The other night, I guided a 100/400 meter hurdler through a peaking session before they traveled to their last international competition of the year. This athlete is over 50 years old, has a few intermittent nagging injuries, and has every element of real-life to manage (job, spouse, children, volunteering, housework) around their sport.

We did “conditioning” that session. Four days before the key performance, three days before a qualifying performance. The options were endless –
We could have run 250, 150, 120, 80 on 8 minutes rest.
We could have run 3 x 150 on 5 minutes rest
We could have taken 5 x (400H spacing) 3-hurdle block starts on the curve…
We could have jogged!
What we chose was 3 x (2 x 60m over 6 hurdles + 1 x 30m). Walk back between reps, 4 minutes between rounds.

We did that session because it’s highly effective cardio for running rounds of sprint-effort events. It’s highly effective cardio for producing maximal acceleration after meaningful muscular and neural fatigue have accumulated.

Plus, it’s highly effective cardio for heart and lungs. Just ask that athlete about heaving and panting after every round!

When a Fast Kid needs cardio (see part 1 for discussion), you almost always need this interval approach.

What Kind Of Sport Are You In?

Outside of endurance sports, very few athletes have a steady demand at a consistent pace in sport.

The sports where I serve athletes are referred to as “burst and repeat” sports. Sure, a soccer forward may jog easily many minutes within a game, but when they go, they have to be able to reach a high speed within 20-25 yards while handling the ball, reading defenders, and making decisions. Then, whether because of the passing rotation or because a defender breaks in, they have to be able to go again…and again…and again.

Think through basketball.
Rugby.
Lacrosse.
American football.
Tennis.
Track & field.

Those are HIGH output sports.

Not “high output” like lactate threshold intervals for a cyclist – the very nature of “lactate threshold” meaning the power output above which lactate would accumulate faster than it is metabolized means this threshold is sub-maximal.

POWER sports, the sports Fast Kids play, are MAXIMAL output sports.

You can only develop maximal output by producing maximal output and you can only learn to repeat near-maximal output by practicing it.

Fast Kids DO Cardio

The great task of your cardiovascular system during movement is two-fold:
1. Circulate nutrients & energy supplies to working muscles for force output
2. Shuttle away waste products during rest periods

The latter function is why power output is limited in endurance sports – because there are no rest periods, waste products can never be completely removed. Thus, the rate of waste creation has to stay at or below the rate of waste removal. Waste creation is limited by not producing so much force.

If you intend to become awesome at sub-maximal force & power production, practice sustained effort. If you intend to become awesome at repeated maximal force & power production, practice repeated effort.

This is why the very best conditioning for your sport is to play your sport. Compete often. You’ll become conditioned. Use your training to build basic qualities like speed, strength, and power so you can be better and better conditioned from playing your sport!

But this article is about cardio, not conditioning.

What you need to know about cardio as a Fast Kid is really simple:

• By forcing your body to clear large concentrations of metabolic waste, it becomes more efficient at doing so;
• By forcing it to ramp up that clearance after your first effort, then flooding the system with waste products again, it is strained then (after recovery) adapts to that strain.

The measure of that adaptation is that your heart rate, your heart’s stroke volume, your breathing rate, and your breath size (tidal volume) increase LESS when you apply the same stimulus. That means you need less blood and less oxygen to manage that repeated load when you practice navigating that exact load in training. That’s how you get “cardio” without doing sustained aerobic exercise. (That’s also why Conditioning Is Overrated – doing more isn’t the same as doing better.)

For an athlete who requires maximal power output, whether as repeated accelerations to top speed or max height jumping from a short takeoff or throwing an implement (especially a heavy one), this builds the specific aerobic response relevant to your sport.

Why We Did 9 x 30m Rather Than…Anything Else

For the athlete I saw recently who was on their way to race two or three rounds of the 100 meter hurdles (a <15 second event) and one or two rounds of the 400 meter hurdles (a 60 second event), we had to trust that he had done the necessary long sprints already to cope with the brutal lactate accumulation of 20+ seconds of maximal effort. Adaptation to that load takes 7-10 days, minimum. But adaptation to repeat sprinting can occur in as little as 3 days.

We did repeat sprinting with those nine 60 meter efforts. We did them timed and on commands. The rest periods were short, so that athlete never completely recovered, but they delivered their times, meaning they delivered near-max output.

The heaving and panting were not evidence of being “out of shape”; they were evidence of our work stressing the system. In three or so days, that athlete would be uniquely prepared for that stress – right on time to perform.

Model your conditioning on your sport. Develop the aerobic capacity you actually need to perform, not the one old-school misinformed coaches forced on you.

Train hard, absolutely. Train smart, too.
Just don’t ever train slow!