Are you always looking for the latest trends in training?
Something to give you the results you know you’re not getting from your program.
The next high intensity interval program or F45 style gym that has the secret to becoming your fittest you.
Something that will do it quicker… and with less effort.
The problem is trends go away and you’re always sitting back looking for the next thing to come along.
I WAS LIKE THIS TOO
The difference though, was I already had a mentor show me what worked, helped me become the fittest version of myself but I still spent my time trying to find something better.
But nothing ever got me back into that shape. Where I was playing full games of footy and feeling as fit and strong in the last 10 minutes as in the first.
Becoming My Fittest Me
So I was 17 at the time and loved my footy, my training and had to keep up to date with all the latest training info online. I was trying out all the HIIT workouts, tabata and everything I could find. I was fit, and being a 17 year old thought I knew everything too.
We got to our first footy training session with our new coach Ant. He was very clear, he didn’t care if we were the most skilful team, the strongest team, the most intimidating team, none of that mattered. He told us the only thing that mattered was that we were the fittest team.
I was sold, I thought for sure he would have had us working with all these new training methods I had been reading about and testing out on myself.
I was initially let down when what I thought was going to be these exciting HIIT style workouts turned into week after week of middle distance interval running, shuttles and road runs. I had written ourselves off at that point. We were going to be slow, out of shape and left behind all the other teams. That’s what all the internet and men’s health articles were telling me anyway.
I had seen the photos and videos of guys laying on the ground after these crazy conditioning sessions or throwing up at the back of the gym. We were never trained to that extent, rather we were week after week recovering quicker and feeling like the sessions were becoming easier even though we were adding more and more work. I thought we were never going to build our fitness without the laying on the ground level of intensity.
Then something I had never expected happened, we got out on the field and we not only were outplaying teams throughout the first half with speed but when the other teams started dying out in the late second half we were running away with the games on the back of fitness.
I didn’t understand it. Everything I was reading was telling me what we were doing was wrong, inferior and outdated. But the results week after week spoke for themselves.
Surely enough once we moved on from Ant’s coaching I made the mistake of falling for the trap of what everyone else was saying again only to have recently started to understand the fallacies of the conditioning training world and the marketing that oversells the value of certain training methods.
Once I began to understand this I looked through a lot of the research on high level endurance athletes, only to find they generally only spend 20% of their training at high intensities. Compare this to the fitness industry pushing normal people to do a large majority of their training at high intensity and something doesn’t quite add up.
Training to Regenerate Not Annihilate
The lesson of the story here is that conditioning to leave you laying on the ground isn’t the most effective way nor the only way as some people and the fitness industry in general may try to make you believe to improve your fitness or get leaner.
Majority of the push towards HIIT and other methods comes from the fast results that most people make when they first take on these training methods. The problem stems from the Lactic system (the energy system mostly stimulated by HIIT methods) has a huge potential for improvement but can reach majority of this potential in as little as 8 weeks. This leaves people excited and loving the results they get but soon after disappointed when they reach plateaus and can’t break through them using the same training they love.
Using a combination of training methods that help you recover and regenerate in between efforts allow for continued progress over time ultimately lead to you achieving your true potential and not hitting plateaus in your training.
Want to find out how you can apply these methods in your training?
As I’ve grown as a coach and started to apply these old school methods to help keep our clients progressing in their training we have been able to apply the principles behind them into workouts that provide a bit more variety and fun than the purely running based sessions that Ant had us do back at footy.
These training methods have formed the foundations of our tribe sessions at Newstrength to help people make continued progress in their training.
We would like to offer you a FREE trial session and a 30 minute goal setting and training assessment to help you figure out how to get the most out of your training. If you would like to take us up on this offer click HERE and we will be in touch to book your free session with us.