Does Cardio Really Kill Your Gains
Coach Chris joins us to talk about the new training program he authored that Black Iron Training just launched called Black Iron Tactical. He dives into what the program is, what its goals are, and who it’s for. Then we shift the conversation to discussing whether cardio really does kill your gains, where that idea came from, and why concurrent training (training for endurance and strength simultaneously) won’t make you elite at either but will make you a well-rounded athlete.
TRANSCRIPT
RYAN:
This is the trick Instagram models use. They book multiple photo shoots in a single day, and then they have several weeks of content.
CHRIS:
Yeah, different outfits. It’s very important.
RYAN:
Yeah. Then they can, you know, do like a starve yourself for five days and then you’re looking really lean and photo ready.
CHRIS:
I keep a stockpile of old newspapers so that people believe me when my photos are months apart, but are really on the same day.
RYAN:
Yep. That’s exactly what you need to do. It’s illegal to lie on the Internet.
CHRIS:
Oh, yeah. My friend says he’s a lawyer. He agrees on that stuff. Yeah.
RYAN:
Yeah, I read about that on the internet. So...
[INTRO MUSIC] Welcome to BIN Radio. I’m your host, Krissy Mae Cagney.
RYAN:
By the time everybody hears this, we will have launched a new training program as part of Black Iron Training. And our good friend Chris here, he is the author of said training program. And we’re going to dive in and talk about the program. But a little bit more than just shameless self-promotion, we’re going to kind of dive into the rationale behind it and answer a few questions that we can foresee people asking. So I’m going to hand the reins over to you, CHRIS, and have you talk about Black Iron Training’s Black Iron Tactical.
CHRIS: Sure. Yeah.
ACACIA:
It is actually live fully live, RYAN.
RYAN:
Cool! Yeah, yeah. So if you’re listening to this, you can sign up for it right now! And we are calling it “Tactical”, and there’s a specific reason for that. And CHRIS, what is that reason?
CHRIS:
Sure. Well, I just want to make one correction to what you said earlier. This will be actually mostly self-promotion, shame- less self-promotion. [laughter] But other than that, I think everything pretty good. So yeah. So let’s start off with who am I? And why did I create this program? Listening back to earlier episodes I’ve been on, I realize I never really touched on my actual qualifications, which I’ve come to realize people actually care about when looking for a coach or someone creating a training program like the one we’re talking about today.
So for those of you who care, I’ll go ahead and give a brief background. So in 2012, at the ripe age of 17, I enlisted in the Army National Guard in the infantry. I spent about five years doing that before I commissioned as an officer, a logistics officer out of the University of Maryland, where I earned a degree in English literature, which is integral to writing this program.
And the following two and a half years or so, I earned a master’s degree in Exercise Science from the United States Sports Academy and picked up a few training and nutrition certifications along the way, including my CSCS, my ACE Certified Per- sonal Training cert, Precision Nutrition Level one, USAW Level Two, and then the NASM Certified Sports Nutrition Specialist Certification most recently.
So yeah, it’s a bit of background, which I thought was important for this discussion because military and exercise science fields that are both kind of huge parts of my life. So I feel like I offer a relatively valuable perspective when it comes to creating a training program targeted specifically for that population. But even if you’re not in the military population, please don’t turn the podcast off quite yet as there’s a strong possibility that you may also benefit from this training program!
So why did I think this program was necessary? In the past few years, the Army has been shifting towards a new physi-
cal fitness test that will be used to evaluate a soldier. Previously the test has been pretty simple: It’s spend 2 minutes of pushups, 2 minutes of sit ups and a two mile run. Now, if your goal is to measure local muscular endurance and just general aerobic ability, this is a fantastic test. But if you care about those things, but also things like maximal strength, the ability to generate muscular power or anaerobic capacity, you know, that test leads a little bit to be desired.
So the new test called the Army Combat Fitness Test, or ACFT, is composed of six events. So we’ve got a three rep max hex bar deadlift, a standing power throw, which is essentially just launching a 10 pound medicine ball as far as you can, a hand release push up- which is exactly what it sounds like, a sprint drag carry event- which is your anaerobic capacity test, a plank, and then a two mile run. So they kept the two mile run in there to measure aerobic capacity. So this test is, it’s it’s a much more comprehensive test of overall fitness ability, and as such, requires a bit more of a structured approach to training, you know, because you’re having to be good across several domains of fitness.
