Barbell Shrugged - Anaerobic Training for CrossFit: How to Nut Up and Ride the Pain Train

Episode Date: April 6, 2016

How to Nut Up and Ride the Pain Train

This week on Barbell Shrug, we're going to talk more about energy systems, specifically how to train the anaerobic system for CrossFit. Hey, this is Rich Froning. You're listening to Barbell Shrugged. For the video version, go to barbellshrugged.com. Hey, I see you sitting there, lonely by your keyboard. If you want to, just whip your fingers out, put them on your keys, type in http://www.barbellshrugged.com. While you're there, swing on over, sign up for the newsletter.

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But I love it. Oh, Andy, look at this guy out. I can't feel my deep wind. I deep with you, but I love it. Oh, Andy Griffith whistle. Welcome to Barbell Strug. I'm your host, Mike McGoldrick. We've got Coach Mike McElroy here. What's up, Mike McElroy? Coach Kurt Mulliken. What up?

And Coach Alex Macklin. Yo. Of course, as always, TTP behind the camera. And we are here at beautiful downtown Memphis, the awesome Hit and Run Gym. With a big giant gun. With the massive gun on the wall, the iconic, is that a Glock? I can't remember. I don't know.

I don't know. I'm not even going to say it. Because folks who collect guns and are gun aficionados, they'd be like, what the fuck? You don't know your guns. We just lost 300 listeners. For the record, it's not a Glock. Yeah. Well, Kurt knows his guns.

What kind of gun is it? That is a 1911. Okay. Smooth shooting, boy. Oh, shit. Oh, yeah, right on. Don't mess with Kurt. Yeah, a 1911, cool.

It's a powerful one. Yes. What does that mean? Is that when it was made? That's when the gun was designed, yes. Yeah, that's what I thought. I knew that. I was making sure you Is that when it was made? That's when the gun was designed, yes. Yeah, that's what I thought. I knew that. I was making sure you knew that.

All right, cool. So today, let's talk a little bit about energy systems again, all right? So we've briefly touched, briefly shit. We talked for about an hour about the aerobic system and how you can train it for CrossFit, how to be better at CrossFit. Today, let's talk about the anaerobic system and kind of the opposite of that, right? So the other side of it, specifically not just how to train it in CrossFit,

but also the benefits for fat loss as well, right? So it's one of those things that maybe there are some misconceptions where we talked about aerobic and we kind of gave an idea, our definition of what we meant by that and how it feels, how to train it, et cetera. We're going to do the same thing today with the anaerobic side of it. So remind again, what was aerobic training basically we defined it as uh anything that's sustainable okay so there's a million different definitions out there lots of different textbook information so just to keep it simple so you have an idea what's that a practical

way to think about it is something sustainable logically think about it and if you're going to put it into practice something that you can sustain for an extended period of time so the anaerobic system would be the other end of that where it's not something sustainable so an interval that's at a certain intensity that's not sustainable and maybe a certain time frame that's not sustainable would that would that be like a kind of some dreaded dreaded work by by athletes yeah so that's the pain yeah pain basically yeah so what? Anaerobic is you want to die. The pain training. Yeah, but training it always, too, doesn't always have to be super painful.

It doesn't mean it's hard. It means very high effort. It's hard, but it doesn't always mean like that pain you get. So like a short burst of effort is something that's anaerobic, right? Like a 10-second sprint doesn't necessarily like put you on the ground, but it's still not easy, right? Super high effort. So it's more high effort, high intensity for lower periods of time. Yeah, so the pain thing kind of comes in with the lactate and the alactic, which is getting a little bit detailed, but if it's alactic, it's usually not that painful.

It's kind of almost too short of a time frame to get very painful. So that's kind of where we're getting into with that. All right. Yeah, so we're going to take a quick break because CT – I'm not going to take a break. Well, it won't even be a break to you. It'll be like time travel, so we've got to replug the computer in. I saw that too. We keep talking.

We're still here. All right, yeah, so meanwhile – It's not video. Well, I don't want to throw out any nuggets that you don't get. People are like, this is what it's like when the camera's not on. Oh, my God, it's falling apart. This motherfucker. Did you even push record?

Do the other end into the computer. Okay. Is it recording? We're back. We're back. Here. And we're back. All right, so yeah, what were we saying?

Sustainable versus unsustainable. Yeah, so we were talking about that on the way here. Look at this cluster. Pay attention. You got the wrong side. There we go. How many crossfaders does it take to plug in a MacBook? What are you doing?

This is becoming an unsustainable effort. Jesus Christ. Quickly. There. What? Where's the plug? It's down by your feet. Oh, my gosh.

That's why I was trying to hand you that. God damn it, Mike. All right. And it's dead. McElroy doesn't really. What's this mean? Did it die? It died.

Oh, my gosh. Okay. All right. Well, it's a good thing we're only a few minutes in. So, back. Where were we? Sustainable versus unsustainable. Sustainable.

Aerobic meaning sustainable by our definition today again there's a bunch of different pathways and uh other systems within that system that we're talking about for today we're mainly focusing on the fact that this is unsustainable work so if you're on a rower and you're doing sprints and you think you're doing aerobic work and you're slowly dropping down down down right your your output, it's not sustainable, right? That would be considered something anaerobic by our definition today. Well, yeah, I mean, it's also too, I mean, if you're talking about the physiological sense, it is you're not using oxygen as the primary fuel.

