strength & Conditioning : keeping altogether

Many coaches tend to view strength and conditioning as two separate entities – “We strength train and then we condition”.

Oftentimes, this sort of thought process leads to a rigid compartmentalization of qualities as the coach is trying to develop too many different and/or competing qualities at one time.  This sort of separation ends up creating an antagonistic environment within the training program and can have a dampening effect on the end result as the individual does not have the opportunity to really develop one thing, but rather, becomes a jack of all trades and master of none.

Perhaps it may be more beneficial to look at both strength and conditioning as a singular entity working together to enhance the physiological state of the athlete.  In doing so, we can efficiently establish training phases that prioritize whatever fitness quality we are looking to enhance.

For example, if the athlete is just starting their training program (perhaps coming back from an injury, the start of offseason training after taking time off, or a total beginner with a training age of zero) your initial goal would be to develop general fitness in order to set them up for more intense training and higher volumes of training in later phases.  Therefore, your training program in this phase should reflect that goal and the methods you choose – whether it be lifting weights or performing conditioning on the field – should work together and not compete with one another.  In this example, the resistance portion of the program should be of a lower intensity (65-75%) for a moderate number of reps and the methods selected for your field work should be lower intensity also (tempo runs, aerobic plyometric activities, cardiac output work, etc).  This does not mean that you cannot work at a little higher intensity/lower reps in resistance training, it does not mean that you cannot work on a low volume of plyometrics, and it does not mean that you cannot work on a more intense method at the field; HOWEVER, these sorts of things are not the priority at this time!  A greater amount of your training should be spent focusing on the goal of the training phase, keeping strength and conditioning as one singular entity, and only a very small percentage of the time should be spent with the other qualities.  This allows you to prioritize your training – give the athlete what they need - without making things too cluttered and having a program that it schizophrenic.  I know block periodization is very popular these days and there seems to be a ton of semantics surrounding that stuff depending on which book you read and which coach you listen to.  I really don’t think it has to be any more complicated than: Train everything but have only one emphasis at a time and rotate that emphasis as the training program progresses on. 

The way that I do it is I set up a spread sheet and put down each phase and the length of time I am looking to spend in each phase (obviously this is flexible depending on how the athlete is progressing) across the top of the page.  On the left side of the page I write down the various qualities and from there, I fill in the boxes determining how much frequency each quality will be trained in a given phase, again, always keeping the goal in mind and the idea that strength and conditioning are not separate and need to work together. 

What about hypertrophy training and general fitness?

A young strength coach asked me a question recently about setting up training phases and was concerned that doing more hypertrophy type of training in the first phase (a quality that some of his rugby athletes needed) would interfere with their development of cardiac output in the conditioning portion of the workout because the hypertrophy work would be more “anaerobic” in nature.

I think it can be easy to get swept away in all of this stuff and writing a training program can be a daunting task as there seems to be so much stuff to consider.  In this instance, however, I don’t see too much of a problem.  First, it is important to remember that most people who are unfit and in need of cardiac output type training are going to make some anaerobic adaptations first.  What I mean by this is that anything they do with any little bit of intensity will push them up into an anaerobic state to meet the demands of the task.  Of course, after a few weeks of this sort of training, they will begin to make the necessary adaptations, their fitness level will increase, and it will take a different sort of stimulus/stress to get more changes and improvements.  For an athlete in need of hypertrophy training, 2-3x/week of hypertrophy specific work with low to moderate volume (when just starting out on the training program) should be sufficient to see those sorts of adaptations.  This leaves a lot of time to develop the main quality of cardiac output and ensure that the athlete is recovering properly and making the adaptations that you seek.

I think the key thing is to look at your training week and ensure that you are managing stress well and that the progressions you are using are sound and not destroying the athlete right from the get go.  Too often coaches will start a training program with incredibly high amounts of volume and/or intensity only to have an athlete that is broken down 3-4 weeks later.  As I talked about in a previous article, Movement Reserve: Enhancing the Physiological Buffer Zone, managing stress and training appropriately are paramount.  An athlete who is just starting their training program should be eased into the process to ensure they are sufficiently tolerating the stresses you are exposing them to and the training program should be created to help them develop a higher level of fitness over several weeks.  Train only as much as you need to get an adaptation and then no more.  The problem of undertraining is an easy one to remedy – simply add a little more work and see if you get the changes you want.  The problem of overtraining can be a bit more difficult as you are always trying to playcatch up with the athlete as they are generally breaking down more frequently from training and needing to take time off only to try and start over again.  Additionally, if the athlete is overtraining because they are slammed from their offseason training program, as the pre-season approaches this presents a serious problem as the athlete is not going to be able to miss practice or pre-season games, causing the strength coach to determine what parts of training the athlete should miss out on or scale back on and then sometimes the athlete will also need therapy (which is an additional stress on the system).

At the end of the day it really comes down to two things:

1) Figure out what you need from your training program and prioritize that.  Don’t separate strength and conditioning, as they should work together.  Separating them causes the program to have mixed messages as there is a bleed over between strength and conditioning when they are trained as separate functions and one will start to rob the other.

2) Manage stress, start slow, progress properly, and only train as much as you need to get what you want.