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Tag: metabolic workouts

  • Metabolic Workout Syndrome: The Cancer of Modern Fitness

    Metabolic Workout Syndrome: The Cancer of Modern Fitness

    “Don’t strain yourself Rick. You don’t want to hurt yourself.”

    Pic from my wedding. Figured I might as well use it - I paid enough for the damn thing!
    Pic of me and Mom from my wedding. Figured I might as well use it here – I paid enough for the damn thing!

    Words oft spoke to me by my Mom when she used to come down to check on me in the basement after hearing grunts and groans while straining under a heavy lift.

    Heavy being relative – back in my early lifting days a 155 pound Bench Press was massive…

    I’d reply, with slight annoyance, “Don’t worry, I’m fine. This is what working out is all about.”

    With a mildly concerned look on her face, she’d return upstairs while I finished my workout.

    Despite her lack of a fancy personal training certification or accreditation, my Mom would probably be able to help a lot of fighters out with her over-protective and conservative attitude towards training.

    You see, in this day and age, science is taking a back seat to marketing and hype.

    “Metabolic <cough, vomit, cough> workouts” dominate the landscape and are promoted as the cure-all for your strength, power, fat loss, muscle building and uninspiring erectile performance needs.

    If there were a manual for being a Metabolic Workout CoachTM, it would read like this:

    1. Pick 4-20 exercises (on the spot at random is fine).
    2. Perform each exercise until form breaks down, then continue with the same exercise for another 30 seconds before moving on.
    3. Keep rest between (death) circuits as short as possible by yell at your (torture) subject to start again.
    4. Repeat for the duration that you are paid for then say to your subject, “Great workout eh? I bet you’ll feel it tomorrow!”

    Just because you read on a website about a (shitty) study talking about something called EPOC and how it helps you burn calories for 432 days after you finish your workout, allowing you to feel good as you sit on the couch chewing on Funyuns, doesn’t mean it’s true, no matter how badly you want to believe it.

    Now I’m not saying that these types of workouts are all bad.

    But the way they’re designed mostly sucks.

    There’s often little to no thought behind them, or the thinking is on a very elementary level ie. what exercise order will be most painful.

    And for fighters, if all you’re doing are “metabolic  workouts” to improve your conditioning, you’re impeding the progression of both your fitness and technical fighting skills.

    We come from a world of “no pain, no gain” and because these types of workouts suck ass, we figure they’re good.

    Well sometimes they are.

    The way that most “metabolic workouts” are performed are heavily draining on both the nervous system and local metabolic pathways.

    This in turn, limits your ability to drill and learn your MMA skills.

    Your body can’t learn new skills, whether that skill is strength, power or a new combo, when it’s spending its energy on recovery.

    And done to excess and without proper recovery can result in a new disease that I’m calling Metabolic Workout Syndrome.

    Here are some of the symptoms of MWS:

    • Injuries, especially those ending in ‘itis’
    • Trouble falling asleep
    • Trouble waking up
    • Muscles that are constantly sore
    • Low motivation/drive to train
    • Irritability
    • Strength loss
    • Muscle loss
    • Difficulty learning new skills and frustrated coaches
    • Feeling of working hard but going nowhere

    I’m sure there are more.

    But when your nervous system is drained and your muscles are overtrained and not recovered, you’ll experience at least a few of the above.

    So what’s the cure?

    TAKE YOUR DAMN REST!

    Rest periods are becoming the bastard child of the training variables.

    We’re manipulating exercise order, reps and sets, but we’ve totally thrown poor rest out the window.

    I’m not going to give you any specific recommendations in this article.

    I’ve created both free and premium programs that address this by outlining just how much “metabolic” training you should do.

    I also scientifically describe my workouts instead of using the catch-all term metabolic.

    My goal with this article was simply as a reminder to those who have already followed my teachings, and to open the eyes of those new to my world to the dangers of MWS.

    We’ve got to fight this “more is better” mentality.

    Instead, let’s adopt the mindset of “less is more”.

    The less you can do to get your desired result, the better.