Should Gymnasts Run For Cardio? Rethinking Methods

Is running the best cardio for gymnasts? Or is it doing more harm than good?

Dave Tilley and Diwesh Poudyal challenge traditional gymnastics conditioning methods, offering evidence-based alternatives for building aerobic capacity and sport-specific metabolic fitness without excessive impact.

• Exercise physiology basics: aerobic system (recovery), anaerobic lactic (1-2 minute efforts), and anaerobic alactic (brief max efforts)
• Mile runs are "junk conditioning" - they don't build true aerobic capacity while adding unnecessary impact stress
• Better aerobic base through 25+ minutes at 120-150 heart rate on bikes or through properly designed circuits
• Preseason training should use shuttle runs, med ball circuits, and intervals to build specific metabolic capacity
• Use safe, low-impact tools first before transitioning to routine-specific conditioning
• Periodize across three phases: off-season (aerobic base), early preseason (metabolic prep), late preseason (routine integration)
• The quality of conditioning matters more than how "hard" it feels - focus on physiological adaptation rather than exhaustion

Email [e-mail] to discuss conditioning strategies for your gymnastics program.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 2 (00:05):
every day.
You essentially pay your duesby doing the harder thing when
it's the right thing to do.
Back in action this time.
A little less alia, a littlemore duesh do I show you it's
been.

Speaker 1 (00:18):
It's been a little bit since I've been in front of
the shift audience.

Speaker 2 (00:21):
I feel like I know 12 hours since I saw you at the
clinic and 12 months.
Ironically enough, this is notrelated at all, but I was.
I did a consulting call justbefore this with a club that's
looking to like get a bunch ofprograms and like get their
staff on board, like a staff of10.
And so they were asking about,like what's the programming we
offer?
And they were asking about,like the symposium versus like

(00:41):
our course, the peak gymnasticspower.
And it just allowed me to goback and look at that course.
I was like Jesus, that thing isa monster man.
I was like, yeah, if you wantto learn everything that we
think about with gymnastics,strength and conditioning, I was
like this is the course thatone of your coaches should
probably go through.

Speaker 1 (00:55):
Yeah, that was fun making that too.

Speaker 2 (00:58):
Absolute horse of a course man.
That thing was monstrous,monstrous, Um, yeah.
So the way that uh, the podcasthas been going, as people were
listening the last few weeks, islike it's kind of like off the
hip ideas that we're workingthrough things that are more
relevant to our day-to-daydiscussion, versus like these
long hour and a half, you know,deep dives with guests, which
are cool.
But, um, the one that sparkedthis was, uh, I did two
consulting calls with collegeswho just finished their season

(01:19):
and then one consulting callwith a club which I just spoke
about, and they essentially areasking a lot of questions around
off-season prep, and so two ofthe colleges and one of the
clubs all are in the planningstage of their cardio and their
endurance and they're like, whatare we doing for circuits?
Like, looking back at the oldyear, like one had a new
strength coach at a college andthey were, like this person's,

(01:41):
really big into like mile testsand so all the girls would do
mile sprint tests multiple timesthroughout the summer and then
there was a baseline number theyhad to hit when they come back
to fall to be like a teamaverage had to be like this time
.
And then there was another teamthat just does mile testing
every two weeks in the summerand then at school you have to

(02:03):
get a certain time on the miletest in order to like be good,
to train preseason, and sothat's kind of been a pretty
historic thing.
I hear a lot in gymnastics andthen the club program.
Um, they essentially just docircuits and then it sounds like
a lot of like plyo panel matconditioning, so like jumping
over piles, box jumps, you know,running circuits, which again
maybe has merit in some ways.

(02:24):
But essentially I was politelyguiding them on how maybe
there's a better approach.
And so the next day walked intothe clinic with Duesh and I was
like Duesh, I was like how doyou feel about coming on a
podcast and maybe elaboratingand sharing your thoughts?
Cause Duesh and you know youand your other strength coaches
are kind of the resident expertsthat I have when I have
questions myself about cardiopower development stuff like
that.
So yeah, that's why I asked youto come on.

Speaker 1 (02:47):
No, I'm excited and you know, kind of based on what
you just said, dave.
Um, you know, I I'll I'll takeownership as the industry for
making it so confusing.
It's our fault, like we, we didthis.
I think that the strengthconditioning profession partly
has some blame here, because Ithink we had so many like yo-yo
moments and in time we were like, all right, long distance

(03:08):
running is really bad, youshould only do sprints.
And now it's like too muchsprinting is bad, you should
only do non-impact, you shouldonly do like.
You have so many polarizingviews and I think we've made it
all too confusing, um, sohopefully some of the stuff and
you know, by no means do I claimto know all the answers but
hopefully some of the stuff thatwe can talk about today and the

(03:29):
stuff that I can share, basedon experience and also the
knowledge, is just giving youguys a little bit more of the
bigger picture.
Coming back to the physiology,a little bit to explain maybe
why we do what we do, maybe whywe've had the success that we've
had.
Um, but I wanted to come outand say that it's probably our
fault.
We probably made it confusingto start.

Speaker 2 (03:49):
Yeah, and I mean also , you know the audience knows
that I come from a verytraditional gymnastics coaching
background, right.
So for literally 15 years I wasdoing what these people are
doing.
We were doing like circuits andwe were doing plyo max.
That's just what I think thethe gymnastics side of things
kind of new.
And then it honestly wasn'tuntil I did my SES and started
working at champion and met youand everybody else.
I was like, oh wait, a minute,there's probably a lot more

(04:10):
layers to this that areimportant.
I also worked a lot with ChrisHinshaw, who just had so much
extremely good knowledge on,like aerobic capacity and, you
know, sprint type work.
So I think there of it that'simportant to mention.
The other layer on top of thisis everybody that I talk to
oftentimes is kind of trying todually attack performance and
injury risk, right.
So a lot of people come to mefor consulting work, especially

(04:31):
in this like off-season thing.
It's either like we didn'tperform as well as we want
people are falling all over theplace on floor routines.
They were gassed out, theycouldn't get through their
routines, um and or theycouldn't get through practices.
They were just exhausted all thetime, didn't feel like they had
the endurance for a really hardfloor or bar routine.
But also, you know, there'ssometimes when injuries come up
and then people are doing alittle bit of a reverse
engineering of the season andasking themselves are there

(04:52):
things that we did that maybewe're contributing to that?
And I don't want to go down therabbit hole of of all the
things I was involved with, buta lot of people are saying, well
, maybe they're running volumeand the running cardio
approaches that we're taking arecorrelating to shin splints,
into back issues, into Achilles,uh, tendinopathy type issues.
So there's that layer of it too, which I think is important.
It's like, yes, we want to findthe optimal.
How do we get someone ready tohit a floor routine, a bar

(05:14):
routine, and do well at meetscomma?
How do we make sure we have thebest valve of efficiency to
make sure that we're not puttingjunk mileage on someone from a
plyometric or a impact point ofview, which is something you and
I talk a lot about in thesummer, when we have 20 girls
coming home right that are alltrying to stay healthy?

