Concurrent Training

Are you a runner struggling to improve run times or wanting an improvement in body composition. Maybe you are an avid weight lifter but your recovery in between sets is horrific and you struggle to walk up steps without a respirator! This article might just be the thing to get you on track!

One of the most common misnomers I hear frequently is that doing cardio in addition to strength work is detrimental when it comes to gaining muscle.

After all, how many Long distance runners do you know that are really jacked? How many really Jacked people do you know that can run long distance? Its more likely the argument can be made for both sides: One who does far more cardio then strength work will see a significant decline in muscle size, density, and strength, Where as someone who does far more heavy strength work with little to no cardio will see a significant decline in aerobic capacity over time.

What I’ve presented in these two examples is what happens when you go to the extreme ends of either spectrum. The result is a group of people scared to preform cardio for fear of losing the gains, and a group of people scared to perform heavy strength work for fear it will impact their aerobic capacity.

The unspoken truth: No one ever talks about balance! When looking at longevity the research is very clear: Muscle, strength, power, and cardiac capacity are all needed to live a long healthy life!

A brief history of my experience with utilizing cardio and strength work

Truth be told when I was younger I always just wanted to be Jacked, explosive, and Strong AF. As an athlete though, there is always an aerobic component in everything you do. In fact I would say with the amount of running done in team sports, its likely I was on the end of the spectrum that was constantly worried about losing gains from doing too much conditioning.

This initially would give you a great example as to how you can train multiple aspects of fitness at the same time.

You would probably be astonished by how much food a 230lb athlete has to eat to maintain weight in a calendar year, and this form of nutrition is unlikely to stick with the general population or even your average weekend warrior.

Eventually I think i figured out that, as a collegiate and professional athlete, you learn to do what you are told and perform the tasks to your best ability. In the early to middle 2000’s to 2010’s aerobic work and conditioning hadn’t really became an widely used tactic yet. You just did it because you thought you were supposed to.

Not all aerobic work is created equal

The godfather of aerobic conditioning( Joel Jamison ) likes to say “if you think you are in shape because you are strong and lift weights, go run a 7 minute mile and see how you feel“. He couldn’t be more right! In fact I got a taste of this several times.

Fast forward to directly after a “short-retirement” from arena football, I found myself in the police academy for the local sheriffs department. At 250lbs, and no longer playing football at the time, the conditioning work wasn’t there. I thought my background was enough to get me by, but I was wrong. As I prepared for what would be a 5 mile run test at the end of the academy, I gained first hand experience that the body possesses many different energy systems, and I was severely lacking in the longer duration “aerobic” work.

One of the more interesting things I figured out almost Immediately was that I needed to find a better way to improve my aerobic capacity outside of just running. Running is something that we are obviously designed to do, but coming from someone who trains to be strong and powerful, it wasn’t the most productive use of my time. Not to mention that at 250lbs running takes a toll on your joints at any age.

During this time I became heavily influenced by the teachings of Westside Barbell and the work that Louis Simmons was doing with athletes specifically. With the help of Jon Davis (Davis training systems) I stumbled across some of his work with sleds and became immediately obsessed. I thought to myself could this be a better way to condition? Without getting to far down the rabbit hole on sled work, I learned from practice and research that not only would the sled get you in incredible shape, it significantly improved my run times, without actually running!

To me, this made a great case for being able to improve a specific area of fitness without having to perform the actual modality( in this case running ), and without it negatively affecting other aspects of fitness!

Crossfit-ish ( Kind of concurrent )

During this time, Crossfit was making a huge splash in the fitness community with what one could only describe as “completely random training”. Initially, Crossfit became known as the training system that prepared you for anything. As the years passed we started to see the god like physique results of some of the more popular athletes. They were lean, physically very fit, and could run for days. At the time I didn’t like it, and I still have my issues with some of the lackluster modalities used in most boxes. I have to say though, this seemed like the best example we had of what concurrent training could look like.

As with anything taken too far, there were limitations, especially for the general population. Often times, a much higher intensity form of cardio would be used and pure zone 2 aerobic work would be neglected, or incredibly high repetitions are used for speed(to beat a time), completely neglecting proper tension needed to create hypertrophy. Not to mention including maximal strength work with higher intensity conditioning work can be a recipe for disaster.

Whatever makes you happy right?

These issues bring us further away from concurrent training and its many benefits. Remember, we are working to bring up all aspects of physical fitness concurrently. No stone can be left un-turned with concurrent training!

Still, we were left with our first real example of concurrent training, albeit, not a great one.

Body composition impacts

Now lets jump forward a little bit more to 2019! This was one of the most pivotal years of my life and one that set me on a path to my current successes!

To give you a birds eye view prior to this pivotal time, I wasn’t necessarily unhealthy to the naked eye, but internally something was off, energy was low and externally it was apparent to me that a change was needed.

I like to use a simple analogy when I describe where my personal transformation started: I still trained and ate like a college football player, minus the football playing and the age LOL. To put simply, I was doing the work, still very strong and powerful, but the conditioning component was missing and my nutrition wasn’t so hot.

This is where zone 2 work changed my life. I began to dig deep into the programming and research articles written by concurrent “savant” Jason Brown. All the things he said made sense, and I had utilized in the past, but never to the degree in which he suggested.

I needed to do it, but still wasn’t sold on the amount that was recommended. So like Forrest Gump ( minus the running, at first ) I just started walking. 1 mile for time, then beat that time. 2 miles for time, then beat that time. 3 miles for time, beat that time, then add a weight vest. This eventually led to walk, jog intervals, then jogging! I worked myself down to a 7 minute mile quickly and in the Texas summer heat! I did all this at 38 years old while keeping up my 4 days per week strength routine, and busy dad/work schedule!

Now one thing you’ll learn about me is when I do something fitness related, I get hooked and go all out. This led to me buying my first Airdyne bike, performing farmers carry and sled drags for a mile or more at a time!

The Results!

At the start of this process I was an unhappy 19% body fat. After 8 months of hard work ( fun work ) I ended up at 9% body fat. Here’s the kicker: I GAINED 8lbs of pure lean tissue in the process… Concurrent much! Not only did I pack on muscle, I also gained a significant amount of strength. Normally these results would be exceptional for a beginner, but for a 30+ year veteran in strength training this was nothing short of astonishing!