Should We Prioritize Low-Intensity Conditioning? w/ Mark McLaughlin (SSOF Ep 62)

Mark McLaughlin2:38

Yeah, so the way that I look at it and was taught was, what is your principles and methodologies, and what is your mission statement for the training, for lack of a better term? And so with that, mine is to develop the largest bank of biological power for the athlete where they can perform their sport at the highest level, both in practice and in games or matches, without limiting fatigue.

And so then, based off of that, then you need to take, okay, where is the gold standard from the conditioning standpoint for the sport? What are those markers? Is it blood lactate? Is it resting heart rate? I mean, there's a lot of different ways to quantify that. So what are your key indicators on conditioning fitness? And then you need to test the athlete based on those parameters and then how that fits into their sport, and then begin to develop a program based off of that.

So with the population, say, of fighters, okay, how are you testing as an athlete and what do you need more of? And so then if it's a low conditioning, low-level conditioning, okay, then we need to establish what that means to you. So are you using heart rate? Are you using percentage of max heart rate? Are you using, say, SMO2 to monitor oxygen levels at the working muscle or whatever? Because I think a lot of people just train blindly, like, I need a lot of low-level conditioning. Okay, where are you at? What's the intensity? How long?

James de Lacey4:57

Yeah, I think a lot of people will use what's most accessible, is just simple heart rate.

Oh, I think we may have lost Mark there. Oh, we got you back.

Yeah, perfect. Yeah, I was just saying that I think most people, out of simplicity and ease of accessibility, would use heart rate just because it's quite easy just to slap on a heart rate monitor. I think that's where most people find it. So what would you—is there a threshold? Because obviously, within—I mean, a lot of people went off Joel Jamieson's Ultimate MMA Conditioning. That was almost the Bible within combat sports, within many other team sports as well, and was often given just a very simple blanket, okay, 120 to 150 beats per minute, that's considered low intensity, just don't go above that.

Obviously, that differs person to person, all sorts of things play into that. So is there a typical threshold within heart rate that someone could use, or is it a matter of having to test to see where it is?

Mark McLaughlin6:12

No, I mean, I think that's a good place to start just because a lot of people may not have access to other technology and heart rate is easy to use and manage. I mean, if you look at the literature from the best endurance athletes in the world—cross-country runners, runners, cyclists, whatever—typically the low level is anywhere from 45% of max heart rate all the way up to 72%.

And if you look at people that don't have a big base of endurance training, they should tend to be more towards that lower end to the point where walking for some is probably a very good point to start at, because then you can accumulate a lot of volume at very low stress levels and begin to build that base. And people also that aren't used to running, say, you have your heavier athlete or whatever, there's no way they're going to be able to stay in that low zone.

So then you start drifting out of it, and the adaptation that you're looking for, whether it be from a peripheral standpoint, a cardiac standpoint, autonomic nervous system, you're just not getting it because the heart rates are too high. So I tend to err easier. Talking right now, if you and I were on, that's the place that you should be going.

James de Lacey7:51

Gotcha. And what are these adaptations that you're trying to achieve with this low intensity to essentially transfer to your competition performance? So you mentioned obviously the central and the peripheral adaptations. What are you trying to achieve specifically with the low intensity?

Mark McLaughlin8:26

Yeah, so there's heart rate to guide the training, and then when you work it to, say, heart rate variability from a cardiac system standpoint, we want a moderate parasympathetic response, meaning you don't want to be in a fight-or-flight state with your easy training. So people that I read about on Twitter and other forums, they talk about conditioning as in, okay, run at these intensities, but they don't factor in how, what that's doing to our autonomic nervous system.

So if you're running easy all the time, it's a very easy session to recover from. So then you start building this big base of easy stuff. So when the key sessions come up, you built a good aerobic base to recover in between bouts to, say, intervals. If you're doing high-low, for lack of a better term, that in-between rest day, when you're doing your easy, your aerobic is allowing you to recover for that next high-intensity day. It gives you great sleep. So if you're doing all this easy stuff, you're building volume, sleep quality goes up, sleep quality goes, quality sessions go up.

So there's a lot of—I mean, if you're looking at the aerobic as the center of, say, a bike hub, all this stuff is going outside of it, giving you and building these batteries to just allow you to perform at a higher level.

