While many people still slave away on ellipticals and stair steppers for hours every week boring themselves half to death and making no progress/even regressing progress (getting through a book doesn't count as progress, sorry:) , many other people are doing "cardio" that is actually fun, effective and helps with fat loss and performance with more results in a quarter of the time.  The following are some of my favorite tools for conditioning and energy system development.

Sled Dragging
Sled dragging is one of the most versatile and effective tools that you can use. You can drag for time, for strength, do intense intervals, speed, agility; you can go forwards, backwards, crossover, side to side, upper body, lower body and you name it, the sled can do it.  Not only are you getting the cardiovascular benefit, but you are also building strength in your legs and can focus on developing proper locomotive patterns.  I loooove forward sled dragging for runners w/ knee pain who need to develop better locomotive patterns.  With the sled, I can strengthen weak muscles in their hips, develop appropriate movement and keep impact stress off of their joints at the same time.  Oh yea, I can build up whatever energy system they need to work on at the same time. Score! My favorite standard dragging modalities are the following. For fat loss, doing 3-6 rounds with moderate weight at the end of a workout with about 45-60 seconds rest between rounds.  The rounds usually last about 30-40 seconds. For aerobic training/extra workouts on days off from lifting, some clients will drag a light weight for time anywhere from 20 to 45 minutes.  This is just the tip of the iceberg of what can be done with a sled.

The Prowler
The prowler is feared by even the bravest souls on either side of the world.  Ok so thats pushing it but the prowler is one heck of a conditioning tool.  It dishes out easily one of the hardest workouts that you will experience.  It is especially effective with intense anaerobic intervals.  Its great to build leg strength as well.  This piece of equipment will work wonders for fat loss and performance.  I generally use this for intense anaerobic intervals at the end of a workout or heavier at the beginning of a workout.  For intervals, we will load it up with a moderate weight and push it hard and fast.  Anywhere from 3-5 rounds are used with anywhere from 1-3 minutes rest between depending on how hard someone is going.  Heres a video of a couple of my baseball guys (state champs, 2 leading hitters on the season, and winning state champ pitcher)  and a couple of my fat loss guys going at it back to back.  What a great training experience to get in a killer workout like this with others who are serious about their training!!

Kettlebell Swings
While the kettlebell has a great many uses, for the average person, swings are going to be the easiest and most effective conditioning exercise for them to do.  This is a great exercise to develop proper hip movement, annihilate the glutes (and the rest of the body at that), and develop power endurance.  It will give you an amazing cardiovascular workout and can be used in a variety of ways (for time, intervals, reps, etc.).  The swing is an exercise that is often  performed wrong by trainees and even by many trainers.  To perform it properly, you need to hinge through the hips rather than squat or dip forward through the knees.   Some different ways to use swings follow:  30-60 sec rounds w/ 45-90sec rest between rounds;  Rounds of 15-20 swings with 45-60 sec rest between;  Swing for time such as 5-10 minutes straight w/ a moderate weight;  10 swings on the minute for a specified number of minutes.  Again, the tip of the iceberg.

Battle Ropes
Battle ropes are an AMAZING conditioning tool.  They will get you in shape, plain and simple.  They work your entire body as a whole and can be used in a variety of ways.  I like doing them for 20 to 30 second intervals going hard or going lighter for time.  Rest is going to depend on the person and the fitness level you are dealing with.  With the ropes, you can go double arm straight up and down, side to side, alternating arms, add in squats, side to side movement and the list goes on; great great tool. 

Circuits
I love using all different circuits to either finish workouts with or to do as extra workouts.  There are an unlimited number of exercises that can be used to make a killer circuit.  Here are a couple of examples.
Quick Steps, Med Ball Slams, Farmers carries
10 per leg,   10-20 slams,     semi heavy weight for 1-2 trips
3-5 rounds as a finisher or 15-20 minutes straight on an off day

Bodyweight Squats, Kettlebell Swings, Cable or Sled Drags
20 reps fast,           20 swings,              30-40 seconds
Rest as long as needed then repeat

Tabata Front Squats or Kettlebell Swings
With the tabata protocol, you pick a compound movement and perform as many reps as possible in 20 seconds, rest for 10, and repeat for 4 minutes or 8 rounds.  Dan John talks about how he loves front squats for these in his book and I agree 100%.  I also love kettlebell swings for these.  Many people abuse the true tabata protocol.  The exercise and rest intervals need to be exact and the trainee has to be pushing as hard as they can.  When done correctly, this will take the body past limits.  It is brutally hard but will do more for fat loss in 4 minutes than many traditional "cardio" practices will do in 40 minutes. 

