Tonight I’m teaching my 60 minute Total Conditioning class at 6:30PM, and tomorrow morning I’m subbing at 8:30AM for a 90 minute class.  This brings up an opportunity to discuss rapid recovery and avoiding over-training. There is no way my body can fully recover from a muscle-failure activity in 14 hours without some help, and even WITH help, odds are I will only be somewhat recovered.  Even if I supplement L-Glutamine tonight with an additional protein serving before bed (because protein synthesis occurs most efficiently at night during sleep, and that’s the best time to have excess protein in your bloodstream), not all my muscle fibers will be repaired in time.

If you’ve found yourself in this situation where you need to train hard twice within a 24 hour period, a little trick is to split the load up among the different types of muscle fibers. Sure it’s easy to do upper-body one workout and lower-body the next, but for a situation like mine where not only are both workouts total-body, but the 2nd workout is 50% “harder” than the first,  planning is critical.  My first workout tonight, I need to focus more on endurance training and less on strength training. For example, normally I use 20lb dumbbells in my class, and can do say 8 lateral shoulder raises per set. That taps into my Type-II (A&B) muscle fibers which grow in size for strength gains.  The problem with strength training is that you actually create micro-tears in the fibers which need to be repaired through protein synthesis. The protein you intake breaks down into amino acids and rebuilds the fibers – basically the body thinks that you have been injured and attempts to make the fibers larger and stronger than before to help prevent future injury. The body generally needs a day or two to accomplish this.  Training the same muscles every day can lead to overuse injuries because the fibers are not fully repaired while put back under load. The solution to this is to supplement strength training with endurance training for my first class.  It’s in my best interest to drop my dumbbells to 12lbs and execute 16-24 reps for the exercise I used in the example above. Extending the time under tension while decreasing the load helps to utilize the Type-I muscle fibers, which are predominantely used for endurance.  They are highly aerobic, do not grow much in size, and do not break down in the same way as Type-II fibers do and therefore do not need so much recovery time.  An example would be someone who can go running every morning.  Generally the joints would need more rest than the muscles themselves.  If I drop the load tonight and increase the time under tension, I can still burn a fair amount of calories and have my body most-likely recovered and ready to go tomorrow morning for the hard class.

What is written above may seem like common sense, but more and more athletes are experiencing overuse injuries these days – especially in highschool where the pressure to perform on the field is higher than ever.

If you get anything out of this post, it should be that a bicep isn’t just a bicep – our body is a complex machine and if we take the time to study and learn the ins-and-outs of how it works kinesiologically and physiologically, we can really get a lot more out of it than if we just train like drones in the gym, doing whatever it is we see the guy/girl next to us doing.

Train hard, and train smart(ly) :)

–S–

I just got home from an abnormally easy group fitness class, and while I was initially bored/frustrated, I remembered the importance of aerobic base training.

The 80/20 rule tends to apply to many things in life, and it’s no surprise that it’s the recommended ratio for aerobic/anaerobic activity as well.  Not only should 80% of your ‘workout’ be aerobic (below your Anaerobic Threshold), but 80% of your fitness program  should be predominantly base-training workouts. True athletes will do base-training activity on their recovery days, but for those of us who aren’t blessed with enough free time for a ‘train every day’ program, I think I speak for many of us when I say I’m always anxious for an ass-kicking in every workout. The problem with every workout being high-speed, muscle-failure, glycogen-depleting workouts is that it trains your body to become really good at burning sugar.

Most of us are naturally really good at burning sugar. Most of us with heart rate monitors will notice our heart rates jump right up to our AT when we do ANY vigorous activity. For example, when I first get on the treadmill at 6.5mph for my 20 minute warmup run, my heart rate (within 30 seconds) is right up at 160-165 (my AT being 164 at my last MAP test). After about 3-4 minutes it lowers to the 150’s and after about 12 minutes it’s down to the 140’s unless I up the speed to 7 or 7.5 which I don’t normally do on my warmups. The point of that example is that my body, like most of our bodies, is most comfortable burning sugar as its initial fuel source – hence the HR spike to anaerobic glycolosis.  Incorporating some long, slow, easy workouts into my program allows my body to become more comfortable burning fat as a primary fuel source and not rely so much on glycogen. That essentially will allow me to perform more work and workout longer without slipping past my AT.

Long story short: while the class tonight was extremely boring, it really did do me a good service because my metabolism will appreciate it in the long run.