James de Lacey10:09

Gotcha. Nice. Yeah, I'm a big fan of the high-low approach, just training in general to maximize outputs on those high days and be able to recover on those lower days too. But I guess one of the questions surrounding low-intensity training within intermittent sports as well, or in sports that typically have a lot of technical training—this might be, I guess, a harder one to answer—but at what point is the sports training enough?

Because a lot of sports technical training will be counted as a low-intensity stimulus depending on what it is. Is it, okay, do I need to add more on top of that, or do I need to start touching on intensities maybe they're not getting within their sports training? It might be a bit of a hard one to—

Mark McLaughlin11:07

It's a bit more general and situational. So I think people get the wrong impression about—and I don't know why—I've become the aerobic guy on the internet, that's whatever. But the aerobic base, it builds that base, and then you sprinkle in that higher intensity work. To be caveat, it is totally wrong to go to the extreme of say 80% high intensity, 20% low intensity. I mean, is that a good way to do it too?

So I'll give you an example. This isn't really an intermittent sport, but I have a special operations person I'm working with right now. Last week he got 13 hours of training. Like 12 hours of that was low intensity, but then we had like 40 minutes of threshold work, and then we had like another 20 minutes total throughout the week of very high intensity work.

For him, I can see on his heart rate, HRV, for training that he keeps adapting to the stimulus, and he's getting stronger. Like, he did a 485 deadlift the other day. So it's not that you negate it, you just have to understand the mixture.

Some people are not chefs, right? They just want to go by the recipe. They want a cookie cutter approach. But you may only be able to handle one high-intensity session a week. I may be able to handle two. I may need four days in between those two. But through the training process, you want to build yourself up to handle more of that high-intensity work.

That's why I think some people just go way too hard. They just can't recover. They think they're out of shape, they go harder, they're even going—so then it just becomes a spiral, and then you get the wrong adaptation. You're overtrained and you perform like [expletive].

James de Lacey13:36

Before getting back to the podcast, I want to let you know there's a link down in the description for the Sweet Science of Fighting Underground Community. You can get all the help you need for your combat sports training. You get every single Sweet Science of Fighting training program, online course, and you get access to a range of coaches within the private Discord community. So go check that out, and back to the podcast.

I think a lot of combat athletes end up in a space where every session is trying to go as hard as possible. So even if they are doing some technical stuff, at the end of the session they might do hard rolls, hard sparring, that kind of thing, and go as hard as possible. So every session looks the same, and they're getting the same stimulus over and over again, and it becomes harder to recover from.

Mark McLaughlin14:26

And then it becomes the training monopoly. There's so much that we don't know about human performance. So trying to get people out of these ruts, understanding from a physiological standpoint, from a very easy tool to manage—heart rate variability—okay, are we in a rut? Do we need to get out of it?

So it's this constant stimulus, assess, reassess, new training plan, stimulus. It's just this constant circle of adapting. Because then a lot of these people have other jobs too. I mean, you probably do have pro fighters that you talk to and work with, but that's separate. But the majority of people have a full-time job as well. So you start stacking that stuff on if they have kids and lack of sleep.

James de Lacey15:04

For sure. And the other thing is, regarding easy field tests for people to use, do you have anything that you like to use for people to be able to assess themselves, assess their conditioning without having to go to a lab and do a bunch of stuff like that?

Mark McLaughlin15:36

So I mean, there's a couple good tests. I think the 30-15, which is a submaximal running test which was designed by Martin Buchheit out of—I think he's in France now. You could do a Cooper test. Cure for football has the tribe test. So you could run a mile fitness test or three mile.

Are there specific testing within the fighting realm that are standardized across the board that they looked at that you could apply as well? And then also, how do you respond in cycling? You do a hard interval, okay, is it taking you three minutes, four minutes? Is it a one minute recovery? Can you even get your heart rate up there? Maybe you're so overtrained right now that even trying to get to a high heart rate is extremely difficult. So understanding then, now, back it down.

They need to be repeatable and they need to be standardized enough to where if you were in another country and you had to do a test, you could go out and do it.

James de Lacey17:16

For sure. I mean, there's easy things. I guess you can be on a bike or a rower, do a simple maximum aerobic speed test, like a mile, or five, six minutes. And at least just having something like that can give you even just a general baseline.