Speaker 1 (05:29):
Yeah, for sure, and I even liked that you you
mentioned the term like junkmileage.
I think we can kind of use thatas like junk conditioning as a
whole.
I think there's a lot of thingsthat we've probably done for
some time where we do thingsbecause they're hard.
We do things because we justlike think it's, you know, just
hard work and like time spentgetting tired that's going to
make you better and it's goingto make you a well-conditioned

(05:51):
athlete.
I think we gotta be a littlemore precise than that, right?
I think I think we owe it toour athletes to be a little bit
more precise than that and notjust rely on can we get them
really tired so that they getgood at?
Yes, adjusting to Like thatdoesn't make any sense, like
that's just layering stress ontop of stress, and now we can
now relate this back to aches,pains, injuries, whatever,
because now we're adding anotherfactor into it, we're adding

(06:13):
another layer.
So, yeah, I love, I love thatyou mentioned that, because I do
think that there is a way tojust put junk conditioning in
there and we're just simply notgoing back to the physiology and
know and knowing the scienceand doing meaningful work.

Speaker 2 (06:29):
Yeah, that was a big aha moment for me personally was
like 10 years ago, likestudying from everybody else and
taking a big step back withaccountability as a coach, being
like all right, and maybe holdthis thought in your mind the
entire podcast as you listen, ifyou're a coach or a strength
coach or whoever like all right,am I getting people sweaty or
am I increasing their metaboliccapacity for gymnastics?
Like that's always should bethe fork in the road.

(06:51):
Like all right, is this workoutjust getting kids sweaty or am
I actually doing something?
Because, yes, there is acultural grind effect of like
all right, maybe we do this likereally hard metabolic workout
and it's like a team culturebuilding thing.
Blah, blah, blah.
Some people have that discussion.
It's like okay, I understandthat, like, maybe there's a
layer to that, but like ifyou're just getting, if you
think that you're just workinghard just to make people work

(07:11):
hard and grind and sweat, butthere's literally no physiology
understanding of like why doesthis exact set time and rep
scheme and how many reps in thisinterval we're doing if it
doesn't correlate towards a planthat increases a bar routine or
a floor routine or a ringroutine, endurance?
It's not helping.
You know it's.
It's like I said, junkconditioning, it's not.
It's not adding benefit.
You're hitting a ceiling effectthere.

Speaker 1 (07:31):
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
So I think you know.
I don't know if you want me tojust kind of start talking about
the general layout.
Maybe we start with thephysiology to yeah.

Speaker 2 (07:41):
When we were talking off air.
I think it gets a little in theweeds, but I think everyone
needs to really understand thebaseline physiology like a 101
recap.
We're not going to do like aphd dissertation here, but this
is like the foundation of whyyou make decisions.
So when you take this podcastfrom your ears to your company
or to your college and youpresent a very different um
thought process for the nextyear, you have to have a leg to

(08:01):
stand on from the metabolicpoint of view.
So yeah, maybe break down alittle bit of the physiology, of
how it applies to gymnastics,and then we'll can kind of talk
about, you know, ourrecommendations for colleges and
programs and stuff.

Speaker 1 (08:10):
Yeah, sounds good, um , yeah, so I'm going to.
I'm going to kind of bring itback a little bit to like
exercise physiology one or maybesome some textbooks that that
people in the audience have read.
But, um, but when we talk aboutconditioning right, there's
really two big buckets and thenwe can kind of start separating
out a little bit from there.
But we have our aerobicconditioning and then we have
our anaerobic conditioning, okay, and then within the anaerobic

(08:32):
we have our lactic work and ouralactic work, right.
Our lactic work is using lacticacid to create ATP.
Our alactic work is usingcreatine phosphate, the
creatine-phosphate system, tocreate your ATP, right, and then
your aerobic is using oxygen asyour fuel.
Okay, so let's start a littlebit with the aerobic.
So I think one of the thingsthat's happened over the course

(08:55):
of time is we've kind ofpooh-poohed the aerobic work
because we started to look atsport specificity and say, well,
I don't play an aerobic sport,right, gymnastics is not an
aerobic sport.
Well, correct, the routinesmight not necessarily have a
huge aerobic demand.
There's a lot of big benefitsthat come from the aerobic
system, because the aerobicsystem is your recovery system,

(09:15):
right.
It actually is required toreplenish the other anaerobic
systems as well as to flush outmetabolites that you're building
from your actual strenuous work, right?
So imagine you do like a crazyhard circuit.
Everything's burning.
You're like, wow, like I'mabout to tap out right now.
Right, that's a lot ofmetabolite stress, that's kind

(09:38):
of going into your system.
Well, your aerobic system isactually responsible for
flushing a lot of that out, andhaving a really good aerobic
system is going to allow you tobe a little bit more resistant
to that fatigue.
That kind of comes in from thereally like hard grip work,
right.
And then the other thing too iseven from like a session to
session or or a week to weekstandpoint, um, how much of an

(10:01):
aerobic threshold you have orhow big of an aerobic base you
have allows you to be betterrecovered from one session to
the next, um, and even from oneset to the next, right, if we're
really breaking it down.
So the aerobic system is notsimply just looking at do we
have an aerobic activity thatrequires a lot of oxygen and fat
utilization, but it's alsolooking at the full picture and

(10:22):
saying what else can the aerobicsystem provide for us?
Right, and you know we go wayinto it.
It really is kind of looking atthe whole Krebs cycle where we
talk about, you know, creating32 ATP for for every substrate
and stuff like that.
It kind of reminds us that theaerobic system is able to well
handle long sustained activityand long sustained stress.

(10:45):
It's just not the best forbuilding power, okay, or
expressing power, or expressinghigh force.
So then we ask the questionwell, what is a good way to
display good force output andpower output?
And that's your anaerobicsystem, right.
So our anaerobic lactic systemis going to be your really tough
work.
That kind of goes up to liketwo ish minutes where you're

(11:06):
using lactic acid as our energysource, right, per cycle it's
going to create less ATP, butyou can create a little bit more
frequently, right.
But the issue with this is itcreates a lot of metabolic
stress within the system, so youcan't keep using it over and
over again.
And that's this like burningfeeling that you get, that your

(11:29):
body starts to basically shutyou down, saying, hey, let's not
keep doing more of this becauseit's not super efficient, right
, the oxygen utilization issuper efficient because you can
just keep redoing the grub cycleover and over and over again
until you're like, truly out ofevery bit of energy that you
have.
Um, whereas the a lactic I'msorry, the anaerobic lactic

(11:49):
system, there is a cutoff pointbecause your, your system, can't
handle all the metabolic stress.
Okay, and then the third one isour anaerobic a lactic, that's
our creatine phosphate system.
Um, that allows us to createrapid utilization of energy
really fast, but it takes a longtime to recover, right?

