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CrossTraining for Strength

November 17, 2009 By 6 Comments

zydrunas savickasOccasionally, I still design training programs for Strongman and Powerlifting competitors.

And the hardest thing about designing those programs is that these guys never, ever want to do anything except train for strength.

No rehab/prehab work, no HIIT, no flexibility/joint mobility work and certainly no cardio.

They are all too afraid that if they do any of that stuff, they will lose strength.

Arggghhhh!!!

No matter what I say, they don’t want to listen.

So, when I read the excerpt to this study, I actually laughed out loud….and then sent out a bunch of emails beginning with “I told you so”.

The Study

Researchers compared a traditional resistance training program designed to increase strength with a CrossTraining style of program that combined strength & endurance training.

The study lasted 16 weeks and was tested on 38 sedentary, apparently healthy males (25 yr +/- 8 mo).

Subjects were age matched and assigned to 1 of 3 groups.

  1. A control group (Con)
  2. A resistance training group (Res)
  3. A crosstraining group (Cross)

After 16 weeks, no changes were found in the strength of the subjects in the Con group .

But surprisingly, after 16 weeks, researchers found that both the Res group & the Cross group were equally effective at “eliciting improvements in strength”.

They concluded that “concurrent resistance and endurance training (CrossTraining) does not impede muscular strength gains and can be prescribed simultaneously for the development of strength in sedentary, apparently healthy males and thus may invoke all the physiologic adaptations of resistance and endurance training at once.

So, for all of those guys who think that doing some HIIT or (shudder) cardio is going to steal all of your strength…RELAX

Rubens_samson

Samson and Delilah - Peter Paul Rubens

CrossTraining (done properly) can give you the best of both worlds.

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Doug Robb is a personal trainer, a fitness blogger and author, a competitive athlete, and a student of nutrition and exercise science. Since 2008, Doug has expanded his impact by bringing his real-world experience online via his health & fitness blog, Health Habits. Read more posts by Doug at Hive Health Media.

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Somtom

Oh god, Dave, that is pretty much the most retarded part of the crossfit website. Any good Strength or Bodybuilding Program (they are very similar anyway for the first years) will result in bigger muscles than Crossfit. Simply because you are working on one quality at the time and strength gains WILL take a Hit at a certain point if you do a lot of HIIT or/and conditioning workouts. Depends on the training status + recovery + genetics.
If you are talking about a completly retarded bodybuilding programm such as from Flex or copying a roided meathead, then the crossfit website will be right. But why do a retarded boybuilding programm in the first place?

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Dave Ridarelli

A cool chart I saw in the crossfit FAQ was this guy:
Here is a hierarchy of training for mass from greater to lesser efficacy:
1. Bodybuilding on steroids
2. CrossFitting on steroids
3. CrossFitting without steroids
4. Bodybuilding without steroids
The bodybuilding model is designed around, requires, steroids for significant hypertrophy.
----------
So for the vast majority crossfitting could be one of the smartest ways to reach the goals for their physique...

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Yash

Along the lines of what Cerin said, the key point is that the study was done on sedentary males. Strength gains in beginners are often a matter of optimizing neural signals to increase muscular ability. There is definitely a big physical component as well, but for guys like your strongman clients who are near or at their maximal neural efficiency for strength, the circumstances may be different. So, its possiblebeginners can gain strength even with crosstraining because they have so much room for improvement, whereas your powerlifters have more concern because things like endurance training and cardio or HIIT may fatigue them to the point of being deleterious to their strength goals.

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Cerin

This study was done with "sedentary" people.
I've read 2 similar studies:
http://www.pponline.co.uk/encyc/0894.htm
and
http://www.pponline.co.uk/encyc/endurance-resistance.html
that both support and contradict what your saying.
The main difference i can see is that one study used "physically active university students" and the other used "untrained men".
In your experience, how does a persons initial fitness/activity/strength levels effect their training outcomes?
PS - keep it up! I love reading your posts!

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healthhabits

Cerin,
Thanks for sending the links to the other studies. They help to reinforce my belief that we shouldn't take the findings of any single study as the final word on the subject. As soon as we do that, another study will come along to prove an alternate conclusion.
What I like to do is treat each study as temporarily true OR true enough to test out on me and some of my clients.
In my experience, strength is affected by a number of factors - fiber type, muscle size and central nervous system involvement
Fiber type we can't do much about...damn genetics
Muscle size is important because if all other things are equal, a muscle with a greater cross-sectional area "should" be stronger. But, then again, when are all other things equal?
CNS involvement - now this is the factor that may come into play during these studies.
Trained athletes will have a more effective CNS as it pertains to muscular control. Simply put, they will be able to activate a higher percentage of muscle fibers than an untrained test subject. And more fiber activation = more strength
Unfortunately, you CNS can become over-trained or fatigued. When that happens, efficiency drops and muscle fiber activation is reduced. When that happens, strength drops.
And that is my guess what happened in the study that showed cross-training impaired strength production.
Too much CNS stimulation without enough recovery produced lower strength production.
In the other 2 studies, the CNS wasn't overwhelmed.
So, how do we keep from overwhelming the CNS?
Well, that's way too complex a subject for a simple comment reply...I think we have the subject for another article or two. - Thanks again Cerin

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Philip

Cross training should be a cornerstone of any training program. In a lot of ways, it is the mortar that holds all of the focused training blocks together and makes them stronger.@pdmann
Keep the great stuff coming!

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