What is Metabolic Conditioning?
Metabolic training is simply “teaching your body how to burn fat”. What a great concept! Unfortunately it sounds easier than it really is or else everybody would be thin. Before I explain Metabolic training in detail, first you must understand your fuel sources: fat, carbohydrates, and protein. Each of these have calories, which you burn for energy. Fat has 9 calories per gram, and carbs and protein each have 4 calories per gram. This is why its easier to get fat than it is to get thin. Eating fat and eating carbohydrates takes the same effort, right? You chew and swallow, and on top of that you only need to eat half the amount of fat to take in the same number of calories. The same concept applies for fuel burning: it takes more than twice the effort to burn fat, or rather, your workout would have to be twice as long if you burn “X” calories per minute.

So now you know the easiest way to get thin is to eat less and workout harder, right? WRONG! The correct answer is to workout smarter.

First Things First

- Get a heart rate monitor

- Qualify your Anaerobic Threshold

- Start spending 80% of your time below your AT and 20% above it

QUALIFYING YOUR A.T.:

Your A.T. (Anaerobic Threshold) isn’t just a heart rate – it’s the heart rate which your body stops burning fat. We “qualify” it by reading the signs our body sends to us: 1-2 words per breath, jaw dropping/excessive mouth breathing, mental focus. Why does your body stop burning fat? Well, in order to burn fat as a fuel, we need oxygen present in our muscles – aerobic means “with oxygen”, and anaerobic means “without oxygen”. It doesn’t mean that you suffocate yourself. It simply means that your lungs and heart can’t send oxygen through your bloodstream to your muscles quickly enough to meet the demand. That point where your body converts from a mixed metabolism (Aerobic Glycolysis = fat + sugar) to a completely anaerobic metabolism (Anaerobic Glycolysis = sugar only) is your Anaerobic Threshold. This is important because fat as a fuel is more efficient, and we need to train our bodies to WANT to burn fat, because most of us in today’s society are sugar burners.

Applied Metabolic Conditioning: ZONE TRAINING:

I adopted that nice zone chart below from my old health club Lifetime Fitness. The principles are very simple – train in ALL FIVE zones, with roughly 80% of your workout being in zones 2 and 3. Simple enough, right? YES – if you have a HEART RATE MONITOR! *Ahem… Each zone has its own benefit and drawback, which I’ll explain below.

ZONE 1: This zone is like going for a nice walk in the park – it’s really easy, and you can do it all day. Why? Because your heart can easily supply your muscles with enough oxygen to stay aerobic, meaning you’re most likely burning 100% fat as fuel.

SIGNS: Boredom

PROS: It’s easy, and it’s efficient. If you’re burning 2 calories a minute in Zone 1, odds are both calories are fat calories.

CONS: You’re only burning like 2 calories a minute. Hardly a workout.

ZONE 2: This zone is the “Aerobic Development” zone. Base training is done in this zone, and most likely your Aerobic Base is here in zone 2. Your Aerobic Base is the heart rate at which you are the MOST aerobically efficient – as in your heart and lungs are the most able to supply oxygen to the muscles. The only way you will ever know your Aerobic Base is by getting a Metabolic Assessment Profile and/or a Fat Utilization Profile. Ideally, you want to find a health club or local fitness center which can give you a MAP test (make sure they use the New Leaf system). If you can’t afford it or don’t have the resources, just estimate that your A.B. is roughly 30 beats below your A.T. Anyway, this zone is where you feel like you’re working out, but it’s still very easy – you could go for a couple hours and still have energy left over – Why? Refer to Zone 1.

SIGNS: You can go all day, but you feel like you’re at least working out

PROS: This is a great zone to “teach” your body how to burn fat. Long slow cardio sessions are great for training your muscles to use the oxygen in your blood more efficiently to burn fat.

CONS: We’re still only burning like 5-8 calories a minute, and many people are already tapping into their glycogen stores when there’s literally NO reason to do so. Example, of those 8 calories, probably 6 of them are fat, and 2 of them are glycogen (carbs).

ZONE 3: This zone is the “Aerobic Endurance” zone – aka. Aerobic Glycolysis (converting glucose into lactate with oxygen present). This is where the magic happens folks. If you’re burning at least 50% fat in the middle of zone 3, you can either thank your parents for blessing you with a great metabolism or keep doing what you’re doing as far as workouts and nutrition habits go. Most people are burning 80/20 at the bottom of zone 3, and 10/90 or so at the top end of zone 3, so as you can see, there’s a LOT going on with your body in this zone! We want to spend the most time in this zone because you burn a TON of calories here and you’re still aerobic. What that means is we’re still training our muscles to use the oxygen in our blood to burn fat, so good zone 3 training will help balance out those fat/carb fuel ratios so you’re more like 30/70 or even 40/60 at the top end of zone 3. I’ve actually seen a triathlete once who had a 90/10 ratio 2-3 beats below her A.T. To put that into perspective, she was burning 20 calories a minute, and 18 of those were fat calories!! That’s 2 grams of fat burned per minute, folks – THAT’s an efficient workout :)

SIGNS: You really feel it but you can get through it – the fact that your muscles are starting to become oxygen-deprived means you’ll be building up lactic acid (that’s what burns), BUT because you’re still technically aerobic, you will be able to convert that lactic acid back into carbon dioxide and water that you can flush out with each repetition.

