Quote of the Day
“It's not that I'm so smart. It's just that I stay with problems longer.”
| Developing the Female Body - Part I |
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| Written by Matt Perryman | ||||||||||||
| Monday, 18 June 2007 | ||||||||||||
Page 4 of 4 Metabolic Conditioning (aka Cardio)
Of all the misconceptions out there, this is easily the biggest and the worst. From fitness mags to the average guy in the gym, "everybody knows" that cardio is what women have to do, and lots of it.
In order of importance on the list of things that actually make a difference in changing the body, aerobic endurance cardio is dead last. As far as I'm concerned, spending hour after hour on the treadmill is all but worthless if the remaining pieces of the puzzle aren't in place.
This does not mean that there is no use any time ever for low-intensity cardio. What it means is that you need to be smart about it. Smart beats hard for the sake of hard every single time.
Let's go over a little cellular energetics so that things make a little more sense.
At the cellular level, the body has two basic processes for obtaining energy, the anaerobic (oxygen independent) pathway and the aerobic (oxygen dependent) pathway.
The pathways are intensity dependent, with oxidative metabolism providing energy at rest and anaerobic metabolism providing energy as the intensity of movement increases.
The difference is the availability of energy. Anaerobic processes can readily provide energy over short time periods, whereas aerobic oxidation is slower from a metabolic standpoint. Intense activity uses up energy faster than aerobic metabolism can provide it. Anaerobic metabolism can provide energy quickly, but only in finite amounts before it needs recharging.
Over very short, very intense intervals, the primary energy substrate is ATP/CP, the so-called alactic or phosphagen anaerobic system. ATP, short for Adenosine Triphosphate, is essentially the energy currency of the cell, directly fueling all processes that require energy. The entire energetic system of the cell is designed around the creation and management of ATP. CP, creatine phosphate, is a short-term reserve of ATP, a compound that can almost immediately restore ATP levels.
The ATP/CP pathway is depleted after roughly 30 seconds of continuous activity, which means that very high intensity activity as a rule will not last longer than this. Athletes such as short-distance sprinters, powerlifters, and Olympic weightlifters are alactic-anaerobic dominant in their events.
The next step down is the glycolytic-anaerobic pathway. This involves the breakdown of muscular glycogen stores to provide a supply of ATP to the working muscle. Glycogen is simply blood glucose stored as a supply of energy, and "glycolytic" refers to the breaking down of glycogen. The by-product of this is lactic acid (or lactate), which results in the "burn" you feel when doing continuous exercise. Glycolytic-anaerobic work can sustain continuous work for around 90 seconds to two minutes, give or take. Most athletes competing in non-endurance competitions, such as most team sports, will fall into this category, as do strongmen competitors and the weight training of a great many bodybuilders.
Finally we have oxidative metabolism, which is where fatty acids in the blood are directly oxidized ("burned" if you will) for energy. This is the slowest pathway, and as such it is not able to sustain activity of any meaningful intensity, at least as compared to what the anaerobic pathways can handle. Aerobic/oxidative metabolism is operative at rest, or during low intensity activities of long duration.
It's important to note that these are just generalizations, and in reality some measure of all three are working at any given time. It's just a matter of which pathway is dominant in any given activity.
It might be very tempting to look at aerobic exercise, with the fact that it burns fatty acids exclusively, and think, wow, that burns a lot of fat! You'd be both right and wrong. Yes, oxidative metabolism burns fat almost exclusively. The problem is, it doesn't burn a lot of it. Have you ever looked at the calorie usage indicators on any cardio equipment? The amount you burn is ridiculously low. There's around 3500 calories in a pound of fat. You'll see numbers like 300-400 calories per hour for low intensity work. That's not a lot of fat being burned, especially not in return for an hour of your life wasted on a treadmill.
If anything, aerobic exercise, at least for physique training purposes, should be used as an adjunct to your diet. If you're burning 300-400 extra calories a day, then that's potentially 300-400 more calories you don't have to cut out of the diet. Of course, if you hate low-intensity cardio as much as most do, cutting your diet might end up being the easier route.
Look at something like a 200 meter sprint on the other hand. The activity itself is dominantly glycolytic, with a comparatively smaller ratio of fatty acids used. However, something interesting happens when you deplete glycogen stores in the muscle.
