Concurrent Training

By Greg Nuckols

June 2014

Cardiovascular training has been much maligned in the powerlifting community. By that, I am
referring to purely aerobic work. Youll find people touting the benefits of sled work, sprints, or barbell
complexes, but steady state aerobic work? Never! Weve been told itll make us small and weak so
many times weve taken the bait. The real story is a little more nuanced than that. Lets dive in.

Mode-specific
Thats right, cycling didnt cause any decrements
1
In a 2012 meta-analysis it was found that in strength and hypertrophy. There are two likely
combining strength training and aerobic training explanations:
did in fact decrease the rate of progress both in
terms of strength and hypertrophy. However,
a) Joint angles cycling includes joint angles
when different modes of exercise were compared
more similar to squatting. Instead of
in isolation (i.e. running and lifting by themselves
minimal hip and knee flexion you get with
or cycling and lifting by themselves) the negative
jogging, the joint range of motion trained
effects only materialized when combining lifting
for cycling is much more relevant to weight
and running.
room activities.

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b) Muscle damage. With running, you have to

absorb the shock of each step, and this
eccentric loading can cause muscle
damage. With cycling on the other hand,
all the muscle action is concentric, which
causes minimal muscle damage. Thus, it
doesnt add to the total amount of recovery
work your body has to do between
strength training sessions. In fact, it might
aid in recovery by substantially increasing
blood flow to the legs without causing
further damage.
Additional hypertrophy with cycling?
Some studies have actually shown that combining
cycling and strength training can cause greater
hypertrophy than strength training alone.
Admittedly, these studies incorporate lower
training volumes than the average RTS reader
will be using, but mechanistically they show that
cycling, rather than detracting from the strength
and hypertrophy response to training, may
actually be additive in terms of overall anabolic
stimulus. Whats more, the studies were
conducted with cycling and strength training both
taking place within the same training day2 and
also on separate days3. This tells us that theres
little need to fear an interference effect with both
acute and chronic effects of combining cycling
and lifting.

Over time, as your aerobic capacity improves, sets

that used to take 3 minutes for full recovery may
only take 2 minutes, and a level of volume that
used to run you into the ground will become much
more manageable.

stored ATP and phosphocreatine as rapid energy

substrates. Whether you reach max force in .25
second or .5 seconds shouldnt be a major
concern in a lift that can take 4-5 seconds or
longer.
Energy expenditure
Lifting heavy stuff is an energy-intensive
endeavor. In 1994, research found that oxygen
consumption could be predicted, and thus derive
caloric expenditure, with a pretty high degree of
accuracy based on total work done in the
deadlift4. The equation they found is:
Oxygen consumption (L) = 2.63 + 0.80 x work (in kilojoules)

Then, multiply oxygen consumption by 4.9 to get

caloric expenditure since each liter of oxygen
consumed means about 4.9 kcals burned.
So, just to do a little rough math lets say youre
a 235kg deadlifter, hitting 85% for 5 sets of 3.
Your range of motion is about half a meter.
Oxygen consumption = 2.63 + 0.80 x (200kg x 0.5m x
9.8m/s^2 / 1000) x 15 total reps

A small caution: its important to note that the

studies do find a decreased rate of force
production when combining cycling and lifting. It
therefore may be prudent to taper aerobic work
along with strength training leading up to a meet.
However, this isnt a major concern for a
powerlifter. Total time under tension for a max lift
will almost always be shorter than time it takes
the body to produce maximum force utilizing

For that set, you will consume about 14.4 L of

oxygen, and expend 70 kcals. Thats about how
many calories youd burn running half a mile if
youre around 200 pounds.
Although this study was looking specifically at the
deadlift, the same principles would likely hold true

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Photo by

for squats. At the very least, there is no reason to minutes, and a level of volume that used to run
you into the ground will become much more
believe they wouldnt.
manageable.
Here are some implications. If you feel just fine to
work out after jogging half a mile, dedicated Conclusion
aerobic work may not be necessary for you. Aerobic work wont make you small and weak,
However, if youre out of shape aerobically, youll especially if you stick to cycling. Whats more, a
take longer to produce the energy necessary for solid aerobic base can help you safely push
recovery between sets, and consequently your yourself harder in the gym and increase training
If you value your
training volume will suffer. Youll probably benefit density and volume.
from adding some dedicated aerobic work to your performance, maintaining a strong base of
training. Another important thing to point out is aerobic fitness will help you, not hurt you.
that as you get stronger your aerobic endurance
should also improve. Since caloric expenditure is About the Author
based on total work, you increase it by putting Greg is a strength coach, writer, and elite drug-free
powerlifter. His passion is synthesizing scientific research
more weight on the bar (which will happen as you and in-the-trenches experience to stay at the forefront of
get stronger), and by doing more volume (which the strength game, and to become the best coach and
will become necessary to keep progressing past a athlete possible. With best lifts including a 755 squat, 475
bench press, and 725 deadlift, he knows what it takes to get
certain point).
you strong. Visit www.gregnuckols.com for more of his
work.

Why do aerobic work when lifting can also be

aerobically taxing?
References
Risk versus reward. The more aerobically 1
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22002517
fatigued you are, the more likely you are to slip up 2
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24408998
and hurt yourself lifting heavy stuff. Use aerobic 3
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22706947
work to improve aerobic capacity, and use 4
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7932947
strength work to get strong. Over time, as your
aerobic capacity improves, sets that used to take
3 minutes for full recovery may only take 2
Train like an animal. Think like a human.
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