Yeah. So you're using sugar as the primary fuel. And then, I mean, you brought up lactic and alactic, but, I mean, the byproduct of burning sugar through your muscles is lactic acid. Right. So through the metabolic process, and that's what gives that burn, that pain. Before we go too deep into what those mean, and I want to get into the science of all this stuff, but let's talk about how this could actually help you. Training this system would actually help you in CrossFit.

So if you're someone who needs to do more anaerobic work, what would that look like? Like why would you want to do that? Why would you want to do that? Why would you want to die? Why would you feel like you want to die all the time? Yeah, so if we've got somebody who we think maybe needs to train this, it would be somebody who maybe comes from a big endurance background

or they're just kind of naturally more of an enduring person. They're not a super powerful person. So training this system is going to help them develop that higher end speed, that higher end power so that they can get farther into the AMRAP or the five rounds per time. They can do it faster. Kind of talking about the chronic. You've always got the one person who's got – he paces every workout

all the way through. They never really push. He's never laid out on the ground after, and he just doesn't have the ability to get too deep into the system. He can only stay in the aerobic system. And that's just – if that's a limiter, like he just feels like he can't go fast enough, then we need to train the system and get him going a little bit faster.

Or if he's peaking for a competition, this is one of the things you use in peaking for a system to kind of peak the aerobic system and the anaerobic system so that we're at the optimum position to go and get as deep as we can into a workout is it oh sorry go ahead yeah i was gonna say it sounds like what it helps you develop is to have more you know more speed or put out a little bit more work towards the end of a workout and not just like at the end of a workout but maybe shorter workouts like maybe your 500 meter row for time or at the end of the 20 minute amrap if you're

someone who pays for 18 minutes of it and then two minutes the last two minutes you just kick it so it gives you that ability as well well I was going to ask is it necessarily is it only just speed though I mean is weight for instance a factor in this energy system so like

intensity yeah like weight can be a factor in the sense of in the sense of speed so if you go too heavy on a certain movement i think it's going to slow you down to the point where you can't really get into that intensity so when we say high intensity for this specifically we're talking about high turnover and energy intensity right so meaning talking about heart rate a little bit usually it's above 90 or so your max heart rate so if we're looking at heart rate so intensity not meaning intensity of weight so if we use uh 225

thrusters probably not going to be able to do anything at a fast enough rate to really get unless you're a freak of nature yeah so i think if it comes to like the point where you want to test it one way to know is like is it developing know, is it making you lactic or not, right? Do you feel the burn basically? Yeah, yeah. Are you getting that? Because if you're getting that, that's not sustainable. You can't keep that up for a long period of time. So that's one way to know if what you're doing is aerobic or anaerobic in my opinion, right?

There's a hundred other ways to do it, but that's just like a really simple way to look at it. Yeah, that's just kind of a feeling way because that's the simplest way. There's less, I mean, less technology or less whatever. That's just kind of how you intuitively know if you're training that system well going well going back to my question is is there a certain weight percentage that is necessarily used not necessarily because it's gonna we can train the system like he alluded to earlier we can train the system um and in textbooks it's kind of defined as you know five to ten seconds up to two or three minutes so of work basically yeah so depending on that

time frame the weight's going to be differently so if it's a three minute thing that you're trying to test the anaerobic uh threshold then you're not going to use a lighter way yeah you're not going to use something heavy it's not going to allow you to get lactic either right if it's only 20 seconds you may do five seconds of touch and go or maybe three touch and go power cleans at 225 and then hop on the bike for 15 seconds, and that could be something like that. We'll get kind of deeper into that as far as how to train it, how to write the workouts and things like that coming up.

Well, what you just brought up was that kind of time continuum, and I think when a lot of people learn about energy systems, they see that that continuum is just like a, it's just one line. You've got zero to two and a half minutes, two and a half to five, five, 10, 20 to 30, whatever, oxidative. So like what you were talking about, anaerobic training, being able to benefit your CrossFit training. It doesn't have to be in that first little segment of the workout. You can get anaerobic through parts of your workout. Yeah, so if somebody doesn't have, and we were talking about this earlier, with how it kind of gives him an advantage because he's a very powerful athlete. So in a 20-minute AMRAP, he's got that kick at the end, that last two minutes, to really go hard.

And if you don't have this system well developed, you're not going to have that kick, and you just kind of sustain all the way through. Whereas he may catch up and pass you, not because he's beating you the whole time, but because he has another gear to kind of kick into in that last little bit. Or is he just saving it? I mean, is he pacing it throughout the workout and then he knows that, okay, I got this at the end. I can just kick this up a notch.

Yeah, I mean, that's definitely a scenario. But if you've ever seen somebody who comes, like I said, from a really long, slow background, they don't have that kick. And they could be comfortable, and they could be breathing in control the whole time. They could be pacing appropriately. They just don't have that second gear. They can't turn it off.

Yeah, so it's like that marathon that we talked about in the aerobic episode where the guy's running a five-minute mile for 26 miles. He can hold five-minute pace for 26 miles, but Mike May can still beat him on a 400-meter run because he just doesn't have that next gear. He just can't go any faster. It wouldn't be for us. Let's say a 200.

Let's say a 200. I know because those marathon runners, those dudes can, I mean, a five-minute mile, those dudes can run pretty quick. We're talking about like a sprint right yeah that ability to just like go yeah so like yeah their mile their mile pr time is like 10 seconds faster than their what they can hold for ever or if you're crazy we're on the opposite end of it so we're talking about right now like kind of like towards the end of like a race or a long workout but what about like the like the the smaller test like the 500 meter row have you ever had someone get on that like like you know when someone does a 500 meter row right like like when they when they're

kind of powerful and they get on and they nail it and they get off and they're like ah yeah and you've seen some people do the opposite they hit it hard they're like that was kind of hard that's really tough and you're like wow you must be in really good shape or they're just not that powerful right like that system is not very strong so that's one thing to consider too that can really help you in CrossFit is like if you're having trouble with those short Metcons or even like a short test that might come up, you know. CrossFit games-wise, I've never seen anything that really had that. Maybe something like the sled push is a good example.

