health and is useful for everyone that works out, not just elite performers. The creatine phosphate energy pathway is responsible for the short, intense efforts put out by Olympic weight lifters, power lifters, short distance sprinters and anyone that has gone from seated to standing. This energy system supplies energy for all activities that last up to ten seconds, and that includes getting out of your chair. For most exercisers, this energy system does not need to be trained. Only those involved in the sports mentioned above need to focus their training on this system. The interval of intense effort is maximal and lasts 10 seconds max. Rest periods should be at least 2 minutes, while rest periods of 5 minutes are not uncommon and can be beneficial to training this energy pathway. Near maximal weight lifting and sprinting at one’s top speed are the best modes of exercise to train the phosphagen system. It should be pointed out that no matter your goals, all of these energy systems should be trained. No one needs to specialize their training in one area, unless they are in the very small percentage of people that make a living based on their body’s physical capabilities. In the final installment of this series of articles, the “how to’s” of incorporating all this information into your own routine will be covered. Check back next Wednesday for part 3.
Posted on: Wed, 30 Apr 2014 19:30:01 +0000
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