Mark McLaughlin17:16

Right. And I think what people get stuck on the testing is, okay, what am I going to do with it now? Especially if you're self-coached. So I think the hardest thing for athletes that are self-coached is they always think they need to do more.

Can they get into a mindset through these testing? I mean, you can do daily readiness tests too, also, from a neuromuscular standpoint, like a broad jump or vertical jump. Okay, my—especially when I looked at the Omegawave, and then I found it in the training facility—the neuromuscular system took the longest for even our top athletes to recover from.

So we were using a different battery of tests each day to determine loading intensity. We could back it down. And with the self-trained athlete, having these simple tests that you can do but then understanding what they mean to you in that context, and then how to adjust your training accordingly.

James de Lacey18:13

Did you find your more maybe explosive style athletes took longer to recover versus maybe the more workhorse, work capacity style athletes?

Mark McLaughlin18:45

Yes. And then later on, once they got a higher aerobic base, they were able to have higher outputs more often. So their continuity of training was much better. And that's the other thing: okay, if you can only establish one high-intensity session, okay, how can we get some more quality in there? And so the trick with some of these guys was, you just need more easy work.

James de Lacey19:27

Okay. And then we talked about how a lot of athletes or fighters might be working full-time, families, training on top of that. Some people might not have the time to dedicate to volume to be able to go out and do extra easy sessions. Because a lot of technical sessions, they maybe have to fit in some other things. Is there a way someone can almost micro-dose these low intensity sessions or find other ways to get them in?

Mark McLaughlin20:00

No, I mean, that's a great question. I think walking and just moving—trying to accumulate as many steps throughout the day as possible. Even going for like a five or 10 minute run every day at such a low intensity that you don't even break a sweat.

So then if you do begin to train again and then running is one of the modalities, your musculoskeletal system has been doing this, so you're somewhat ready. I think walking, accumulating volume, because it's easy—get up, move from your desk—just as much moving as you can do. You have 16 hours to try to get as much easy work as you can get in.

James de Lacey20:33

Okay. And then regarding the time for, say, your low intensity session to mention, obviously you can do maybe five to 10 minutes every day, but is there a minimum threshold that someone should hit doing their low intensity work for adaptations to start happening? Because you could do five to 10 minutes every day—over the week there might be 70 minutes total—but at some point you got to increase that volume. So is there a threshold that you like someone to hit?

Mark McLaughlin21:08

Man, I mean, yeah, it's a very general question because it's situation dependent.

No, no, it's actually a good question because this is real world stuff here. Is there a minimum dose? Scott—I mean, I don't think I've ever seen a study saying—150 minutes is what they advocate for kids, I think, a week. That's two hours and 30 minutes. If you're a fighter, can you get that minimum dose throughout the week? That's a great place to start.

The technical training on top of it, I guess, would top it up if you're training. Yeah, as long as at certain times that stuff is relatively low intensity. And I think people would be very surprised even on some of that technical work, how really low intensity is it for some athletes.

So that's why does technical skills suffer? Because fatigue is so high, because it's a lack of a base. And so these athletes can't get, don't see the improvements that they want to.

James de Lacey22:49

Yeah, for sure. And maybe just coming back to the, I guess, the adaptations, physiological adaptations with stuff. So a lot of the idea around the low intensity work is, okay, we're getting eccentric hypertrophy of that left ventricle. Maybe dive into a little bit of some of that, I guess, the high intensity versus low intensity regarding some of these heart adaptations and what we're really trying to achieve there.

Mark McLaughlin23:24

Yeah, so on low intensity work for the hypertrophy of the left ventricle, the intensities need to be low enough to where that chamber gets filled up with high volumes. So that's why the lower the intensity the better, because the volume of blood that goes in there stretches it. And I mean, I have guys now that we were running on heart rate based, two or three years ago we switched to Morpheus, and their low intensity work went from like 110 to 115 beats per minute to now they're like 85 to 95 beats per minute.

And so that's why that low intensity, that zone zero, the walking and all that stuff, is going to give you those, that easy work to get that stretching in. On the flip side, the high intensity work is going to make it stronger, obviously. I mean, the heart is a muscle, so you need some of that max work to develop the strength of it, and that's why most sports require a balance.