Airdyne Intervals
Hop up on an airdyne bike and get to work.  These get your whole body moving and you control how hard you go.  I generally will use rounds of 20-60 seconds with 60sec-2min rest depending on the goal at hand and the person doing them.  Amazing fat loss and performance tool!

Regular Sprints
If your body is functioning properly and is healthy, straight up sprints are great for body comp and performance.  Great workout for anyone in shape to do them.   If you have any issues with imbalances, pain, being overweight, etc. you should not be doing running of any kind.

As you can see, the possibilities really are endless when it comes to energy systems training and conditioning.  I could go on much longer but these are some of my favorite forms of conditioning that I often use with clients of all varieties from athletes to fat loss.  Specific modalities will always vary based on the goal or task at hand and the individual doing them.  "Cardio" doesn't have to be boring, dragging, muscle wasting, repetitive and ineffective after 2 weeks (i.e., elliptical, treadmill, stair stepper, etc.)  With all of these amazing tools at our exposal, it can be functional, fun, build muscle, promote more fat loss and build lean, mean bodies for everyone from high level athletes to fat loss clients who want to get in awesome shape.  Give some of these a shot if you haven't already!

Relative flexibility is a very important phenomenon that most people do not even begin to understand.  Shirley Sahrmann details this concept beautifully.  In her book "Diagnosis and Treatment of Movement Impairment Syndromes," she sums up the concept like this: "Because of the intersegmental variations in the springlike behavior of muscles, a reasonable hypothesis is that increased stiffness of one muscle group can cause compensatory movement at an adjoining joint that is controlled by muscles or joints with less stiffness."  Basically what this  means is that a particular muscle may not actually truly be stiff; it is just stiffer than a neighboring muscle or muscles. Here's a couple of good examples that I see all of the time and that Sahrmann discusses.

Lats are stiffer than the lumbar spine
I see this all of the time when I take new clients through assessments.  Someone flexes their shoulder (raises their arm overhead) and their low back extends (most likely hyperextends) rather than their shoulder reaching through to its end range. Since their lumbar spine is more flexible than their lat, this compensation occurs.  Chances are, if we can get their trunk muscles to stabilize their lumbar spine and get the stiffness in the low back up to par with the stiffness in the lats, the range of motion in shoulder flexion will improve.  It could also be a situation where you may need to decrease some of the stiffness in the lats AND increase the stiffness in the lumbar spine.  This is a great example of why assessments are so important.

Rectus Femoris is stiffer than the abdominals and supporting structures of the lumbar spine
In this situation, the rectus femoris (big quad muscle that crosses the hip and knee) is stiffer than the supporting trunk muscles.  When the knee is flexed, there will be excessive anterior tilt of the pelvis and the low back will extend.  At the same time, the knee will not flex to its ideal range.  In this situation, if we increase the ability of the trunk muscles to stabilize and stiffen, we might get better range of motion in knee flexion and less pelvic tilt and lumbar extension. In another light, it could be a situation that rectus is so stiff, that the body has to compensate by extending the low back and tilting the pelvis when the knee is flexed.  There are various implications that could be present and Sahrmann gets into great detail on them all.  But hopefully, this gives you a decent idea of what I am talking about.  In my experience, it is most often a combination of stiffness in the talked about muscle and lack of stiffness/weakness in the supporting muscles.  Both would be addressed to make the situation better.  Again, everyone has specific things going on so not every condition will be taken care of in the same way. 