(12:10):
So we can only create ATP foran X amount of time, and then it
takes a while to replenish allthat.
So we can't keep using it forrepeat bouts of effort, right?
So think of this as like your,your vault, where you, you
sprint.
So think of this as like yourvault where you sprint, right,
you get on the table, you flip,you land, like that takes what?
Four seconds a day, fiveseconds, right, you exhausted

(12:31):
everything that you had, that'sprimarily using the creatine
phosphate system, your anaerobicalactic system, but you've kind
of tapped that out, right?
So now you've got to fullyreplenish and recover.
Now let's bring this back tothe aerobicobic.
So guess what recovers theanaerobic alactic system?
It's your aerobic base, right?
You have to be in an aerobicsituation where your heart rate

(12:53):
is low enough for your system toactually replenish that
creatine phosphate.
Okay, so this is where theaerobic kind of comes in as like
the base for our conditioning.
Yep, okay, yeah, so I think,with having that established, um
, I think the the thing to talkabout is now how do we use
aerobic training in a in animpactful way, but also in a way

(13:16):
where we save our athletes fromundue stress, right, right?

Speaker 2 (13:20):
that's very stress right, yeah, and I think that's
a very good like, helpful,summary of like, not too in the
weeds, but a little bit of basestuff.
And for those that are, youknow, maybe a little like not
exercise physiology relevant, Ithink I always explain and
bucket these things kind of likeDuesh said, which is like the,
you know, the anaerobic, alacticand lactic is very much the
driver of individual turns skillcombinations, doing parts,

(13:42):
learning skills, performingskills, doing routines right,
like the actual gymnastics partitself is like drills, skills,
routines, putting routinestogether.
That really is repeated sprintquote unquote, you know whole
body sprint type, energy systemterms is repeat sprint ability
of doing high quality turns withmaximal output.
And on top of that, you have toremember that individual skills
are oftentimes maximal bodycontraction, right, yes, you
have to remember that individualskills are oftentimes maximal

(14:04):
body contraction, right, yes,you're using your arms but your
entire body is squeezing everymuscle that you have to maintain
good shapes and good form.
So that's why turns andpractices that have lots of
volume of skills in them aretiring, because you're doing
like repeated sub maximal tomaximal skill work to try to get
into routine construction modeand then the actual routine

(14:25):
itself is anywhere from, likeyou said, a four-second vault to
maybe a 70-second, 80-second,90-second actual combination of
skills that have a little bit ofwork, a little bit of break, a
little bit of work, a little bitof break, and I view that all
as like the meat and thepotatoes of gymnastics.
But the ability to handle a lotof high workload which is what a
lot of people are looking forin preseason to be able to do

(14:48):
multiple routines across apractice, right, do multiple
back-to-back days of very hard,intense practice, along with
lifting and strengthconditioning days right?
Like that, is where I see therole of aerobic base work and
high chronic workload, becausewe know from research that we've
done and others that have donethe goal is to get a very high
chronic workload of routines tobe ready for season, right, that

(15:09):
is kind of like the mostsuggested.
Research says that to be goodat gymnastics you need to build
up a lot of routine volume,right, because it's specific to
the metabolic constraints ofyour sport.
So, like to do well at a meet,you have to have a high workload
of floor routines and all thatstuff.
Floor is the most metabolicallydemanding of all of the events
for most people.
So building up to a highchronic workload of floor

(15:30):
routines is really the goal,right.
But when your hair keeled over,hands and knees dying right,
breathing super duper heavy, andyou have to do two more floor
routines or then go to do fourbeam routines or then go to do a
ring routine, what do you thinkis replenishing a lot of that

(15:51):
stuff, the aerobic system, andthen vice versa.
You know you practice five daysin a row that are hard.
You got to wake in the morningand lift weights.
What do you think all thatrecovery happens from?
Of course it's fueling well andsleeping and stuff.
But a better aerobic basetheoretically does help you
recover from individual routines, individual practices,
individual days to build up ahigh chronic workload.
Um, so you can perform on theseason.

(16:13):
And I had a back and forth longdiscussion with a few people
online about you know,questioning maybe why do we have
anyone?
Why is there any aerobic workat all that you're recommending
for a gymnast in the off season?
Um, because floor routines isreally the only thing that
matters.
More floor routines is thething that eventually gets
somebody to have a bettermetabolic capacity to hit floor
routines and I was like, yes,but one.

(16:33):
You can't just do floorroutines and not expect people
to get hurt.
And two, you know these aregoing to be uh delicate
situations to approach when youhave a whole six month off
season.
You're trying to figure out howto keep somebody aerobically
fit to have them handle lots ofroutine volume.
So yeah, that's my kind ofspiel on top of your thoughts, I
think as well.

Speaker 1 (16:53):
Yeah, one one really interesting point that you
brought up that I want to touchon a little bit you kind of
mentioned, like in the in thepast is like you have your.
You have your ebbs and flows oflike go hard, quick, little
break, go hard, quick, littlebreak, right, and almost
anything that we do.
You look at even like barroutines and stuff like that,
like it's not just going maxeffort at every single second.
So here's the advantage of theaerobic system if you have a

(17:14):
really robust energy system inthe aerobic sense, um, when you
have that like down period, evenif it's like your two seconds
or whatever, if in that downperiod, if you can have your
heart rate actually come downslightly, it means that you can
actually sustain your activityfor a little bit longer.
Right, that's this like heroicthreshold that we talk about.
The the most, the mostsuccessful and the most

(17:36):
advantageous athletes have theability to not get tired while
everyone else would typically betired in that scenario.
Right, like it's to not gettired while everyone else would
typically be tired in thatscenario.
Right, like it's this conceptcalled fatigue resistant.
If you can make yourselffatigue resistant when you're
not having to work maximally,you're going to have an
advantage over a competitor,right, it's as simple as that,
right?
We use the same concept forsoccer.
We use the same concept for allof our other field sports, like

(17:58):
if you're running out in thefield and if you're able to
maintain a low heart rate butstay, still maintain that same
speed as your competitor, let'ssay, right, you're running out
in the field.
And if you're able to maintaina low heart rate but still
maintain that same speed as yourcompetitor, let's say, right,
you're not spiking your heartrate while they're spiked up
super high in their heart rate.
Well, who has the advantage tolast longer in the game and
perform when the game's kind ofcoming towards the end?
Right?
Who's going to have higheroutputs left because they didn't
get to a high heart rate andsustain that high heart rate?

(18:20):
The person with the biggeraerobic threshold, right?
So I think I think it's time tokind of get past this point of
like, only looking at it from.
Is this specific enough?
Should I do it?
Right, it's.
It's this general base thatneeds to be built, because there
is a lot of ramifications fromthe recovery aspect, like the
both of us talked about, andfrom the competitive edge

(18:41):
ramifications that I justmentioned about and from the
competitive edge ramificationsthat I just mentioned, I think
there is quite a bit of anadvantage that you can gain from
just becoming more fatigueresistant.