I mean, we've talked about, you know, Rich Froning is usually our example for everything good. But this is the only place where I've seen that he could possibly improve his training system better. You know, we always talk about how he starts off the workouts not in first place, and he always finishes in first place, especially throughout the weekend. He doesn't start the weekend off in first place, but he finishes in first place. His worst workouts are always the sled push, the bike sprint, the really short events.

He doesn't have that super high power where Dan Bailey, somebody else on the other end of the spectrum, he kills those workouts. And look at the difference after the workouts too. Yeah. So someone like Dan, he finishes that workout, and Dan looks like he's about to combust. Yeah.

He is like snotting everywhere, and he's like on fire, like he's smoking. Yeah. And he's a 400 meter background, right? Yeah, I think so. I know he's a sprinter. I don't remember exactly what. But yeah, so like they're like a great comparison. A difference between the two, yeah.

So with that said, let's talk a little bit about like how to figure out if it's something you're lacking in. So like how would you know if it's a piece of your training that you need to actually work on? Yeah, I think just simple testing, just like we talked about when we were talking about the aerobic system, of using as simple a test as possible where the only limiter is the energy system, as opposed to like Fran, for instance. If you test Fran, there's a whole bunch of factors that go into that. If you're not good at Fran, it may not be. You're not strong enough. Yeah, you may be bad at pull-ups whatever

so a 60 second bike sprint would be a good test or a 100 meter sled push with body weight on top or something like that yeah something with a turnover there's no limiter yeah there's no limiter high turnover very high output very quickly doesn't take you a long time to get in you have to be relatively efficient at it. So you may get new people in who have never been on the rover before. Give them a 60-second sprint. They may be powerful. They may be strong enough.

But if they've never been on a rover before, they may not know the mechanics well enough to be able to really dig in. So that's why I like the bike or the sled because there's no learning process there. And you would still use the heart rate monitor, right, to see if you're at that 90%. Yeah, you could. But at that point, you'd have to have a max heart rate test done also. You've got to know what that ceiling is to know 90% of what.

Yeah, because we have general numbers, but everybody's a little bit different. And what would you be looking for at the end of this test, I mean, or the next test that you do? What would be kind of your metric for determining whether your you know anaerobic system is better right yeah i guess if you're looking at it if you should train for a crossfitter you're one comparing it to other people that have done the test um to see how

you compare to other people in that time frame and two just seeing if you're progressing in that time frame so if you know that you always hang with kind of the people you're comparing to maybe you're a regionals level athlete and you you do pretty well against them in longer 20-25 minute workouts but maybe you see yourself always getting beaten these shorter workouts i'm trying to figure out why that is um because it may not be like i said it may not be a skill thing at that point it may just be the ability to push hard or the other end of the spectrum which is probably where you were kind of starting off you saw yourself always doing really well in these sub five minute workouts but the probably where you were kind of starting off. You saw yourself always doing really well in these sub-five-minute workouts. But the long ones, you saw yourself falling behind.

Yep. So at that point, obviously, you'd be training the other end of the spectrum. Or I even noticed in the long workouts, I would be at, like, 65%, 70% the whole time, and then the last minute or two, I'd be like, boom. Yeah. You know, and, like, you can't do that in 20-minute workouts. There's not enough time to catch up. Right.

So that's one way to do it. That's a good question because you've got to kind of follow data that's out there like like people who've already done like certain numbers and the assault bikes are a great example now a lot of gyms are getting them and they're all pretty consistent on you know uh people yeah on calories so what i mean is like the monitor could be different on some of them but for the most part they're getting to be pretty consistent and you're seeing a lot of people doing the 60-second max calories. Did you see that one challenge that they posted or something? I don't know what it was, but it was like, yeah,

like max calories in like, yeah, 60 seconds or something like that. Oh, man, I got a funny story for that. And somebody posted something crazy, and we're like, what? It was Dan and Nichols probably. I got two funny stories for that. So actually going back to like what things you can do to test and we'll get more on that too but i just want to mention why i like the bike so much is that it's constant output the whole time yeah there's no a rower is good it's it's pretty high output and high turnover but if you think about it half of

it you're not really working right so like you're pulling and you're returning pulling return it's not the same as, like, a slide. Oh, yeah. You see me row, man. I'm just like, I pull it and I'm like, oh. Rest. I'm like, oh, yeah. Pull it hard and then like, oh, okay.

Now, a bike, it's constant the whole time, right? So that's why that thing hurts way more. Oh, yeah. That's why I call it the devil bike because it's painful. At regionals this year, a salt bike had a tent set up and they had a challenge. They had a bike At regionals this year, a salt bike had a tent set up, and they had a challenge. They had a bike there, and in 60 seconds, you do as many calories as you can.

And if you had the highest score at the end of the weekend, you could take the bike home. And it's really awesome. And I walked by, and I saw one of my buddies. I was like, oh, man, we should try and do it. It's a guy named Andrew Rape that I've trained with for a while. He's on my team. And if you're powerful, doing anaerobic stuff like that is really

painful because you can really you're strong enough just strong enough to really dig in and really mess yourself up so i was there all weekend watching people compete and i was with my wife watching friends and stuff and i was like i'll try it with you buddy and i drank a cup like cup of coffee that day i hadn't had any breakfast so we hop on and we go and man like I'm out the door flying like flying and the record for the day so far was like 53 and I was like we can get we can beat that we'll smoke that Andrew and I are going head to head and then anyways like by the end of it like 10 seconds left I don't even feel like it was moving anymore like I really feel like it wasn't moving and then I looked down and I got 58 and I was like hell yeah like hell yeah I didn't think I would get near that high.

