Tempo and the Beast
by Carl Valle USATF II, C.S.C.S.
For Elitefts.com


The balance between low intensity work and high intensity loading can greatly improve performance and recovery. I would define tempo training (not repetition speed) as any low intensity work that stimulates the slow twitch fiber and elevates the fitness of an athlete. 

Low intensity work is very hard to classify due to the fact that athletes with high strength levels can shift the concept of low intensity exercise from cardiovascular conditioning to general strength exercises. For example , an elite thrower in track and field with a 600 pound squat would find hypertrophy/accessory lifts to be recovery training due to the light loads in comparison to maximal strength work. An endurance athlete or individual with low strength levels would find any weight training to be high intensity training. Remember stress is in the eye of the beholder, it's all relative to the athlete's current strength levels and particular sport. 

The River of Life

How does tempo training or low intensity work improve performance? This question is always asked by many, and the answer is indirect cardiac adaptations such as increased blood flow for recovery, and gradual fitness improvements for training. The concept of increased cardiovascular fitness is nothing new in sports conditioning, but what happens at the cellular level is not well understood or appreciated. Listed here are some of the many adaptations.

The blood acts as the body's transporter for nutrients. Such nutrients are oxygen, glucose (ATP), hormones, and various building materials for muscle, bone, and connective tissue. While the blood's transport characteristics are fairly known, the interaction of the immune system to clean out cellular debris within the muscle is yet to be fully evaluated. Besides the debris of the muscle fibers, waste products from workouts can be transported away from the affected area with constant alternating of low and high intensity work.

Blood flow also acts as a transporter of heat. Increased capillary density of the type I fibers is a chronic adaptation to tempo training. An extended branch out of capillaries can allow blood flow to maintain the elevated body temperature longer during lifting and other intense training. This is important because many athletes doing intense CNS work have long rest periods. Such improvements in capillary density can be obtained through weight training by using body building methods, not just straight cardiovascular training. Moderate to low load weight training with short rest periods can create elevated lactate levels up to 20 M/mol. This lactate cascade can trigger the adaptations expressed earlier, and the cosmetic changes are nice reward. New and exciting research (Kramer 2003) clearly shows that brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), a neuron fertilizer is released with aerobic exercise. The BDNF nutrient can help release glutamate and help repair both gray and white matter in the brain. While a clear pathway of how the nervous system is regenerated is yet to be known, the research and training history of elite speed/power athletes in track and field is well documented. While tendons are stimulated to increase strength and thickness from high intensity work, the repair actually happens after the stress has ceased and is enhanced by added blood flow. Low intensity training increases tendon metabolism, not adaptations. Research from the late 50s (Lagergren and Lindholm) examined tendons and found that they were weaker in the areas of less blood flow. Lastly cardiovascular work is important to the general health of strength and speed athletes. Both improvements in cholesterol profiles and blood glucose levels will prevent many life style diseases such as type II diabetes and heart disease. From a short term perspective the improvements of lowering your resting glucose levels will aid directly into performance by making high sugar glucose drinks more effective.

Quantify your Training 

Tempo work is any low intensity work below approximately 75% of your best performance. This is a rough estimate since my scales are used for sprinters who are running for 10-45 seconds, not lifting a max load one time in competition. Whatever your sport demands look at what your best performance is from both intensity and type. A powerlifter has far more tolerance for lifting, so accessory lifts and heavy sled dragging will be fine for those athletes.... but could cause problems to endurance athletes who have tolerance to only aerobic stress. A general rule of thumb for the work is to create enough stress to improve work capacity, but not to impede the progress of the main training goals such as strength and speed. One of the difficult problems is calculating what 60-75% is with so many choices of conditioning modalities from sled dragging to accessory lifts. Add to this equation the development level of the athlete and the training period, a simple percentage chart can wind up looking like a NASA rocket fuel formula. Here are some basic guidelines that can keep you in the right zone:
(1) The total time can't last more then 60 minutes unless large breaks are used.
(2) Low intensity sport specific work such as running and swimming must stay below 75%.
(3) Low intensity resistance work must stay 10-15% lower then the cardiovascular work.
(4) Use rest intervals from 30-90 seconds unless the work is very low in intensity 
(5) The volume must not be more then 2-4 times the reps or distance of the CNS work. This is a very rough guideline any many activities can be of this range for special reasons.