Speaker 2 (18:50):
Right, yeah, and I think that leads to the
conversation of kind of the the,not the debate I was having.
The education I was trying tooffer people is oftentimes most
people in the summer have somecombination of running and
circuits.
You know circuits.
Sometimes circuits are likeconditioning circuits 40 on, 20,
off for 20 minutes or plyocircuits, where they have like a
bunch of just jumping and kindof like squat jumps and panel

(19:12):
mats and stuff.
But a lot of people just userunning as their like main
aerobic base.
And so I ask people you canlike well, why do you do this?
Like what's the point?
Like what are your thoughts?
Like what do you do this?
Like what's the point?
Like what are your thoughts?
Like what do you do?
It's like well, it's hard, thekids are working hard and it
seems like it's the easiestthing for us to do with a large
group of people.
You know we have like 15, 20athletes working together.

(19:39):
It seems like you know doing amile run or like, what is the
goal or the point of theseconditioning circuits?
Like, what is the goal you'retrying to achieve?
If the goal is to increasemetabolic capacity, like aerobic
metabolic capacity, which thenbecomes, you know, as we're
talking, eventually the abilityto be fitter or set an anaerobic
base to do that kind of work on.
I don't know if a mile run isthe best way to do that, you
know, like I just don't thinkconceptually that's great

(20:00):
because the metabolic baseyou're trying to develop is
context specific to the sport.
So if you're a runner, a milerunner, probably good to do mile
runs or some sort of intervalwork, right.
But gymnastics is whole body,upper body, lower body, core.
So you're getting your legsconditioned to buffer the
fatigue of running.
But you're not going to run onbars, you're going to do bar
routines, right.

(20:20):
So if that's the line ofthinking, it's like, okay, well,
maybe running is not the bestbecause we have, you know, maybe
not the best crossover effector transfer effects comma, it's
just hopping on one leg.
You're taking kids who alreadyhave a lot of impact volume
shins, ankles, whatever andyou're just going to make them
do a lot of extra mileage,oftentimes on pavement, um, to
run outside or something likethat, with your shoes.

(20:41):
So it's like, okay, well,that's kind of not a great line
of argument to have, which leadsto the next one which is like,
well, we want to increase theirtolerance to plyometrics or
their tolerance to some of theseimpacts, like, okay, well, if
that's the line of thinking,there's a very specific way to
train power in plyo and hoppingon one leg for 10 minutes, is
not it right?
There's like a whole discussionaround med balls and plyometric
volume and hurdles and whatever.

(21:02):
So that's not really a greatleg to stand on either.
And third is oftentimes likethey like the mental team grind,
like we're all working throughthis, hustling together, we're
all trained together.
I love the idea.
Again, the tool in which you'reusing to do that.
I don't know if that's great.
So unfortunately, I personallydon't really recommend longer
distance running to anybodyanymore.
Like in the summer I don'treally do any.

(21:22):
This is someone who gave kidsmile runs right, like when I was
little, like it was a coach.
But I don't offer anybody longdistance running as any solution
in their summer training ortheir preseason training.
I'm not sure if you feel thesame way.

Speaker 1 (21:35):
Yeah, I.
So I'm going to go right backto the physiology again.
Right, so we were.
We're now talking aboutbuilding a better aerobic base,
correct?
So if we really look at thisconcept, I think we've been a
little off.
So if you look at all theresearch, if you look at all the
work from the Chris Henshaws,the Joel Jamesons that are these

(21:56):
experts in conditioning right,they've now talked about for
numerous years of how aerobicconditioning should not be this
grit and grind like right offthe ground.
Aerobic conditioning is thisvery, very targeted heart rate
zone of somewhere between 120 to150.
Right, it's your or you canthink of it as like your
subjective 70 percent effort.
Or you can think of it as likethe threshold, to the point

(22:19):
where you can maintain onlynasal breathing.
You don't have to use mouthbreathing to make this activity
happen.
To the point where you canmaintain only nasal breathing,
you don't have to use mouthbreathing to make this activity
happen.
And then the other thing is foryou to actually build this
system.
You need to have a sustainedamount of time spent in this
system and a mile run, even ifyou're really freaking slow, you
can get it done in 12 minutesand that's like you're pretty

(22:39):
slow.
It takes minimum of 25 minutesspent at 120 to 150 heart rate
to actually improve and push theneedle for your aerobic
condition.
But now, if you think aboutthis, 150 is not super high
heart rate, 120 is not that high.
So it's not hard work that weneed to push these athletes to
do to improve their aerobic base.

(23:00):
It's precise work that we needto push these athletes to do to
improve their aerobic base.
It's precise work that we needto push these athletes to do to
improve their aerobic base.
So what I've been doing superrecently is I'll put kids on an
assault bike, I'll throw a heartrate monitor on them, I'll tell
them I need you to stay in thislittle number zone and it shows
on a little graph too.
So like kids like it visually,they think it's like a fun
little game.
And then I'll also say I needyou to go through this entire

(23:22):
circuit with only breathingthrough your nose.
But it needs to be effort whereyou would say all right, it
would be easier to make thisactivity happen if I were to use
mouth breathing, but I candefinitely do it with just
breathing through my nose, right.
So using those two as acombination.
I can now keep athletes in avery, very specific window of
heart rate and breathing ratewhere I'm actually affecting the

(23:43):
, the aerobic system, and I'llput it on 30 seconds on, 30
seconds off.
I need the 30 seconds on to bea little bit more work.
Just, it's a little moreexciting, right.
And then 30 seconds off is nowa lower, so I might give you 60
RPMs on the salt bike for youron time.
I'm going to give you 35 RPMson your off time and you're just
going to go there for 25 to 45minutes.

(24:04):
Yep, right, but it's not I'mtrying to kill you, right, and
I'll walk over, like I've seenmy athletes trying to destroy
themselves on this bike.
I'll walk over and be like allright, you're taking the next
two off because your heartrate's like too high, right?
I actually don't want you towork as hard or goal to make you

(24:25):
fatigue resistant by improvingyour ability to sustain a
moderate heart rate for anextended period of time without
the aerobic base, right, and Iagree there.

Speaker 2 (24:29):
I think that you know just a frame of reference.
We're talking about like theoff season, right.
So we're talking about likeJune, july, august is when this
is kind of work being done and Iknow that the listeners are a
bit stratified stratified what'sthe word?
Stratified?
Based on like their ability toaccess 20 right assault bikes
for like their whole team.
So if you're in the situationwhere you're like a college
elite, you have the tools, youhave the whatever and the kids
are older, that is someone whocan do the.

(24:50):
You know, drive to planetfitness, do my strength workout
and then sit there for a halfhour and do my interval type
work.
So the college programs thatask me stuff, I often say you
know, pending you have thebackdrop of the team's all going
to grind a bit in the summerand do two days of kind of off
season training along withgymnastics.
It looks like a two day liftfollowed by maybe some sort of
longer metabolic, um, aerobicbase work.