Andrew got 59. Oh, man. It was the worst second place finish ever. And then beyond that, so on top of a shady warmup and coffee, I went and laid behind the assault bike tent on the ground in the fetal position for literally like two hours. I was going to say, how did you feel afterwards? I threw up the coffee.

The people at the tent came over and brought me a garbage bag. They asked if I was okay. I was just like, just, my wife left. She's like, I got to go watch the event. You're taking forever. Like, I was completely destroyed. One minute did that to me. Just one minute.

It's crazy. It's interesting to note that. Oh, yeah, we're going to do it after the show. Oh, yeah, we'll have the footage, too, in overtime. I can't wait. I don't think Kurt's ever done it, and CDP's going to do it, too. It'll actually be a good experiment because I don't know how powerful these guys are so you never you can't expect that everyone's gonna be buried when they do it now i mean you would hope i mean i'm not saying i want people to hurt but you would hope they'd get that stimulus

out of it but you're not always going to get that and i can't wait to talk about this but why would that be why why would some people get on it and not be able to really like hurt themselves on it yeah bad word to say why would they not be able to really dig in right yeah i mean i'm i'm kind of on that end of the spectrum i can do a minute all out sprint and it hurts but it's not like i can't i'm not powerful enough to go that hard to dig that deep into my cns for it to hurt that bad like i get off and i'm like my legs are in pain and they're kind of tightened up and stuff but i'm not taking an hour or two to recover i'm eager to see this i'm gonna really swing for the sypd which is short for shit your pants and die but you know as a coach you know you coach a

class like not everybody in the class is gonna be able to get that stimulus that you program for a workout yeah that's all well i was gonna i was gonna ask and this may be just off topic but what what what application is it for just like a regular you know crossfitter i'm just trying to get in shape like why do i need to you know even that kind of why do i need to go in that kind of pain like why why do i even care what my lactic threshold is can i train it regularly like with a regular metcon like how like what's that i mean well before we before we get into that let's talk about the difference from lactic and a lactic right because there is a big difference so a lactic when we say something like that we mean without pain basically yeah right so it's short enough in layman's terms it's short enough that you're

not producing any lactate yet right so you're not really like getting that that foggy headed like nauseous feeling like they were short enoughs feel like they weigh a thousand pounds. You were saying you were doing seven-second sprints the other day. Yeah, the other day I was doing seven-second sprints with like two-minute rest. Like that's not – that's large enough rest and short enough work that it didn't really beat me up at all, right? I never got nauseous or felt sick or anything. It's still anaerobic work.

That's really, really touching on the extreme top end of your speed and really top end of your power output. And when we're kind of connecting that in to what you were asking, I don't think a lot of not very powerful people or a lot of maybe newer people or people who want to use this for weight loss, a lot of them can't get into that A-Lactic because they are not powerful enough. Again, I'm not somebody who can get into that A-Lactic stuff they are not powerful enough. Again, I'm not somebody who can get into that A-Lactic stuff. If I did seven second sprints,

you could give me a minute and a half rest and I would still be able to recover and do it because I'm just not powerful enough for seven seconds to hurt that bad. So only, in my opinion, only a small population can even use that type of training to get any kind of benefit from it. You need to be very strong in one way to know that.

Probably mentally and physically strong too. So one interesting of benefit from it you need to be very strong in one way to know that like so probably mentally and physically strong too yeah so one one interesting thing that we've talked about is and i've learned this from some of my like my mentors my coaches is um to develop that you actually just work on getting stronger so you don't do more sprints you had a great example earlier of how you and your coach discussed that because you were doing those sprints for a while and yeah so coming off my injury uh having a neck injury, neck surgery, I'm not able to do a lot of heavy strength work. And so he still had me.

I was doing a ton of biking. And some of that was anaerobic stuff, alactic stuff, anelactic stuff. And my power output was steadily dropping on the anaerobic stuff, like the 10-second sprints. I was doing 10-second sprints once a week with some other longer anaerobic stuff. But the 10 second sprints i was doing 10 second sprints once a week with some other longer anaerobic stuff but the 10 seconds was once a week and my power output was dropping and now what do you mean by power output sorry just like i was getting uh like up to 40 uh miles per hour on the z-back spike which is a little different than the assault bike but basically the same thing so i was getting up to 40 miles an hour on that uh when i started doing

them and by the end i could only get to like 35 37 miles per hour so i wasn't able to get as fast and the only thing that we could attribute that to is not doing any strength work because i was still doing the energy system specific work i just wasn't doing any strength work so that's the only thing we think is 10 seconds uh just training that system alone and not doing the strength work on the side to help with that output it was losing some of that power so you have to get that's why some of the newer people are beginner people uh and a lot of times females can't get into that system because they're simply not strong enough to push the turnover high enough well can't push that system yeah yeah yeah so think about it like the assault bike's kind of heavy right like it's a little bit even heavier yeah it's a little bit heavier than

like an airdyne or anything else that's lighter. So if you have Megan on it versus a woman who's never trained and has no strength background and she goes to try and turn that thing over, she's like... Right, right, right. Ten seconds goes by,

like, of course she's not hurting. She's not up to full speed yet. So what do you do to make her move that thing faster? You get her stronger. Right, so that can... The strength work can actually help that develop.