Tempo Types for Big Men

Large frames have special needs and careful design considerations due to their weight. Here are some of the many available training modalities to improve recovery and fitness.

Traditional Cardiovascular Training- While I wouldn't have a NFL lineman or Olympic thrower go out for a one-hour jog on the pavement, I would suggest they do a few sessions on a rowing machine. First, the nature of rowing targets the pulling muscles of the back, providing athletes with ways to balance pushing dominant programs, such as most NCAA football workouts, by doing antagonistic exercise. Adding back training can balance out the posture to help prevent shoulder impingement syndrome. If you have access to a pool, a game of water basketball with training partners is a real option. I just don't see a large powerlifter going into a posh health club and using an aqua jogger belt to do intervals. Water unloads the joints and the hydrostatic pressure aids in circulating lymph flow. The lymphatic system is part of the recovery formula and nine times out of ten is forgotten in regeneration plans.

Tubing exercises- Using tubing exercises provides athletes with various angles to use that gravity dependent barbells and dumbbells can not in most cases. From an empirical standpoint, band work doesn't have the delayed onset muscle soreness (D.O.M.S.) that free weights have. My guess why this phenomenon occurs is because elastic work has specific common constants, such as the speed of the reps and lighter loads, all qualities that are not associated with D.O.M.S.

Body Weight Exercises- Various general strength exercises such as push-ups and leg exercises are excellent methods that can add work capacity and injury prevention to joints and stabilizer muscles. Body weight exercises have the amazing ability to create "connective strength" between joints and muscle groups by coordinating firing patterns across multiple planes. Coordination training without all of the unrealistic balance work alerts the body to fresh challenges and can be integrated into your training without adding more exercises. 

Medicine Ball Training- The intensity of medicine balls can range from cardiovascular conditioning to very demanding central nervous system work, so careful attention should be placed on load of the equipment, timing and placement of the exercises, and of course the volume. Some medicine ball exercises, such as throws, have a concentric only parameters option to unload the body that provide a way to distribute the workload over multiple joints and muscle groups. 

Fiber Fears

One common fear of strength and power athletes is low intensity training converting their precious fast twitch fiber into slow twitch fiber, robbing them of their strength and size. This can be further from the truth. In fact, it aids in preserving the fiber's explosive characteristics by preparing the slow twitch fiber to be fit enough to take much of the conditioning burden of the training (Francis 2002). During a seminar in San Francisco I attended years ago, Dr. Fleck examined how prolonged aerobic runs lowered the vertical jump performance of national level throwers. Before you throw away your sleds and running sneakers, remember this was miles of continuous runs, not the methods proposed by elite fitness or other high level coaches. I was pondering why a few miles of running a few times a week would cause a drop in performance, then it all made sense to me watching the men's shotput at the 2001 world championships. After watching Harju Arsi's facial expression in response to the invitation to do a quarter mile victory lap run with the Americans, (the US went one two but invited the Finish bronze medallist to join them in celebration) it was clear to me about what training combinations were compatible or not . Imagine miles of running for such large athletes? The stress of doing this would be too high given his frame size and sport demands.

Low intensity work must be calculated in both volume and perceived exertion levels in order to compliment your high intensity work or it will cause interference. Several studies on endurance training and weight training have proved that they are not compatible if the endurance is too intense. When the work is greater then what the slow twitch fiber can handle, the fast twitch then takes over to help complete the demands. Since the body adapts to the stress it is given, the Type IIB fiber then converts to the slower intermediate fiber. All of this can be avoided if only the slow twitch fiber is stimulated. In a great study with realistic training protocols McCarthy et all (1995) demonstrated that both low intensity work with weight training could be combined if the work was below the threshold of 70% of VO2 max. 
In summary, some slight modifications to a training program can reap nice benefits to your training without unrealistic sacrifices.

Carl Valle
Carl@Regenerationlab.com