So you need low intensity work on top of the high intensity work. And from there then you start working on the muscular adaptations of the oxidative capacity. And then also with the bigger chamber size, lower intensities again, it's going to affect that parasympathetic nervous system just to give you so many benefits on sleep, relaxation, recovery, better digestion of food, and so on.

And if you're in that middle zone too often, so you're going too hard to develop the cardiac system but too easy to get the right adaptation of the heart with the hard work, that's what exhausts you and then it becomes more sympathetic dominant. And then you're forced to rest because you can't reach what you need to.

James de Lacey25:17

Yeah, that's, I mean, it's a big issue in most sports, people sitting in that middle intensity. They spend their technical training and that low middle intensity, then when they go to do the extra conditioning they may be doing hard circuits for 15, 30 minutes or whatever, and they just stay in that exact same zone over and over. And they never hit that low, they never hit that really hard work. And as you mentioned, they just get stuck in that middle doing the same thing, exhausting themselves.

Mark McLaughlin25:57

Yeah. And I think in sports, so if you're looking at, I mean, just watching MMA and different grappling sports, there's these extreme bursts of activity, right? It's very explosive. But then you'll be down on the ground and then it becomes very technical.

So the bigger base you have, the better time, the better you can recover from these harder bursts, you're just going to give yourself a better advantage to display your technical skill at the highest level.

James de Lacey26:55

For sure. It's interesting as well. I mean, depending, I guess depends how we look at the aerobic base or aerobic energy system. But if you're looking at the classic VO2, VO2 max, we know, I guess, within marathon performance, running economy is the thing that relates well to marathon performance, where VO2 max doesn't seem to relate so well to marathon performance, at least among populations with similar times there.

But I guess within even within combat sports, or even any independent sport really, how much emphasis do you place on specifically trying to develop say that number, that VO2 max number? Is that something you're looking to build through specific training? Are you trying to spend a lot of time at VO2 max within the conditioning?

Mark McLaughlin27:27

No. No, because if you look at intermittent sports, let's say like American football or soccer, or basketball. So American football, it's very alactic, less than 5 seconds. It's all about speed and anaerobic threshold. So it's really driving up that ceiling of how often can you repeat that speed without the drop-off of fatigue.

And so it's more, it's either aerobic or anaerobic alactic. So the development of that is totally different, and you don't need to improve the VO2 max. My thing is, how can we improve the recovery between those bouts? So then that becomes, that's a cardiac driven, it's parasympathetic, it's oxidative capacity of both slow and fast twitch fiber.

And then you go to say a basketball player. So they need a combination of everything. So anaerobic, anaerobic lactate, aerobic. So development for them, getting their heart rates to a higher rate for longer periods of time as they get closer to the season, is a good thing to do. But you need to have that base of that aerobic work for them to be able to do that session and recover to where they can come back a day or two later and repeat it.

And this is why looking at the total system, the endurance system, to develop that through specific training. So, man, you're just this huge biological engine that can withstand super high intensity. It's going to be painful, there's no doubt about that. But, okay, I can recover in 30 seconds where it takes you a minute and a half.

So that's why training for each sport is just so totally different, based on the profile.

James de Lacey29:14

Yeah, gotcha. And you mentioned obviously the oxidative potential of the muscle. Is there any specific type of conditioning you're doing to elicit those adaptations? Is low intensity training, is that going to give someone some of that benefit there? Or is it exclusively a high-intensity training adaptation that you're pulling for that?

Mark McLaughlin29:54

No, so on the oxidative capacity of the slow fiber, we'll do like a tempo squat, oxidative squat, where you're 2 seconds down, 2 seconds up, and you're never relaxing the muscle. So there's that constant tension that's there. So that's what we use for both the upper and the lower body.

And with a lot of our offensive linemen of football, like a lot of different plexing movements, because there's so much punching involved at that position. That the higher oxidative capacity of that upper body, just the longer they're going to be able to sustain their skill.

So like when I was training Navy Seals for BUDs, we would do a lot of that, plus we did a lot of upper body, Reeves shrugging, pressing up above, iso holds. So when you look at demands of what they need to go through, okay, and then how can you, and it's not a specific, sport specific, it's more of a general specific adaptation that you're trying to achieve.

Oxidative capacity for fast twitch is totally different. Like it's 100% effort, short bouts. So hill sprints, different types of push-ups, box jumps, things of that nature. But you can't go above anaerobic threshold, or it's not aerobic in nature.