And that goes into a little bit of what movements you choose for this, whereas usually I use the Z-back spot because that's the main one we have in our gym. We also have the air down, which is a lot less heavy. It's a lot easier to get a fast turnover. And I train a lot of times I'll put them on that bike because they can get a faster turnover easier. And we'll get into, like I said, designing the workouts and what movements work and what don't a little bit later, but that's just kind of one example of that.

So I guess what I'm hearing is, too, like, so pushing that barrier, being able to get into that zone, how is that going to help you? So it's going to help you get maybe a few more reps, like, faster? Yeah. Yeah, so kind of direct correlation to crossfit it's kind of where you're getting that uh i think um and and how it's going to help you is yeah you're going to be able to get more reps faster but also it's going to make your sub maximal a little bit higher okay so if i can do this much at all out um let's just take for example i'm trying to remember the example we

talked about earlier if i really yeah we talked rowing, but just think about this in terms because it's easy with any other movement. If I row, let's say I have a workout that's four rounds per time of row 500 meters and 20 pull-ups. The pull-ups are no problem for me. So if I row it at 145 pace, that's my PR, and my 500-meter PR by itself is 130, if I can get that by training the anaerobic system down to 125, that 145 pace for that Metcon is going to be easier. Right, okay. It's going to be that much easier.

So if we work that top-end speed more, now my 90% is higher than the next person's 90%, which is, again, bringing up Rich Browning. His submaximal is just that much better than everybody else's maximal. So he asked earlier, and I don't feel like we covered it enough, but you said what about someone who doesn't really care about sport of CrossFit that much? Do they even need to do this stuff? Yeah, so we talked about the uses for fat loss.

It's a very underutilized system for fat loss. It's not just you hear about HIIT training or you hear about interval training or Tabata. That's not a really good example. To me, all of those can be more aerobic because it's 20 seconds of work, 10 seconds of rest. I'm just trying to think of popular ones. HIIT training, things like that, in my opinion, is more sustainable so it's really more aerobic no matter what the time frame is so this piece is used because it gives you when we mentioned the epoch the exercise post-oxygen consumption basically what that means is the ability for your metabolism to be jacked up for

the next 24 to 48 hours you're going to get that response a lot more from the anaerobic training than the aerobic training so when you train the aerobic system that your metabolism is increased while you're doing it but nothing past that right so this is going to give that allow that bump for the next 24 to 48 hours so think about the total calories burned i guess turn across that time so when you do aerobic training right it's like like the ability for your body to get back to that stable environment that homeostasis we touched on that the other day um the the calories burned throughout the through after that train hours after that training is not the same you might burn more calories during that aerobic training right like obviously if you go yeah obviously if you go do 45 minutes on elliptical you're gonna burn a lot of calories right right versus doing 10 10 second

sprints or 20-second sprints. But you get messed up in those sprints. It throws you all out of whack. It takes a long time to kind of settle you back down. Well, it wasn't enough stress. It burns a lot of calories. When you do the aerobic, you're doing it at a conversational-type pace, and it's not enough intensity stress to cause your body to be like, shit.

And I'm not saying that it doesn't work. They both work. They both work. Yeah, this is just another thing to look at. And it's very effective. And I'm not saying that it doesn't work. They both work. They both work. Yeah, this is just another thing to look at, right? And it's very effective. There's a lot of other things it does too. Yeah, I mean, you have the people that come in. They come from that background.

They're always watching their watch for how many calories they're burning. That's how you have to explain it to them. We're not worried about just what you're burning during this 60-minute session that you have with me. We're worried about jacking up your metabolism for the next little period also a little twist on that i've used is get that uh the lactate system working so we do some anaerobic sprints and then go into a really long slow piece after that to keep burning that fat after we get that fat metabolism going that long slow can really optimize that and burn more fat what would be an

example so just like i have yeah so i have some people who are not worried about crossfit at all they're just worried about body composition so they'll do like four 15 second sprints on the bike with two and a half minutes rest and then we'll go into 40 minutes of uh row 500 meters easy two turkeys get up 30 second side plank per plank per side, 50-foot farmer's carry. Sustain that for 40 minutes. So that might be more difficult. So they're doing pretty much alactic work, right? 15 seconds.

They're not really getting it. Because these aren't very powerful people. Right, and it's two minutes, 15-second rest, you said, with only 15 seconds of work. That's going to feel like an eternity if you've never done intervals like this before. However, if you try to shorten the rest because it's it's in your head to think i've got to only hurt for it to work right which isn't always the case like that that seems to be

the case with almost any kind of training it's like olympic weightlifting i have to max out to get stronger no no like i mean some but not all the time aerobic training like i have to be in pain for it to work no like like it doesn't always have to be like extremely painful so be patient with that with the rest between that and if you did that when you went into that long piece at the end you they would not be aerobic they would be messed up still right because like you said if you if you if i gave you something like that 20 seconds of work you wouldn't be able to even do that 40 minute piece right just be trash for the rest of it yeah so like that brings up a point

like how do you even recover for something like this because i feel like anaerobic this is what it sounds like it sounds like your body thinks it just fought a bear and then it has to like fight another bear tomorrow like so how do you even how do you even recover after a session or do you mean like after an interval i would say i would say either one i would you know either one how do you recover yeah well i think again, it depends on the person. So individualizing it. So, again, if I was working with Mike, I wouldn't give him any anaerobic stuff before I wanted him to do anything else.

