Conditioning is primarily the training of the various energy systems to be most effective and efficient.
Which system(s) would depend upon the actual type of conditioning being done.
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It never gets easier. You just go faster. - Greg LeMondOriginally Posted by Bryanccfshr
Training is like fighting with a gorilla. You don’t stop when you’re tired. You stop when the gorilla is tired. - Greg Henderson
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Conditioning is primarily the training of the various energy systems to be most effective and efficient.
Which system(s) would depend upon the actual type of conditioning being done.
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How can you perform work that is supramaximal?
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Work is described as supramaximal by people who have bought into the idea that maximal intensity is achieved while fueled solely by the aerobic energy system. This same fallacy leads to calling P90X "High intensity exercise".
Conditioning as a physical quality (as opposed to conditioning as an activity) is the ability to exert force over a period of time. Improvements in conditioning consist of increasing the amount of force one can produce for the same time, or the amount of time for which the same force can be produced. What constitutes good conditioning is dependent on activity and goals.
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With all due respect to Greg LeMond, who was a hard man, it definitely gets easier as you get better/stronger/faster relative to your opponents.
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Primalfish, how about: "Ability to sustain aerobically fueled activity and more quickly recover between bouts of non-aerobic activity".
I've been hearing more strength coaches lately advocate low intensity conditioning (cardio, essentially) as a way to improve conditioning without impacting recovery the way hard hill or prowler sprints do. People like Chad Wesley Smith (Juggernaut Method) and Alex Viada (Hybrid Athlete) feel it benefits even pure strength athletes because it helps them recover faster between sets and get more work done and maybe even recover better between workouts.
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The answer was in the post you quoted - "relative to aerobic capacity".
That's a contradiction. It is only because one acknowledges that the aerobic system is not the be all and end all that intensities above the aerobic capacity can be spoken about.
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About the "supramaximal": conditioning is broader than "aerobic capacity". Conditioning may be understood as a mix of Muscular and Cardiovascular Endurance, and as such, there would be no possibility of "supramaximal" work, once a "supramaximal" from the "aerobic capacity" point of view would be a submaximal from the "muscular capacity" point of view. So...
"Improving one's conditioning is improving his capacity to do repeated bouts of submaximal work"
If you can't do repeated bouts, the work is, by definition, maximal. If you can do repeated bouts (as in... multiple reps), the work is, again by definition, submaximal. Improving one's 1RM shouldn't be regarded as conditioning, hence the phrasing above. And before someone says that Usain Bolt's 100m WR is "maximal work", think that one multiple steps are repeated bouts.
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Well, back in the day you could seek out faster opponents. Today they're all on drugs. They were on drugs then, too. But not a class of drugs that boosted your VO2max to levels on par with a Siberian Husky like EPO does.
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Mark Rippetoe, how would you define "aerobic capacity"? I believe this may be what I had in mind, when I originally asked about conditioning.
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