We were kicked out as soon as we arrived. There was a field hockey game being played at the local high school where I had been doing my 400 meter sprint workouts. My friend and I were forced to hit a local hill for our sprint workout.

In hindsight, it is a good thing they kicked us off the track. I had been following my plan for over two months and was becoming overly efficient at running the 400. My body was adapting and I was receiving less benefits as a result.

Because I keep my formal training sessions to an hour, I need to switch up both my strength training and conditioning efforts regularly. I do not have the time to keep on increasing volume as I get more efficient at exercises and drills. To keep things fresh and challenging, I must change my tactics regularly.

Conditioning is an art. Knowing how much, how long, what variety, and how intense to train is specific to the purpose I am trying to achieve. I judge my conditioning by how I feel when I grapple in JiuJitsu and hit the pads in Muay Thai. My goals are to not get winded, and recover from intense bouts quickly.

Throughout my years of teaching and training martial arts I have found the following conditioning tactics serve my purpose best.

Train outdoors. Even prior to starting this blog, I did the majority of conditioning work outdoors. Training outdoors adds the element of weather, (i.e. snow) for your body to adapt to. This can increase the workload and benefit of the training as opposed training in a climate controlled gym. Indoor conditioning drills do have an edge on mental toughness as they might as well be torture. I give a lot of credit to athletes that can ride a trainer or run on a treadmill for hours on end. That is not for me.
Having a benchmark on which to judge my progress. I look at this as having independent validation of a process. If I didn't use JiuJitsu or another benchmark, I probably would do the same thing year in and out and get very good at that activity, but not much else. I would end up not progressing. A waste of time in my book.
Switching conditioning tactics every two to three months, or at least seasonally. A future post will be about my upcoming fall conditioning regimen. It involves sleds and sandbags and I am pretty excited about it.
Breaking down my conditioning into three different lengths of time, each with a different intensity level.
1. Short 10 to 20 second intensebursts. Hill sprints and 100 yard dashes are my favorite high intensity burst activities.
2. Moderate 1 to 2 minute high intensity intervals such as 400 meter sprints or hill repeats on my road bike.
3. Long 30 minute to 1 hour moderate intensity efforts such as road rides and trail runs. I try and keep my heart rate below 160 on these efforts.
I don’t listen to the experts or professionals. Over the last several years high intensity interval training has been all the rage. Many of the “experts” have been down on long steady state conditioning efforts. I even read one “expert” questioning why boxers do road work? Get in a ring, the answer will be clear. Truth is everyone is different with different goals. I have experimented and the framework in number 4 works best for me.
Stick with whole body movements. I am convinced the best conditioning exercises move a lot of blood through the body. Some of my favorite exercises include sprints, loaded carries, sled work, jump drills, and basically any movement that recruits the larger muscles of the body.
I have fun. If I am not having fun in the challenge of the training drill, I am not going to do it. I am not a professional athlete so I don’t see the point in not being happy with what I am doing.

How is your conditioning? Take action and find out what tactics make your conditioning a work of art.