A good real time example would be with the squat.  Someone with an overly stiff rectus femoris in comparison to their low back will generally stand with their pelvis tilted forward and their low back extended past neutral.  With this stiffness imbalance, there will be compensations within their squat pattern.  As they descend into a squat, they will get to a certain depth and when their hips run out of room to move, they will move where their relative flexibility allows them to, which in this case is their low back.  With someone like this, in most cases, the rectus will need some lengthening and their abdominals (usually the external obliques) will need some strengthening.  The glutes and hamstrings usually will need some work as well.  When you increase the ability of the muscles that posteriorly tilt the pelvis (abdominals, glutes, hamstrings, etc.) and improve the length in the muscles that anteriorly tilt the pelvis (in this case rectus femoris), the relative flexibility will be better and the squat will be a lot prettier with a stable trunk and mobile, nice moving hips. 

As I said earlier, it could be a condition where all you need to do is stretch rectus and your fine.  Could also be a condition where all you need to do is stiffen up the lumbar spine and your good.  From my experience, it is often some form of combination.  Whichever way it is, taking care of problems with relative flexibility can relieve a multitude of back, knee and shoulder pain and problems.

Hamstrings stiffer than the low back
Here is one more good example.  If you lay on your back and raise your leg straight up, how high can you go without your low back flattening into the ground?  If your hamstring is stiffer than your low back, your back will try to compensate by flattening in order to gain more movement.  A little trick to get your leg higher is to brace your abdominals as if someone is going to punch you in your stomach.  The added stability for your lumbar spine will allow your leg to raise farther without loss of a neutral spine.  This example is tricky though because if it is truly hip flexor muscles that are stiff, the pelvis may be anteriorly tilted to start; thus, giving the illusion of the hamstrings being the issue when in reality it is the hip flexors that are the issue.  See my past write up on misconceptions about hamstring stiffness to read more on this.  Either way, bracing the abdominals will help your cause with the leg raise. Being sure that the pelvis is in a neutral position to start can clear things up.

Notice how all of these examples feature an issue with the lumbar spine being unstable and too mobile?  Stability and the ability to stiffen when needed needs to be developed around the abdominal wall and lumbar spine.  The inability to do this is one of the biggest and most repeated causes of back issues, knee issues and performance detriments that you will find.  Yet, tons of people continue to promote more movement here with blind stretches and exercises.  I've touched on this multiple times as have some of the best strength coaches, therapists and specialists in the world.  Rationalize what you do.  If you really do need more movement here, than by all means you better work on it.  In my experience, this is a rare case. 

Randomly and blindly training for flexibility does many people more harm than good.  If you took the person from either of the last two example and stretched his low back and trunk muscles, his problem would become worse.  Both strength training and flexibility training need to be individualized and specific.  Relative flexibility is a great and proven concept. Contrary to conventional wisdom, sometimes stretching might not even be needed to improve flexibility at a certain joint.  Simply balancing out the relative flexibility by increasing the stiffness at a supporting or neighboring joint will take care of the movement at the area in question.  Think about how this could revolutionize what you do in the gym or in your sport.  Pretty powerful stuff!

Where do you think his flexibility/stiffness imbalance is?

Franco surely had better relative flexibility for the deadlift than the guy in the last picture

My friend and mentor, Mike Robertson, has just released a great product.  If you deal with backs and knees in any capacity, this is going to be a must have piece of learning material.  It covers functional anatomy, assessments, exercises and much more.  Mike is one of the best in the strength & conditioning and corrective exercise game and has had a ridiculous amount of influence on my training philosophies. He works wonders with clients who have suffered from knee and back issues for years on end; I've seen it first hand and have been able to effectively use the loads of knowledge I gained from him to help my clients that I work with now. This product also features some great bonus content by some of the best trainers and strength coaches in the industry, including a piece by yours truly on keeping your knees and back healthy if you train at a commercial style gym.   Be sure to check out the product  HERE!

Wanted to share this great article about female fat loss and strength training by Juliet Deane.  Juliet is pretty much an ideal fitness and strength role model for females everywhere.  Be sure to read it; just an awesome write up.  She cuts through all of the myths and fluff and lays it all out how it really is.


