I was asked this question in a FlowfitⓇ class i conducted recently at a local organization.
Now, let's just assume that you are just an average trainee who exercise regularly but are not hardcore (which most people are). And you know that the goal in (fat loss) exercise is to increase the heart rate. So it would seem counterintuitive to try to lower the heart rate between rounds through Recovery Breathing and the techniques associated with it.
Why decrease the heart rate between rounds when the goal of each round is to raise the heart rate as much as you can?
Actually the goal of each round is not exactly to raise the heart rate as much as you can, but to do as much work as you can;
i) with as high skill as you can and
ii) with as little distress as possible.
Let's compare two people, doing the same task, say walking at 6km/h for 10 minutes. At the end of the task, person A has a heart rate of 80 bpm, person B has a heart rate of 90 bpm. Which person is "fitter"?
Assuming both start at the same heart rate, the answer is obviously A.
Take note that fine motor skills degrade as heart rate raises. At Maximum Heart Rate (MHR) the degradation of skills can be so severe that you would not be able to access any of your trained skills at all.
Let's say you are involved in a particular sport (or a fight), because of the adrenaline released, your heart rate increases. If the heart rate raises so high that you can't access your skills, then you are dead. I have never been in a real fight before, but those of you who have can attest to this.
The person who can keep his heart rate lower while maintaining the accessibility to his skills is a better athlete.
So now there are two goals you are training for:
1) To keep heart rate as low as possible while maintaining a high rate of work.
2) To maintain the accessibility of your skills while your heart rate is high.
For goal 1), this is done by conditioning, to improve work capacity. Many systems out there excel in this. As your body gets accustomed to increasing work capacity, there is less distress every time you go through the same work output.
Say you did a Moderate Intensity workout today. You do a High Intensity workout tomorrow, you should be able to do more work tomorrow than today.
For goal 2), this is done by increasing the motor complexity (called sophistication in CST), while maintaining a high Effort (RPE) level.
So instead of just increasing work capacity for the same movements over and over, we seek to increase the motor complexity while maintaining the same work capacity.
Anybody maintain a high Effort level, pedalling wildly on a stationary cycle is an example.
But not everybody can maintain high skills in a high Effort level, like pedalling wildly on a racing bike, being chased by a pack of guard dogs, weaving through rush hour traffic, on a road full of pot holes.
Numerically speaking, Technique (RPT) decreases as Effort (RPE) and Discomfort (RPD) increases.
That is why when you are practicing* a certain movement, it feels easy until you start to do reps. At some work output level, your technique would degrade and the movement would feel difficult.
How to improve your ability to perform complex movements in a high stress situation? The general rule is to only increase the sophistication in when you maintain:
i) Technique at 8 or higher,
ii) Discomfort at 3 or below,
iii) Effort drops to 6 and below.
These three criteria must be met before increasing the sophistication in your training**.
How to increase sophistication? That's a topic that i would cover next time. For now, just compare the different levels in FlowfitⓇ to have an idea.
Stay tuned.
*Practice is defined as technique work aimed to increase proficiency of certain skills.
**Training is defined as strength & conditioning work to increase strength, endurance, cardiovascular endurance or any combination of these.
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