Aerobic Archives - Young Performance

Posted on August 8, 2018August 7, 2018 by jyoungsc — Leave a comment

Why Do You Lift That Much?

So, this past weekend we made a trip to the wonderful vacation destination of Syracuse, NY for my sister’s graduation party extravaganza. My sister, much like my father is a runner. If any of you follow me on social media, you’ll know how I feel about the whole running cult.

Running Sucks — One of the coolest t-shirts

With that said, I should say that I do actually like to do sprints following a workout as nothing will make you feel like you’ve accomplished something more. Not run for 9 miles because gross. So if you do see me outside running then you should probably run in the same direction really quickly as I’m probably being chased by Sharknado, a lion, or Dunkin’ Donuts advocates.

I was lifting a large cooler out of the car by myself when my father told me to stop because I may hurt myself. Checking my ego I said, “nah it’s not that heavy, I pull over 400 pounds off the floor”. When in my habitat, that statement is usually met with some grunts followed by how much others pull. To people who don’t lift heavy weights often that is a meaningless piece of information. So he asked, why?

I’m generally pretty quick to fire back at my dad, the only person on the planet who has mastered the ability to find every single one of my buttons of irritation–and press them over and over again for the pure amusement. This time I still fired back because I like a challenge. But I stewed over this for a couple of days.

Part of me wanted to say, why do you run? That’s a silly thing to do. You can certainly develop your cardiovascular system in many other ways. Nothing in your life requires you to be good at running. But, this is more a look at why I like to lift things (don’t make that cliche statement from that stupid commercial about lifting things please!).

A couple of years ago I set a goal to bench over 315, squat and deadlift over 405, clean 275. None of this is necessary in my day-to-day requirements, however, when demonstrating to my athletes it was important that I could lift a semi respectable amount of weight. Otherwise they would think that I’m a phony (their words not mine). Plus, doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results was some smart guy’s (Einstein) definition of insanity. And I know with my education in physiology that I need to continue to push the status quo in order to achieve adaptation.

School threw my aggressive training routine into the toilet. Basically, life happens. Now I’m finally hitting those goals and striving for different ones.

So now I understand why my parents always told me to think before I spoke. Not only does lifting my goal coddle the ego a little, make sure that the high schoolers don’t chirp, but mostly I lift it because I like to. The feeling of accomplishing your goals is awesome albeit short lived. Runner’s want to run for 4 days straight–go ahead. If you’re goal was to do that and live, then awesome. If I want to lift a 20 pound cooler out of the trunk of the car without hurting myself, then don’t bend and twist.

Posted on April 27, 2018April 27, 2018 by jyoungsc — Leave a comment

Exercises You Love to Hate

We all have an exercise or two that we absolutely hate doing in the gym. You see it on your program and immediately you want to go back into the locker room, change, and leave because of some made up 24-hour disease you make up to avoid doing that one exercise. If only there was a way to add an exercise into the one you hate to make it a little more tolerable.

So, I try to convince you all that you need this particular exercise. It is something that you’re not good at, and you can’t always just do the things that you’re good at. If you only do the things that you’re good at here then you’ll develop imbalances, pain, potentially long term injury. Which is inevitably met with, “I know, but I still don’t like it”.

Unanimously, the Assault or Airdyne sprints are the least favorite. Personally, I don’t mind the Assault bike, I will choose it as a preferred method of aerobic work because I don’t enjoy running mostly (unless it is after a ball). I’ve heard it been called a number of different names with words consisting of “death” and “machine”. I’ll stop and ask why people don’t like it and all I get in return is a shrug of the shoulders or no real reason at all. I understand, if you told me to run for a prolonged period of time I wouldn’t really be too pleasant about it. Even sprints, no thanks.

Split squats and rear foot elevated/bulgarian split squats are pretty high up on that list too.

Personally, I have a love-hate relationship with RFE split squats. I know they’re good for me, I know that I am getting stronger, I can readily see that carryover to performance in other lifts and sprint performance, but they absolutely wipe me out. I’m virtually junk after doing these. So the idea of doing anything else afterward is absolutely demoralizing. Especially if I were to do some sort of HIIT–forget it. But, like I said, it is a necessary evil.

There are a few others that I get the mysterious 2 hour sickness report on. What does everybody else say?