(25:10):
So yeah, they're on.
You know, planet fitness theyhave a that 30, 30 for a half
hour, whatever.
The reality of club is that youprobably don't have that and
that's where circuits arebeneficial, right.
So that's where we do have a lotof kids who will do one day, um
, uh, 30, 30 minutes of 40 on,20 off between a bunch of
stations, and maybe it's notthis solid, steady state bike
but it's like, you know, leg,arm, core, and you're rotating

(25:32):
kids through a 30 minute.
You know again, can, can breathe, I'm not dying, I'm not killing
myself, but I'm moderatelyworking the whole time.
But that's such a large likeframe of reference shift for
coaches is that we're not goingto be killing people and just
getting super hot and supersweaty and doing 65 squat jumps
in 40 seconds, right, just toget somebody buried.

(25:52):
It's about the goal ofincreasing overall fitness,
right, and cardiovascularendurance so that we can then do
really hard anaerobic preseasonwork, right.
So in the gym for clubs I wouldsay it's a circuit with a bunch
of stations, two kids perstation.
You can easily get 25 to 30kids through a small floor
circuit where they're moderatelyworking, kind of out of breath

(26:13):
but not too hard, and get thesame parallel training effect as
maybe the person who does have.
You know the college girls thatcome home with us and they're
training with us, who have the30 minutes or the 45 minutes to
spend on the bike or betweenstuff like that.

Speaker 1 (26:25):
Yeah, yeah, nailed it .
I mean it.
Listen to the vessel to get itdone, doesn't matter, like what
you use to get it done, does notmatter.
You simply need to spend timewith your heart rate elevated in
that one 20 to one 50 zone foran extended period of time,
minimum 25 ish minutes, right,right, depending on your demands
for sport.

(26:45):
For looking outside ofgymnastics like you might play a
sport that might require you tobe on the field for 90 minutes.
Right, that means your aerobiczone needs to be way bigger.
Your sorry, your base needs tobe way bigger.
So you might need to dosustained activity for an hour
and a half, right, but forgymnastics like you really don't
need that crazy big a base,like what you mentioned, of two
15-minute circuits totaling upto 30 minutes, where the entire

(27:07):
time your heart rate is elevatedand you're not going at maximal
pace.
That's amazing.
That's all you need to buildfitness.
You can do that one to twotimes a week and then you can
spend the other days working ona little bit more of the
anaerobic system which we canget into and, you know, actually
start using the more specificneeds or improving the specific
needs for your sport, whilestill really taking care of your

(27:28):
base work and making yourself alittle bit more fatigue
resistant.

Speaker 2 (27:31):
Exactly, yeah, and I think that's kind of the
take-home message for this firstthird of the conversation is
the physiology basis there andthen the recommendation of
either circuits for athletes inclub who are younger, who need a
coach led, dictated kind ofthing, or older athletes who are
doing stuff in the summer to dothat kind of biking type
approach.
That not only is in line withthe physiology and the research

(27:52):
that we know around aerobic basework, which then becomes, you
know, anaerobic stuff, but alsoyou have eliminated 10,000
impacts on that athlete's lowerbody over the course of a summer
.
10,000 impacts on thatathlete's lower body over the
course of a summer Because ifevery day or every two days you
have them run miles and you testthem and stuff, I understand
the thought process, that it'shelpful, it's cool, you think
you're getting a lot done andmaybe the mile time as a team is

(28:13):
cool because you can havesomething to work for.
I understand the perception,but like you've added so much
volume of impact onto theathletes in the process of doing
that, that you might be, youknow, metaphorically and
physically shooting yourself inthe foot when you get into the
preseason and your shin splintshurt or whatever.
So the recommendation I had tothese couple of colleges is like
okay, well, let's change thecircuits and maybe some aerobic
base work and then if you dowant to have something that's a

(28:37):
fun test to track and do, do atwo minute bike test, do a half
mile or a three quarter milebike, watt, wattage, sprint test
as your thing of a time youwant your team to get, because
you'll work super hard.
It's not going to drain you ofyour entire training model, but
you can still have a commongroup chat thing to talk about
that.
You're all like biking in thiskind of whatever it is.
So like that's therecommendation is circuits and
or bike based on the age, whichleads us through the summer and

(28:59):
then gets us to preseason, whichwe'll talk about, is like okay,
now what do we need to be doing?
A hundred, a hundred yardsprints like repeat sprints in
that, but anything else to addon kind of the off season
aerobic base rationale.

Speaker 1 (29:10):
No, I think we we kind of covered it.
Just just to like reiterate thethe things that we just
mentioned.
Though, like the other negativeto the whole, like mile run is
like if you're using that tobuild fitness, remember you
didn't spend time with yourheart rate elevated for 25 plus
minutes, so you never actuallydid aerobic work and you're like
there's so that's our junkconditioning that we talked

(29:31):
about.
You just put stress on theathlete for no real gain, right.
Right, you didn't actuallyimprove physiology by doing that
.
And again, like dave mentioned,if you want to use it as a test
, like we'd recommend a coupleother things like the bike
protocol that dave mentionedyeah, but if that's your, if you
want to use it as a test, likewe'd recommend a couple other
things like the bike protocolthat Dave mentioned.
But if that's your Ashland, andyou want to test them twice a
year, once at the beginning ofthe season and once at the end,

(29:52):
as like a team builder kind ofthing, like sure, if that's what
you believe in and you valueteam culture a ton, I wouldn't
fault you for that.

Speaker 2 (30:00):
Yep, yep, exactly.
I wouldn't fault you for that.
Yep, yep, exactly.
So, yeah, then the next layerof this conversation is that
people, you know their line ofthinking was we're using the
mile in the summer to become asprint work, doing repeated
sprints outside or hill sprintsor something, and our ability to
get the whole team through 50to a hundred yard sprints,
whether it's from the strengthcoach or the coaches were having
them do that.
That was the thought.