There's a molecule in cells called AMPK. Without going into detail, AMPK is a sort of "thermostat" for the energy status of a cell. When energy is low, AMPK activates. It has two general effects, to decrease energy expenditure and to increase energy scavenging. The biggest relevant effect is that the body stops using up glycogen for fuel, storing it instead from blood glucose, while increasing the use of fatty acids for energy. This is known as improving insulin sensitivity, and AMPK increases this when activated.
That has interesting implications. It means that even though the activity itself doesn't use much in the way of fatty acids, the interval following the activity can potentially use up a ton of them. You're also more likely to burn up a ton more calories from a session of hard anaerobic-interval training than you are even with an hour of low-intensity aerobic work. A higher energy expenditure coupled with a preferential increase in the use of fatty acids is a good combination.
Anaerobic workouts are performed as intervals, which are alternated periods of work and rest. This takes advantage of the fact that anaerobic output has a limited time frame to operate. By stressing the glycolytic pathway, then resting briefly to allow recovery, you're training that pathway to become more efficient.
This is likely the most commonly known variant of interval training. HIIT as it is widely known involves the use of intervals of maximal intensity, which means that each work set is taken to the limit of your ability to handle.
In research, HIIT has shown itself to be devastatingly effective at changing body composition. It's also quite good at improving cardiovascular elements such as VO2 max, due to the intensity of work performed.
However, HIIT doesn't differ much from high intensity strength training in regard to recovery. As a result, HIIT has to be used judiciously, and planned into a weekly program accordingly. Do too much, too often, and you'll risk burn out.
The idea behind all interval training, including HIIT, is to sequence periods of high-intensity work with low-intensity work or rest. In practice, you'll see things like 30 seconds high, 30 seconds low, or 60 seconds high, 90 seconds rest, and so on. A high-intensity interval might have different meanings, but in most cases it means that either i) the work intervals are maximal or ii) the rest intervals are short so as to prevent complete recovery in between sets.
Tempo training would be best described as "moderate intensity interval training". Tempo runs have been used by sprinters as a means of achieving a high volume of work, as opposed to the maximal efforts of HIIT. I've used these workouts to great success among figure girls after getting the idea from Charlie Francis' sprinting workouts, especially once the pre-contest diet becomes restrictive and recovery becomes a premium.
Tempo runs are performed at around 75% of maximum. What this means is that if your best time for a 100 meter sprint is 11 seconds, you'd want your work sets to take around 15 seconds (75% of 9m/s is around 6.7-6.8m/s).
If you aren't out running sprints on the track and have no idea of how your maximal performance compares, have no fear. There's a pretty easy way around that.
On whatever cardio machine you're using, simply divide your work:rest ratio into fairly equal increments. Say 30s:30s, or 45s:45s, whatever you prefer, and alternate between them.
The idea is to avoid complete recovery between each work interval in a set, and focus on the overall volume of work. Just remember to keep your work interval intense, but not all-out.
Beginner Level Set 1: Work, Rest, Work, Rest, Work
Take a 60-90 second rest interval between each set. Repeat 4-6 times.
Intermediate Level Set 1: Work, Rest, Work, Rest, Work Set 2: Work, Rest, Work, Rest, Work Set 3: Work, Rest, Work, Work, Rest, Work Set 4: Work, Rest, Work, Rest, Work
Rest interval of 60-90 seconds between each set Repeat 2-3 times
Advanced Level Set 1: Work, Rest, Work, Rest, Work Set 2: Work, Rest, Work, Work, Rest, Work Set 3: Work, Rest, Work, Work, Rest, Work, Work Set 4: Work, Rest, Work, Work, Rest, Work, Work Set 5: Work, Rest, Work, Rest, Work Repeat 2-3 times
A depletion workout is a weight training session that is designed to stimulate anaerobic metabolism for the purpose of depleting intramuscular glycogen stores.
This can be done in the context of specific dietary schemes in order to produce a specific effect, but it has the benefit of doubling as a form of anaerobic cardio training.
Depletion workouts have long set times, slower tempos, and will use lighter weights accordingly. With a moderate tempo, depletion sets will typically go for 12 to 15 reps. If you move faster, 15-25 might be necessary. You'll also use a correspondingly higher volume of work, in the neighborhood of 4 to as many as 20 sets (depending on goals) with very brief rest intervals between sets.
Depletion workouts are performed with muscle-specific exercises in order to cause preferential usage of glycogen throughout the body. This can double as a form of local lactate-tolerance training, for those interested in the performance quality of specific muscular endurance.
