Purposes of different conditioning workouts

Training Q&A [Moderated]
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I’m interested in learning more about the difference types of conditioning workouts that are commonly found in the training templates. There seem to be about 4 common workouts:

  1. 20s sprints EMOM

  2. 3 min on, 1 min off intervals

  3. 20-30 minutes of Zone 2

  4. Up to 50 minutes of Zone 1

Can you expand on the specific adaptations, goals, and purposes of these? For example, are some more focused on VO2 max vs. anaerobic vs. lactate threshold, etc.?

And a second question: if some of these adaptations are more specific to our sport or specific needs, is there ever a situation where some could be substituted in a conditioning program? (e.g., replacing one 50 minute zone 1 for another 3 on, 1 off?)

Thanks!

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Conor,

There are a lot of different conditioning elements across our templates depending on the application and desired training stimulus. As a general rule, we want people to do enough conditioning volume for health and performance improvements, and expose them to a wide variety of different conditioning-related demands, e.g. all of the zones.

Every prescription you mention here are ALWAYS accompanied by zone and HR range recommendations. Each of these zones and their desired adaptations are discussed in the accompanying ebook.

For example, the aerobic interval “3 min on, 1 min off/lower intensity” is typically programmed as a zone 3 or 4 effort, which would be tempo (zone 3) or threshold (zone 4) work. Zones 1 and 2 are pretty straightforwardly aerobic endurance focused. The 8-20s EMOM sprints NEVER occur in isolation, but either in the middle or end of a longer bout of conditioning. These sprints can be used for exposure to threshold or vo2max work, to maintain interest and/or form during a longer bout, and so on.

If someone has a specific sport, I may change how their program is setup, especially if it’s getting closer to the test/competition date. As a default recommendation however, I like when folks can do ~ 2.5-3 hours of conditioning per week at a minimum. Most of that should be moderate intensity continuous training, e.g. “steady state” in zones 1-2 or so, with some exposure to higher intensity work like strides, sprints, and/or interval work.

A further discussion of conditioning programming and purposes are available in the General Strength and Conditioning and Low Fatigue programs’ ebooks. We could definitely publish more stuff here, but there are only so many hours in a day!

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