(30:24):
Is that okay, well, thissprinting type volume is gonna
correlate and transfer to afloor routine volume.
So if we go on that line ofthinking, we then go back to the
same question Am I gettingpeople tired or am I doing a
metabolic training effect?
So when you ask yourself, okay,well, if the goal is metabolic,
technically anaerobic work,you're trying to increase
someone's overall power outputin that, whatever second
interval you are, um, again,it's relevant to the, the vessel

(30:47):
you're doing it in.
So if you are doing sprints, 10rounds of sprints twice a week
to increase someone's juststraight up power for a
metabolic effect, I don't knowif that's going to transfer to a
floor routine or a bar routine.
Quite well, right, probably not.
Um, if the goal is to increasesomeone's vault power to sprint
as fast as they can.
Maybe, maybe, but maybe a 10,maybe a 10 yard is better

(31:08):
because it's only 70 feet, yeah,right.
So like, there's that secondline of thinking, like, okay,
well, it's probably not in linewith the aerobic power output
for 90 second floor routine orbar routine, it's not going to
transfer.
Well, there, it's probably notgoing to be the best tool to
increase someone's vault speed,sprinting right Versus like

(31:28):
traditional type sprint work ortechnique work.
And then a lot of people alsoare saying that we're increasing
plyometric or power, right, so,okay, Increasing plyometric,
there's probably betterexercises and tools to do that.
And also, many of theplyometrics you're looking for
are vertical force displacement,not horizontal force
displacement.
So we need like depth jumps andbox jumps and stuff like that.
Um, and then, third again, thatmental grind.
You know we like going outsideas a team and doing our sprints,
cause it's like a good grind atsix in the morning, like that's

(31:50):
the only one.
I think I see the rationale ofbeing like okay, but there's
probably way more better ways todo that, for sure, right.
So unfortunately and this islike the conversation I was
having with myself not to slightother people, but when I walked
through that rationale fordoing repeated sprints outside
with my athletes, none of thefour things I just listed really
held any weight versus thingswe'll talk about.
Obviously that are betteroptions, but that's how I view

(32:11):
the preseason is how I wascounseling these people away
from just the sprint workouts orsomething like that.
Maybe some hill work here forteam building.
I can understand that, but yeah, that's my approach to it.

Speaker 1 (32:20):
Yeah, I think these like long continuous sprints,
like, I mean, 100 yard sprint,is so taxing on the body, if
we're talking about soft tissue,that these athletes are not
prepared for at the hamstring,at the groin, like we don't need
to come out of this with ahamstring strain, you know it's
just not worth it.
And if you look at the demandsof the sport again, like once we

(32:42):
started getting into the morespecific energy systems that are
required for the sport, we cannow start having a conversation
of sports specificity.
Last I checked, yes, on floorroutine, the platform is not 100
yards long.
We don't need to do a sustained100-yard sprint.
We can do tempo sprints orshuttle runs if we want to do it
via running.
I do think there is an aspectof specific preparation.

(33:05):
We call it SVP, specificphysical preparation because it
does involve being on your feetand running and jumping and
hopping and bouncing and turning, being on your feet and running
and jumping and hopping andbouncing and turning.
So I think it can be a goodidea.
But I think it's maybe a betterusage of time to do like
shuttle runs at a prescribedpercentage of effort Because
again, you make a turn on floor,you don't just keep doing it at

(33:29):
a max effort with zero, zeromilliseconds of break, right,
you do a pass, you stand quickpause, right milliseconds of
break.
You do a pass, you stand, quickpause.
There's no need for thiscontinuous 100-yard max effort.
Go and then repeat withoutrecovery 10 more times.
There's no demand in gymnasticsfor that.
I think we can just be a littlebit more precise and say all

(33:50):
right, we're going to start offwith some tempo runs, some tempo
sprints, we're maybe going togo shuttles, um, just 10 yards
back and forth, and we're goingto do that for, let's say, 40
seconds and we're going to breakfor 40 or, sorry, break for 20.
Um, so that we have someincomplete recovery work and
we're just going to operate at80 to 85% for eight sets to

(34:12):
start, and let's see if we canmaybe build you up to 12 sets,
14 sets, 16 sets over the courseof two months.
Yep, exactly Now, that's that'sa lot more precise prescription
of.
I want to start now taking thataerobic base that we just built
and start layering in a littlebit more of this ability to
handle this um, anaerobic lacticsystem and just get really good

(34:35):
at buffering the lactate Right,cause that's what we're trying
to work on here, right?
Our goal for you again go backto the physiology is we're
trying to make our athletes justbetter at buffering lactate, so
that they don't have thisfeeling of like I'm done, right,
I'm, I'm, I'm crapped out.
So I think there's just betterways and honestly, like even the
, the, the circuit style thatyou mentioned, dave, for the

(34:57):
aerobic point of view, I thinkwe can, you know, use similar
concepts of circuit work forthis anaerobic lactic work, as
well, yeah, yeah, I thinkthere's.

Speaker 2 (35:08):
there's two important things here that are maybe why
we take this approach.
So one is that in thisconversation I had with a few
people around, like you know,questioning maybe this is not
the best approach.
We should just do floorroutines.
I think a big risk that we havein gymnastics is that many of
the athletes are younger but wego from the off season, where
there's really no hard impactsor hard plyometric volume and
skills, and floor routines, andif we go right into floor parts

(35:31):
or half routines or floorroutines, there is a huge
differential between theirmetabolic capacity to handle a
floor routine with really highlevel skills and the risk of
injury, right, all it takes islanding one double back short
because you're gassed out onyour last floor pass to crunch
your ankles.
You're out for eight weeks andthat's the start of your
preseason, right?
So I think for me we need to doa better job in gymnastics and

(35:51):
all sports honestly, of givingsomebody a month or six weeks
where we are training in theparameters in which a really
hard routine will require ofthem 60 seconds of this, like
really hard go, really stop backoff two seconds.
Really hard go, but with toolsthat are not risky.
Those tools are bikes and medballs and sleds and things that
are like high force, high output.

(36:13):
I feel like my lungs are onfire because I'm really getting
into that high threshold heartrate.
But I'm not going to hurtmyself pushing a sled, I'm not
going to hurt myself bikingreally hard, I'm not going to
hurt myself doing med ball slams.
So I think there's this.
First piece of it to rememberis that if we do June, july,
august, aerobic base work andwe're starting to slowly prep
somebody for a preseason,september into October is a
great time to use these shuttletype runs approaches but then

(36:36):
also do some interval work whichis in like that 60 to 90 second
.
Sell your soul to the bike, youknow.
But you know it's great teambonding too as well, but you're
not hurting people.
And I think if you only go theroute of parts to half routines,
half routines to full routines,without any base work, of
anaerobic window type work wheresomeone's lungs are on fire
they're standing in the cornerbefore they go you just run the

(36:58):
risk of having somebody get hurtand I think that's where a lot
of people fall apart in thepreseason.
They start to develop injuriesbecause they're doing like back
tucks in a row for their cardioconditioning or they're doing
like tumble down routines onfloor for their conditioning and
they're just cracking theirankles over and over again, not
being metabolically prepared.
There's a time and a place todo really hard floor routines
and tumble down and stuff, butthey have to be metabolically

(37:18):
ready before they move into thatpart of the preseason.
And the second piece of that isthat oftentimes there is these
things are happening in parallel.
You're building up someone'slike parts to skills, to half
routines, to floor routines,maybe over the eight week window
of periodization, at the sametime in which you're maybe in
the strength room doing your gppwork and doing some power work
and you're doing other stuffwith a strength coach in the
college setting or you're doingseparate conditioning with the

(37:41):
team and the club team that hasthese circuits, so they're
oftentimes together.
You're doing like the routinebuild up over eight weeks.
At the same time we can buildup shuttle runs and circuits and
we'll share some examples, butthey're happening in tandem
together to increase someone'soverall capacity.
That's how I usually recommendit to people.