With the old test, if you just did pushups and sit ups every now and then and then ran kind of when you felt like it, you could be pretty successful with it. But with the ACFT, a bit more thought needs to go into it. You know, we need to be able to delicately balance all the principles of training, you know, specificity, overload, fatigue management, et cetera, in order to get some good results.
So that’s the purpose of the tactical program. And like I said, even if we’re not associating the military with the main goal being to make you strong, explosive and better at running or any other aerobic test, since those things lead to good ACFT scores. But if you’re interested in combining all those skills at once, there’s also going to be a great program for you if you want to just be well-rounded.
ACACIA:
What are some focus areas of the program like besides the obvious “get better” for those who maybe aren’t in the military?
CHRIS:
We use a lot of, you know, compound lifts to improve overall strength and lifting ability. There’s a good amount of, you know,
cleans and other Olympic movements in there for power development along with other forms of developing that. And then the aerobic training action is mainly focused around running with the end goal of getting a good two mile time. The biggest thing about that is, you know, the two mile is kind of in a nice little sweet spot where it’s not too long where, you know, you got to become an ultra marathoner and it’s not too short where, you know, you’re not you don’t have to get better at, you know, your aerobic capacity at all.
RYAN:
I have the pleasure of laying out the free week of training we offer for the program. And to me, I think- and you can you
can slap me over the computer if if I’m misspeaking- but to me, it’s people who are drawn to CrossFit style training, where the more successful CrossFit gyms will do it will structure classes along the lines of one or two strength movements, then usually some kind of like like a WOD of some kind, which is usually just glorified various forms of interval or circuit training. And to me it was it’s laid out sort of in a similar vein, if people are looking for what an analogy would be. So, you know, like deadlift, bench press, a circuit and then- I’m looking at the Day One sample- which is a strength day: Deadlift, Bench, Cir- cuit training of kettlebell swings, burpees and sprints. And then the last element, which I really like, is push up endurance, which is essentially going all out for 30 seconds, resting and doing that three times, which will help build your capacity, your local muscle endurance capacity. So that’s sort of, I guess a very broad stroke of what you can kind of expect.
CHRIS:
Yeah, and I think so I think the only really main difference from like, what you describe as like a CrossFit style programing is, you know, the run days typically are by themselves.
RYAN: Yes.
CHRIS:
You know, as, as the program progresses, that’s going to become a much more intense stimulus that if we have the ability to spread it out over the week, it’s probably best to keep that on a separate day from your strength training.
But yeah, we can get into- So you kind of touched on how it was structured, so on a kind of macro level, the program is composed of several four to six week phases of training that all kind of emphasize specific physical qualities. So the first few phases, you know, they’re your general physical preparedness phases, which are focused on on building a good base level of fitness.
On the lifting side, what that means, you can have plenty of compound lifts in the five to 12 rep range with moderate inten- sities with the intention to build your capacity, to handle volume, while still just getting used to the lifts that are going to be used in the program. So we can use those tools to accomplish a variety of things later on in the program.
And then on the conditioning side of things, most runs during this phase will be focused on very easy efforts. And the purpose of this is twofold: Number one is to build good a aerobic base that we can build off of later and that’s best built, you know, in that really easy, you should be able to hold a conversation range of effort, not only because that gives us that aerobic stimulus, but also it’s less of a recovery demand so we can still push the lifts a little bit more during this phase. And then the second reason is to start conditioning your joints to the specific demands of running, especially if you’re not used to running. So you can be more prepared for the increases and running volume and running intensity that will occur later in the program.
After that, the middle phase of the program, we start to inverse that volume and intensity relationship a bit. We start becoming a bit more specific to what you’ll need to excel on the actual ACFT test. So this is where we’ll start to incorporate more tempo runs, more strides, things of that nature, and then more power development in the lifts.
