Strength Training and Metabolism

What about giving up your cardiovascular endurance exercise altogether? Are you worried that you'll end up fat and out of shape or that you'll drop dead of a heart attack? It can't be true that the only exercise you can do for your heart and lungs is the aerobic exercise that we are familiar with. As you've already learned, there are many misconceptions about what aerobic training can do. Unfortunately, a lot of what you hear in the gym is based on old theories that may or may not have come from scientific research. Most importantly, you need to realize that physical fitness is a medical science and that science is always changing. What was correct and popular advice years ago may now be scientifically refuted. Realize that your heart is a muscle and you can do a lot of different things to train it. If you exercise at a high intensity, then your heart and lungs will be working.

A few years ago weight-machine circuits were all the rage. Weight machines were arranged in rows and you were instructed to go from one machine to the next, performing exercises on each machine for a prescribed amount of time, and continue until you ran out of machines. Basically you did a set with every body part that the machines were designed for, and you were then done with your workout for the day. Sometimes you got on a bicycle or treadmill in between the weight machines, to make rest periods more like periods of active rest and thereby increase energy expenditure. The popularity of these circuits died down for many reasons. One explanation is that they got pretty boring after a while, grinding out the same routine for every workout. Also, people weren't seeing huge changes in body composition from such workouts. In addition, athletes noticed the limitations of isolation exercises that used machines only and found that they weren't able to transfer strength gains into enhancing either their sport performances or their functional lives.

Sport scientists started looking for ways to devise weight-training programs that produced results that carried over to sports and functional performance. They painstakingly studied sports and documented each player's movements during a game, to determine their work and rest intervals. Playing most sports involves high-intensity, high-effort periods followed by periods of low-intensity or even total rest periods. Even during daily life the scientists saw periods of high-to moderate-intensity work followed by periods of relative rest. Those different periods of exercise intensity resulted in different metabolic rates (remember the physical activity component of the TDEE). So the scientists started using the phrase metabolic training to describe the correct way to train athletes, i.e., training athletes in the exact same intensities that they would use in a game or competition. The theory was that if you practice as you play, your metabolism will be efficient at the tasks it needs to perform during competition.

Most sports are multidimensional and use total-body movements. Metabolic training comes at a higher metabolic cost to the body than single muscle isolation movements. It burns a lot of calories, demolishes fat, decreases workout time, and builds muscle (which increases the metabolic rate even more). It is also a good general conditioning activity, because it involves more than one component of fitness. The common folk can't let a good idea go to waste, so now metabolic training has caught on in the mainstream training public. It is a catch phrase meaning a program that has high-intensity and low-intensity bouts-similar to the description of our cardiovascular interval programs, except that metabolic training uses strength-training exercises.

Metabolic weight circuits can bring your body new benefits, both physical and psychological. Using these programs, you can climb past plateaus and spice up your workouts. You can base your high-intensity weight-training intervals on either repetitions or time. For work based on repetitions, time how long it takes to perform 15 repetitions of an exercise and then rest for that same amount of time or more. For work based on time, work for a specific amount of time, such as 30 seconds, and then rest for 30 seconds or more. Get in as many reps as you can during that time. Your intensity during the weight or work session should range from 40 to 70 percent of your one-repetition maximum (1RM)-- the amount of weight you can lift one time. As your conditioning improves, maintain your intensity and decrease your rest ratios, or increase your intensity and maintain your rest ratios, for variety.

In metabolic training, as in sport and daily life, periods of high-intensity activity are interspersed with periods of rest or low-intensity activity.

You should have a basic fitness level before embarking on a metabolic weight circuit since it is physiologically demanding. Be aware that doing this type of training for more than 30 minutes 3 days per week will likely lead to over training and injury. Stick with a 5-minute warm-up, a 5-minute cool-down, and 20 minutes of a metabolic weight circuit as an end goal. Because metabolic weight circuits are so challenging, it is wise to start with a 10-minute circuit (keeping the 5-minute warm-ups and cool-downs) and progress up to 20 minutes as your body adapts. Use a stopwatch to time your intervals so that you are consistent and not guessing. Although you want to maximize your effort and adhere to the interval times as closely as possible, you may have to vary and individualize the circuit to fit your conditioning level and experience. If you need more time to rest and recover before beginning the next exercise, you should take it. Likewise, some people have to begin the metabolic weight circuits with body weight alone. Don't think that's ineffective, though. Trying to push yourself to adhere to a program that isn't specifically designed for you could result in injury. Just remember to document the changes and strive to improve each time. The only person that you have to compete against is you.

In table 3.2, a through d (see next page), I provide an upper-body, lower-body, total-body, and outdoor metabolic circuit using the exercises that are described in part III of this book; it's also easy to design your own circuit. Because this type of exercise fatigues muscles quickly, alternate exercises to emphasize different areas. Some muscle groups are the primary workers during a certain exercise while others are resting so that they can be the primary workers in the next exercise; so for example, you could alternate pushing and pulling exercises in an upper-body circuit (see chapter 9). You can design a circuit with an exercise that hits every muscle group individually or as a whole. Thus, you can design a circuit with exercises for the shoulders, upper back, low back, biceps, triceps, and so forth; or you can have a circuit of total-body exercises like Olympic lifts. The possibilities are endless. Metabolic circuits are a lot of fun and can really benefit your health and fitness. To determine how to best fit a circuit or a cardiovascular interval-training session into your training program.

Metabolic Strength Circuits