Does fitness improve weightlifting?
Coaching the way I do (partly remotely and partly in person but primarily with adults who are relatively new to the sport) I am frequently asked about managing other training outside of the main focus; improving the snatch, clean and jerk. Whether it’s a ‘Crossfitter’ wanting to maintain some metabolic conditioning or a recreational lifter just wanting to feel a bit healthier and even change body weight, it’s common to wonder how much traditional ‘fitness’ training someone can do without a negative impact on the lifts. But what about ‘the minimal amount of conditioning that can positively effect the lifts’ ?
What is fitness?
There isn’t really one definition of fitness as it’s always context specific. To boil it down to its simplest but most annoyingly vague definition - to be FIT is to be able to partake fully in your chosen activity(s) with little chance of getting injured or having to stop due to discomfort. Fitness therefore is an ever changing target based on your life choices and goals.
Can you be fit but not conditioned?
Conditioning could be described as the activity that makes you fit for a certain purpose. It too then is also context specific. In weightlifting this is quite different to running marathons. You can be fit enough to do either but likely achieving no huge success without focusing on one OR the other for periods of time. Like many things we must prioritise one type of fitness over another. By doing so, you can become conditioned to cope well with the stress of lifting heavy weights day in day out. This in essence means that you can tolerate the training required to get FITTER, to lift more weights with more intent - crucial to your success in the sport.
To use the same example, a marathon runner is fit by most peoples definition but they may not be conditioned to the specific demands of lifting weights. On the flip side a weightlifter could excel at lifting heavy things once or twice but not be fit enough to complete a set of 5 without undue fatigue and heightened risk of injury. This can be the largest gap in a lifters training where more volume is required to keep progressing. Although our aim is to be FIT ENOUGH to complete 3 maximal effort snatches and roughly ten minutes later, 3 maximal effort clean and jerks with no more than 2 minutes between the respective lifts, to get there we need to be able to perform a lot of heavy and moderately heavy training. And at its heart, that is weightlifting.
Once you know context and aims you can plan.
Energy systems in brief:
We have a small range of systems that allow us to use, convert and replace energy substrates and contract muscles etc. From the short term but rapid ATP-CP system all the way through to longer duration but slower and lower force producing aerobic system. When you learn about these in a book they appear distinct, time based and uniform in nature. But in reality they all coexist, often working alongside rather than independently of each other. In reality, getting fitter means improving your ability in ALL the energy systems so that you can both; produce large amounts of force very quickly AND recover in a decent amount of time to do it again.
What are the benefits of conditioning for weightlifting?
Conditioning work can then be explained as any training designed to make you better able to do the other training that is required. It is generally only really thought of as higher rep work, continuous or steady state work or even interval training. It is usually general in nature and adaptations are often non-specific but broad. However, you can if you so choose, condition a single muscle group creating more localised adaptations to the muscle and soft tissues.
It can lead to greater work capacity and the potential for more and harder training. It can mean form doesn’t break down as early and we can recover faster between reps, sets and even training sessions.
Conditioning can also be thought of as ‘pre-hab’ in that the better able you are to handle training demands, the lower your risk of injury during that training and competition.
The Con’s of too much Met Con
It’s well known that you can train too much. Overtraining however, is unlikely for most people and it’s more common to see lifters train a perfectly adequate amount but not place emphasis on sleep, nutrition and recovery - this is quite different from true overtraining.
Coaches sometimes worry that their well thought out training programmes will be blunted or even ruined by what is known as the ‘interference effect’. Each physical stress has a specific adaptation process in the body and they have been shown to conflict and compete for resources. This can dull the effects of both training stimuli and reduce the overall changes in the athlete. Although the science is fairly definitive, we can see many examples from sports like crossfit or Rugby where athletes get both stronger and more aerobically fit over time to know that it is still possible to improve all systems. The question is simply - is there an optimal way to do it to makes the biggest gains in each system without a negative impact?
Get fitter in weightlifting
The answer, I believe, lies in the execution. Trying to do too much of the same stuff too close together isn’t going to get the best results. On the flip-side, doing just enough in 2 different areas isn’t going to halt your progress and ruin your programme.
On both a micro and macro level we need to challenge our systems without creating so much fatigue that we can’t repeat enough work to cause adaptation.
If most of your training is geared towards using/improving the short, explosive ATP-CP system you could spend a bit of time separately working on the lower intensity aerobic system with little to no negative impact. It comes down to knowing approximately what resources you have to work with and how you can use them, not exhaust them.
People usually stall or fall down when they are trying to do too much volume in ALL areas. If you can get aerobically fitter spending a 20mins on a rower once per week, don’t do 3 sessions per week of long runs. The cost / rewards must make sense.
Try not to add more work in the same energy system if it’s ‘junk volume’. Doing more of the same is often not as effective as working harder on the current volume and it ends up detracting from recovery. A small reduction in rest period duration could be all the change your programme requires.
It’s likely that a small amount of something novel provides adequate stimulus for adaptation.
As always; identify areas for improvement AND reasons why it is worth the effort. Do as little extra work as you can to get to where you want to be and you’ll be able to maintain focus on the main aims: snatch, clean and jerk more weight.
Practical considerations
Some of the best conditioning work to improve your weightlifting is actually based on strongman training. Lifting, pushing, carrying or dragging heavy objects;
strengthens the trunk (back and abs)
works the whole body as one system similar to the key lifts
has very little eccentric work meaning we can recover faster from it (the lowering phases of a lift are largely what cause muscle damage and the associated soreness)
Other easy ways to improve your lifting specific fitness include:
doing your accessory lifts in a circuit or at least superset format
reducing your rest time between some sets (not on your biggest or most important lifts though)
using one day per week to get more steady state cardio (I say one day to limit the impact on other training as well as being able to identify any increased fatigue.)
having a clearly defined off season where you can work on different fitness qualities without worrying about the effect on max strength