[This is a guest blog by Jan Alexander. Jan is a Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist through the National Strength and Conditioning Association. His athletic background includes running, cycling, triathlon, and basketball. He is currently taking part in the Athletic Lab Coaching Mentorship program.]
In July of this year, news broke that Lebron James, yes the four time NBA, NBA Finals MVP, and NBA Champion with 18 all-star selections, had invested in Canyon bikes. Canyon is a global leader in cycling with a mission to be “the world’s most inspiring and innovative bike company.” In 2012 the media also learned of James’s habit of commuting to American Airlines Arena for Miami Heat home games by bike, and as a member of the Los Angeles Lakers he has talked about riding the bike trails around his new hometown with friends. While these specific outings aren’t designed to elicit any aerobic training adaptation, the benefits of aerobic conditioning, even for athletes competing in speed and power based sports, is proven beneficial. Whether your athlete enjoys cycling, running, or some other endurance pursuit such as cross country skiing; the ability to strategically implement aerobic training during an off season can raise an athlete’s ceiling in their chosen sport.
There are several adaptations that result from aerobic exercise that include strengthening the heart, but one of the most fundamental adaptive responses to endurance training is an increase in the aerobic capacity of the trained musculature. This adaptation allows the athlete to perform a given absolute intensity of exercise with greater ease (Haff et al 2021). It has also been reported, or over-reported, that the benefits of exercise reduces the risk of heart disease, diabetes, and arthritis; provides a longer life span; lowers weight; lessens stress; lessens characteristics of depression; and increases cognitive function. These benefits of exercise are derived from aerobic fitness, and not strength training (Hutchinson 2011). In a 2009 study published in Sports Medicine, researchers found that traditional aerobic conditioning, with minimal changes of direction and no skill component, effectively increased (in a 4 to 10 week period) the aerobic fitness that team sport athletes need “in order to generate and maintain power output during repeated high intensity efforts” (Stone et al 2009). One thing to note is that running and cycling are inherently more conducive to training team sport athletes due to equipment availability, movement simplicity, and the ability to control the efforts and intervals with more precision. Sports like skiing and swimming require a heavy skill component and require specific environments for training. It can be managed, but there are significant hurdles.
Should you go out and find the training plans of world class endurance athletes, such as marathon runner Eliud Kipchoge or grand tour cyclist Mark Cavendish, for your off-season training protocols? Not exactly. Since we aren’t training endurance athletes, the plans that elicit the most benefit to endurance athletes won’t work for a number of reasons. The most important reason is time constraints, and for that reason a strategic build up into high-intensity interval training is the approach. The ultimate goal for team sport athletes is not building aerobic capacity (although important), but to build aerobic power. Aerobic power is referred to as the body’s maximal oxygen uptake or an athlete’s V02max. This measures two important components of an athlete’s profile which are the ability of the heart and lungs to deliver oxygen to the exercising muscles and the ability of muscles to use that oxygen.
Recover and Build the Base
After a long season, team sport athletes need a period to reset and recover. This is important for the long term health and wellness of the athlete, and should be given its necessary diligence. As is often followed in a workout, the best form of recovery is easy, low-impact movement. Active recovery techniques have been used, and proven, to reduce fatigue over passive recovery. Researchers found that active recovery offers an efficient method to relieve delayed onset muscle soreness and recover from exercise-induced muscle damage. (Fares et al 2022). With that in mind, short (around 30 minutes) sessions of light activity can challenge the body enough to recover without further fatigue. This active form of recovery can also be used to lay even a modest foundation for phasing in the aerobic workload to increase an athlete’s endurance profile. The idea behind introducing movement during an athlete’s recovery phase is to add some low-impact aerobic exercise in a way that helps the athlete find enjoyment in getting outside. This will help build the base needed to put in the quality work down the line to raise their aerobic power.
After that short recovery window, it’s time to enter the next phase of aerobic system training. This next phase is known in the endurance world as base building. In the base building phase, every effort happens in what we will call the easy zone. Easy, by definition in the Daniels’ Running Formula, is performed at an intensity about 59 to 74 percent of VO2max or 65 to 79 percent of maximum heart rate (Daniels 2021). There are several benefits to entering into this phase of training with easy running as a core focus. The most important benefit is that the athlete will build up a level of injury resistance before embarking on the more intense workouts designed to build aerobic power. The only way to ensure that the musculature is trained to handle higher intensity aerobic efforts in the chosen discipline is to have a base of mileage to start building. For example, if an athlete is cycling 20 miles per week, and the program introduces high intensity intervals that raises that mileage to 40 miles per week, injury risk increases. Be sure to increase weekly mileage slowly throughout training, and when introducing higher intensity bouts, either keep mileage consistent or slightly decrease it to account for the additional stress.
