WHAT IS CONDITIONING? by Chris Woodman, Sport Science (HONS) BA, BComm

We all have pet hates. I must confess that the most annoying thing I have ever come across in a commercial gym, is the biceps curl being performed in the squat rack. This isn't merely an annoyance its a travesty! Not because of doing curls in the rack, but because the guy with the backwards baseball cap, powerhouse T-shirt and sunglasses (this guy exists, I have proof!) doing the curls, believes this is what the rack was made for.

My second pet hate is the term fitness. If you read my previous article, you would understand why, but briefly it is because I think the term is too broad and ambiguous. A better term in my opinion is the word "conditioning". Conditioning in the purest sense of the word implies the preparation for something specific. Conditioning yourself for a marathon, is different from conditioning yourself for cage fighting. Compare the two.

The one consists of an activity lasting several hours where the energy demands are constantly being met. So essentially the body maintains a steady physiological state or homeostasis. This is what aerobic activity is, a physiological demand, where the body's need for oxygen and nutrients are being met for prolonged periods, up to several hours. Cage fighting on the other hand consists of not more than 3 five-minute rounds separated by a 1 min. rest interval. The body's demand for oxygen is nowhere near steady in this activity. In fact it is termed an "acyclic anaerobic event", meaning that fatigue starts almost at the onset of the activity and the body's ability to meet energy demands, is impaired. Therefore the conditioning requirements for each of these sports differ greatly. Pretty obvious? 

Not really, if you consider that the performance indicators for each of these activities can overlap. Let me explain.
The reason we all exercise or train, is to alter certain physiological characteristics and some mental ones at the same time. Example: we want larger muscles, we want less fat, we want muscles that contract faster ... you get the picture. Performance indicators are the desired physical components, each person needs to achieve their genetic potential in physical conditioning for their sport or well being. In my view the most important conditioning variables are the following:
Strength
Work Capacity
Body composition
Flexibility
Speed
Tenacity

There are a host of other factors like quickness, and balance, but broadly speaking, if you improve all of these factors only marginally, then you will improve substantially in your sport. Lets have a look at these factors!

Strength: The textbook definitions of the term strength vary, and we can spend a lot of time arguing and debating. I like the word strength to mean: the ability to generate force. Pick up a suitcase and the body has generated force. Do a push up, you've generated force. There are many different kinds of strength. From speed strength, maximal strength & absolute strength to mention only a few. But for our purpose we will see strength as the body's ability to generate maximum force.

Work Capacity
What you and most people consider to be fitness or endurance, I call work capacity. Once again, it is specific to your sport. But work capacity is a basic ability the body has, to do work. Running 3km from A to B, is your body moving its own weight for 3000 m. It is doing work! Now, if you run that 3000 m faster today than yesterday, you have done more work, your capacity to do that work has improved because you have done the same work in less time. Another example would be a rugby player making 12 tackles in a game. He improves his work capacity (or fitness for the unconverted amongst you) and now he makes 18 tackles in the same amount of time. One of the most important physical attributes a sportsman can have in my opinion, is the ability to generate strength under conditions of fatigue. It is worth reading again. To generate strength under conditions of fatigue. Now I'll elaborate. A tennis player has all the skill in the world, but after the third set his serve is slowing down, and the skinny guy in white opposite him, keeps hitting the ball to the other side of the court, and it's getting harder to keep up, and as our ball hitting friends' ability to generate strength under conditions of fatigue decreases, so his ability to win the game decreases. Having great strength isn't enough.The ability to repeatedly display it is what counts in most sports. Yes, even in powerlifting and weightlifting you need some work capacity! Not only for training volumes, but also to compete on the day. An example that comes to mind, is the time a world class powerlifter and amazing shot putter returned to B-division provincial rugby. Weighing at a less than lean 130 odd kilograms, he had the ability to move jaw dropping weights, as well as being pretty fast. What he didn't have, was the ability to repeat these two tasks at a high level. Very often during 80 minutes of rugby, lugging a big frame around Loftus on a hot February afternoon, is hard enough, even when you have great work capacity. So the result of his rugby return was a humbling lesson in scrumming from some opponent half as big and half as strong. Now if you have a great work capacity, not only can you compete strongly, but your training becomes more effective, and you recover faster from it and therefore you can train it more frequently.