And then for the super high intensity, high threshold movements, then you go to 80 to 90% of your max, say on the squat, for 7 to 10 sets to total failure. But there's certain markers that I look for physiologically that if you don't have them in place, the training benefit won't be there for you. You just won't be able to recover from it.

James de Lacey32:29

Yeah. Well, explain that squat one for me. So what was it, it was 80 to 90 something percent for 7 to 10 to failure? Yeah, 7 to 10 sets to failure. So you'd be ripping out anywhere from 3 to 5 or maybe even 7 reps kind of thing?

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Mark McLaughlin33:32

A friend of mine had one of his athletes do it. This is several years ago. And the first set, he got, this is a 315, I think he got 23 reps. Oh my gosh, okay. And then, and I forget how it went from there, but I think at the end of it he was crying. I think it took him two weeks to recover.

But again, man, there's a lot of different ways to give yourself a good hormonal spike without it, you...

The lift itself isn't the issue, it's how and when you apply it. I mean there's a lot of different ways to apply that type of work.

James de Lacey34:03

Okay, it's interesting because I've never heard of that. Doing it that way, which is really interesting. But so what is it you're trying to get out of that exactly? Was that for the oxidative capacity of the fast twitch fibers?

Mark McLaughlin34:03

No, so that's purely for the glycolytic fibers and then also for the, because the stress response is so huge, is so big, that the endocrine system, building that up. And you run that for probably two to three weeks and then unload for a week, and then maybe two or three more weeks of that, and then get out of it and allow those systems to recover.

And I think maybe I've had, I don't know, 10 or 11 athletes get to that point where they were able to do that. But it takes a big training base before you throw that on someone.

James de Lacey34:28

Yeah, and are you going to be okay with it mentally?

Mark McLaughlin35:02

I can imagine the anxiety coming into training having to do something like that. Oh my gosh.

James de Lacey35:02

Well, as I guess along the lines of intermittent sports, so obviously we've talked a lot of team sports, intermittent sports. Obviously combat sports I like to think of it as basically rugby with other parts, other parts tearing there. They're very similar.

So the idea around repeated sprint ability. So we know some kind of robust base will help you recover between sprints, which is good. But you need to have the power output to be able to sprint fast or have those explosive efforts. But then we also have repeated high intensity efforts, they might not be running based.

And there's a good little paper that, um, showing that when you add, for example with rugby players, when you add some kind of tackle or grappling element to the drill, the aerobic, I guess, fitness doesn't correlate as well as when it's just pure sprinting, which I thought was quite interesting.

But I guess the question there is, is there some kind of difference when it's not a purely running based or purely sprint-based sport? Is there some kind of difference, I guess, within your programming or conditioning philosophy and modalities that would change within that? I don't know, it was a very general question, I don't know if I framed it well. But hopefully you get what I mean there.

Mark McLaughlin36:00

Yeah, yeah. So I've had a Moxy on some of my athletes, football players, but they are also doing grappling training. And it's quite, so let me actually back up here.

So, grab, a lot of grabbing. And so the Moxy, I have it on the right quad, so it's not on the dominant grappling muscles. But even then you can see quite a marked physiological response, even with that, even that, a non-invaded muscle.

And I don't know, is it because they're young kids? They're not elite level, so it's just that lack of training causing those huge deficits in oxygen.

So what I would do then based off of that, and even if I didn't have a Moxy, is how long do those grappling maneuvers typically last? And maybe you could answer that.

James de Lacey37:47

Yeah, it's usually, well, within the very scarce research out there, it's like a 6 to 1 work to rest ratio. I can actually pull it up, let's see. But it's like 117 seconds or something of work around there, if that makes sense.

Mark McLaughlin37:47

Okay, so like two and a half minutes or something like that.

James de Lacey37:47

Yeah, we can just say two minutes just to make it easy.

Mark McLaughlin37:47

Okay. So then I mean that's a totally different energy requirement, right? Like you're, there's a little bit of aerobic there, but mostly it's in that lactic power capacity. And I'll actually send you a chart that I have on training those different energy systems.

So they need to get into, okay, if they're doing that type of training and that's how long those bouts last, okay, now you need to look at, is my, so you said it's like a 6 to 1, I mean work to rest ratio?