PROS: You burn a ton of calories here and you can really shape your metabolic efficiency if you train smart in this zone

CONS: Without a heart rate monitor, it’s very easy to slip past your A.T. and into zone 4. You can’t train in this zone based solely on “feeling” – it’s just not feasible.

ZONE 4: This zone is the “Anaerobic Endurance” zone – aka. Anaerobic Glycolysis (converting glycogen into lactate without oxygen present). Now, you should have JUST QUALIFIED YOUR A.T.! Remember, your anaerobic threshold is BETWEEN zone 3 and zone 4 – it’s the point which your body stops burning fat all together (99% of the time, save a few freak cases of super athletes). You should be ventilating (jaw drop, 1-2 words per breath), and you should feel that mental focus, where you’re “in the zone” (no pun intended). Here we have about an hour of fuel, roughly 60-90 minutes. Now, unlike fat stores which can expand indefinitely, our muscles can only hold a set amount of glucose at any given time in the form of glycogen. People who go on low-carb diets (or worse, carb-free diets) set themselves up for failure here, because it tells your body to SHRINK your glycogen storage capacity by up to 50% of your genetic default. Well, what happens when you start eating carbs again?The same amount of carbs you take in now has HALF the room in your muscles! The left over gets rejected by your muscles and liver and gets stored where? Yep, as FAT. That’s why low-carb diets don’t work, because you have to stay on them forever. The good news is, zone 4 training helps INCREASE your glycogen storage capacity by up to 50% from your genetic default! More room in your muscles for sugar means that you have MORE time to burn off carbs when you eat them, and less sugar in your bloodstream. Less sugar in your blood means your pancreas won’t go into freak-out mode and dump a bunch of insulin into your blood to promote fat storage.

SIGNS: Excessive localized muscular fatigue, open mouth heavy breathing, mental focus

PROS: Even though we don’t BURN any fat here, we train your body to store sugar in your muscles to help prevent FUTURE fat storage. This zone is also a high-heart rate zone, meaning we’re going to build the size, strength and efficiency of our heart. Every time your heart beats, X amount of blood gets pumped through your arteries – it’s called your stroke volume. If we build up your heart muscle in size and strength, you can INCREASE that stroke volume so more blood gets pumped per heart beat. Make sense? Well, more blood flowing per heart beat means your heart doesn’t have to work as hard, which RAISES YOUR A.T.!!! Having a higher A.T. means you can burn fat longer and at a higher heart rate, ultimately increasing your overall fat burn in zones 2 and 3 – YAY!

CONS: People tend to quit and give up in zone 4 because it sucks. That lactic acid burns and you’re short of breath. You probably have a tingly and uncomfortable feeling in your legs which are demanding lots of blood and you may even feel flush. The solution? Get over it and think about starving kids in Africa. As bad as you may think it is at that very moment, some guy is getting his leg blown off in Iraq and will never be able to do what you’re doing right now. It’s not NEARLY as bad as you’re probably making it out to be – my point is you have to develop mental strength here and stop whining like a little kid.

ZONE 5: This zone is the “Speed/Power” zone – aka. ATP-CP (Adenosine Triphosphate-Creatine Phosphate). ATP stores in the muscle last for approximately 5 seconds and the resynthesis of ATP from CP will continue until CP stores are depleted, approximately 25 seconds. This gives us around 30 seconds Zone 5 activity. Basically what’s going on here is that you have an adenosine with three phosphate bonds (triphosphate). A ton of energy is released when one of the phosphate bonds is broken off, leaving you with ADP (Adenosine diphosphate…di=2, tri=3). The ADP needs another phosphate bond to get back to its ATP form, so it borrows a phosphate from the creatine phosphate (sometimes referred to as phosphocreatine). Once all the creatine phosphate in your muscles is depleted, you can no longer maintain activity at this intensity, and have to slow down and begin using your anaerobic glycolosys system again for primary fuel needs. Don’t worry too much about the ATP unless you are training to be an Olympic sprinter or power lifer. Zone 5 training is great for tricking because it’ll really help boost your endurance during combos with lots of plyometric activity. One thing to consider is that the larger and denser your muscles are (size of your fast twitch glycolytic muscle fibers), the more phosphocreatine you can essentially carry in your muscles. It’s not going to make you last much longer in Zone 5 (maybe 3-5 seconds), but hey that’s one more trick you can add to your form, right?

