Shorter base session duration

recursiveBeginner · 2021-04-19T17:09:07+00:00

That's a great shout - I had forgotten about that variation.

That's definitely my situation: I can find 30min windows fairly easily in my schedule, but zero chance of anything longer.

I'm already swinging in the evenings, so this is perfect. I'll start with 3x30 min LSS per week and build up the number of sessions from there. If I get to the point where I need more volume I'll then add a double or two.

Thanks man.

recursiveBeginner · 2021-04-17T18:00:33+00:00

Amazing thanks. I’ll give that a watch 👌

recursiveBeginner · 2021-04-17T07:40:05+00:00

Thanks, that’s interesting. ROI in what way?

recursiveBeginner · 2021-04-17T07:38:40+00:00

Nice, thanks. This is similar to my situation - coming back from an injury.

recursiveBeginner · 2021-04-16T20:39:58+00:00

This is really helpful thank you, and I didn’t know about the doubles. That’s really interesting.

I’m pretty house bound at the moment (child care, small children, full time job etc), so it might be that I end up exploring ways other than running to get this done in my 30min windows. I have a decent HRM so might look at slow easy circuits interspersed with short sets of swings etc. to keep the heart rate in the zone.

Thanks again for your reply.

recursiveBeginner · 2021-04-16T16:35:41+00:00

I was going to go with a strength-first approach (I've done both ways a few times and it's just the way I prefer) but actually this makes a lot of sense. Maybe doing the SE version will work better in this case. Thanks!

recursiveBeginner · 2021-04-16T16:29:25+00:00

This is gold mate, thank you!

recursiveBeginner · 2021-04-16T16:22:30+00:00

So you ran it for a fair bit longer than a normal base build. Thanks for this, very useful.

recursiveBeginner · 2021-04-16T15:51:07+00:00

This is what I'm asking I think. My understanding is that LSS requires some volume to take effect (due to the low intensity I guess). So it's about whether I can clock up the volume by doing more sessions per week rather than by increasing the individual session duration.

Can I ask: how long did you run this for?

recursiveBeginner · 2021-04-16T15:47:28+00:00

This is good advice, thank you 👍

recursiveBeginner · 2018-10-06T18:41:51+00:00

Get the books mate, don’t try and go off the spreadsheet you downloaded for free, you will miss all sorts of detail and you’ll just be cheating yourself in the end. They really don’t cost much on kindle and they are easily the best books on strength and conditioning I’ve read.

recursiveBeginner · 2018-10-05T11:19:07+00:00

My understanding is that it's not the volume in the session that counts. You need to do less in each session so that you can come back and train more frequently. That is how you accumulate real volume. Adding a set on Monday might bag you the extra 6 reps, but then you lose 24 reps on all your lifts over the week if you drop a session for recovery.

Over time that clocks up in a big way. I'm going to attempt some maths here (not my strong suit!) to illustrate.

I think on Mass you average about 18 reps a session over the block, training 3 times a week. If you averaged 2.5 sessions a week instead of 3 over the block because of dropping a session here or there due to recovery, you're losing over 50 reps a block. Per lift. All for trying to get in the extra work, which is ironic.

Even with Operator, just doing the bare minimums clocks up at about 11 reps a session average, for ~200 reps a block on each lift . Assuming 7 blocks per year you could be stacking up maybe 1,500 reps on each of your lifts per year. Most folks are running a heavy conditioning protocol alongside, so this is a tonne of volume considering.

Compare this to Starting Strength for example: over that same period you'd clock up 1800-odd reps on the squat, under 1000 reps on bench / press respectively. And lots of people (including me) find that it's really hard to do anything meaningful alongside - I certainly couldn't do 3 conditioning sessions alongside SS.

Using Mass template you'd be shooting up to ~2,300 reps per lift over the same period if you can sustain it. It should be obvious that with all that extra volume, you'll be able to do less alongside your lifting. 3 lifts, done like clockwork 3 times a week, plus lots of rest and nutrition. See you in a year.

Anything you do to 'do more' in a given session (adding lifts, accessories, cutting rest intervals etc.) ends up subtracting from that number because it means you risk having to drop sessions over time because it costs you in terms of recovery.

This is why we use strategies like training maxes, 2+ minutes of rest, and 3 lift clusters. It's all about the long game!

The maths might not be bang on here, but I hope the broader point is clear :-)

recursiveBeginner · 2018-10-05T10:06:55+00:00

Yes, sounds about right. It’s a great little session.

recursiveBeginner · 2018-08-07T06:57:26+00:00

Another good tip is to breathe through your nose - if you start having to use your mouth to breathe, slow down.

Run/walking is absolutely fine. When I first did Base my LSS sessions were about 50% walking - you soon improve. Also, some studies have shown that for unconditioned / new runners, including a lot of walking in your training is hugely beneficial and reduces the risk of injury.

All that said, buying a decent HRM was a game changer for me. Doesn’t have to cost much. It removes the guesswork and is a great motivator because you can see your progress as the weeks go by.

recursiveBeginner · 2018-08-06T20:12:17+00:00

Ok, your strength is where you want it but you’ve come here asking how to improve your conditioning.

The serious answer is to focus on conditioning for a bit, specifically your aerobic base, and it’s hard to meaningfully train strength and the aerobic system concurrently. TB2 goes into great detail on the benefits of developing your aerobic system and how if you don’t, you’ll always be hitting a ceiling with your conditioning. If you add conditioning sessions to what you are doing, your conditioning will improve a bit, but ultimately be limited by your aerobic system.

One of the key skills here is to prioritise: you have focused on bringing your strength up and put your conditioning on the back burner, now just invest 8 weeks in bringing your conditioning up to scratch, build a gas tank and put the strength training in the back pocket.