Posted on January 22, 2018January 22, 2018 by jyoungsc — Leave a comment

Outdoor Training in Cold Weather

It has been asked of me lately what my opinion is on training in the cold weather, or what precautions need to be taken to train outdoors in the winter months? So here we go…

Aside from the nutrition and recovery side of things, there are certain things to consider when working in the cold. First and foremost, don’t be a mouth breather. You look ridiculous for lack of a better statement, and you’re setting yourself up for getting sick.

When you take a deep breath in through your nose, there is a particular pathway that the air must travel that is actually a longer route than straight through your mouth. This gives the air a chance to heat up and become a little more humid, something that you’re lungs will appreciate. Not only that, your nasal passageway has mucus and hairs that will trap particles creating a nice little filter for you.

That’s well and good when you’re just walking or standing around, but what if you start running–if you’re into that sort of thing–or moving things around or skiing/snowboarding?

Sure, you’ll have to breathe through your mouth just to keep up with the demands of the working muscles. Of course it is always suggested to breathe in through your nose, but let’s be realistic for a sec. I’ve tried it, anecdotally, and can’t seem to be able to do it for a long period of time without thinking my heart is going to pop or my head explode. Therefore, I wouldn’t expect any of my athletes to do it either.

Most people on the mountain wear ski masks. This serves multiple purposes 1. protects your face from sub zero weather and wind 2. creates a barrier from mouth breathing. Also why lumberjacks have beards, oddly enough, as I doubt they’re making a fashion statement. There are also cold weather training masks you can purchase. I myself received a fancy new ski mask that looks like a beard, 2 birds…

What else? In the past, people traditionally wore wool based clothing in the cold because it keeps you warm. But, what about when you get really warm and start sweating? Then cool down? The wool based material is now damp and you’re in a cold environment. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out what that will lead to. Having a material that will keep the heat in, but wick the moist out is ideal. The military has done great research on environmental extremes. This one is pretty solid–minus in the case of fire as the material seems to melt. Wicking material covered by a thicker material is solid. In some cases, they even make a coat or pants with the dry wicking material built in. Possibly the most amazing thing ever.

Footwear? Wear boots that are pretty airtight. Duh.

Leave comments below. I would love to hear some other perspective.

Posted on May 22, 2017February 13, 2018 by jyoungsc — Leave a comment

Long-Slow Distance Cardio

First off, it has been a little bit since my last check-in. I have been busy with licensure testing, changing a few details professionally, and jumping right into some continuing education. All those things, plus I have been coaching a high school lacrosse team in the area.

I was kicking back, sipping on a nice cup of coffee the other morning, reading over some “professional development” type material, when I came across a post along the lines of “why do long slow distance aerobic work?” That post of course got some great professional feedback, but it got me thinking too.

Most of what I was reading in terms of feedback was along the lines of: why indeed? Now, I like bang for the buck type exercise regimens. I feel as though we do a really good job of accomplishing both anaerobic and aerobic work in a relatively short period of time on a daily basis at our facility. By using simple concepts like HIIT in our lifts we are able to develop strength and power via resistance training at appropriate, demanding percentages; and, also tax the aerobic system at the same time. We also incorporate a conditioning portion after the lift that works usually on some type of lactic or alactic interval (think Certified Conditioning Coach) in the preseason phases.

But where can we fit in the long-slow distance type conditioning???

This is where I reflect back to my magical weekend at IFAST, listening to Joel himself hurl information grenades at all of us innocent Performance Coaches. In a very organized manner, he managed to explain to us how to use each concept that he has written about in books like “Ultimate MMA Conditioning”. Long story short, one cannot sustain all out lactic intervals 7 days a week for very long. This makes sense, right?!

With all the concepts in strength and conditioning regarding the importance of the nervous system, this should be a no-brainer. Simply put, sometimes it is just better to let your foot off the gas pedal, slow down, and let your body (and nervous system) relax. Let’s find that parasympathetic state for once in our training year.

Now that both sides of the continuum are screaming at me, let me elaborate. First off, no, I do not think that you should be performing long-slow distance aerobic conditioning all year round–unless your sport is running a marathon or the Tour de France in which case you still shouldn’t do it on consecutive days. Will you see strength and therefore power decrements as a result? Maybe. Will you be introducing a new variable into your training regimen? Absolutely! Cooling the jets for a few weeks will not have an absurd impact on strength/power/muscle fiber type. But, it may afford you the potential to get even better because you let the body experience a new stimulus.

Personally, I don’t like long distance cardio. I get bored with it, unless I am chasing a ball or object. Cycling is more doable, but still, the struggle is real. However, when no one is watching, I will jump on the Assault Bike for about 45-60 minutes and get in a good cardio sesh.