That would be the last thing he did for the day because he's not going to be able to recover from it to do anything else. But if I'm training it for a male or a female for fat loss and they're doing something after it, I just make sure the rest is enough in between. They're not going too deep into it, I just make sure the rest is enough in between. They're not going too deep into it on the front end, and then they can sustain it. Because most of these people, like I said,

they're not feeling that want to throw up feeling that he was talking about because they just can't get too deep into that. I don't know, man. Every time I do this shit, I want to feel like I want to throw up. That's good, though. But you're strong enough to get there. Yeah, but you think about your background, which is weightlifting, so explosive, strong, powerful stuff. Right. Not any aer aerobic stuff so you will be able to tap into the system good

oh yeah or just makes it terrible it just means i'm out of fucking shame that means your ratio is off right so i mean i mean i only have a one trick pony at what point do you adjust the work versus the rest so if someone someone says that, you know, that's a good point is like, what if I keep getting too sick during these or I can't finish the sessions? Like look at what the timeframe is that you're actually working versus the rest. Again, like I said, it's, it does, people be like I hit it hard for 25 seconds and I'm just going to rest a minute. You know, I'll get this done quick, but like,

you're not really training the system then like you're just getting into fatigue work. Right. And then, you know, you might get might get some i mean you might get some pain involved in there and it might do some good that session but over and over and over you're probably not gonna make you better at developing that system right long term so um let's shift gears a little bit do we want to look at uh how to train this periodically throughout the year for a crossfitter or uh when how to design a kind of workout. I like talking about the workout. So I want someone at home to be able to look at this and be like, all right, now I at least know what kind of workouts I can start with.

And then let's just talk a little bit about how you would progress it. Yeah, how do you wedge it in? Yeah. So I guess we already kind of covered testing. So it needs to be something pretty short. It can be anywhere from 20 seconds up to 3 to 5 minutes for the really painful stuff. One of the examples we wrote down, I think, was 15.5 for the top-end people,

which was 5 to 6 minutes-ish for the high-end. What was 15.5 again? 15.5 was 27, 21, 15, 9 reps of row for calories and thrusters with 95 pounds and 65 pounds. So as you can look at both of those movements, if you're a pretty strong person, it's a high turnover. Yeah. So again, if that had been 135-pound thrusters, it actually probably would have hurt less

because they wouldn't have been able to sustain that. So you were kind of asking about, and we're getting off what we started to do, but you were kind of asking about anaerobic threshold earlier. This will be kind of an anaerobic threshold test so we're testing how far we can stay right at that producing that lactate but still sustain the output as soon as we drop the output then that's our that's our threshold right right um so other testing again when we're designing testing it needs to be something that can be a really high output for that amount of time so for a lot of time it's three minutes it needs to be a really high output for that amount of time. So if for a lot of time it's three minutes,

it needs to be a good output for that three minutes. It doesn't need to be something where we're dropping the bar, taking a breath, dropping the bar, taking a breath. It should be something that's sustained. The turnover is high throughout the whole thing. Okay. So, yeah, if you're someone that wants to see progress in this, it doesn't have to be just one.

It's not just three minutes to know. You can have a 15-second test. You can have a 30-second. You's not just three minutes to know you can have a 15 second test you can have a 30 second you could have a 60 second you can have a three minute all right so like pick those and then obviously when you're looking at something like the 15 second you don't want to use something like a rower might not even be a good example because uh if you use like calories or something you could use meters but the the turnover won't be able to be as high as if you used a bike or like burpees would be a really bad example right so something like really short it needs to be something that's very simple and easy to measure based on uh the like the the variance right and then when it comes to like 60 seconds or three minutes like you know and then

you have more room to kind of play with it so before we talk about how to lay these out in a kind of a weekly cycle um let's talk about why you may not put this in all year round uh just to real touch on that and clear why wouldn't you so oh you're asking me yeah so the if if strength if you're if your uh goal is crossfit competing in crossfit and strength is a limiter, this system may not be good to have in conjunction with a lot of high volume strength work because this system does fit interacts well. What about this part of the system? You don't mean all of it, right? Like the short

10 second burst, or do you mean like the painful stuff? Yeah, so the painful stuff. The lactic stuff you can keep in there. It keeps that high output if you need to. But the lactic stuff, the stuff that produces that terrible feeling, like you said, obviously doesn't go good with strength work because you can't recover. You were asking about recovering from full sessions. You can't recover from it in order to give a good effort towards your squat session the next day.

Even if it is 24 or 48 hours later, you still can't. Your output is not going to be the same. So when we're far off in the off season and strength is a huge priority, we want to train to really slow, long stuff and then strength work. I mean, the times I've squatted my PR is when I'm doing like 60 to 90 minute easy sessions on the other end of the days, as opposed to the sprint type workouts on the other days. Generally.

Yeah, generally. So I wanted to get that out there first. Does your strength drop when you start doing more of the anaerobic training? If everything kind of blends in properly, so a really well-designed program and kind of recovery is all on point, it usually stays about the same. It's not going to get better. It's not going to get better.

Generally not going to get better. So, like I said, unless you're just extremely on the weekend, week end of the spectrum, then it may. But, yeah, generally you know that going in. Okay, now I'm peaking for CrossFit. Now I'm peaking the aerobic system and the energy system. I've got to be happy where my strength is and just be okay with that because this is where I'm going forward.