And then lastly, the last phase is when we get most specific to ACFT performance. So we’ll be getting our intensity ranges closer to what you see during the ACFT and peaking our running to that two mile range as well as our strength lifts more to the one to three rep range. So the whole program as it stands right now, it’s about four to six months and that’s the macro level.
On a weekly level, we’re talking five training days a week, two sessions dedicated to strength, two of them dedicated to running and/or other conditioning modalities, and then that fifth day is is kind of a mixed day and incorporates a bit of both worlds. So yeah, that’s a that’s a general overview of the structure.
RYAN:
I got two questions for you. One is specific, and then one, it’s going to open up for a more broader conversation. You just mentioned that on a macro level, its a four to six month program, can people do this program for longer if they wanted?
CHRIS:
Yeah. So I mean, what’s going to probably happen at the end of the four to six months is ideally at the end of the program, you know, you would do your ACFT test or, you know, whatever kind of test that you wanted to get better at. You’re going to be doing that at the end of that. So once that’s done, you can kind of do like a little deload and then we’ll just go right back to the beginning of not necessarily the exact same program, but the same emphasis, right?
So we’ll go back into more general kind of training for another four to six week phase and kind of keep that process going. And you can kind of structure that to competitions or whatever you use in this program to improve upon. You can kind of structure your schedule based on when you’re going to be good at certain things.
RYAN:
And the second question, going to open it up to talk about some broader things. Will all this running kill your gains?
CHRIS:
Ooh, that is a great, great question. So I’ll start off with concurrent training, which is trying to get good at endurance and some kind of strength or power aspect at the same time. So you’re never going to be the marathon world champion and the world champion at the same time. But outside of extreme, extreme scenarios, you can absolutely get close to maximizing both of those things at similar times.
So that whole fear of losing all your gains from taking more than 20 steps a day comes from some early research. This one study particular I’m thinking of, they had the participants doing a five times a week strength training program, and then the other group doing that same strength training program with an additional four or five days of really intense running train- ing.
And that study found that the ones doing both had significantly less power gains. So people saw that and were like, ‘Oh, you know, running kills your gains!’ But what really kills your gains is stupid programing. It’s not that being good at running destroys your squat gains, it’s that the things that you need to do to get 100% of your genetic potential in running will not leave very much energy left to get to 100% of your genetic potential in squatting. So that’s why it’s important to have a training program like this built by people who know how to structure these concurrent training aspects so that you’re kind of balancing the fatigue for both so that you can maximize these qualities at the same time.
RYAN:
It seems to me like that whole cardio will kill your gains, you only hear that from bodybuilders and powerlifters, which I mean a lot of them aren’t going to be running for their cardio anyway. And you can’t have like massively huge legs and be good at running for distance. You can do sprints really well but it’s kind of just one of those things that, in my mind, some- body freaked out because they started a running program in their legs shrunk a little bit. Which, if you’re a bodybuilder you don’t necessarily want.
CHRIS:
Yeah. And there are some general guidelines to follow if you’re going to pursue this whole concurrent training game. All right. So first you’re going to want to separate your endurance and resistance training by 24 to 48 hours when possible. And if you do them on the same day, try to get them at least 8 hours apart. And if they absolutely must be done in the same session or same day, prioritize the quality that you want to improve the most.
So if you are a really good runner but not very strong, do your lifting first, then your running. If you are a meathead and you’re terrible at running but are very strong, do you run first and then get into your lifts.
Next, so circuit training or incorporating resistance training into into circuits can be useful to train a little bit of both en- durance and strength qualities, but they don’t train either quality as much as endurance or strength training do separately.
Lastly, and you’ll see this a little bit in the program this incorporated at least, so cycling causes a little bit less of this interference effects due to a little bit lower fatigue generating. You know, you’ve got less impact. You don’t really have that eccentric component like you do in running. And it can be a useful either alternative or add-on aerobic training in some instances. But the adaptations for running are not as specific as running itself.
So just, you know, even if you don’t buy it, if you even if you don’t sign up for this program and you want to do some concur- rent training, there’s some general kind of guidelines that you can follow to to get the most out of it.