Body Composition
If ever there was ever a neglected aspect in conditioning, it's the muscle to fat ratio.This section is especially for rugby players. The obsession with size is damaging your game! When I was still working for the Golden Lions, I was inundated with young players demanding that I design them a program that will make them gain 5 kg to 15 kg in only a couple of weeks. Now, gaining that much weight is possible. No doubt it can be done! However most of it will be fat. When I say most of it, I mean like 90% will be class 1 lard. That will hamper your performance no matter what! Most physically demanding sports are based on moving from A to B as fast as possible. Rugby, soccer, tennis, cricket, triathlon, marathon, 100m sprint, boxing ... the list is long. Your body composition determines how metabolically efficient your body moves from A to B. Consider two identical athletes, both running a marathon. They both have identical physiology, stride frequency, stride length, same strength, same work capacity. The only thing that differs, is body composition. The athlete who carries more fat, will be the slower of the two because his running economy isn't as efficient as his counterparts'. That means he needs to generate more force to move his body at the same speed as his competitor. This example can be applied to almost all of the sports where you need to move. Remember, weight isn't the issue, it is how much muscle you carry (your muscle carries you, not the other way around!) in relation to how much fat you carry. Athlete A weighs 90kg and has 20% body fat, athlete B weighs 100kg and has 6% body fat. Now, even though athlete A weighs less, he won't be as metabolically efficient as athlete B, meaning he has less conditioning than athlete B, meaning he plays 3rd team and athlete B plays 1st team. Can you be too lean?? Yes, if your body fat is too low, your performance can be impaired. Such states of extreme leanness don't happen by accident and are usually accompanied by loss of strength, speed, work capacity and all the qualities you need, to be a good athlete.

Flexibility
Much lip service is paid to flexibility and in particular stretching. Everybody talks about the importance of it ,yet, few practice what they preach. Stretching is often not the best method for attaining adequate flexibility in your chosen activity. I don't want to dwell too much on this issue, but training with kettlebells using a full range of motion is one of the best things you can do to become supple. Often muscle imbalance is to blame for poor flexibility. The chest and biceps program you have been following for years, is to blame for your rounded shoulders. Neglecting and in some cases totally eliminating upper back work, is the culprit. Your flexibility is important no doubt, it can hamper or improve performance either way. A stiff, brittle athlete is an injured athlete. Stiff, brittle athletes usually become that way from dumb training programs. A well constructed strength program, using dumbbells, kettlebells or barbells and a full range of motion will take care of 90% of your flexibility issues. By well thought out, I mean a training program that works all your musculature in equilibrium.

Speed
Here's the bottom line, the faster the better! Speed is self explanatory, unfortunately you are born with an inherent ability to contract your muscles at a certain pace. Running speed is much more complicated than rate of muscle contraction. Stride frequency, posture, foot plant, flexibility, and fibre type all play a role. You can't make a cart horse into a racehorse, but you can make a cart horse into a much quicker cart horse. Look at a player like David Beckham. Not the fastest player on the park but in his prime, the first player you'd pick for your side. The point being, speed at the expense of skill is not smart. Making a good player faster is the solution, not trying to make a fast guy into a player. Some positions in sport need the true speed demon. Other than the obvious need for speed in athletics, players like running back in grid iron, outside backs in rugby, wings in soccer, all require the special athlete who is naturally fast. Speed can be improved in almost anybody. The most effective way to improve speed, is to become stronger. A stronger muscle uses less effort to overcome resistance and therefore can overcome that resistance with more speed. The second best way to move with more speed, is to get leaner. If you are carrying 5 kg of pure fat, there is no doubt you can move with more speed if you lose it.The essential component for the improvement of speed, is improve your strength in relation to your body-weight.

Tenacity
I'll admit this might seem a rather strange conditioning component. However esoteric it may appear, mental tenacity is a result of good conditioning, and good conditioning is a result of mental tenacity. Mental strength and weakness has a lot to do with the way you train. Success begets success! Training to the point were you can't complete the task at hand is usually a recipe for long term failure. Sure, every now and then we must test the limits of our ability, but doing that too frequently will wear you down both physically and mentally. When I was taught how to box, my training partner administered a healthy dose of sparring that I could cope with. It would have been easy for him to knock me out on a daily basis, instead I was presented with a scenario where I had to work hard to cope with the demand, but cope I did. The result: a gradual improvement in my ability and a growth in confidence, which led to self-belief which led to working harder, which led to tenacity. All the above ultimately led to improvement, and that's the name of the game. It's in our South African mentality, especially in rugby, to grind players down by poor training methods. Tenacity isn't developed by breaking players down, although tenacity can be tested in this way, but you don't make players mentally strong by giving them tasks they are bound to fail at. Occasionally yes, long term no. Doing this will, if anything, teach an athlete to break down and quit much quicker. It's logical! Look at human nature!

We very briefly, had a look at the elements that make up the unit of conditioning. Depending on your goals, each element will make up a different proportion of the whole. Next time, we look at how to improve each of these entities. Till then, civilise the mind, savage the body .... !