So is that something that somebody would do, you know, if they have a CrossFit competition or something like the open uh you know close to that competition that's when they would switch gears to start doing more anaerobic stuff yeah exactly so you're getting some cp stuff creatine phosphate stuff aka strength work um just some touches on that just to sustain it and then you start building in the intensity with the anaerobic stuff I usually like to go depending on the person about six to ten weeks out really start building in that anaerobic stuff which is now we can get into that kind of how we lay it out in a weekly cycle um let's just say we have somebody that trains five to seven sessions a week my perspective and we kind of

talk about this but i like to start one on the really short end of the thing so 15 to 20 second sprints with a good amount of rest or really working that top end speed on one day and then two to three sets only of that like two to three minutes uh not as long recovery that end of the spectrum too so i'm working really short high end sprints and then a little bit longer sprints also in the same way so gotcha i think what i think what we can do too is we can take um a couple of examples of like something you might train for for that and yeah let's just build a program and put it in overtime yeah so we talked about it well we talked about doing that for the aerobic system and connecting it with the anaerobic so we'll kind of lay out how we would how we would write that out because that's gonna be the easy way to see it we can talk about it and verbalize it but without seeing it kind of on a template because

it might look a little different if you want to be better at your 30 seconds or at your three minute or at your you know finishing the 20 minute amrap going more powerful in that crossfit workout so it's all going to kind of vary so we'll just pick like we'll pick one maybe like i want to do better on the 60 second max cow so i can go win a salt bike at regionals so now you can actually you know a paid professional um and then we'll build a little program for that so you can see the layout one question i had again uh i have all these questions man i feel like such a an energy system noob but but uh i mean this is not my weightlifting is more of my thing so it's like this is all this is all almost kind of new to me but so um you talked about like training the anaerobic

before a competition and you know what if what if i'm like crossfitter and i like to compete like all the time like you know i still like to do all these weekend stuff and you know spartan races and all this kind of stuff like is there too much like anaerobic training like How do I know if I'm doing too much and how much do I need to do if I'm competing regularly? I think a couple things to take into consideration. If you are competing regularly, you're probably not... Regular?

I hope this doesn't offend anybody, but you're probably not that high end of a competitor. Somebody like Mike is not competing every weekend because he knows it smokes him. So that's one thing to take into consideration. Two, you can do it too much, and ways to know that, I think like we alluded to earlier, it does affect your strength. So if your strength's never going up, you know, in a 365-day, year-long cycle,

if strength never moves, then you probably missed the mark somewhere in there, whether it was not enough strength work or too much of this stuff or, you know, something wasn't right. Your strength should go up over a year cycle. Too many intense-ass mat cons. Strength is not going to go up. I feel like I see that a lot. People are always like –

Too much laying on the ground. Yeah, like why is my squat not going up? I don't understand them. Well, you're doing like three frans a day. Come on. Maybe squatting twice a week and then doing an intense workout a day. Like, come on. Maybe squatting twice a week. Yeah. And then doing an intense workout every day.

Yeah, like what do you expect? I think that's really probably pretty common. What about the health, you know, general health and fitness side of it? So someone who's not interested in sport and, you know, maybe their gym has a lot of this or they've got some hormonal issues. Like why would they not want to do this? Or how do you know if that's too much as well? Like, what are some other things to check out?

Yeah, I think, I mean, there's some hormone things you can actually test and then some body fat things you can actually test and maybe look into that deeper. But in my opinion, the general population needs to stay mostly in the strength and conditioning end of the spectrum where we're doing some strength work and then some aerobic work. In my opinion, in my experience with working with athletes, that's usually the healthiest long-term plan going forward there's

not a huge need for this i mean you know the house mom who's just gonna work out to be healthy like why do they need to be able to really dig into that how and we don't mean never do it we just mean like all the time like right like consistently like three or four times a week like why is that necessary because a couple things are taking into consideration too when you're doing these things uh unless it's on a rower or a bike or something really simple like that if it's crossfit movements you've got to be varied out into your technique if you're doing a anaerobic thing with thrusters and pull-ups and bar facing burpees or something you've obviously got to be really efficient at that so if you're not you want a low risk of injury you want a low risk of injury in these things because you are trying to move at top end speed right so touch and go power cleans

or power snatches or something you have to be really efficient at that or yeah really good at it you can't just come in and do it right one thing it brought to my attention was when we watched that nasa episode right those the strength conditioning coaches there um they had them doing the bare minimum of what they needed to function and survive right and i'm like why don't we i mean we kind of do apply that here but not you know not with like a gun to the head like they like they are you know like they're doing it because they have to and it's like we kind of just let ourselves get away with a lot of stuff here like like bad principles like that not not bad but uh maybe doing things that aren't necessary for what that person's goal is like health and

longevity like why are you making them do fran when they just want to feel good and be healthy for the rest of their lives yeah like is it making them better yeah what they did in that nasa stuff i mean they were doing strength work every day and then some some conditioning you know a little cycle ergometer thing they're doing that every day probably some aerobic work that's pretty much all they're doing minimum effective dose yeah effective dose. Yeah, minimum effective dose, but, you know, sometimes you just want to blow it all out and have some fun. You know, ain't nothing wrong with that. And these are –

You're about to blow it out? I'm talking about having fun. These are fun tests to watch. Oh, yeah. They might not be that fun to do, but they're fun to watch. Oh, yeah. See somebody just go all out and PR their, you know, whatever. Nobody wants to watch a 45-minute workout.

It's an easy aerobic pace. That's not fun. What was that, the last event of the games last year? I, you know, whatever. Nobody wants to watch a 45-minute workout. It's an easy aerobic pace. That's not fun. What was that, the last event of the games last year? I don't know about that. I was going to reference the marathon row. I probably didn't give them very high ratings. But that one workout on Saturday, what was that workout that they did on Saturday at last year's games,

the 2015? Axel thrusters. That was a fun one to watch. Super fun. Yeah. By the way, I was referencing the NASA video, something that's going to be in full depth. I'm not sure if it is or it is not out yet,

but stay tuned for that video as well. People at home probably wondering, what was he talking about? Yeah. Something you'll see soon. They'll know. You'll know. It's awesome. Right.

