Conditioning: A brief overview

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Nathan Featherstone

Head Trainer at Freemen Fitness

Doing a mix of sports growing up, it was in my late teens I found a love for martial arts again and started training and competing in MMA, BJJ, HEMA as well as Dog Brother Martial Arts which I also began teaching. This led me to learn how to train myself and others to perform better. I now specialize on teaching a wide range of people in movement, mobility, and conditioning,

Latest posts by Nathan Featherstone (see all)

• How do I train to be more explosive? - March 28, 2021
• Conditioning: A brief overview - January 31, 2020

I notice in January there are often a lot of questions in the HEMA Strong group on cardio / conditioning in, the best practices and how to train it so below I am going to outline some best practices to help.

A quick bit on me I spend a good portion of my time training combat athletes mostly BJJ guys and kickboxers (amateur and pro). I have studied a ton of methods and have trained under Joel Jamieson (conditioning coach to UFC and various other pro athletes) from whom a lot of these insights come. I will not talk about energy systems or anything overly specific but if you have questions please let me know I will be happy to help.

What is it?

Conditioning = Movement capacity + energy systems + mental performance

Fitness = Measures of physical performance which can be measured.

It’s all about stress

Can we measure it? Yes for most the easiest way to do this is through testing and measuring our HRV (heart rate variability). This gives us a quantifiable and testable number to measure our overall conditioning and stress response. Heart rate variability is variation in the time interval between heartbeats.  Measured by the variation in the beat-to-beat interval. I have attached a chart below to show where your HRV should be depending on your general goal. Most fencers would fall in or close to the combat athlete range. Due to similar short bursts of intense activity

The thing that drives stress: Volume and intensity

Stress starts in the brain and is anything that triggers the stress response either physical or perceived.

For best practice test this via a chest strap monitor as it is the most reliable method and takes about 3 minutes upon waking up.

If in these ranges, work to improve strength or other areas of performance while keeping HRV from dropping below them. 

If you’re consistently below them the most important thing is to get it into the right range as quickly as possible before anything else.

What dictates performance?

1. Power output – Fitness and conditioning
2. Technical skill – Technique work
3. Tactics and strategy – Game plan

Power output = energy production and energy expenditure

Fitness = Measures of physical performance we can measure

Conditioning = the physical and mental ability to use our fitness

When we want to test our conditioning I divide it into 7 overall areas if we do not have a measurable way to track our training then we are wasting our time.

Aerobic fitness

If you need to improve your aerobic conditioning, spend the majority of your time and energy doing just that, while only spending the minimum amount necessary to maintain strength and power. Aerobic fitness drives recovery and reduces inflammation. It is a part of the overall picture but an important part and should be trained correctly. There are however many ways to do this and a lot of people get it wrong.

Conditioning Outline

Below is an outline for programming for general health and fitness. First off decide upon your goal a sprinter cannot run a marathon.

I divide training into 3 types of days:

Stimulation: jump start the body. This category of training day uses a moderate volume with generally low-to-moderate intensity. When using high intensities, only do a few sets or a few reps. the purpose of a stimulation day is to jump start the body while avoiding too much fatigue or soreness. 

Methods:

1. Cardiac output
2. Tempo intervals
3. High resistance intervals

Development: push your limits. To take your conditioning up a notch, you have to use higher volumes and intensities. 

1. Lactic training
2. Threshold training
3. Cardiac power intervals

Recovery training: shift your body into the recovery zone. Today, more people are starting to understand the importance of recovery. 

A typical Recovery training session is going to include:

• 15-20 minutes x low to moderate intensity conditioning
• 1 x total body strength exercise
• 2-3 x accessory strength lifts

If someone were to train 3 days a week you would want roughly 2 stimulation days with one recovery day. When we increase our overall ability we add one development day.

For an advanced person 2 development days is enough. Place a stimulation day prior to a developmental day and a recovery day the day after. Now we can do more intensive work in our developmental days. This is a simple cycle that allows for recovery throughout and avoids recovery debt. Once a person reaches a higher level you do need 5-6 days training a week.

How we program these things changes upon the person obviously. But if we want to increase our HR and HRV then we would want to aim for the following:

• For those with a resting HR above 60 and HRV below 80
• 2-3 cardiac output sessions a week of a 40-60 minute duration.

For those with resting HR below 60 and HRV above 80

• 1-2 cardiac output sessions with more intense methods added in.

When programming decide on what’s most important to you if strength do that first then conditioning or vica-versa.

If I can stress any one point this is it:

REMEMBER, you only want to do the minimum amount of exercise necessary to cause improvement!

Your main goal in training should be RECOVERY. The better our overall fitness the better our recoverability.