There is a false perception regarding exercise, many believe that you need to feel like Rocky after rounds 10 with Drago. This is not reality, however, it hinders progress of the majority. It feeds into a vicious cycle. People who don't exercise say I don't have the time to do ALL OF THAT (whatever that is) or I don't want to subject myself to that torture, and therefore they do nothing, as they think fitness is this all or nothing, Drago pounding. On the other side of the spectrum, there are people who do exercise who feel they NEED to feel like this in order to get any results, the attitude of "if I did not come close to puking and am not sore the next three days, I must not have worked our hard enough." BUT, is this effective training?
Does somebody day in day out need to put their bodies through intense, mind numbing, body bludgeoning exercise in order to attain a healthy lifestyle? The short answer is NO.
Before we get carried away, yes, there are many variables to health. Proper nutrition and sleep are far more important than exercise, so I am examining the exercise piece with the assumption that proper nutrition and 8 hours of sleep a night is the reality, although I do have the perception many of you are lying to yourself if you assume you fall into this group. ;)
If someone is looking for general health related goals, do they need grueling half-hour or hour long workouts, day in and day out, utilizing countless exercises or pieces of equipment, racking up hundreds of reps at a given weight? Once again, NO. It is unfortunate that the incorrect mindset has become established that this is what is needed.
Where does KISS come in to this? Well the legendary rock band who wore makeup to cover up the reality they were a bunch of funny looking rockers who were not as bad ass as they were perceived to be has nothing to do with this article.
My belief is that too many people, trainers AND trainees, get caught up in the complexities, bells and whistles, and these all interfere with them or their clients attaining their desired outcomes. In most instances, you do not need workouts to last more than 30 minutes or longer, day in and day out. You do not need to spend hours on the treadmill or elliptical machine, or bike. Chances are, the more you do, the less your results will be. In regards to generalized training for health, even with specific goals within that framework, it does not take "much" to accomplish many of the goals.
I am a scientist at heart. In the world of pharmacology there are two phenomenon. One is the Tolerable Upper Limit (TUL), what is the maximum dose of something before toxicity occurs, and the other is the minimum effective dose (MED), the smallest amount needed to elicit a response. These principles apply to all types of training. You need to ensure your training falls between these two levels, and a majority of your training, really only needs to fall in the minimum effective dose range. Every now and again if you want to test the limits of your upper dose, do so, but it should be an exception, not the norm.
First off, in any strength and conditioning program, strength should come first. Why? It makes life easier, because you are stronger. Physically, you are capable of picking up heavier things or lighter things more often. Physically, as the more lean body mass you have, the stronger you are going to be at meeting the demands of life, whether that is due to sickness, or some of those other things that life throws at you. Muscle is a highly metabolic and healthy tissue. The more lean body mass you have, the healthier you are, and the longer you will stay alive if you even happen to get really sick.
How do you get strong? A dedicated strength program, ie lifting weights that are heavy for you. Not lifting light weights or your body weight, over and over and over. I am not saying to lift the most you can every day all day, because that's extreme, but weights challenging to your bodies current strength. Personally I like variations in the 2-8 rep ranges. It may fluctuate depending on the exercise, however, for most this is what I go with. Now lifting weights may be something you do, and done right, this may be all you need for health. A simple balanced strength program of pushing, pulling, squatting, hinging is enough. This along with a long walk a few times a week, and some gymnastics balancing/mobility work and many should be are at their MED.
You want a little more? You want to get your heart rate up? Sure, but once again, there is a limit. Don't be Rocky. Since many of you who follow do some form or another of "CrossFit", and it is a methodology I enjoy when done effectively. In the old days of CrossFit the norm was KISS. Simple workouts in design. Nothing fancy. The beauty in many of the workouts, and the health benefit, were in the few simple movements, and the short duration or intensity. The dosage was within the TUL and the MED. Looking at a typical WOD, lets look at MED. Round 1 takes 3 minutes, Round 2, takes 3 minutes, and Round 3 takes 3:30. Basically you are spent after three rounds, as going hard for 9 minutes is a difficult endeavor, and enough really. Let's say you did Round 4. Round 4 takes 4:30 to complete. Lets do one more round which takes 5 minutes. Is there any benefit gained in those last rounds, as your intensity dropped. Your MED was attained after round 2, and you were on your way to the TUL and passed it during round 4. Why not just stop after 3 rounds?
Yes, there are people who push themselves to the brink of performance. Those "Pros" are probably taking years off their life to perform at the level they are now. We see this in most major sports, guys (and gals) dying young, not too many years after being at the height of their game. Too much exercise ramps up your body's stress hormones, and long term, overwhelms the system. The body becomes weak and breaks down. Injuries can take a hold, and progress halts. This is even more true if sleep and nutrition suck. If the latter is true, stress hormones are already jacked up, and doing anything outside of some simple strength and long walks is detrimental and could have you heading straight to adrenal fatigue city via cortisol highway!
If you want to get your heart rate up and a good sweat going, KISS is still where its at. You don't need a lot of movements for good conditioning. You don't need a lot of reps. You don't need a lot of complex movements, or any for that matter. Good coaches know and implement this. Too many get caught up in more is better, and feed into or eat off of clients perceptions, instead of steering the course of reality. Smartly programmed workouts have you wanting no more after 5-10 minutes without you having gone 100%.
Here is one of my favorite KISS conditioning workouts. It is 5 minutes long. This was done after 18 sets of 2 squats and some handstand holds. From start to finish my entire training day lasted 25 minutes. Every minute on the minute 5 DOuble KB Clean and Front Squats with a challenging but doable weight. With the remainder of each minute hold a push up plank. Try it. Tell me if you wanted more.
More is not always better, and perception is deceitful especially when it comes to health!
This article speaks worlds of not only the horribly skewed realities of training, public perception vs physiological fact, but also to work ethics in general. You bring up the importance of nutrition and sleep, the foundational basis for success in any workout program, be it CrossFit or P90x (pardon my french). Strength is a foundation most modern exercise programs marketed to the public lack (P90x, insanity, pilates) but is what most research shows promotes a myriad of benefits in a very short period of time.
ReplyDeleteRobb Wolf, presented some client cases at his seminars of athletes (triathletes, BJJ competitors, etc) who overtrained and under slept. By cutting their CrossFit WODs and long bike sessions, in some instances by half (4 WODs a week to 2 WODs a week), improved sleep, performance and well being. I have seen many patients who lifted heavy weights all the time, got huge and now suffer from all sorts of health problems. Most of them require many different types of surgeries and a lifelong treatment with expensive medications. They tried to cover up the pains of overtraining with alcohol, marijuana and opiates instead of cutting back on workload, focusing on mobility and listening to their intuition and coaches.
When I read this article I think of CrossFit Endurance programming. For competitors, Brian MacKenzie recommends a minimum of 4 days of training and states best results are seen at 6 days of training. However, the training is very short, usually up to an hour a day at most. WODs are split with ample recovery time and usually consist of strength or metcon and a short, sport based, skill and drill emphasized interval. This will have a significantly different response from a physiological standpoint and endurance sport racers no longer need train 40-100 hours a week for triathlons or marathons using these methodologies. The every minute on the minute volume training paradigms also emphasize these points, and tabata modalities, where more improvements can be seen with increased stress in short periods of time.
The days of walking a wheel barrow up a snow covered mountain are over. Drago's training brought him to the tenth round with Rocky, and was probably more of a strength based program. This gave him time to enjoy other things in life like reading, KISS concerts and bubble baths.