C - Conditioning
Jen’s blog continues…
Conditioning, which as previously mentioned, is ideally required alongside the strength work, can be done at home (if you have the space). You can condition your muscles through bodyweight or light weight activities. So if you really aren’t a fan of the gym, get these exercises done at home. This will reduce the amount of time you need to spend in the actual gym, you can just go in to do your strength work and be done.
Jen and Harvey looking in Peak Gym Condition…
Conditioning works more on your muscular endurance rather than its out and out ability to withstand a big force. This is achieved by isolating the muscle groups that you use when running/cycling/swimming/climbing (whatever your sport) and increasing their capacity to keep working over and over again. It is important to still use some weight/resistance but it doesn’t have to be as heavy as when you are doing strength based exercises because you are creating a different stimulus.
Without conditioning your muscles when you become fatigued during a prolonged effort the weaker muscles will take a break and the well conditioned ones will take up the slack, having to keep work even harder for you to continue. Now you can probably see the problem here... If one group of muscles is doing a little and one is doing a lot, the likelihood is that the ones doing lots will also become tired at some point. This can lead to injury. If it’s not the tired muscles that develop an injury then another part of your body will take the force that those tired muscles no longer can hold. This includes joints, bones, tendons and ligaments etc. Examples of injuries you might end up developing here could be other soft tissue injuries such as tendonitis, or bony injuries such as the dreaded stress fractures…
Not only can S&C help to reduce injuries but it can also aid in improving your performance.
If your muscles are capable of producing more force, and maintaining that force over long periods of time you will likely see an increase in speed, power output, coordination and stability to name but a few. It can also help in improving recovery from sessions, meaning you are ready to go for the next one sooner.
Finally, reducing injury means that you’re likely to be far more consistent with your training, and we all know consistency is key when it comes to training for any sport.
Charles conditioning in his clinic room… what a guy
Hopefully we’ve successfully convinced you that S&C is an important part of your training, and shouldn’t be overlooked. Maybe you now have an idea of where to start with it, or if what you have been doing is along the right lines. But if you’re not too sure how/ what you should be doing (we understand that starting out in the gym can be an intimidating place) then have a chat with Jen or Charlie and we would be happy to give you a helping hand in your journey…
