A look at two strategies that can help improve an athlete’s aerobic base, leading to results on the field.
Training Time : Tim Rudd of IYCA
Today I’m going to share two powerful strategies for improving your athlete’s aerobic base as discussed in the last three issues. These are just two of many strategies and one piece of the conditioning puzzle for improving your athletes on-field performance.
I also highly recommend Joel Jamieson’s book “Ultimate MMA Conditioning” for a more complete understanding of the principles and strategies for improving your athlete’s conditioning. Don’t be fooled by the title as the book spans all sports.
METHOD #1: Cardiac Output Method
Why It’s Important: This is a highly effective method for improving how much blood your heart can pump to all working muscles and veins with each beat.
Why It Works: Results in a larger left ventricle of the heart capable of pumping out more blood per beat. Also a lower resting heart rate and greater cardiac efficiency. The less work the heart has to do to pump blood, the better your aerobic energy production will be because more oxygen can get to your muscles for faster recovery.
Guidelines: Heart rate between 130-150 BPM, 30-90 minutes sessions. Increase volume over time (20 percent weekly increase). Use 2-3 times per week.
Exercises: Any low-intensity exercise such as jogging, biking, swimming, jumping rope, low-intensity circuits; as long as the heart rate is in the correct range.
METHOD #2: High-Resistance Intervals
Why It’s Important: Improves the aerobic qualities of the fast twitch muscle fibers responsible for strength and power. Athletes will improve their ability to maintain their power longer without gassing out.
How it works: Recruits the highest threshold motor units (power/strength) and increases the oxidative (oxygen) abilities of these fibers by supplying them with constant oxygen.
Guidelines: Each rep is at maximal intensity, using both high resistance and short duration. Resting heart rate 130-140 for recovery between reps, 5-7 seconds per rep with 10-20 reps per workout, 1-2 times per week.
Exercises: Short sprints of up a very steep incline, dragging sled loaded with weight, band-resisted sprints, or a spin bike with the resistance cranked up as high as possible.
Tim Rudd is an IYCA specialist in youth conditioning and owner of Fit2TheCore.