Depletion workouts can be performed in a circuit fashion, doing one set of an exercise, then moving on to the next, then the next, going through the entire string before returning to the original exercise and repeating. This is generally the recommended fashion. However, I've found from experience that circuit training in commercial gyms, especially at peak hours, can be a pain in the ass if not impossible. In those cases, you can try either a modified circuit (ie, do three sets of an exercise before moving on, to cut down on the time spent at each station), or as I've done before, just complete all the work at each station before moving on.
Upper Body Depletion Dumbbell Bench Press, 4x15
This workout and all the others listed, as mentioned, can be performed as a circuit (you'd go through each one four times), or you can just do straight sets of each.
Lower Body Depletion Leg Press, 4x15
Other options would include full-body workouts (not fun), or chest/back/shoulders and arms/legs, or really any thing else you care to imagine.
A complex is somewhat similar to the above depletion workouts, but I gave them a separate section because they're different enough to deserve a mention.
A complex is simply a series of exercises performed with no rests in between. In some ways they are similar to a circuit described above, although a complex is generally performed with a barbell and no change in weight.
Whereas a circuit may have you moving between stations, a complex has you moving non-stop with absolutely no rests between all the working reps.
This can be performed in a variety of ways. Dumbbells, barbells, kettlebells, even odd objects like sandbags, kegs, whatever else you want can be subbed in. The trick is to have a variety of movements and just keep moving.
For example: High Pull
You'd do one set of say 6 reps for the first exercise, immediately move to the second and do 6 reps, and so on until you reach the last. Or you can do shorter sets of say 3 reps and go through the series 2-3 times as a single set. That's a complex.
There's a ton of ways to organize complexes. Since barbells and dumbbells are the most commonly available implements at gyms, these are likely what you'll end up using most of the time. Fortunately there's enough exercise diversity that you should have little trouble coming up with effective combinations.
Istvan Javorek, the guy that as far as I can tell invented the idea of complexes, has a book out that details the topic and likely gives a ton of ideas on how to set these up.
Whereas depletion workouts are designed to work on the local muscle groups, a complex on the other hand is more of a systemic workout, training the endurance ability of the body as a whole. This can be valuable to those with performance-minded goals in conjunction with physique training.
This is an idea that came from Lyle McDonald. SFP cardio involves the sequencing of high-intensity cardio with low-intensity aerobic cardio in order to take advantage of specific metabolic activities.
SFP is ideally performed in the morning on an empty stomach, or at the very least a few hours away from the last meal. Adding in 5-10mg of yohimbine, 200mg of caffeine, and 2-5g of L-tyrosine about 30 minutes beforehand can have positive effects as well, for reasons to be elaborated upon.
When you perform high-intensity cardio, a few neat things happen. The level of catecholamines in the body increases, which is good. Catecholamines are agonists of sympathetic nervous system output, the "fight" part of the "fight or flight" syndrome. Catecholamines also have the nifty property of causing the release of fatty acids into the bloodstream.
Since aerobic cardio feasts upon fatty acids for fuel, having an abundance of them in the bloodstream would obviously be a good thing when performing such work.
So that's the idea. Start off with a brief warm up, 2-5 minutes or so as your body dictates, then do five minutes of high-intensity cardio. Lyle originally suggested just going five minutes as hard as you can stand, adding that doing five 60s intervals would likely do the same thing. Others have experimented with longer blocks of intervals, with shorter working times, but the original five-minute block is what I'd stick with.
After completing the high-intensity phase, rest for about 5 minutes or so, enough to restore heart rate and generally cool off a little. Then it's time for the aerobic portion of the session. Again the original recommendation was to do around 60 minutes of steady-state aerobic work on whatever piece of cardio equipment you choose. If you're short on time, you could conceivably shorten this to 40 or even 30 minutes, but if at all possible you should complete the entire session.
The reason for the yohimbine: when dealing with adrenal hormones like the catecholamines, you have two signals in the cells, the alpha receptors and the beta receptors. The beta receptors, generally, stimulate fatty acid release. The alpha receptors on the other hand, block it.
You tend to notice stubborn fat the most in areas that have high concentrations of alpha receptors. In men, this is the chest, abs, and lower back. In women, this tends to be from the waist down. Yohimbine blocks the alpha receptors and improves blood flow, but is also counteracted by insulin (meaning, if you've eaten recently it's not likely to work). This makes the SFP cardio a prime case for its usage, to help with fatty acid mobilization from those stubborn areas. Caffeine and L-tyrosine are added in simply for the sake of having the energy to get through the session (which can be just as important in these scenarios).
Up next: Part II - Nutrition and Diet
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