Surfing Physiological Changes

My boys: powerlifting Gods Ed Coan (Michael Jordon) and Kirk Karwoski (Dennis Rodman) backstage.

The way to improve strength or sprint speed is to exert 102% when 100% rested; anything less dilutes results.

As of late, the conundrum that most occupies my thoughts are the myriad of subtleties and nuance as it pertains to attaining (and then maintaining) a delicate balance between progressive resistance training, cardiovascular training and nutrition. Once this ever-shifting balance is mastered, once attained, and further assuming this optimal metabolic groove can be maintained, a physiological synergy occurs wherein measurable improvements in physique and performance occur at a rapid-fire rate for a protracted period.

Once you maneuver yourself into this narrow crack, results occur on every level: energy skyrockets, every workout session is better than the previous one, muscle added, body fat mobilized and oxidized, physiologically all good things occur while surfing this monster wave, this metabolic sweet spot. Once attained, the game shifts to maintaining. Fall off the wagon in some way, and you get unceremoniously ejected, tossed out of this optimal physiological state.

It is hard as hell to get into this synergistic state and easy as pie to get ejected: eat bad food, skip workouts, party too hard, get stressed out, get sick, slip on the ice, have to work lots of overtime, get a divorce, etc., etc. .  Have two or three bad days in a row and you are tossed out, ejected from the progress-inducing metabolic sweet spot.

Continual inflight adjustments need to be made if you are to first attain and then maintain the balance. As Mike Tyson famously said, “All the planning goes out the window when you get punched in the face.” Periodically, life punches us in the face. I heard a good Patton quote, “I judge a man by the magnitude of things that upset him.”

The trick is to first get traction, then to maintain the lifestyle that is enabling this irrefutable physiological progress, all the while adrift in life’s ever-shifting currents. We must be smart enough to recognize stagnation and nimble enough to make appropriate adjustments. Start with nutrition: horrific nutrition is a nonstarter and absolutely prevents access into the metabolic sweet spot. No one ever attains or retrains anything with terrible nutrition.

Here is an inconvenient nutritional fact: if a nutrient is not protein, dietary fat, or fibrous carbohydrate, it is undigested sugar – and sugar spikes insulin. The key to mobilizing and oxidizing body fat, the key to improving body composition is controlling the release of insulin into the bloodstream. Refined carbohydrate, not dietary fat, are the actual nutritional villain. Carbs spike insulin, fat does not.

When you are in zone, overtraining, doing too much, is a real danger. You are continually on the edge. That is where the gains reside. Too much resistance training, too much cardiovascular training, will knock you down, throw you down the black hole of overtraining. On the other hand, too little intensity nets zero results. Too much of a good thing is a bad thing; too little of a good thing is a bad thing.

When things are rolling along splendidly, the natural temptation is to get greedy, i.e., “I am getting fantastic results doing what I am doing – why not do more? What if I jacked things up a tad? What if I trained harder, trained longer, trained more often? What if tightened up my nutrition? Would that not rip me up even more? Would not more of everything improve me, across the board?” Not necessarily, in fact, rarely. Too much is problematic. Be satisfied with small consistent gains in a wide range of measurable categories.

Add to the the broad balancing act between the two exercise types – resistance training and cardiovascular training – the subdivisions that exist within each. If you are performing cardio – what is your weekly mix of steady-state cardio to burst (interval) cardo? How many training sessions per week? How long? What days? What time of day Where? Mode? See sample training schedule below and posts on setting up a periodization schedule.

I found out the hard way that I cannot satisfactorily squat hard and heavy and sprint hard (burst/interval style) in the same week. If I insist on sprinting hard and squatting heavy within days of each other, both suffer. If I persist, some sort of injury inevitably occurs, the body’s way of derailing the overtraining.

My current goal is to bring up my underwhelming leg strength. During the warmer months I did not squat all that much. I prefer instead to get out in the woods, run at dawn, either cross-country or 5 to 8 short (50-yard) sprints. If I squat heavy and sprint hard in too close a proximity, both invariably suffers. Have an outstanding squat session? Forget all about sprinting for the next 4-5 days. Have a great sprint session? Don’t bother squatting for the next 4-5 days.

All out sprinting and squatting are remarkably similar - both are short duration, all out bursts, 102% efforts. Capacity shifts, week to week, day to day. Your resistance training duty is to generate a series of 100% efforts, preferably when 100% rested. The gains require you push right up to the limits of “momentary capacity,” be it (pick one) diminished, normal, or enhanced on that particular day and at that time.

Regardless if capacity is diminished, normal, or enhanced, generate a 100% effort: “rep out” the top set of every progressive resistance exercise. I rep until I know that another rep would result in abject failure. By going until I have nothing left, I have done my progressive resistance duty. I have gone all out. Submaximal efforts can, at best, only maintain what strength you already possess – there is no magical way that submaximal effort increases maximal strength, this a physiological impossibility.  

These days, given a choice, I prefer outdoor running cross country or sprinting. At daybreak I can either run for miles along the picturesque trout stream, spooking deer and fox, then heading up the lung-busting steep mountainside trails…or I can sprint on woodchip-covered trails, spongy as a trampoline, sprinting under a spooky tree canopy.

Barbell squatting (versus scenic outdoor running) seemed a gruesome alternative. For a while, I only squatted when it rained. Once the leaves fall and cover the mountain trails, I must cease and desist running. Dead leaves hide trip hazard, roots, loose rocks, a myriad of hidden ankle-breakers. Come late October and time to quit trail running until April. No more running – so back to paying attention to squatting. Once I recommenced squatting, I noticed immediately how pathetically weak my legs were.  

One good thing about neglecting a lift or body part, when you get back around to training it correctly, savagely, consistently – that neglected body part, the neglected lift, comes up quick. I had the knowledge and the fire, and I was leg-strength pathetic. Increasing leg strength would be the theme of my winter campaign.  In my weakened condition, I would fall back in love with squats. Progress, tangible results, always refuel and revitalize anyone’s training effort.

I squat once weekly. I work up to a lone, all-out top set, 10-reps or less. I end the set when I know I cannot possibly do another rep. I do not have to fail to know I am done. Each week I seek to exceed the previous week’s best effort. I usually stay with a poundage until I can eek out ten, below-parallel squats. Add poundage, have your reps knocked down to six or seven. now run up the hill again.

Sessions are short: I super-set (alternate) four sets of squats with four sets of lying leg curls. Three warm-up squat sets culminating in my top-set assault. I start light in the leg curls, slow motion rep speed. Rep out every leg curl set, add a little poundage on each of the four leg curl sets/ This once-a-week squat/leg curl session never lasts more than 15-minutes. I am in a metabolic sweet spot and squat surf is up. I intend to ride this giant wave till I get ejected.

Check out these additional posts on our signature squat style and training techniques.

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