| Weight Training for Multisport |
Multisport athletes and runners need to cross-train in the gym. Here’s a reminder about the importance of resistance training and how to train effectively.
Running performance will stagnate without constant attention to cross-training.
The majority of people reach a certain fitness level and then plateau. Studies show that increases in muscular strength are most prevalent in the first four to eight weeks of training. After these early stages of training, strength gains then taper off. The more seasoned a strength athlete becomes, the slower the rate of improvement, as reported in the “American College of Sports Medicine Position Stand on Progression Models in Resistance Training for Healthy Adults.” Although it’s impossible to continually progress at the same rate with long-term strength training, it is possible to see steady improvements after extended training periods. It’s all a matter of intensity. Resistance-training intensity can be described as the amount of work muscles can perform in relation to load, volume, and time. These variables need to be constantly manipulated in order to stimulate improvement. The body strives to maintain homeostasis, or ‘stay the same.’ The reason many athletes fail in their endeavour to consistently get stronger is they ignore the fact that the body will reach homeostasis quickly using the same routine. The principle of progressive overload is critical to success. This principal is defined as the gradual increase of stress placed on the body. The body adapts remarkably quickly to stresses placed upon it. To progress steadily, new challenges must be placed upon it regularly. It follows that to avoid these training plateaus, training intensity must increase. There are numerous variations in training strategies that will accomplish this goal effectively. It could be that strength gains (and other fitness benefits) tend to stagnate or decline over the long run due to a lack of variation and imagination in the routine followed. The bottom line is that people get lazy and just don’t step up their programs. Over time, people get entrenched in the same old routine, simply going through the motions, lifting the same load in the same order, in the same amount of time, day in and day out. This becomes a maintenance routine, not enhancing existing strength or fitness levels, but simply sustaining them. So, what can be done to intensify a weight-training routine? An examination of the variables that can be manipulated should provide some insight on designing an effective routine. Muscular strength is the ability to generate force. Strength is the result of the muscular and nervous systems working together to create motion. In the early stages of resistance training, strength increases can be attributed to neural development. In other words, the body needs to learn how to master the movements and gets better at creating force. After about six or seven weeks of training, muscular development becomes evident and strength gains can be attributed to both neural improvement and muscular growth. If an athlete trains in a manner that makes the body continue learning, neural conditioning will continue to increase. Therefore, using a variety of training loads is the most effective means of maximizing strength gains for the long term in trained individuals. One method is to ‘pre-fatigue’ a muscle group. This involves a ‘superset,’ that is, isolating the prime movers with one exercise before moving to a compound exercise. A compound exercise further fatigues the prime mover by recruiting secondary movers to extend the duration of time under tension. By moving from an isolation exercise to a compound movement with very little rest, the fatigued prime mover continues to contract maximally under a lighter load, thus lowering the potential for injury in the compound movement. Because compound movements generally allow for much greater loads, the risk of injury exists. But by pre-fatiguing, a lighter workload in the compound movement facilitates maximal muscular contraction under a much lighter weight, thus greatly reducing the risk of injury. For example, if a lifter trains to failure on the pec deck before going directly to the bench press, the pectorals are ‘pre-fatigued’ prior to the second movement. When the lifter bench presses, secondary movers such as deltoids and triceps will be recruited but will allow the pectorals muscle to continue contracting. The secondary movers are no longer the weak link. This method will produce a ‘burn’ in the chest muscles. It is uncertain what exactly causes this burning sensation. Some research indicates that there is a buildup of lactic acid that leads to weaker contractions, as it interferes with ATP formation (ATP, or adenosine tri-phosphate, energizes muscular contractions). Some research suggests that the burn is caused by a depletion of ATP. It’s likely that this painful burn is a combination of both of these events, according to Casey Butt, a well-respected author in the field of sport physiology. In any case, the lifter is pushed to muscular and metabolic fatigue that will encourage beneficial gains in strength and hypertrophy. The lifter can maximize intensity without having to constantly load up the bar with eighty per cent of one RM. Generally speaking, even the most seasoned lifters focus more on the lifting action (or concentric portion) than the lowering action (or eccentric portion) of any movement. Many are unaware that the eccentric (muscle-lengthening) portion of the movement actually creates more metabolic demand and can have a greater effect on muscle strengthening and hypertrophy than the concentric (muscle-shortening) portion of the movement. An example of eccentric training for strength development might include the addition of ‘negatives’ at the end of a set. For example, on the hanging pull-up, once the lifter has gone to ‘failure,’ a spotter could assist with the lifting portion (concentric action), thus allowing the lifter to slowly lower their bodyweight to a full hanging position. These repetitions would continue until controlling the descent becomes impossible. A more effective (but more dangerous) version of this pull-up is to attach a load at the waist before the set commences. Again, the spotter assists the lifter into a fully contracted position, where the lifter would slowly lower the body to a fully extended position. Again, this is continued until the speed of lowering can no longer be controlled. It cannot be emphasized enough that much greater loads can be used to train eccentrically. Because workloads are greatly increased, the potential for strength and muscle-mass gains are higher, but the potential for injury is significantly increased as well. Care must be taken to use meticulous form and to use a competent spotter. Eccentric training needs to be done with caution and used sparingly. It should not be done each and every workout. It should also be noted that eccentric training creates more delayed onset muscle soreness. That means that the athlete will be very sore after a workout with eccentric emphasis. Plan accordingly. Training volume is the total repetitions performed multiplied by the load. Volume has been shown to affect muscular, neural, metabolic, and hormonal systems in the body. As with loading principles, one needs to vary the volume in his or her program. The death of progress would be to constantly maintain the same number of reps and sets in a workout program. A simple method to increase the likelihood of making progress is to vary rep schemes often, not replicating the same rep pattern for the same body part in a two-week time frame. Studies reported in the “ACSM Position Stand” show that high-rep/low-load schemes influence muscular endurance, and low-rep/high-load schemes influence muscular strength. Using a combination of both will provide benefits to both body systems and decrease the chance of workout monotony. Another great way to shake up a routine is to attempt to maintain current workout volume, but to decrease overall workout time. This can be done simply by decreasing rest between sets. A workout allowing for thirty seconds’ rest between sets will feel much different than one that allows for two minutes between sets. Different body systems will be taxed with varying amounts of rest. A workout with lighter loads and short rest times will tax the cardiovascular system, increase the body’s ability to cope with lactic-acid buildup, and increase muscular endurance. A workout with longer rests and heavier loads will focus more on muscular strength development and muscular hypertrophy. Using heavy loads and striving to reduce rest times will give very satisfying results quickly, but it is very demanding, physically and mentally. Overtraining: a crucial considerationTraining intensity is required for progress, but high-intensity training is a double-edged sword. While gains will be magnified, there are risks and drawbacks as well. When increasing intensity, the possibility of overtraining increases in direct proportion. There are some telltale symptoms associated with overtraining. Experiencing an unusual amount of muscle soreness and joint pain, disruptions in normal sleep patterns, decreased or elevated appetite, lack of interest in training, depression, decreased immunity manifested by an increased number of colds and flus, or a sudden drop in performance can all signal ‘overtraining.’ A few days of rest can aid in recharging the mind and repair overtrained muscles. Sports massage can speed up the recovery process as well. For those individuals who feel they must train, short duration, low-intensity cross-training is recommended. Rest is the only real cure for the overtrained athlete.A note to the ‘older’ athleteYour focus must change as the years go by. It seems obvious, but some forget that there are limits to physical improvements that can be made over time. One should continually strive to better the last workout, but as an athlete ages, there comes a day when this is no longer possible. For the more mature athlete, a commendable goal is to replicate a past workout in terms of load, time, and volume. This would require accurate journaling of workouts to be used later as reference points for today’s endeavours. The average couch potato cannot imagine doing physically what they did five or ten years ago. An older athlete can stand proud, completing a workout they did years ago, as their average counterparts accept the fact that they are consistently losing ground to the aging process.References: “American College of Sports Medicine Position Stand on Progression Models in Resistance Training for Healthy Adults.” Med. Sci. Sports Exerc., Vol. 34, No. 2, 2002 pp. 364-380. Various articles by Casey Butt, Ph. D., writer for Iron magazine. About the AuthorShawna Kaminski has a B.Ed., B.Kin., and several other certifications and athletic accolades to her credit. She believes the fountain of youth is found through resistance training. She is a long-time weight-training enthusiast herself and encourages others to ‘take up the iron.’ She can be found revving up the intensity of her clients’ training programs while she puts them through their paces at Calgary NW Adventure Boot Camp. Find out more at www.CalgaryNWBootCamp.com. |
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