Speaker 1 (37:56):
Yeah, one thing that I just thought of, as you're, as
you're speaking, dave, um, inregards to this is I think we do
have to get a little bit morein tune with what we're trying
to use our tools for.
Right, if we have, if we have apreparation and a conditioning
issue, we can't use a sport tobuild that Right.
Right, at least at thebeginning.

(38:16):
Right, there is this, thismeeting point, where skill and
conditioning and fitness cometogether.
But if the issue is fitness,let's build the fitness
separately, let's work on theskill separately, meaning the
skill can't be done while tired,right, because we're trying to
actually improve the quality,right, you can't build quality,
you can't do anything at a highquality and build that quality
if you're tired, right.

(38:36):
So let's build the qualityseparately, in a non-fatigue
state.
Let's slowly work on making youfatigue resistant by doing
conditioning work and then,slowly, as we get closer to
pre-season and season, let'shave the two kind of meet
together.
Right, I think that's got to bea little bit more of our
mindset.
And then the eventually, thethe more general preparation
starts to get a little bit morespecific, a little bit more

(38:57):
specific, the skill stuff startsto layer itself a little bit
more into a little bit morecompetition based, and then now
eventually the two meet and thenon competition days, when it
really should be coming togetheror let's say like and in the in
the collegiate setting, youhave inner squads where
obviously you have to performand stuff but like, yeah, inner
squads and competitions arereally the the only times where,
like, all of that needs toperfectly, perfectly come

(39:18):
together.
Everything else it really doesnot.
You're you're working onimproving fitness and you're
working on developing skill andthey'll have overlap, but it
only needs to come fully, fullytogether for competition or
inner squads.
The way that I see it, you cantell me if I'm a little off.

Speaker 2 (39:39):
No, no, no, I totally agree and I view, um, you know,
three month chunks, the wholeseason, off season, three months
, preseason, three months andlike an in-season a, b, and then
we have that off season wetalked about and I split the
preseason in half into twosix-week chunks.
So in the first six weeks ofseptember and maybe the start of
october is kind of what we'retalking about, which is maybe
it's shuttle runs, maybe it'sjust all skills and combinations
and you're getting like, okay,what routine, what construction,
what, what are we going to doto build up?
And maybe you get to the pointwhere you're doing three skill
combinations.

(39:59):
But in that six week window isthese uh, is like obviously your
skill type, stuff keeps going.
But that is where we're usingthe shutter run intervals or
stuff like that.
That's where we're using 20seconds of max effort biking 10
second transition, max effort,med ball slams 20 second
transition, 20 seconds jumpfloor handstands or suitcase
carries or sled.
That is working the bits andthe pieces, like you said, of

(40:26):
that 60 second of misery.
But you're doing that in tandemover six weeks and building up
how hard that is and then rightaround October, in the middle of
it, like all right, we have ainner squad right around
Thanksgiving for most people, orwe're doing a mock in-house
meet November, december.
Let's transition our focustowards a little more in the
half routine full routine bucketand taper just a little bit off
the really hard metabolicconditioning to give more back
to the ability to do routines.
That's how I counsel people on.

(40:46):
It is like that first six weeksyou're doing this with a
strength coach or on your own.
As you move closer to innersquads it's more routine volume
as you're building up highchronic workload, slowly but
surely getting a couple of meetsor a couple of routines in a
row.
That way you're giving a littlebit more of that conditioning
benefit to the routine situation.
And then, of course, specificitywise, you have to do routines
to get better at routines.
So it gives you a four weekwindow where you just train

(41:08):
routines to get ready for aninner squad and no one's inner
squad.
They want to be as performativeas championships, right, and
then you break for a holiday.
Then you have all the way upthrough January to keep doing
more of perfection of routinesand getting a lineup and that
kind of stuff, and it allows youto use your your three month of
preseason, in line with greatmetabolic research, stripping
away all the excess of plyos andpower you would get from just

(41:30):
having someone do a sprintingand a running program to give
more towards the season health.
And then also you still getthat mental grind, that team
camaraderie, that culture typestuff.
And then season starts inJanuary and you switch yourself
into just like all right nowwe're working, we're resting to
hit routines, kind of build upour overall capacity.
But that three month off season, three month in season is how
you get to a high chronicworkload of routine volume

(41:51):
safely.
Right.
In my mind that's the bestapproach that I think we have
right now.

Speaker 1 (41:54):
Yeah, totally, totally.
And you know, the culminationof all this is, you know, you
should get to a point where,once you're in season, your
actual sport and your actualskill practices during the
season, that is yourconditioning.

Speaker 2 (42:07):
Yeah Right, like your competition day is actually
specific conditioning, right,that's, that's that, yeah, the
more, the more meat run throughsyou do and the more volume you
build up a conditioning forroutines, the better you get at
them, right, you maintain your,your chronic workload.
Yeah, yeah, I would say so too.
So, yeah, hopefully the endpoint of our message, which is

(42:28):
like, maybe reconsider runningyou know the mile run in your
sprint type training in thepreseason reconsider why you're
doing them and maybe move awayfrom them.
You know I personally don't doany at all, but consider why
we're saying it.
You know we're not saying likedon't run because it's bad Right
, and we're also not saying likethe pendulum of either like no
run, no aerobic ever, or likeonly aerobic.
You know both those things arenot true.

(42:50):
But if you're a coach, ifyou're a strength coach, if
you're having these these summermeetings, just take what we say
with a grain of salt and thinkabout this with your own
conversation about like allright, like well, make sense.
Maybe the mile run test and thesprint hundred yard sprints are
not really for us, but there'svalue in the energy system
domain in which we're trying totrain.
What can we do realistically inour setting?

(43:10):
That's going to apply the bestwe can.
It doesn't have to be perfect,but like, how can we get some of
those circuits in the summerand then transition to a 90
second window?
How can we get some of this uh,routine type progression at the
same time as we're doing someconditioning work?
And I think that people wouldfind that they're they just
don't have a bunch of athletesthere as as uh, cranky injury,
wise, shin splint, achillesissues, you know, back pain type

(43:31):
stuff, but also they're stillgoing to get to the approach of
it's really hard and we'retraining and we're grinding and
it's it's hustle on it.
Right, you're still, you'restill working really hard, but
you're just eliminating some ofthe extra side effects with a
little bit more efficiency.
That's how I view it.