Introducing Interval Training
Now that the athlete has built the foundation for performing at higher intensities, it’s time to move into a more time efficient way to build true aerobic improvements. In a study that compared low-volume sprint interval training (SIT) to high-volume endurance training (ET) in team sport athletes using running intervals, it was found that sprint intervals showed similar improvements in VO2max, and high-intensity endurance capacity (improvements of 31.0 and 17.2% after SIT and ET respectively) while being a more time efficient training method (Kelly, et al 2018). It’s important to note here that when we are referring to sprint intervals, we aren’t talking about true maximal sprinting, but shorter intervals between 20 to 45 seconds. It’s also important to build up to these sprint intervals to maximize the aerobic adaptations by progressing the training from general to specific.
Start the athletes with long intervals which should be within the range of 2’ to 4’, and have a work to rest ratio of 3:2 or 1:1. Make sure that your total session volume (both in duration and distance) doesn’t exceed any individual session performed during base building. Total number of intervals programmed here should be no less than 6, and no more than 12. Take into consideration the time of each interval and athlete conditioning because 12 intervals at 4 minutes without warm up or rest is already 48 minutes of work. For running, that is a huge load for even seasoned marathoners. These volumes are suggestions, and not hard prescriptions. Cycling is less demanding, and has far less impact so those sessions can be on the longer side within that range.
After a couple of weeks, introducing some long interval sessions, start incorporating short interval sessions within the program. Short intervals are typically around 60 seconds in length, and should follow a work to rest ratio of 1:2 to 1:1 depending on athlete conditioning and volume. I would suggest a total session for short intervals to have between 8 and 16 total work efforts. Again be mindful of total volume. Running places the heaviest demand so make those workouts on the shorter side. Rowing intervals are good here as well in that they can be less impactful on joints while working the full body, and given an athlete’s background, you can push the total volume without the same injury risk.
The final piece to the aerobic training puzzle are sprint intervals (also called high intensity intervals). These efforts can be programmed between 15 to 30 seconds in length, and should be utilizing 1:1 to 1:2 work to rest ratios between working bouts. With the short duration of these efforts, and providing you have led the athlete into these higher intensity sessions, you can program higher volumes of work intervals. I would prescribe approximately 20 work intervals in a session, and would be hard pressed to find a reason to exceed 30 intervals in any one session. These efforts are incredibly taxing since they are performed at near max efforts, so be cautious prescribing volume, and allow for adequate rest between sessions. Here you can be more sport specific in your program. For soccer athletes, longer intervals probably make the most sense, while football players should benefit from shorter efforts. Either way, it’s important to remember that we aren’t training specific sport skills, we are training for aerobic power which is a quality needed to be successful in any given sport. Within the given parameters of any sprint interval, a wide amount of creativity can be utilized. It can also be beneficial to have fun with these sessions by creating challenging goals or race-like environments.
Team sport training plans are a complex puzzle, even in the off-season where different training adaptations can be prioritized. Aerobic conditioning is just one part of training the whole athlete, but it’s important even for speed and power sport athletes. With that in mind, don’t overlook how this can improve every aspect of athleticism. Using the off-season to make these improvements in aerobic conditioning and specifically aerobic power is an ideal window to push this training adaptation. So, grab a bike or a pair of running shoes and hit the road. This is a perfect time of the training cycle to focus on the joy and simplicity of just moving.
References
- Haff, G. Gregory; N. Travis Triplett. Essentials of Strength and Conditioning, 4th Ed. Human Kinetics, 2021.
- Fares, Rony; et al. “Effect of Active Recovery Protocols on the Management of Symptoms Related to Exercise-Induced Muscle Damage: A Systematic Review.” Strength and Conditioning Journal: February 2022 – Volume 44 – Issue 1 – p 57-70
- Hutchinson, Alex. Which Comes First, Cardio or Weights?: Fitness Myths, Training Truths, and Other Surprising Discoveries from the Science of Exercise. Mariner Books, 2011
- Stone, Nicholas M, and Andrew E Kilding. “Aerobic conditioning for team sport athletes.” Sports Medicine (Auckland, N.Z.) vol. 39,8 (2009): 615-42
- Daniels, Jack. Daniels’ Running Formula, 4th Ed. Human Kinetics, 2021.
- Kelly, David T et al. “Comparison of Sprint Interval and Endurance Training in Team Sport Athletes.” Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research vol 32,11 (2018): 3051-3058
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