Yesterday I twittered:
"Killer wrkout @ gym incl cardio system developmnt on treadmil. HR in 190s. Hadnt committed 2 that n a while. Felt gr8! #bustinguphomeostasis."
@JessiStensland what is cardio system development? Sounds awesome...
I tried my best to respond in 140 characters but it was impossible to nail the scope of it so I decided a blog post, even if brief, was a good idea.
"Energy System Development (ESD) is the cardiovascular component of Core Performance training programs" says CorePerformance.com. I tend to call it Cardio System Development in public because it gives people a better idea of what I am referring to. In the rest of this post I will refer to it as ESD.
There is a comprehensive article on the Core Performance website here and I recommend the read. For the purpose of this post I will relate ESD, its relevance and application, specifically to endurance performance.
Think of it this way. Cardio capacity (including cardio strength, endurance and power) is only ONE component of swim, bike and run performance. Other components include: muscular strength, stability, joint mobility, flexibility, elasticity, nutrition, sleep and mindset to name a few (major ones.) In purposeful performance training then, the idea would be to maximize your body's ability to perform each and every one of those elements and then coordinate them into a movement pattern that is your sport. For example: the ability to stabilize the spine in the neutral zone and maintain pelvic neutral requires core, or PILLAR, strength and stability. Every minute of life, save for sleep maybe, requires it (to stay free of chronic pain and to be able to perform any action you want.) Every individual movement, including the incredibly dynamic action of running (which is simply a series of coordinated movements) requires spinal stabilization and strength in order to be properly performed, let alone produce power when and as needed. Training your ability to do that, as many people have experience who've done some sort of core training, is easier maximized by doing movements that focus specifically on that element of performance, allowing us to bring that strength and stability and posture to our daily life and sport. Said another way, its hard to work on, and certainly near impossible to maximize, core strength while running, no matter how hard you try.
Cardio capacity can be considered in much the same way.
Swim, bike and run are all very different movements, though all requiring the same strong spinal stabilization and strength. Similarly they also require similar cardio strength, cardio endurance and cardio power. The only major difference between sports is the dynamic movements required to do that activity. Additionally, it is also important that one's cardio capacity is able to withstand, and complement, the demands of the leg speeds, leg power and core power that each sport requires.
If you only ever do swim, bike and run training for the sake of putting in miles and minutes as many endurance programs do, without regard to the precision and efficiency of each element going into the performance, it is quite impossible to maximize each element they require in order to reach true performance potential. For example, you can get much better elastic qualities of the muscles in specific plyometric movements (squat jumps, hops, bounds and particular running drills, for example) than you will in just running. Training muscles and movements to be elastic as a component of a training program is key to being able to bring that elastic component to running. Ideally, one would then train their movements in order to be able to also control that elasticity where/when and as needed throughout a dynamic action such as running.
Similarly, our cardio system needs to be maximized. VERY VERY often I'm finding now, athletes training for endurance are far from maximizing their cardio system development. They tend to hover around that threshold and never bust through it. Busting through that threshold (think sprint interval training) - serves to INCREASE one's anaerobic threshold (AT) thereby allowing an athlete to do more work at the same effort. Sure one's threshold will increase somewhat over time with some basic endurance training and increased fitness level, but not often pushed to its maximum potential. Simply stated when you go harder, over your threshold, especially WAY over your threshold, your muscles are screaming for more oxygen carrying blood and your body WILL respond to that request immediately. Muscles will develop to be able handle those demands, and over time it won't be so "hard" for you to get the required blood flow and oxygen to those muscles. Your body will soon be able to do it quicker and more efficiently.
Think of it this way. Wouldn't you rather your heart beat at 180bpm than 160bpm for the same amount of effort...getting that much more blood and oxygen transported to your muscles helping them do more work? Energy system development aims to do just that with purpose-driven sprint interval training: bust through that threshold often, thereby INCREASING IT, and maximizing your performance potential. Similar to the elasticity example mentioned above, in which you may end up with more elasticity than is needed for a sport or distance, you can then choose how much of it you use instead of never having enough. The same goes for cardio capacity. If you increase your threshold to 180bpm from 160bpm (I say this because that is what I did in 2004 over a 3 week period,) running at 160bpm feels quite a lot easier. That is where sprint interval training with the purpose of increasing cardio capacity and anaerobic threshold can make a positive impact during a longer endurance race, say a half marathon or marathon distance. Incorporating this type of training has the potential to play a major role in maximizing efficiency and overall performance.
In a lecture I attended last week, a study was referenced in which it was found that 2.5 hours of sprint interval training produces biochemical changes in the muscle equivalent to 10.5 hours of endurance training, when looking at the markers related to endurance performance. I experienced the immediate and positive impact that purpose-driven cardio system training can have when i was introduced to it within the Core Perforamance methodology back in 2004 while training for the Olympic Trials in triathlon.
Consequently doing this type of training also allowed me to have much more time to work on my strength, movement, recovery, things that most endurance athletes don't think they have time for since they spend all the time they have swimming, cycling and running many minutes and miles, often with little purpose other than because that's what their training program said and that's what everyone else is doing.
Side note: ESD also involves download periods of recovery sessions as well.
There are any number of types of methods, intervals, times, etc. that can be used in cardio system development.
Yesterday my set was simply:
3 x [ 4 x (1min @ 10mph + 1min @ 6mph) ]
I chose 10mph hoping I'd be able to hold that for all of the 1 minute intervals, and I was. My heartrate was getting up in to my "red" zone: 185-192bpm. ESD has only 3 zones: easy, hard, hardest. Red = hardest. I was recovering down to 155bpm during the 1 minute recovery at 6mph. I was way over my threshold on those 1 minute intervals. My goal is to be able to run 10mph at threshold as my race pace (5-10km.) In other words: my goal is to be able to do the same amount of work for much less effort. A few more weeks of consistent ESD and that'll be no problem.
Here's another example of ESD which I did on a client that gives some more insight into the power of pushing through the 'threshold' of mind and body when it comes to maximizing cardio capacity in endurance performance.
One final note. Notice in that twitter mentioned above I finished with the phrase: busting up homeostasis. That I quoted from Nick Winkelman during his brilliant lecture on periodization last week at Athletes' Performance's Phase 4 Mentorship. He mentioned, quite emphatically, that a goal of performance training is to bust up homeostasis.
According to Wikipedia, homeostasis is from Greek: ὅμοιος, hómoios, "similar"; and στάσις, stásis, "standing still".
Busting up homeostasis therefore means to me the opposite of staying the same. Creating change. In performance training that would mean making an improvement. I have seen DAILY improvements in my training, in one element or another and often more than one at a time. I aim for daily improvements in my strength, stability, coordination and cardio capacity to name a few. In that sense then, my threshold of today is higher than my threshold of yesterday. Said another way: today's 100% is tomorrow's 99, which means I can, and will, go harder and do more work for my 100% effort than I did the day before. It's a simple concept that I hope will be more widespread in mainstream endurance training programming sooner than later.
Much more where that came from, but there you go.
Go bust up homeostasis!!