Building things that last

Lots of interesting stuff going on for me right now, one of which was the return to regular training of two ladies who had trained with me for one and three years. Both had had ‘real world stuff’ happen that meant that the had to stop training with me, but now after a break of six months and one year respectively, they were able to return to training.

We shall call them Taylor Swift and Dr Who respectively (you know who you are!). Taylor Swift had trained with me for just under a year and then broke her ankle, Dr Who had trained for about three years and had to take a year off (life, children, house move).

At this point let’s take a diversion. I was recently in Italy for the Plan Strong seminar with Pavel Tsatsouline and Fabio Zonin. Whilst I was in Italy for 4 days, I only managed two hours of site seeing whilst killing time for my flight home. It was then that I realised that ‘back in Roman days’ they built stuff to last.

But it’s not just Roman days. Where I live (in Aberdeen, Scotland) we have a huge legacy of relics and listed buildings. There are structures built over 1000 years ago which seem to have endured better than some that were built in the 1970s. Why and how can this be? Surely Engineering technology has improved in that time and newer structures should last longer than older ones?

Could it be, that these older methods, or possibly the intention behind them are superior to more modern methods or intentions?

Let’s get back to Taylor and Dr Who. These two ladies had both been trained by me using ‘primitive techniques’ but with sophisticated intentions. You could say a hybrid of old methods and modern understanding. Neither had put on much in the way of bodyfat, and their absolute strength had not diminished much. Their conditioning (kinda like ‘cardio’ but way better) had decreased quite a bit, but we were able to recover much of that over the space of about 6 weeks.

Very interestingly, Dr Who, who had trained with me longer but had had a longer break actually showed less loss of strength and movement skill, which is not a slight to Taylor Swift at all (and she did break her ankle after all). I believe this is a testament to the longer training history of The Doctor.

Now all the below is basically educated supposition on my part.

Why not much increase in bodyfat percentage?

Both had developed healthy eating habits to support the acquisition and maintenance of muscle mass. Both had developed a good amount of muscle mass as well. This would lead to a ‘slower’ decay of the ‘structure’.

Why did their strength not diminish by a larger degree?

A combination of the muscle mass they’d developed plus ‘the skill of strength’ training that we’d done. Both knew how to create and use tension to lift heavy loads and the skill was still there.

So why did their conditioning drop way more than their strength?

Conditioning adaptations happen quicker than strength gains, and are lost quicker. Think of strength as the structure (muscle mass) and electrical wiring (skill) of a building, and conditioning as the heating/air-conditioning. The walls and wiring may endure for millennia, but if you stop looking after the building the interior temperature will soon become a reflection of the outside temperature. But a well constructed building which hasn’t been maintained, can quickly be brought back to a liveable temperature.

Because the ‘structure’ of both ladies (their muscle mass and strength skill) had been constructed to a high standard (move well, move often, get strong) it had endured their training absence. Once they return it was simply a case of renovation and putting the heating back on. In the space of around 6 weeks we had them back to around 80% of their previous peak (bear in mind that these were office based workers and not weekend warriors).

The moral of the story is to use the proven technologies of strength and conditioning training, but with the modern insight as to how they work. Don’t try to improve upon things that don’t need improving but do keep your eye open for new methods that provide superior results.

Move well, lift heavy stuff and eat like a grown up!

Go forth!