SIGNS: The uncontrollable urge to stop whatever it is you’re doing and recover. Complete exhaustion.

PROS: You’re only gonna be in zone 5 for 30-60 seconds, and then you’re done. Great opportunity to really train your heart muscle, though I don’t recommend any zone 5 training if you have heart disease or severely high cholesterol.

CONS: It sucks so bad it hurts with awesome. Really though this is the zone where people get hurt so make sure your’ve completed stability and strength training phases before you start doing jump squats with a 50lb weighted vest.

GLYCOGEN REPLENISHMENT:

You have 3 main fuel sources, called macronutrients: Fat, Carbohydrates, and Protein. There are 9 calories per gram of fat, 4 calories per gram of carbs and 4 calories per gram of protein (7 calories per gram of alcohol, if you’re curious.) I don’t consider protein a fuel, since its primary function is to build muscle, and alcohol is bad for you, which leaves us with Fat and Carbs. I’m not going to get into nutrition too much, because everybody has different nutrition requirements, and you NEED to see a registered dietitian to know exactly what to eat and when. What I WILL tell you is that when you deplete your glycogen stores (all the carbs in your muscles and liver) during zone 4 training, you have a 30-45 minute “window of opportunity” IMMEDIATELY FOLLOWING YOUR WORKOUT! This window of opportunity is simple – your body is in a great metabolic state and your muscles are CRAVING sugar. Take in a 4/1 ratio of carbs to protein (ex. a post-workout shake with 20 grams of protein would be 80 protein calories (20 x 4). 80 calories X 5 is 400 calories, which would require 320 carb calories. 320/80 is 4/1. The carbohydrates you intake needs to be IN YOUR SYSTEM in this window of opportunity, meaning it needs to digest right away – simple carbs in a liquid form are perfect: apple juice, Gatorade + banana, something along those lines. Whole grain stuff that takes a while to break down in your body defeats the purpose entirely. I recommend using fruit juice instead of milk with your protein shake because sucrose tends to absorb quicker and easier than lactose. Also get some anti-oxidants and vitamins in there to help aid your recovery.

TIPS:

• Eat 5-6 meals a day. “Eating multiple daily meals leads to greater glycogen storage with less fat storage. For example, if you eat 450 grams (g) of carbohydrates daily divided among three meals, your body will digest those carbs in 150 g increments. Some will head toward muscles to make muscle glycogen, and some will be stored as fat. Splitting the same daily amount evenly among six meals (75 g per meal) will take away from their ability to uptick fat storage, leaving more for muscle glycogen. The result of splitting the same number of carbs among six meals a day is greater glycogen storage for better growth and fewer carbs stored as body fat.”- Chris Aceto
• Don’t diet. Dieting sets yourself up for failure. It’s counter-productive and can actually put your body into “starvation-mode” which is a fancy term for “store-everything-as-fat-because-you-deprive-me-of-fat-mode”. Your body needs fuel to survive – if you’re overweight, workout smarter and change your eating habits to healthier alternatives, but DON’T DIET.
• Protein is your friend! Take 1 gram of protein per kilo of body weight per day (roughly half your weight). If you weigh 120lbs, you should be getting 60g of protein every day. I bet you’re nowhere near that. Your muscles are MADE of protein (amino acids). If you’re depriving your body of protein intake, much of your efforts in class are futile because your muscles will break down and you won’t have the building blocks needed to repair them (recover). If you’re not in the strength or speed/power phase of periodization in the weight room, don’t take protein as if you are. Basically, don’t take 1-2g/lb of body weight simply because the guy who’s benching 300lbs next to you is. If you don’t have the muscle mass there to demand the protein intake for hypertrophy, the excess protein in your system will convert to fat.
• DRINK WATER!!! I’m sure you all have this bookmarked and memorized by now, but just in case:

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CONCLUSION:

Even though Metabolic Conditioning is only ONE way to train, it should be incorporated into your fitness lifestyle because the heart rate zones can be applied to ALL types of training. Just be aware of which fuel your body is depending on at any given point so you’re not wasting your time and you can achieve your results on schedule.

© 2008 Sean Cannon, ACSM CPT