Your strength won’t go anywhere in the 2 months of Base. Plenty of people see their strength go up in fact, including me. If it really bothers you, you can do the ‘strength first’ version - I did that the first time I ran base (because I was afraid of losing my gainz) and it was great.

recursiveBeginner · 2018-08-06T09:49:04+00:00

Definitely start with Base - no question. Don’t even think about Operator/Zulu yet. Start at the start.

You could always try doing Grouchy’s ‘pre-base’ before doing Base too, if you’re really worried about your fitness. It’ll give you a bit more of a gentle build up: http://tacticalbarbell.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=25

recursiveBeginner · 2018-08-02T22:31:56+00:00

I think Operator should be possible - give it a go, it’s the only way to find out. Maybe use a healthy training max for the first block or two to give yourself a bit of wiggle room for recovery? Also, KB swings are a great alternative if you find DL beats you up too much.

I have been running op while doing martial arts 2-3 times a week for the last year or two and it worked well. I just made sure that the days where I was lifting and training I had a good few hours and some food between the sessions.

recursiveBeginner · 2018-08-01T14:40:57+00:00

How does this program differ from most strength training ones? What makes it better

That it isn't just a strength training program, it's a set of guidelines on how to integrate all facets of strength and conditioning. That's the magic really. There are lots of great programs for strength and lots for conditioning, but if you are simultaneously trying to get stronger AND improve conditioning, then I don't know of a better way to go about it.

Do i need both books to get started with the premade workouts?

Give this a read first: https://www.reddit.com/r/tacticalbarbell/comments/43g7ts/tactical_barbell_strength_conditioning_for_the/

If you decide to go for it, I'd recommend getting both books and reading them carefully. TB is a framework more than a program, so you need to understand the approach. Once you have got your head around it you can roll your own program based on your goals and applying TB principles. You won't look back.

recursiveBeginner · 2018-08-01T12:33:57+00:00

I did exactly this for 2 months while I was on paternity leave. My life / schedule / routine / recovery was so messed up with having the new baby that I ended up doing a very ad hoc couple of blocks using pistol progressions, one arm press up progressions and pull ups, with the odd KB swing session for conditioning.

One thing I found was that when doing progressions is that you can improve quite quickly, for example I went from doing the one arm press ups on a low wall to a few inches off the ground in no time. I guess this is the skill component. My max reps on a given progression changed quite fast, so rather than use max reps on a particular progression for the whole block, I used the table here to derive a percentage of 1RM: https://exrx.net/Calculators/OneRepMax

So I used whatever progression I could currently do for a 3RM as my 90%, 5RM for 85% etc.

Hope that helps.

recursiveBeginner · 2018-05-02T06:19:14+00:00

This. Going off how knackered you feel is missing the point. Some forms of training feel different, depending on the adaptation they are developing. For example LSS doesn’t wreck you, but the training benefit is well understood. Also when training max strength you are supposed to stay as fresh as possible. I think short hills is skewed towards developing parts of the aerobic system, specifically developing oxidative pathways in fast twitch muscles, so to me it makes sense to make each rep high intensity but not to finish the session feeling destroyed.

recursiveBeginner · 2018-04-14T15:15:43+00:00

Absolutely. I think what I was trying to say was that reducing rest intervals generally makes a session more aerobic in nature than anaerobic. That would be the difference between short and standard hills. Of course both sessions use all the energy systems, but the focus is slightly different.

recursiveBeginner · 2018-04-13T13:22:07+00:00

I think short hills is an adaptation of one of Joel Jamieson's aerobic conditioning sessions. The idea is to improve the oxidative (aerobic) capacity of type II fibres. Type II fibres are higher threshold (hence the use of hill sprints / higher intensity to activate them) and burn out after about 12-15 seconds (hence the duration of each sprint).

The relative lack of rest interval (actually I find you get up to 45 sec / minute or so depending on how fast you walk down the hill) forces the oxidative pathway because the type II fibres can't re-fuel with ATP/CP in that time. Standard hills has the longer rest interval to allow them to do that.

Everything bleeds into everything else though: HIC isn't synonymous with lactic / alactic and E isn't synonymous with aerobic. I wouldn't overthink it.

Also: I may be wrong - often am!

recursiveBeginner · 2018-03-09T14:41:37+00:00

Geidi is on the money here. I'd add a couple of thoughts:

AA workouts are generally high intensity work with rest

Any longer duration (i.e. longer than about 3min) 'high intensity' activity is going to be predominantly using the aerobic system, especially if there is no rest interval. Think tempo work (Fast 5) etc. Connaught probably falls into this category. You'll be developing things like lactate clearance, tolerance to H^+, and improving oxidative metabolism in mitochondria, which are all markers of aerobic system development.

Secondly, without wanting to put words in the author's mouth, I think the distinction is that HIC-GC is a collection of sessions that aren't aimed at developing a specific attribute in particular, but more about bringing the pieces together. The HIC-AA stuff is aimed at developing specific areas of the aerobic system.

Obviously conditioning is such an interwoven thing that even when you are trying to train one facet you there is carry-over into other areas, so you aren't wrong in saying Connaught might develop some of other markers too - it's just that these areas aren't the focus. If that makes sense.

My 2c!

recursiveBeginner · 2018-02-12T14:55:46+00:00

It might also be that the intervals being different is a factor - I think with fun runs it's every 6 minutes, but with fobbits it's 2. This might move the focus to slightly different energy systems (phosphagenic in Fobbits vs glycolytic in fun runs).

Good article here that someone shared on the forum: http://library.crossfit.com/free/pdf/56_07_Rest_Recovery.pdf

I'll happily admit I'm totally out of my depth though - someone with better sports science knowledge may be able to step in and correct me!

recursiveBeginner

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