Conditioning the Athlete
A few years ago, I never would have even uttered the word “conditioning” regarding myself. I wouldn’t have even known what it meant. My first reaction probably would have been something about what to use after shampoo, although in those days I was still clinging to my quickly fading hairline.
Today I know conditioning, in my mind, as a simple concept. To me it means “balls to the wall, make your body into an athlete.” When I was losing weight, I was in fat loss mode. When I was doing powerlifting style training, we began treating me as an athlete. That’s my goal, to be an athlete.
So that lead me to think about what an athlete really is. Looking at the strict definition, “a person who is proficient in sports and other forms of physical exercise.” Proficient. Am I proficient? I’d say I’m intermediate. I’d also say I know a lot I don’t implement because I tend to lose focus and then I end up neglecting certain areas which then creates a detriment that downgrades my athlete status.
Over the past year and half, since moving to Virginia, I’ve neglected conditioning workouts. I’ve tried to put them in, but I never had the environment I found conducive to conditioning workouts. Unlike my gym in Connecticut, I never felt like my current gym made sense for the type of conditioning work I wanted to do.
The type of conditioning I did at my old gym was a lot of “functional training”; kettlebells, battle ropes, plyo boxes, etc. My current gym has some of these things, but it’s always so crowded it is hard to use that equipment.
So a year and a half later, pushing that to the side, I’ve realized that my endurance is just terrible. I go in to lift, and wear myself out within the first 30 minutes. I push through, but I don’t have the drive I used to have.
When I heard there was a new studio teaching function training classes opening near me, I became excited. A space where I can let loose and get that functional work in and rebuild my conditioning.
This week I began my first week at F45. It’s an international chain of studios based in Australia. Going into it, I had some expectations set based on the cardio group classes I took in Connecticut. This was similar, but the intensity was cranked up to Bernie Sanders on meth.
My first session was my first step back into the functional training world in so long, I felt like I was beat to hell and back afterwards. I was probably knocked out for a good 3-4 hours feeling generally fatigued and ill. I felt like I gave it my all and pushed myself as hard as I could.
On the second session, it definitely felt “better” subjectively. I didn’t want to die afterwards, but they also upped the intensity. It was a much smaller class I was in, so it was more like the classes I used to take in Connecticut. The average class I’ve taken has been 15-25 people, and this was five of us. It was after this second session that I decided to dive in sign up for a full membership.
I also decided to purchase a heart rate monitor they sell that’s chest strap based. The idea is simple; show your heart rate on the screen so you can see, the coaches can see, and you can compete against each other. However, my more critical thinking right now is ensuring the coaches can see my heart rate at a glance. Since my conditioning is lower than it was, my heart rate spikes more during strenuous activity. On top of that, as I said above, this isn’t anything like I’ve done before. I’ve done conditioning, but this is pushing it to a brand new level.
Today was my third session. Definitely felt like the most intense I’ve gone through so far. My heart rate shot up and stayed up. I watched the screen, made sure my heart rate wasn’t spiking, but also kept pushing.
Since I’m wearing their chest strap, I can also see myself compared to other people in the class, and it sends you a graph at the end to show you the work you did. I can also use this to compare to my Apple Watch data to see how I did. (It’s very close, actually!)
I worked with my strength coach at my regular gym and we worked out what my schedule would be based on incorporating this new work into my routine. The current plan is to do conditioning two times a week, with lifting the other workout days. This should enable me to begin seeing some improvements in my overall conditioning in the next couple of months.
My overall hope is that this improves my athleticism, my movement abilities overall, and it should translate into improving my lifts as my endurance goes up, my work capacity continues to increase, and the additional activity helps my overall energy levels.
It’s time for me to ramp this up to 11. 2019 will be the year that Ben 2.0 becomes Athlete Ben 3.0 and it’s time to push towards all the goals I’ve set for myself.