The Met-Con: Not All Built The Same
Over the years of doing this sport of fitness thing, I’ve heard it all about the best approach to training. From the very sophisticated to the not so much. One thing I’ve heard or witnessed from people is they treat their conditioning as just throw anything together and it’s all good. A mindset that smacks of “a met-con is a met-con is a met-con”. **Sigh**. Obviously, I and science say different.
The athlete must perform his conditioning in a certain way to elicit the desired physiological responses. Each met-con is unique and not one is like the other. That will be significant as we move forward into the year with the program. I won’t get into too much depth today but will touch on this subject a few times over the coming weeks (as well as continue our discussion of the Olympic lifts and endurance training). For now I’d like you to familiarize yourself with the following table from Tudor Bomba’s, Periodization Training for Sports:
This table is a really high level view of how to attack the energy systems to elicit the responses we are looking for. I use a similar guide as a baseline in designing the daily conditioning for the program. Even with this information, I just don’t throw something against the wall and wait to see what sticks. We emphasize some areas over others depending on where we are in our annual cycle.
There will be a test at the end of the week. (Not really.)
Olympic
1) clean and jerk: 15 minutes to a heavy, but not maximal, single
2) 7 x 1 clean + 1 hang clean, below knee + 1 jerk @ 75-80% of #1, rest 2-3 minutes
rest > 30 minutes
3) 3 x 3 snatch deadlift @ 100%, rest 3 minutes
Accessory
4a) 3 x 25 banded good mornings, immediately to,
4b) 3 x 5/3 muscle-ups, strict as possible, rest as needed
rest > 3 hours
Conditioning
For 30 minutes perform the following:
1 TNG squat clean/thruster 135/95#
1 chest to bar pull-up
run 100 meters
rest 60 seconds
2 TNG squat clean/thruster 135/95#
2 chest to bar pull-up
run 100 meters
rest 60 seconds
3 TNG squat clean/thruster 135/95#
3 chest to bar pull-up
run 100 meters
rest 60 seconds
4, 5, 6 … and so on for 30 minutes