Aerobic Conditioning: Foundational Work for the Police Officer and Combat Arms Soldier
Understanding how aerobic conditioning supports your goals and how it could save your life.
Excerpt from the Future Book: Answering the Call: Proper Physical Training for Police and Military in the 21st Century
The Energy Systems
This will not be a reference book. Crack open an exercise physiology text or read Joel Jamieson’s book The Ultimate Guide to MMA Conditioning if you want a deep dive into each of the energy systems. I won’t do that, but to make sense of the rest of this book, I’ll briefly talk about them in their application with regards to training them.
Alactic System
This is your most powerful system. The time varies but this system lasts around 10-20 seconds depending on how trained or gifted one is. Runs off ATP-PC. Think max effort lifts, throws, sprints, etc.
Anaerobic System
Sometimes referred to as the “Lactic Acid System,” this lasts around 30-90 Seconds and like the title says it runs without oxygen. This is your typical zone most people spend their time training. Uses glucose to create the ATP-PC from above for fuel. A byproduct of this process is lactate, which is often used as an indicator as to when we are at our threshold, or going from primarily aerobic to anaerobic energy systems.
Aerobic System
Uses Oxygen. This is the longest running and most flexible energy system of the body. Typically this is seen as just the long distance runner or cyclist zone. The reality is this energy system is probably the most trainable. Not as powerful in comparison to the others, but foundational. The longer you go the more it relies on fat for energy but still uses carbohydrates for fuel.
The descriptions above are extreme simplifications. There is Anaerobic Glycolysis and Aerobic Glycolysis- both using different pathways but still use carbohydrate as fuel to create ATP. There is a mountain of research on these topics and to make things more complicated they all “turn on” together and have some interplay during activity. The important thing to understand from above is the pathways are different for each and as one continues activity different systems will be more dominant.
Main takeaways: If one has a robust aerobic system the faster you will recover between bouts of using the other two energy systems. Really think hard on that…especially for the military selection hopefuls. Or the police officer who chases a suspect, loses him briefly and stops, and then takes off again. Do you think if you spend more time working the aerobic system in various ways you might just be better set up to recover faster? Or a critical incident that might last hours for a police officer could be less stressful on the body?
What typically happens is you train one system heavily at the expense of the other and impair your overall conditioning. I did this. I “tabata-ed” (I just made that up) myself stupid on more than one occasion without putting the time in to develop an aerobic base. It’s a balance. Unless you are an elite 200m sprinter right outside the Olympics; then there is no balance. With military and police it is an entirely different world outside of athletics and especially elite athletics. Regardless of goals the importance of having a large aerobic base/work capacity is paramount before getting to the heavy anaerobic glycolitic conditioning. Especially in the tactical world. Yet many spend all their time there. Especially cops.
As stated above, the aerobic system is foundational because it also serves as the recovery mechanism of the other two energy systems. As a simple illustration think about doing an all out 800m run on a track. The event will heavily rely on the alactic system at first and then transition into more reliance on the Anaerobic Glycolytic system. This is where you may feel the “burning” sensation. Then as the power drops off, we transition more to our aerobic system to finish off the event.
Now as you stand at the finish line, bent over and gasping for air trying to recover...what energy system is still working? If you said Aerobic system to yourself, great! Wear a heart rate monitor and you’ll see. It’ll look like you’re jogging even though you are standing still, this of course depending on what kind of shape you’re in. However, if you did your due diligence and spent some time building your foundational aerobic system your recovery will be much shorter, and more importantly you’ll be able to go again faster. This ability to recover becomes even more important as we repeat efforts. Please, before everyone smarter than me goes off about this…this is an illustration. I know if this was Michael Johnson, Usain Bolt, or even a well trained “normal” person this might be different but just work with me here.
What does this mean for the military or police officer? Spend time working on the aerobic system, both in the higher end threshold zones and the lower end base work. We will get to this later, but this doesn’t necessarily mean hours of pounding pavement everyday nor does it mean wearing spandex shorts and wrap around sunglasses (unless you want to), but it does mean there is a time and a place for aerobic training just like there is a time and a place for max effort singles or triples as compared to sets of 10.
Another misconception for Aerobic training is that it is all just low intensity work. There is certainly merit spending a considerable amount of time in these zones depending on your level of conditioning or the purpose of the training day. After that period of training, once we get past those initial foundational training blocks, we will incorporate higher intensity methods that still train the aerobic system that I think will surprise some.
Just take the time to build your aerobic and strength base. Simplified it can be said you are working on your “medium” efforts so later they become your “easy” efforts. Sound familiar to people familiar with Dan John’s work? Then after that (and that’s if you need to, many people hit the standards they need training mostly in this zone), smash yourself a bit with some specific training in that “Lactic” zone to build a little grit and push yourself a bit farther to see where you are at. I don’t think this is beyond common sense. Let me beat this dead horse one more time: You wouldn’t walk into a weight room and hit a max single without training a bit first right? Well...actually many have done that. Let’s not do that. let's take the time to build the engine first, then later put the fancy exhaust system on with the new tires.
Heart Rate Ranges
In practical application how do we typically know what we are working on when we are in a conditioning session? I strongly suggest investing in a heart rate monitor. They aren’t expensive and they tend to keep you honest in your training. The talk test is also pretty decent, as well as just breathing exclusively through your nose through activity to stay in certain zones. Below is a GUIDE, as heart rate zones and what is happening in the body should be viewed as a range. Dependent on the individuals fitness, age, training age, etc various intensities could be various things. I would certainly work in the lower end of these zone for a while if you haven’t trained like this before, or if when you get up in the morning your resting heart rate is 60 bpm or higher.
Are all these numbers perfect? No. If you are a marathon runner do you think your anaerobic threshold is anywhere near 160 bpm? Probably not. However, combining your heart rate, with the talk test, and how you feel you get a pretty good gauge without going to a lab. What is fascinating, and as you will see in the programming section, is we can achieve these different zones in various ways. Low impact unloaded hiking can put us in the “cardiac output” or “Zone 2 or 3.” Strength training could do this if we kept our pace up just a bit in the weight room. We could load ourselves with a ruck on that same hike and walk uphill and get in the high end aerobic zone while also challenging strength and stability in the midsection and legs. You could certainly dip into Anaerobic threshold if you push your pace. A decent start to know you are in your aerobic zone is starting with the Maffetone method. 180-Age is an OK place to hover around for your aerobic work. A healthy 30 year old would fall right at the high end of the first zone in the chart. As you get older it comes down a bit.
I would like to reiterate; various activities can put us in these different zones that can result in different local and peripheral adaptations. Some in the heart and some in our muscles and joints. Just like I said earlier; total time, work intervals, length of intervals, loaded or unloaded movements, and many more variables will result in different outcomes.
What’s Next?
As an example to show how aerobic conditioning isn’t just running or biking, in the next article I will go over a lesser known and more unique method for training the aerobic system. The method was first popularized by Joel Jamieson. High Intensity Continuous Training (HICT) is the perfect example to show police officers, military, or really anyone; that just because you are trying to improve your aerobic conditioning it doesn’t mean you have to join a zumba class or get a Peloton bike. HICT will build work capacity and allow you generate power for longer periods of time. I will give an example of a variation of this method that I have used with clients to help them drop anywhere from 20-30lbs. I will also describe the method I used when preparing for military selections and schools and what I wish I did when I was still a cop.
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