More Thoughts on Conditioning...

In keeping with my recent trend in cross-posting thing I've posted at other forums, here are some thoughts I recently posted on conditioning, how it applies to MMA, and the differences between "conditioning" and "cardio."

"I've said this before, and maybe it's just a semantics game, but I don't feel that "cardio" and "endurance" (or "conditioning" for that matter) are the same thing.

To me, "cardio" refers to the ability of your heart to pump blood thorought your body, and you lungs to take in enough oxygen - esp while under duress and/or over the long term. "Endurance" (or "conditioning" as I usually call it) is about the ability to perform over the long term. This entails not just cardio, but also muscular conditioning, as well as strength/power-endurance.

To try to illustrate, here is an example I like to use for beginners:

Let's say you're a sedentary person and decide to start jogging 1 mile 3x/week. When you first start, you're pretty out of shape, and you're breathing so hard after your first 1/4 mile or so, that you have to stop and walk some, b/c you can't get enough air. This would be a deficiency in cardio.

But then, after a few weeks, you've brought your cardio up so that you can run much further without having to stop for air. However, you're now stopping to walk around the 1/2 mile mark, not b/c you can't get air, but b/c your legs are burning so bad that you need to give them a slight rest. This would be a deficiency in muscular conditioning.

In MMA, it is "conditioning" that is king - not cardio. All the cardio in the world won't do you any good if you're still not quick (and therefore powerful) at the end of your fight, or if your muscles hurt too much to hold onto a sub attempt.

One of the things that I feel "conditioning" work has going for it is that when you do "conditioning," you'll improve "cardio." However (depending on how you train), when you do "cardio," you won't necessarily improve "conditioning."

Of course, much of this *could* be explained by the mental toughness that was discussed above. LSD - esp long LSD - builds a mental toughness that most other forms of exercise don't. Not only to get through the LSD, but to actually get out and get started. It can be pretty daunting to know that you're going for a 3-5 mile run, and won't get to stop for the next 20-50 minutes (depending on how far/fast you run). While sprints can be much harder, you also get to rest, which can be easier on the psyche. *shrug*

I also think that each person is different. For myself, I've gone plenty of LSD, plenty of interval training, and plenty of complex/circuit training in my day. For fat loss (though it's against much of what we read), LSD has always worked best for me. However, I usually feel slower. If I'm crossing the street, and a car is coming, I can't just quickly dart out of the way - I feel like I have to get moving, and *then* I can run out of the way. Complex/circuit training, on the other hand, takes my conditioning (and work capacity) *and* my cardio, and shoots it through the roof. But it's done little for me in the way of fat loss in the past. However, what I've found to be a good combination is to do complex/circuit training for a few weeks to bolster conditioning and cardio, and THEN focus on LSD (b/c I can go longer due to the previous complex/circuit training) for fat loss. I went through a period last year where I was alternating days of some basic strength work and hard complex training, with days of LSD on a Complex 2 Rower and/or Treadmill. But this is just one example, and is just me.

The two things I think we need to remember in all of this are that:

1. Like we always say, build well-rounded program. Just like we wouldn't tell somebody to do only striking or only grappling, don't do only cardio or only strength training.

2. Like the old saying goes, some things work for all people, and all things work for some people, but not all things work for all people. Just b/c a fighter does a certain kind of training and is successful, that doesn't mean you'll be successful if you do it. It *also* doesn't mean that, as mentioned, the whole "they succeed in spite of - not b/c of - their training" is in effect, either. If Rocky Marciano, Tito Ortiz, George Foreman, Mike Tyson, Matt Hughes, Sean Sherk, etc. all did LSD in their training, and were all fairly dominating champs in their own rights/times, then they must have been doing *something* that worked for them. Try to learn why others are successful before you tell them how much better they could be if they knew what you knew.

As usual, just my two cents...

Wiggy - MMA Training"