Speaker 1 (43:45):
Yeah, um, and then the the other, like little,
little like addition to all ofthis that I would make is when
you're when you're talking aboutkind of saving your, your
bullets, right, like you want tosave your stressors for the
things that actually matter,right.
But if you are someone that,let's say, believes in running,

(44:06):
right, you really like it for amultitude of reasons.
Again, just be a little bitmore precise with how you
prescribe it.
A mile run as fast as you cannot valuable, but you can
convince your team to go out ona 25 minute jog and you, you
coach them how to go out on thatjog, so you're actually
building aerobic fitness.
That's, that's fine, right,because you will adapt to that
stress.
There's lots of people that canrun miles and miles and miles

(44:27):
and they're not going to gethurt from it.
It's not that we hate running,it's just that we we wish the
running was prescribed a littlebit more precisely, yeah, right.
And then I think same thing forthe other energy systems as
well.
I think the precision is reallywhat's important.
So we kind of mentioned theshuttle run idea for the lactic
work, for the alactic work, andto me, like this is direct

(44:50):
crossover between, like truealactic work so you're creating
a phosphate system versus youractual power development work.
I would say just build theactual power and really build a
high ceiling of it so that whenyou need to use it for your
passes it's there right, youhave the ability and the
capacity to do so.
So I would say separate themout.
Don't try to make your powerwork conditioning.

(45:10):
Have a separate power sectionwhere you're working on max
effort.
Let's say, box jumps, depthjumps, pogo jumps, um, but do
that with appropriate umprescription.
So, like three sets of four maxeffort box jumps right.
If you want to build lower bodyvertical power, right.
Three sets of 10 max effortpogo jumps where you're really

(45:31):
fast off the ground, high in theair, and that's it right.
You've now built your ceilingfor having higher outputs for
power and being able to displaypower.
And then when you actually needthat for your competition or
for your routine, because youbuilt the energy systems on the
back end, the two will cometogether right, and because you
worked on the skill requiredwithin the actual sport, it will

(45:51):
come together.

Speaker 2 (45:53):
Yep, yep, I agree and I think this just came to mind,
but it's this wholeconversation is also why I
heavily discourage collegeprograms from doing stadiums.
That's like a big thing thatstill happens is like wake up 6
am and go run stadiums up anddown for whatever many laps it
is, and again, just, I'm not.
I'm not trying to hurt yourfeelings or say I you know

(46:14):
someone who did some crazy panelmat lines myself, but think
about like, what's the goal ofthis?
Is it a metabolic conditioning?
Well, 30 minutes of stairs isdefinitely not relevant for a
floor routine, right?
But also, is it plyometric?
It's concrete, uphill, downhill, concrete on their Achilles and
on their shins.
Don't know if that's the bestthing for athletes.
Mental grind definitely checksthe box, get up early, get that
hustle in.
But I think there's other waysto do it and in this program

(46:38):
that I worked with who iswonderful and I love their
coaching staff I was like I getit.
Guys, you can still wake up atsix, bring out five med balls
and bring out some shuttle conesand whatever and do interval
work.
Just do 40, 20s, you know, for25 minutes in that slow heart
rate outside in the middle offootball stadiums.
It's epic and it's iconic.
I get it, it's a tradition youhave, but instead of running the
stairs with concrete, justbring out a couple sets of
equipment and have the wholeteam do a 6.30 AM circuit

(47:00):
outside in the football lights,with the sun's coming up and
you're hustling together.
Same cultural impact.
Very, very different metabolicand plyometric side effects.

Speaker 1 (47:10):
Yeah, and going back to one of the first things that
I started with was like I thinkthe onus is kind of on us as an
industry.
I'm going to I'm going to callout my people here for a second.
I think the the reason that welike doing these stadiums and
all these crazy hard workouts.
Honestly, I think it's for usand not the athlete.
I think it's for us to be likewow, like I kicked her, I kicked

(47:32):
her butt.
To be like wow, like I kickedher, I kicked her butt, like
yeah, I had them like keeledover and like dying, so that it
makes us feel good, like we'rewe're able to impart such hard
work on them.
That's not the goal.
Like our goal is to make ourathletes more fatigue resistant,
more powerful, faster, morehealthy.
Right, like it's not us, it'snot for us to make ourselves
feel better about prescribingreally hard workouts.

(47:55):
Like that's not the goal.
And I say that with so muchlove because I've been there.
Right, like I've prescribed thehard workouts where I'm like
wow, like that was good, thatwas tough, like what?
Like taking a step back, likewhat did I actually accomplish?
Did I actually improve theirphysiology?
If the answer is no, it reallyshouldn't exist.
Yeah, aside from the like whatDave mentioned of like building

(48:17):
mental toughness and some teamcamaraderie stuff, like sure
that can happen every now andthen, I would suggest maximum
twice a year.
I think more than that, butthat's my last thoughts on that
whole thing.

Speaker 2 (48:29):
Yeah, and hopefully you know we'll wrap it up here,
but I think that we try topresent these things from a dual
lens of like we have mademistakes.
This is what we've done.
Comma.
We're super fortunate that wesee 20, 30, 40, 50 gymnasts per
month at Champion.
Between PT and between fitness,we are seeing arguably some of
the highest volume of a varietyof programs and colleges and
ages and injuries fromeverywhere, right?

(48:50):
So we see a bunch of collegekids, a bunch of high school
kids from different clubs, andthis is what seems to work
across a large variety of people.
So that's why we offer thesethings.
We made some mistakes, we'veseen some things go not the best
way, and also, I think we havea nice sample size of people
that it does seem to work for.
And the second piece of that isthat we're trying our best to
make sure we offer solutionsthat are easy, practical and

(49:11):
don't require bald plates, don'trequire these crazy sensors.
Right, like this is easily donefor everyone.
But just listen to the podcast,take a moment, step back and be
like all right, like let mehave a sit down with my team and
talk through this through andfigure out like where can we
maybe pivot a little bit?
Cause I was once there, man, Iwas once doing these crazy mile
interval type stuffs and thehard kill somebody just to kill
somebody, like it's just junkmileage.
You know, back to the thingit's just getting kids hot and

(49:33):
sweaty but no physiologicalbenefit.

Speaker 1 (49:35):
Yep, I've got a lot of regrets too, dave, it's okay,
okay cool.

Speaker 2 (49:39):
Thank you, man.
This is super helpful.
I think people will get a lotout of it and, yeah, I can't
wait to name this episode whyrunning's bad for gymnasts.
It's going to be great.

Speaker 1 (49:50):
A little quick bait questions.
You want to shoot me an emailbecause you want to talk further
about this?
Yeah, um, I I am very similarto dave.
I love talking about this stuff.
I got yelled at by my wifeabout this all the time for
being too much into this, but Ican't help it.

Speaker 2 (50:03):
She's trying to make dinner and you're having energy
system conversations no, I makethe dinner got it.

Speaker 1 (50:09):
um, yeah, do I at champpt, right, yeah,
d-i-w-e-s-h-p-o-u-d-y-a-l atchamppt If anyone wants to reach
out and talk further.

Speaker 2 (50:21):
That's it.
And if you're a high school orcollege gymnast who lives in New
England and you want to comejoin the 5,000 gymnasts this
summer, reach out to Catherine.

Speaker 1 (50:28):
It's going to be fun, it's going.