Metabolically speaking, a fighting round is very different from a hard run of the same duration. Microscopic rests between strikes, takedowns, and throws make all the difference.
Within your muscles a red protein called myoglobin stores a small amount of oxygen. It is depleted very rapidly, in 5-10sec—and is replenished just as quickly.
An athlete going out for a hard run uses up and refills his myoglobin oxygen only once—which is why endurance athletes’ myoglobin concentration is no better than untrained subjects’ and sometimes even worse.
HIIT is not much better; no matter how many 400m intervals you survive, the number of deplete/replenish cycles needed to stimulate myoglobin production is still too low.
Enter the “stop-start” or “intermittent exercise.”
If it sounds like conventional interval training, it decidedly is not.
First, in interval training recovery from set to set is incomplete and fatigue rapidly accumulates and wipes you out.
In contrast, in intermittent exercise the rests are sufficient to carry on at the same intensity. (In track and field terminology, this is “repeat training,” not “interval training.”)
Second, “stop-start” training, even at high intensity, for example at a speed that would take one to complete exhaustion in just 3min, as was used in many of the Swedish studies we mentioned last time, produces shockingly small amounts of lactic acid.
There are two reasons for that. One is the myoglobin oxygen buffer you just learned about. It makes even hard efforts aerobic. The other is the fact that, the shorter the exercise, the less lactic acid it produces.
As we explain at the Strong Endurance™ seminar, in all-out exercise, muscle lactate barely budges above its resting level for the first 5 seconds, while max power is maintained. Then the acid concentration doubles between 5 and 10 seconds. Then it doubles again from 10 seconds to 20, from 20 seconds to 30, and from 30 seconds to 60…
Now you understand why keeping your efforts brief allows you to produce little acid and to recover rapidly. And to adapt to the specific demands of a fighting sport.
If you are a grappler, a wrestler, or an athlete from any other sport demanding “strong endurance,” you need the video KETTLEBELLS STRONGFIRST: Minimalist Kettlebell Training for Maximal Results on the Mat. It combines our expertise at general physical preparation with the mat knowledge of experienced BJJ practitioners among our certified instructors and friends of StrongFirst. |
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