So, you know, we touched on how this, you know, this energy system can help you in the sport, how it can help you in general health and fitness if you're aiming at fat loss. What we didn't really talk about much was the mental side of it. Oh, yeah. You know, like this stuff is painful and it brings you, like, when I, like, y'all are going to do the 60-second max calisole bike after this. Me thinking about it makes my palms sweat. Like, just standing here right now.

See, I don't have that. I don't know what that entails. And that's part of the things I want to talk about, too. That's probably why you should do it. You don't know yet. Anytime I see, anytime in my programming I see a 1K row come up, and if I, like, I would rather not know I'm doing it for the whole week because I've done it so many times times and I know how bad it hurts.

Right. And the stronger I get, the more it hurts. It just never stops hurting. What if you like it? What if you like the pain, though? Because, I mean, you know, I don't know. Then you're going to be a good cross-bearer. I don't know necessarily like anaerobic or whatever,

but I love doing 10 rep max back squats heavy as shit. I love doing 10 rep max back squats heavy as shit. I love doing them. I love, like, the pain and the burning and just, like, you just can't walk after. I love that feeling. So maybe, you know, someday maybe you like that feeling. Are you wearing nipple clamps right now? I mean.

I don't like the pain, like, during it. I like the challenge that when it's done, like, I felt like. I feel like a euphoria feeling after. Yeah, yeah. Like, during it, I am not like that when it's done, like I felt like completion. You feel like a euphoria feeling afterwards, isn't it? Yeah, yeah. Like during it, I am not like, yeah. Oh, no, man. That's weird. Yeah, well, something like that.

But like just lifting something, like, I mean, just doing like a 10 rep, oh, man, I just feel so powerful. So we talked about the carryover to CrossFit, though, or we kind of touched on different aspects of carryover to CrossFit, and that's one of the main ones. You know, CrossFit, like at regionals or even the Open, doesn't really test this energy system specifically very often because you have to be at a certain ability to do that.

So maybe the higher-end people it does, but not very often. Like I said, 15.5 is kind of the only one in the last couple of years. But the mental aspect of it. So being able to deal with the uncomfortable and deal with the pain, that's going to be a huge carryover to the CrossFit workouts. Yeah, it's the sport of mental toughness. Yeah. I mean, that's what separates the people at the games and regionals.

I mean, all those guys are good. Well, what I've noticed, and you've pointed this out too, is that when it does get hard, like those people, they just – they're like keep their cool. Yeah. They just – they're able to like deal with it. And they've trained it so much that it's – Stay calm. Yeah like they just they're able to like deal with it and and uh they they've trained it so much that they're calm yeah they just stay calm they're not like

freaking out like i've seen someone start a start a 1k road time trial four times they they started it got like three pulls in and stopped they're like i'm not ready yet they got gone they did it they made like 150 meters get got off and stopped. Some people will freak out, and I think that that person knew what was coming. How should you prepare for it then? I mean, how do you do it? I mean, there's a bunch of different ways. I think that's a whole other episode, developing mental

toughness, you know. It could be one, like you just don't know yet, like you haven't learned it yet. And then two, like meaning you haven't experienced it yet, so you don't know how bad it's going to hurt. And then two is just, yeah, I mean, practice, like getting better at controlling your thoughts, being more, you know, in control.

I think like you said. Maybe warming up better too, right? I mean, for these, you would want to get pretty warmed up. Yeah, definitely. Oh, yeah. I think that's a whole other episode. That's definitely another special too, how to warm up for something like. I think the people who get the most anxious about it

are the people that are the best at it. I mean, like I said, if you can't dig that deep into it. They know how much it's going to suck. Exactly. They know how much pain they're going to have to put themselves through because they're in control of it to beat their last score. And they know that. Dark place, man.

Yeah. I'm more scared of them. You couldn't, right now, you couldn't pay me – you couldn't pay me $500 to do a one-minute all-out. Okay, maybe $500. I'll take five bills for that. Maybe $100. I mean, if I – obviously, I could just not go all out,

but, I mean, that thing messes me up. So, again, anaerobic training for CrossFit, how is it going to make you better in the sport? How can you use anaerobic training for fat loss? How often do you do it? What's safe? What's not safe, you know, just some huge generalizations, but hopefully you get a good idea on where to start so you can start applying this to your training. Some of the differences, you know, lactic versus alactic, sustainable versus unsustainable, hopefully we gave you a good definition there. Anything else, you know, you guys want to add, something maybe we didn't cover?

Lactic Threshold Training, the book, is a decent place to start. Who wrote that? I can't remember. Is this called Lactic Threshold Training? I think it's called Lactic Threshold Training. How exciting. What an exciting title. It just doesn't even sound like something.

It just sounds painful to read almost yeah so be on the lookout we'll try and have a cool program out too so you can get an idea of what that would actually look like say you know something like improving your 60 second max cow um and then you know give you some videos and ideas from there so i want to thank justin at cross hit and run for having us this has been a lot of fun and again again, the iconic 1911. Pow, pow. That's right. Nice. Always there.

All right, guys. Thanks for listening. Thanks. Later. Later. Man. Great. Good job, guys.

The questions. What next? So good. I got to take a poop. I got to take a poop. That was a 45-minute episode. Ow, that's so bad.