So during one of my video logs the question was posted to me by one of my youtube followers where he said this.

Eric i trust you not because of your words,but because you showed us ur trainings and stuff.btw could you tell us something more about circuit training,i like running and strenght training but i have no idea how to make them work together,keep it going

I know this is a pretty common thing for everybody to want to have the total fitness package and unfortunately lots of people want to make a dollar by combining things that shouldn’t be combined such as those people doing kettlebell swings on top of a bosu ball and that sort of thing. Circuit training was one thing that promised to develop these attributes all at once and to some extent it does but at the same time it slows the progress of each attribute. But hell before I talk about that lets take a look at what the attributes are for a second.

Health is a state of complete mental, physical and social well being where as fitness is the ability to meet the demands of a physical task.

Basic fitness can be classified in four main components: strength, speed, stamina and flexibility. However, exercise scientists have identified nine components that comprise the definition of fitness: [Reference: Bill Tancred, "Key Methods of Sports Conditioning", Athletics Coach Vol 29 No 2 p19]

Strength – the extent to which muscles can exert force by contracting against resistance (e.g. holding or restraining an object or person)
Power – the ability to exert maximum muscular contraction instantly in an explosive burst of movements. The two components of power are strength and speed. (e.g. jumping or a sprint start)
Agility – the ability to perform a series of explosive power movements in rapid succession in opposing directions (e.g. ZigZag running or cutting movements)
Balance – the ability to control the body’s position, either stationary (e.g. a handstand) or while moving (e.g. a gymnastics stunt)
Flexibility – the ability to achieve an extended range of motion without being impeded by excess tissue, i.e. fat or muscle (e.g. executing a leg split)
Local Muscle Endurance – a single muscle’s ability to perform sustained work (e.g. rowing or cycling)
Cardiovascular Endurance – the heart’s ability to deliver blood to working muscles and their ability to use it (e.g. running long distances)
Strength Endurance – a muscle’s ability to perform a maximum contraction time after time (e.g. continuous explosive rebounding through an entire basketball game)
Co-ordination- the ability to integrate the above listed components so that effective movements are achieved.

Now the whole crossfit movement took these attributes to heart and based a business around it, in that they wish to develop each one of them equally and hence start mixing up some of these exercises in a fashion that doesn’t really make sense to me.

If you come to us with a 4-minute mile, six months into it you are going to be 30 seconds slower but a whole hell of a lot fitter. Similarly, if you come to us with a 900-pound squat, in six months it’s going to be 750 pounds, but you, too, will be much fitter. A 4-minute mile and a 900-pound squat are both clear and compelling evidence of a lack of balance in your program. This doesn’t reflect the limitations of our program but the inherent nature of flesh and blood.

But here’s the fascinating part. We can take you from a 200 pound max deadlift to a 500-750 pound max deadlift in two years while only pulling max singles four or five times a year. We will though work the deadlift, like most lifts, approximately once per week at higher reps and under grueling conditions. It may intuit well that if you can pull a 250 pound deadlift 21 times coming to the lift at a heart rate of 180 beats per minute, then 500 pounds for a single at a resting heart rate is perhaps manageable.

Ok so where are all the 500-750lb deadlifters?

You see when you try to juggle too many balls at once you are very likely to drop one of them. Everything your body does competes with everything else it does for efficiency which is why it is a mistake to try to do too many things at once…especially within your training session. Well you can combine elements of them in a training session but not to the max extent.

So if combining them all at once takes away from them then how do you become the complete package? Well by mixing and matching in a way that works.

Let’s take a look at it from a yin and yang perspective. Different components take away from other components so you have to find a way to stop that. According to Dave Tate strength doesn’t take away from any other component except maybe flexibility…and that is only if you do all or none. That’s why I love the fact that strength takes priority in the RKC system. Endurance takes away from strength and there are varying degrees of this. The book Supertraining has a multifactorial fitness profile which is more specific and lists 26 different attributes that are varying degrees of each other (for example enduring strength rather then strength or endurance).

So then what works without taking away from others?

From my observations the best way to do it is to have exercises that include multiple attributes but at a manageable level. For example the kettlebell snatch is one of my favorite things to do for “cardio”. Now here is an exercise that involves an explosive contraction of the hip and a static contraction to stabilize your body as it ascends up. The same is true for the other ballistic kettlebell movements. Knowing this, the snatch like an Olympic lift requires some level of strength to even begin the movement. A beginner might have trouble snatching a 16kg for a few reps. I’ve put in 640 reps within a training session before but hey I had to develop the strength to be able to do it first. With the snatch being ballistic you have to blast it up there which requires speed and power and since you work your way up you develop endurance with continued speed and it’s also been known to be an incredible cardiovascular workout. This is why my cardiovascular conditioning as well as other things are being done with the Viking Warrior Conditioning program. It develops multiple attributes but with a focus on your cardiovascular capacity.

The swing is much the same as the snatch in that it develops multiple attributes at once. Strength, conditioning, incidental flexibility and a repeated cycle of tension and relaxation that develops agility. Thrown in some hand to hand drills and juggling and it gives you hand eye coordination withing multiple planes of movement.

Now another component of strength is the static and slow kind. The kind that is used to control and to push through so that your muscles don’t chicken out during a repetition. Examples of this would be turkish getups, deadlifts, bent presses, military presses and that sort of thing. This should be done WHILE FRESH. Yeah your heart will be somewhat elevated but not racing at 180 beats per minute. That’s when your form can be compromised by becoming sloppy. When your technique is on target you can begin experimenting but only when you’ve put in your thousand or so reps.

Also for all around fitness you should pick exercises that have a high carryover to other exercises. Even with the specific adaptations principal you still get some carryover. After all if there was no carry over then there would be no use for a strength and conditioning program. All you would have to do would be to play the sport. A study in Russia tested 2 groups of people with a military oriented fitness test. One group did running, calisthenics, pullups, pushups and that sort. The other group just trained with kettlebells. The kettlebell group scored higher in every single test (which is why I am using kettlebells to prepare for tough mudder). And also if you think that you are missing out on the adaptations that come from the other movements…just include them on a light level (enough to help develop or maintain other movements but not enough to take away from others) in your warm up. Remember, you can include multiple components…just not at a level that would take from the others.

Eric Moss RKC