RYAN:
That’s interesting. I feel like the concept of “cardio will kill your gains”, if you’re runner, and you incorporate strength train- ing, would it be fair to say that you could probably sacrifice a little bit of your times on long distance running or would that improve times?
CHRIS:
So yes, that’s definitely interesting. So just like how in the strength sport world there’s that fear of losing your gains from running, in the endurance world, there’s that fear of lifting because it’ll make you you gain weight.
RYAN:
Yeah, you’ll be weighed down.
CHRIS:
Exactly. You’ll be weighed down and your efficiency just will naturally be worse. That thought is had in, you know, running, cycling, swimming, you name it. But in reality, endurance athletes who incorporate some aspect of strength training, they will typically see improvement just because the amount of force that their muscles can produce becomes higher. And so each foot strike or each hop, I guess, during your run is using a smaller percentage of your actual muscles’ capacity. So in that sense, you do get more efficient, especially in distances like a mile, two mile. It can help increase your speed also. But, you know, you probably still shouldn’t do resistance training and eat in a way to maximize muscle growth. So, I mean you can improve strength and improve muscular power without gaining muscle. That’s a lot of times independent of hypertro- phy. So yeah. So definitely things you can learn from for both sides of the spectrum.
RYAN:
Dive into that because I know people will be very interested, very curious about that.
CHRIS:
In general, increasing muscle mass will give you a better chance of also increasing strength and power, but you can main- tain the same amount of muscle mass and get stronger and more powerful. That’s why you see weight class athlete sports like in weightlifting you get better while still remaining in the same weight class, especially at the elite levels. It’s not because you’re losing fat and gaining muscle, it’s because you’re training those neuromuscular components and a lot of
times technical components of whatever lift you’re competing in. So yeah, two separate adaptations you know, hypertrophy, muscle growth, and then your power and maximal strength come separately. But you do have the more potential with more muscle mass.
RYAN:
That’s why you can see some people that look deceptively thin can just rip some serious weight sometimes.
CHRIS: Absolutely. Yeah.
RYAN:
Things that like took a long time for me to click in my head: that you can increase your muscle efficiency and you can see huge improvements, but at a certain point you’ll have to add more muscle. But yeah, that’s two distinct concepts. There’s some overlap, but you can do you can aim for one without necessarily going for the other.
CHRIS:
Yeah, you can improve the amount of force you produce per square inch of muscle. So like yeah, that’s why me- a (previous- ly) 90 kilo weightlifter- can get out lifted by someone like Deng Wei. What is she, a 69, Acacia? So like 20 lower. (Ed. note: Deng Wei competes in the 63kg weight class)
ACACIA: Yeah, yeah.
CHRIS:
So I mean if you took cross-sectional area of my quad and compared to hers, it’d probably be larger, but hers can produce more force. And that’s kind of an oversimplification because you know there’s levers and everything else involved but that’s the general idea there.
RYAN:
Yeah, we’re getting into that stuff where it can be pretty mind blowing to really think about. But, I don’t know, for me, it’s important to kind of demystify that and decouple it. ?Like you put it like a bodybuilder and a powerlifter next to each other and ask the random person on the street like who’s stronger, a lot of people will say the the bodybuilder just from social conditioning. Though I guess the bodybuilder is going to be better at doing like high volume, generally speaking.
CHRIS:
Yeah, yeah. I was going to say, that’s how you then you get into the whole, OK, how do you measure who’s stronger? Yeah. If you’re if you’re going by squat, bench, deadlift, sure. If you’re going by bicep reps to failure, the bodybuilder might have win there. Yeah, yeah.
RYAN:
Yeah. And so to circle it back to kind of the BIN Tactical is that we’re not trying to maximize one modality and we’re trying to improve, at times, competing interests simultaneously.
CHRIS: Yeah.
ACACIA: Absolutely.
RYAN:
I mean, is that fair to say? Like that terminology “competing interests”?
CHRIS:
Yeah. I mean, even if it’s just competing interests can even be, “OK if I’m a weightlifter and I only want to get better at clean and jerk, I can never snatch and devote more time and effort into clean and jerking.” So even from a time and recover- ability perspective, there’s that competing interests side of things. It’s kind of the same thing with strength and endurance.
