The Necessity of Good Conditioning for Lifters (Part 1)

Conditioning is one of those topics that raises a lot of debate in the strength training world – particularly for those who are not pursuing some sort of sport outside of the weight room.  It’s pretty well accepted that if you participate in a traditional sport, there is a minimum degree of conditioning that must be maintained in order to practice and play your sport effectively.

I hate the term “sport specific strength” because by and large it doesn’t exist.  Yes, some sports require more or less upper body or lower body strength than others, but for the most part strength is strength, and it’s a general adaptation that carries over to any sport specific movement.

Conditioning, however, is different.  Conditioning is actually quite specific to time/duration, intensity/output, and modality.  So cycling doesn’t necessarily prepare you well for running.  And running doesn’t necessarily prepare you well for swimming.  And long slow runs don’t prepare you well for high intensity sprint intervals.  So this makes preparation of an athlete for their sport of choice relatively easy.  A coach needs to examine the nature of the conditioning needed to practice/play a sport and match it as closely as possible in duration, intensity, and modality during the training program.

This is most often necessary when working with athletes who have long offseasons where they may not be engaged in practice or play of their sport for long periods of time.  In order to maintain some semblance of conditioning, we need to find a “proxy” conditioning routine to prevent the athlete from completely detraining.  Keep in mind an important point – it is not necessary to maintain “peak” conditioning year round.  Peak conditioning can be achieved in a relatively short period of time, provided the athlete doesn’t become completely detrained.  A fundamental mistake many coaches make is trying to maintain peak conditioning year round, and this often comes at the expense of increasing strength, adding muscle mass, or letting the body heal up from chronic overuse injuries that are often the by-product of year round engagement of very high repetition movement (think running, swimming, cycling, throwing, etc).

For some athletes who engage in their sport year round (often times to their detriment) it isn’t necessary to condition them at all outside of their practice environment.  This would be the case for many swimmers and grapplers who never have much of an offseason, and whose conditioning demands are hard to replicate by anything other than practicing their sport.

But the purpose of this article is not for the sport athlete – it’s for the lifter.  This could be the competitive lifter, or simply for the guy in his garage who simply wants to get as big and strong as possible.  Does this athlete need to condition at all, or should he simply lift and eat?  If so, how much conditioning should he do and what should be the nature of his conditioning protocol?

My opinion is, yes.  Lifters will get better long term progress when they are conditioned.

Now, before we go deeper into why I believe this to be true, let me first reassure all of you who absolutely abhor any type of cardio activity – I’m not going to recommend that you need to transform yourself into a hamster who spends an hour a day slaving away on a treadmill.  We aren’t competitive bodybuilders and we don’t need single digit body fat levels and “razor abs” to be good lifters.  We aren’t prepping for a 5-round UFC fight so we don’t even need our cardio to be that hard.  You can get away with doing a little bit of moderate conditioning and have a tremendously positive impact on your strength training.  So take a deep breath and take another bite of your cheeseburger.  It’s not going to be that hard.

4 Reasons to Condition regularly….

#1:  Tolerance for Volume

If you want to get bigger and stronger you need to be able to perform and ever increasing amount of work under the barbell.  I think most of us understand that moving from a 400 lb Squat to a 500 lb Squat takes more work than going from a 200 lb Squat to a 300 lb Squat.  Whether you are a disciple of Westside Barbell or you prefer more traditional approaches (such as those in PPST3) there will always be a need to increase your training volume on the primary exercises.  To what degree, how often, and exact set/rep arrangements will vary from lifter to lifter and program to program, but there is no way around training volume.  You need to raise it over time.  Whether its something old school like a ball busting 5×5 workout or a Dynamic Effort Squat session that includes 12 explosive doubles on a 1 minute rest….that shit is hard.  It’ll challenge you physically, mentally, and even emotionally – but it needs to be a part of your training program somewhere if you are serious about getting big and strong.

This type of work takes strength – duh.  But there is also a conditioning element to these types of workouts.  If you are out of shape it’s hard to complete them.  It’s especially hard to complete them with serious weight on the bar, and without taking 15 minutes between sets.

Real people have real lives and we don’t always have 2-3 hours of gym time to leisurely plod through our sets.  So if you are out of shape you have two options – (1) take an exceedingly long period of time between your sets (2) do less work by either reducing load on the bar or reducing your volume.  Well unfortunately option 1 isn’t practical or doable for most of us and option 2 won’t get you the results you are after.

What if you just force the issue and dramatically reduce your rest time between sets?

Maybe that works and maybe it doesn’t, but if you aren’t in condition enough to handle a reduced recovery period between sets your 5×5 workout is likely to become 5 x 5, 4, 3, 3, 2.  That isn’t the same thing as 5 x 5.

This is where conditioning comes into play.  If we want to be able to keep handling heavy loads for high volumes with reasonable rest intervals between sets we need to be in shape to do so.  And I think we need to get out from underneath the barbell to do so.

So instead of just thinking about “training to get in shape”  we need to reverse our thinking….”we need to get in shape to train!”  And I really credit Louie Simmons for bringing this issue to the forefront of the strength training world.  Louie is responsible for making sled dragging a staple of many powerlifters training regimens.

At Westside Barbell, the Friday Volume Squat day is generally 10-12 explosive doubles, and there is some serious weight on the barbell for these workouts.  Generally the lifters use 50-60% of their 1RM plus about 25% of added band tension.  For a Raw Lifter using straight weight (no bands or chains) this comes out to about 75-85% of their 1RM for 10-12 explosive doubles…..on very short rest intervals.  And oh by the way, it’s expected that set 12 is just as fast (if not faster) than set 1.

You have to be in shape to endure this type of volume at this pace.  Don’t believe me?  Try to do 85% of your 1RM for 10×2 with 1-2 minutes between sets.  And stay explosive all the way through the 10th set.  It’s a bitch.  And you can’t do it if you aren’t in great shape.

In order to keep his lifters and athletes in good enough shape to complete and progress on these types of workouts, Louie has his lifters regularly drag a sled for conditioning.  As lifters build up their capacity on the sled (heavier loads, longer trips, shorter rest intervals, etc) their ability to handle the training volume improves.

This doesn’t just apply to Westside Barbell.  If you favor a more traditional volume protocol, say 5×5 with loads approximately 80% of 1RM (give or take a bit) you need to be in shape to complete those workouts as well….ideally with rest intervals under 10 minutes and form that doesn’t go all to hell on the 5th set.

And what if you want to do something else after your 5×5 Squats?  Can you, or is your gas tank so empty that you are just going through the motions on any other exercise performed that day?  Ideally, after we squat we’d like to pull a few Deadlift sets, or some Cleans, or even Press or Bench Press.  Do you have the work capacity to do so effectively.  Even if you can, can you do it in a reasonable time frame?  If not, you might consider raising your work capacity via some conditioning outside of the gym such as sled dragging or pushing a prowler.

In Part 2 of this article we’ll look at other areas where can conditioning can help other than just between set recovery, and some practical recommendations for implementing conditioning workouts into your weekly routine.