James de Lacey38:54

Yeah, for Jiu Jitsu that's, that's based on basically the only real paper.

Mark McLaughlin38:54

So then, how are you practicing that way? So are you being on the ground and grappling for two and a half minutes, taking a rest based off of that 6 to 1 ratio, and then doing it again? And then when is your performance, and again it would have to be subjective, right? So subjectively, when does your performance begin to drop?

And then should you rest, say, five to 10 minutes easy spinning, maybe some very easy technical shadow stuff like that, and then come back and do some more bouts? So that the quality is extremely high. And then as you get closer to your mat, then you begin to cut the rest down even, so then it becomes more specific, more sport specific I guess for lack of a better term. So you have to build, you have to have some type of base within that output range to begin to get used to it.

James de Lacey40:07

Yeah, I think it's interesting as well because a lot of the research, obviously, they give these numbers but this is the average that they might see within that specific thing. So obviously you've got a range outside of that.

So instead of, how do you then develop something that doesn't just stick to the averages? Because you probably want people to, okay, you're going to have periods where you might have to go longer, you're going to have periods you might have to go shorter but more intense, so instead of just being like, okay, I'm going to do, for example, boxing, let's just say three three-minute rounds.

Okay, they're going to do three minute rounds in training because they have three minute rounds in a fight. But at some point you're going to have to potentially break that down some way because you're going to need more intense periods within that, or maybe extend those periods depending. Is there a certain, well, I mean it's again really generous question. But is there some kind of framework someone could use?

Mark McLaughlin40:59

So that's on three by three by three minute rounds. Let's say at the beginning you're just doing those rounds based off of normal intensity. So you build a base at 3 by 3 minutes basically, and you do that for two weeks, four weeks, I don't know.

I would, if let's say I'm doing that twice a week, okay, how is James recovering through heart variability, through the objective questionnaires and then just your overall feeling of training? So then you build that base throughout, let's say four weeks, and the adaptations are good, you're recovering.

Okay, now we go to, okay man, we're going to start with 30 seconds. We're going to go three by 30 second rounds and that 30 seconds is super high intensity with a 2 to 1, 3 to 1 ratio of rest. So those three by 30 seconds are very high quality. And that would be the first session. And then, okay, how do you look the next day on a recovery standpoint?

Because it's always easier to start at the lowest common denominator and then work forward slowly, versus, okay, now we're going to go 3 by 3 minute just high intensity rounds and you're crushed for a week or two.

And then, I mean, giving training prescriptions for me is hard just because I'm asking so many questions. But then get feedback from you, like, okay, what did you think of that? Have you ever done that before? What are the hard parts for you during a round? Is the first, say, 15 seconds of high intensity, you're gassed? But then as you start warming up you're better, there's a prescription.

But then there's always this subjective info coming back from the athlete. And if you're training somebody in person then you can see their body language through these 30 second bouts. Like, hey man, he's a ball buster here and the first 30 second, man, he's great. Oh, 30 seconds in, okay. So then maybe the next session you just go two of those 30 second bouts.

James de Lacey43:22

Yeah. Does that answer your question?

Yeah, no, that's all good. It's just so I guess people in the audience, a lot of them might be doing their own training, just to give them some ideas around how they can look to implement and structure this themselves. That's the framework I'm trying to get these questions out just for that.

Mark McLaughlin44:01

Yeah, there. So yeah, it's, no, it's good. It's good because I think a lot of people get caught on, okay, it's 3 three-minute rounds.

James de Lacey44:29

I think what's interesting you said there, okay, we're going to do 3 thirty-second rounds, whereas a lot of people might be like, okay, I'm going to do 6 thirty-second rounds to make it three minutes and then times that by three and end up doing 18 thirty-second rounds the first time and then cook themselves. A lot of people would do that.

Mark McLaughlin44:50

That because I want to make sure I hit that same time versus scaling it right back when you start the intensity to then build from there, right? And that's what all the other outside stuff comes into play. So maybe I had a 3x3 scheduled for you, you train at the end of the day, you've had a hard day at work. I mean, so you come into that session and you're just totally gassed, but, "Hey, I'm going to do it anyway."

And so I think the more people can learn to stand down sometimes as opposed to giving themselves more harder all the time, I just think they'd be better off.

