SS interfering with cardiovascular fitness

[stejor]

Look....here is what people fail to understand about this balance between strength and conditioning......building peak strength takes about 20 years of dedicated work and planning. Building peak conditioning takes about 8-12 weeks of dedicated work......usually less if you are at least somewhat in shape when you start to try and peak.

What do you mean when you say that peak conditioning can be acquired in 2-3 months? Most of the athletes on my high school track team were still improving after years of training.

[Andy Baker (KSC)]

Improving at what? "Track" is a diverse sport

[Tamara Reynolds]

I guess I just hang out with and train with a bunch of awesome and intellectually stimulating women.

Stupid is stupid. Lazy is lazy. Gender has nothing to do with it.

[b17vic]

Perhaps peak conditioning and peak motor control are not developed at the same rate? Almost anyone can be highly conditioned if they/ we could be bothered but far fewer will be great at say for example 400 meter hurdles. . . . . well something along those lines :-O

[Andy Baker (KSC)]

I guess I just hang out with and train with a bunch of awesome and intellectually stimulating women.

Stupid is stupid. Lazy is lazy. Gender has nothing to do with it.

As with anything, nothing is absolute. I was being asked about the demographics that I come into contact with on a regular basis in my business. My point was not to make a universal statement that applies across the board.

[Andy Baker (KSC)]

Apparently I need to start being a little more careful and detailed about what I type, as I seem to be pissing some people off. By "peak condition" I don't really mean that you could set a world record in the 1600m with 2 months of training or go win the Ironman in Kona.

For a lifter, or a general strength athlete, a football player, or an everyday joe blow.....an exceptional amount of conditioning can occur in 2-3 months.

Is exceptional a better word than peak??

[b17vic]

I'm ok with exceptional or peak.

[Andy Baker (KSC)]

I'm ok with exceptional or peak.

Thanks vic,

I have been really worried about that all day. :-)

[j.d.]

Look....here is what people fail to understand about this balance between strength and conditioning......building peak strength takes about 20 years of dedicated work and planning. Building peak conditioning takes about 8-12 weeks of dedicated work......usually less if you are at least somewhat in shape when you start to try and peak.

In our hypothetical 20 year quest to build peak strength, we have this window at the beginning of our training where we are capable of experiencing "The Novice Effect." In other words, at no other time in our training careers are we capable of building strength and mass at this ridiculously rapid rate.

So for us as strength coaches who have witnessed this effect, we don't want to do anything to derail these gains or impede the potential for growth and strength. So, at this time in a person's training career we will SACRIFICE cardiovascular conditioning for strength. We do this, not because cardio is unimportant, but because we know WE CAN GET OUR CARDIO BACK IN A MATTER OF WEEKS!!!!

Once someone has ran the course on a basic linear progression there is no reason they cannot begin a program that strikes more balance between the two attributes. As long as the conditioning is phased in intelligently, you will be able to hang on to those hard earned strength gains while getting yourself in better condition.

Jim Wendler has an excellent article on how he un-fat-fucked himself several years ago while maintaining strength. Basically started out with some walking every day, then progressed to walking with a weighted vest, then started running small parts of his walks, and eventually progressed to hardcore Prowler sessions and hill sprints 3-4 times per week. Now the dude is a total fucking machine....but he got strong first, fat boy style.

Thanks for your help Andy. I guess I never looked at it this way, it does make sense. Guess I'll stick to chilling and pigging out for as long as I'm still experiencing this "novice effect"...

[Rob Israel]

Who are you calling Joe Blow? ;-)

Your last rant was very interesting and aside from the generalization about women, I thought very insightful. It took me months of lifting and then the consequent addiction to it to helped me re-shuffle my fitness priorities and general approach. I was still trying to lean out while doing starting strength! (No, i hadn't read "YNDTP"). Which is why it ended rather quickly.

Anyway, since then, I've stopped doing any cardio for long periods of time and have picked it back up twice now. As you said, with aerobic conditioning, you lose it fast but you get it back quickly too. I think two months is about right to get back into a reasonable "intermediate" level of conditioning, but there are definitely time domain concerns that would have to worked on depending on what you want.

I think Kilgore/Lascek book FIT has some pretty good insight into how to train while putting strength front and center and still build in a reasonable amount of metabolic conditioning into the program.