What Women Should Never do (but often do) While Trying to Get in Shape

Its something you'll hear everybody talk about.  "I lost this much weight!";  "I run 10 miles everyday and I lost 10 lbs!";  "I wanna lose weight!";  "I've been lifting weights and swimming across the Atlantic and I only lost 5lbs of weight!"  I'm about to say something that might blow your mind.  WEIGHT LOSS IS NOT ALWAYS A GOOD THING!  That's right, losing weight might not be a good thing.  In fact, it could be a very bad and evil thing that could make you fatter, lots fatter. 

Stop and think for a second about the true meaning of what you are saying when you talk about weight loss.  Weight can come from a vast array of things.  It can come from fat, muscle, bone, water, ligaments, clothing and the list goes on.  What most people are in search of is FAT LOSS!  There is a big difference between weight loss and fat loss.  You could lose a leg and you will lose weight.  Is that a desirable way to lose weight? No, of course not.   You can deplete your body of carbs, drink a whole bunch of water and then excrete lots of water out of your body and your weight will go down.  Is that true weight loss? No. (Although its a great way to lighten up for a weigh in) 

One of the worst ways to lose weight is by losing muscle.  You can lose muscle and your weight will go down; however, with less muscle, your fat will go up since you now have less muscle to keep the fat off.  Have you ever known someone who constantly brags about all of the miles and hours they run and bike and do the elliptical and blah blah blah and they lost this much weight but now theyre up this much and so on and so forth?  I know I have and let me tell ya; it drives me NUTS!  Now don't get me wrong, I give all the props in the world to these people for trying to be healthy and active, etc.  Nevertheless, there is one HUGE problem with all of this aerobic endurance activity (and lack of any muscle and bone building activity).  It wastes away important muscle tissue!! Chronic endurance people usually do no strength training or other forms of cardiovascular activity.  They lose weight and might even appear to be "skinny" and healthy; however, the weight that they are losing is muscle and it does nobody any good to be what I call "skinny fat" with weak, fragile, non functional bodily structures. 

This goes for those just starting out on their weight loss journeys as well.  We've all seen it.  Suzy decides that she is finally going to get up off the couch, stop watching All My Children reruns and lose some darn weight!!  What does she do?  She goes and hops on the elliptical or treadmill (or God forbid tries to jog when she is one hundred pounds more than her joints can handle) and goes at it for 30 to 40 minutes, maybe even an hour, for four or five days a week.  This continues for a couple of weeks and she loses about 5 lbs.  She then stalls and probably gains some more weight and then she gives up. 

So what happened with Suzy?  She more than likely lost some water weight and maybe even a small amount of fat (if you go from doing nothing to doing something, you're going to lose something).  After a couple of weeks, her body adapted so the "weight loss" stopped.  She did absolutely nothing to build any muscle (which is absolutely essential to lose fat) and actually succeeded in wasting away muscle (aside from some slow twitch fibers being stimulated, see past articles), which in turn sets the stage for more fat GAIN.  So yea, she lost a little weight; but not much FAT and actually set the path to gain more fat than she started with.  This, obviously, is a problem and is not the goal that Suzy had in mind.  What she needs to do is strength train, do intense intervals and circuits and set the stage for optimal FAT LOSS as she builds muscle, gets stronger and releases lots of fat burning hormones.  And yes, aerobic endurance does have its place and is also important.  There are just a lot of people who do way too much of it and not enough of the other very important things to keep a healthy balance.


Stop talking about weight loss.  Start talking about fat loss.  There is a difference and it should be treated as such.  And can somebody please tell me why in the world the Body Mass Index (BMI) is still used in some places?!  What a great way to measure someone's well being!!! Lets look at someone's weight level and completely disregard muscle mass.  Its not like muscle is important or anything.  (sarcasm :))  According to the lovely BMI (which you should basically throw in the trash can of your brain), I am obese.  The funny thing is, I am usually around 7-8 % body fat; thus, I am very far from being obese.  BMI only takes the height and weight of an individual into account and is very misleading since it does not consider muscle weight.  Body fat is what needs to be focused on.  Don't let things like this fool you. 

So, in conclusion.  Start thinking more specifically and clearly when you are making your goals.  What weight do you want to lose?  I am pretty sure you wouldn't want it to be a body part or muscle.  Most likely, you are looking for fat loss.  Understand the difference and your training will take you a lot farther.