James de Lacey45:20

For sure. I've got, I think, one last question for you for this, and it's around, I guess we can talk about competing adaptation. So typically, I think it's more prevalent within conditioning generally where people almost split the low intensity and the high intensity into separate training cycles or separate blocks, because as we mentioned before, we talk about the high intensity, okay, you're going to get these heart adaptations, the low intensity you're going to get these heart adaptations, they kind of interfere with each other.

So how does that play any role within how you plan your conditioning as a training week or even a training day? Does that not matter if it's a low intensity day, or if it's a certain day you might have some high intensity and low intensity within that day because that's just what you need to do, or you trying to split these as far apart as much as possible?

Mark McLaughlin46:17

No, so all those qualities are in the training week all the time. It's just how am I managing the percentages. So with somebody, would say it's a high intensity day, after the warm up I may have them do some threshold work, say three or four reps of like five minutes. And then they would cool down, come in and do a weight session, and they could do it right after, they could do it in the evening, where we're going to do heavy deadlift or heavy squat, low rep but high intensity.

And then at the end of that session I may have oxidative work, so I'm encompassing these three things on one day. And then the next day is always a recovery, or even after the session the recovery begins. So the next day could be super low intensity of a walk or hike. Okay, how are you feeling? Neuromuscular I'm pretty good, cardiac's good. Okay, then we're going to do a different high-intensity session with 10 second sprints, say six of them, with like a four minute rest in between each, and then we're going to do some elastic work on, say, some plyometrics or something.

And then Thursday again with another low intensity day, and then Friday is more of a stimulative session from Monday's work, so it's say half the volume of that Monday session. And I may have some hill sprints in there or something else at the beginning, but starting off with some high-intensity aerobic work. And then they all get the weekend off.

So it's something I went to probably a year and a half ago after listening to Neils Vanderpool, who's a world champion or Olympic and world record holder in that five and 10K speed skating. So then people have normal lives, and it stays in a flow, and then they know that, "Hey man, Monday's coming and I can really get after it." So and then see how they do, adjust, and keep going.

James de Lacey48:39

Nice. I do have one more question for you, actually, and it's around the idea of high intensity, you can still make aerobic adaptations through high intensity or even sprint interval training. So I just want to hear, I guess, your side and your argument for why shouldn't someone just do, say, high intensity training to improve? I mean, if you do the same thing it caps out pretty quickly in terms of aerobic adaptations when you're doing your sprint interval stuff, but I guess your take on why someone couldn't just do their high-intensity training through the week, there, two, maybe two or three sessions, and then just not worry about specific low intensity conditioning when they're still getting some aerobic adaptations from the higher intensity stuff.

Mark McLaughlin49:41

Sure. So number one is most of the athlete, or these athletes that we're talking about, are guys, other people that have jobs and are not full-time athletes. So their base is probably low, and so you're doing the tip of the spear work, tip of the pyramid work, and that's all you have.

So, and I've seen it with triathletes, with grapplers, MMA, like do all this high intensity work and they are having a hard time recovering, they are injured, they are sluggish within training because they just do high-intensity work all the time. So there's not a chance to build those cardiac adaptations, mitochondria density at the muscle, and then it becomes very exhausting on top of their, the rest of their life.

And it's, I just think the risk reward is, I don't know why you're doing 20 to 40 minutes a week of mixed high-intensity work with the intermittent work is a bad thing. And I just think people, like if I'm not working you hard, I'm not working hard. The perception is I'm not getting a good workout.

And that's why I'm constantly educating our athletes and our parents and young kids and young coaches on, be very cautious on how you address cardiac adaptations. Because if you're going too hard too soon, that's going to be a limiting factor as the athlete gets older.

James de Lacey51:46

No, that's perfect, that's perfect. Perfect answer there for the audience to mull over as well. But I think that's pretty much all the questions I have for you, Mark. If people want to find you and follow you and see what you're up to, where can they do that?

Mark McLaughlin51:46

That's a great question, James.

James de Lacey51:46

I'll throw it in the description too when I get this up in a couple of weeks.

Mark McLaughlin51:46

So I think my Instagram is Mark Mark PTC and my Twitter is res underscore period.

James de Lacey52:16

Perfect, and we'll get those all linked up as well so people can find you. But thanks for coming on, I really appreciate it.

Mark McLaughlin52:16

Oh yeah, man, thanks again.