Happy Saturday and I hope you are charging up to crush it this week.

Today we are chatting about the role of the aerobic system to support lifting and sports performance.

Remember - the key is to do high quality work first, then repeat it.

Your athlete's aerobic system is what allows them to recover faster during training from set to set and even session to session; thus you can do more high quality work.

Functional Reserve Range

A key concept to understand is Functional Reserve Range (FRR), which is the difference between your resting heart rate and your lactate threshold. Consider two athletes:

One has a resting heart rate of 65 bpm with a lactate threshold of 165 bpm. His functional reserve range is 100 beats.

The other has a resting heart rate of 32 bpm with a lactate threshold of 170 bpm. His functional reserve is 138 beats.

That roughly 40 bpm difference means the second athlete can handle more stress and recover faster given the same workload, as he's staying more aerobic at a higher heart rate. This allows him to train at a higher quality, since he is more aerobic.

Remember that your body perceives stress from many areas—not just training. An athlete with a greater FRR can handle more life stressors too, which is why they are more resilient to stress.

Bioenergetics 101

While your ATP-PC system and glycolytic system get all the glory in strength training, your aerobic system is the foundation that supports everything.

Think of the aerobic systems as the base of the pyramid for the other energy systems. All bioenergetic roads lead through the aerobic systems at some point.

Even during high-intensity output between 20 to 30 seconds of a maximum effort, research has shown that aerobic sources provide as much energy as anaerobic ones. At the 10-second mark of such an effort, the aerobic system contributes at least 20 percent of the energy.

Five Effective Aerobic Methods for Strength Athletes

1. Contralateral Circuit: Perform alternating exercises that work opposite sides of the body (e.g., left leg lunge with right arm row). Your body is constantly switching blood from one side to another and from upper to lower body, teaching your vascular system to become more efficient.
2. 5-Minute Isometric Holds: Using about 30% of your max, hold isometric positions to create local muscle endurance and potentially induce some tissue remodeling via a mechanism called tissue creep. This also produces significant postural changes and helps athletes get into better positions under load.
3. Strength Power Aerobic Capacity (SPAC) Method: Using 50% of your 1RM, perform singles of opposing movements like back squat and bench press for 5-8 minute blocks. This looks easy on paper but will have large athletes' heart rates up to 150-170 bpm quickly.
4. Super Endurance: Light bodybuilding-style circuits while keeping heart rate in the aerobic zone (110-170 bpm). Perform all exercises in one block, then repeat the block 2-3 times depending on conditioning level.
5. Aerobic Work Substitution: On light training days or recovery days, sub in aerobic work. Or when an athlete is overreached, replace a lifting day with an aerobic day, keeping heart rate around 130 bpm or below for maximum blood flow and recovery.

Conditioning / aerobic training is a huge key that you can leverage to bring your entire training capacity up to a higher level in less time, compared to focusing solely on strength.

When you build a bigger aerobic system, your athletes can do more high-quality work and manage training stress better, increasing their overall function.

By using strategic conditioning methods that complement your strength work rather than interfere with it, you'll continue making progress when others plateau.

"The athlete who is in the best conditioning shape at the end of a game will dominate." - Cal Dietz

We deep into aerobic training and conditioning methods in the Triphasic Training II book since it is so important.

Also, I - Dr Mike T here- am doing an entire course on "Flexible Meathead Cardio" where I will go deep into the principles and even more method plus protocols to enhance old skooooool aerobic development - all without having to run miles and miles per week. This course is designed for athlete who are already lifting 2-5 times per week.

Info is below and enrollment ends this coming Monday March 3 at midnight PST.

Go to https://miket.me/cardio​

I even have Cal lined up for a special bonus interview for the "Flexible Meathead Cardio" course.

Any questions, just hit reply!

Dr Mike T (and Cal)

PS -Triphasic 2 is now live on Amazon below in print and Kindle

"My favorite part of the book is the guidelines that it lays out for how to train properly, especially for the aerobic phase which is extremely important for adapting to stimulus faster than your competition." -Hayan

>> ​​Order Link​ ​<< order here

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Coach Cal Dietz, U of MN
Dr Mike T Nelson
Triphasic Training II: 14 High-Performance Methods to Unlock Elite Athletic Development - out NOW

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