Conditioning
Let's talk about Conditioning for the field and court based athlete.
When it comes to conditioning I break it down into three different groups.
Speed
Anaerobic Conditioning
Aerobic Conditioning
I’ve said it before and I will say it again, SPEED KILLS and it is vital for any sport. If you are quick you will always have that edge over your opponent. You see it with any athlete, if you are quick over 10-20 metres you open up so many opportunities. However, this only lasts for 5-10 seconds. You can’t hold your top speed for very long.
The next group I look at is anaerobic conditioning. This is when your body is working at a high intensity but lower than your top speed. During this period of time you're working without oxygen, due to not being able to get enough oxygen into your body for the intensity you're working at. In my option this is where most of us complete our conditioning work. This is where your body has to produce lactic acid because there isn’t enough oxygen in your body. This leads to your muscles getting that “burning” sensation and will reduce your muscle pH, resulting in physical exhaustion and a decrease in performance.
A lot of people will tell you that lactic acid is bad and you want to avoid this. But this certainly isn’t the truth. If the body doesn’t or can’t produce lactic acid then you can’t work at high intensities for very long at all!! Your body needs to produce lactic acid or your performance is certainly going to take a hit.
Yes, I have just told you that anaerobic conditioning is important and that if you don’t produce lactic acid your performance will take a hit. But I believe that we spend WAY TO MUCH TIME in this zone. Don’t get me wrong, I have completed conditioning programs that sit within this zone myself and created programs that sit within this zone because it makes you “feel” as though you’ve worked. It hurts, it burns, it’s exhausting and most importantly you will sweat. It really does feel as though you're improving. But when you think about your team/sport training you will spend a lot of time in this zone. Most of your training will be spent in this zone, so why do you train it so much outside of training?
In recent months I have changed my option and view of conditioning. I am starting to look at aerobic conditioning or zone 2 conditioning a lot more. This is when you're working between 60-70% of your maximum heart rate or as I had it explained to me “You can still hold a conversation while working”. What this is going to do is build a very strong foundation for you to build upon because everything will come back to your aerobic conditioning levels, from being able to cover more total distance to being able to remove lactic acid quicker and even recover quicker. A strong aerobic conditioning level is critical for your overall performance levels.
I can’t remember where I got this analogy from but I heard something down the lines of;
“If you're building a skyscraper you need deep foundations to hold up the building. You can’t build a skyscraper with the same foundations as a single story building.”
This is exactly the same for your aerobic conditioning levels. If you want to have a long successful career then you need to have deep foundations (Just like a skyscraper). You need a very strong aerobic conditioning level because this will allow you to build your building/career on top of it (Speed and Anaerobic Conditioning).
A great time to work on your aerobic conditioning is during the off-season or pre-season. So if you play a winter sport that would be right now. This is because you're able to get a higher volume/amount of km’s in and it won’t be impacted by your team training.
So when you're completing your next conditioning session have a think about what your focus is?
Are your foundations deep enough?
Or do you need them to be deeper before you start building your house?