It’s more of the time you have to devote to increase the capacity in each of those things. You only have so much time in a day and your muscles can only recover so much. Running and squatting both uses similar muscles. So there’s got to be some consideration for balancing fatigue there. So in that aspect, yeah, they compete for recovery resources, essentially.
RYAN:
Walking the tightrope.
CHRIS:
Yeah, exactly.
RYAN:
It’s fascinating to me. And it’s one of the last components that really clicked in my head. And yeah, it’s true. Cardio will kill your gains if you’re a powerlifter and you got interested in running and you started running five Ks, your squat, your top end squat, one rep max might taper off a little. It’s not a big deal, but that’s the tradeoff. If you want to become more, I guess like generally fit as opposed to some kind of fitness specialist.
CHRIS:
Right, right. Yeah. And I can go on about these things forever. But if this is if this isn’t too much self-promotion, I have writ- ten a book exactly about this. “It’s The Ultimate Training Guide for the Army Combat Fitness Test”. So on Amazon on that title, however, I will say it recently just changed to the plank. Previously you would do a leg tuck and now it’s a plank. So it’s outdated in that aspect. But, you know, if you just want to learn about the training principles we talked about and how to balance those, that will help you. So, yeah.
RYAN:
Did you have any other closing thoughts you wanted to address, CHRIS?
CHRIS:
No, I had everything that I wanted to. Yeah.
RYAN:
Cool! I think Black Iron Tactical was a perfect entry point to jump off and talk about these other more broader things that really are confusing. They’re confusing concepts. And the cardio kills your gains is just an enduring, mostly myth. I think we kind of dove into that pretty well.
CHRIS:
If you’re a powerlifter, it’s OK to walk sometimes.
RYAN:
Yeah. Yeah, that’s true. If you decided to run a random mile it’s not like you’re not going to be able to deadlift again.
CHRIS: Right, right.
ACACIA:
Well, and Kelly has written a couple of posts because she does switch from CrossFit training to marathon training and she talks about, you know, not just her nutrition and like the differences with that in training, but actually how her body changes as well.
RYAN:
Yeah, she did a really good post. Oh, it’s been a couple of months now. But if you go, if you guys go look at Kelly Baker’s Instagram, she did a really good post about doing a side by side comparison being at the same weight once I think just after she finished her marathon, and one while she was in the midst of competitive season with CrossFit and she’s the same weight and gets into it.
The body is wonderful. The body’s adaptable and the good and bad thing is nothing is permanent so that’s a blessing and a curse. So but you can put your body through a ton of stuff and you know what? Just give it a little bit of love and it’ll love you back.
ACACIA:
And Chris, I think you did as well, right?
CHRIS:
Yes, I did. So obviously I was competitive weightlifter for many years and then I dropped all that to train for an Ironman and the side by side, my legs are much smaller in the Ironman picture, but you know, is that because of Ironman training? Maybe a little bit. But I also wasn’t squatting during that time, so I was like, did my legs get any smaller than they would have been if I stopped squatting but also didn’t do Ironman training? I’m not so sure.
RYAN:
It’s so multi-factorial, I think.
CHRIS:
Just let us think about it for you.
ACACIA & RYAN: Yeah! [laughter]
RYAN:
We will ramble and eventually we will probably come up with some sort of solution.
CHRIS: Yeah.
ACACIA: Hopefully.
RYAN: Hopefully.
CHRIS:
Hopefully yeah. I’ll, I’ll ramble like this to clients sometimes, but then I’ll always put something at the bottom is like, right, this is what this is. What can you take away from it? If you didn’t pay attention to everything I just typed.
RYAN:
Perfect! Well, I think that’s a good place to wrap it up for this week.
ACACIA: Sounds great.
RYAN:
Thank you, Chris, for joining us yet again.
CHRIS:
Thank you, guys.
RYAN:
And until next time.
ACACIA:
Yeah. And au revoir for a couple of weeks.
00;26;05;16 - 00;26;07;04 RYAN
Yeah. Acacia, good luck!
CHRIS: Good luck.
RYAN: Bye bye.