Max Strength and Aerobic Capacity

Over the last several months and through talking with many colleuges in the field, I found that one of the most misunderstood concepts with development of athletes in many field sports (football, soccer) aerobic energy system development and its key to strength development is often overlooked. Lets look at some of the several adaptations one can benefit from having a optimal aerobic capacity.
At the heart: Increased Left ventricle hypertrophy (eccentric) leading to higher strove volume, increased vagal tone, higher end diastolic volume all creating a larger cardiac output= Increased oxygen supply. Basically, these adaptaions will improve your bodies ability to move more oxygenated blood to the working muscles with less effort. This allows you to accomplish power aerobically before having to rely heavily on the lactic system which fatigues quickly.

At the muscle: Type I fiber hypertrophy, oxidative ability of type II fibers, Increased localized capillarization, Increased mitochondria. These adaptations will increase your muscles abilities to draw oxygen from blood, increased mitochondria will help your muscle regenerate ATP aerobically. Mitochindrial density has also been linked to improvement of muscle contraction/relaxation speed!

Simply, when lifting for maximal strength your body is utilizing the alactic/ATP-PC enrgy system at its highest capacity by quickly breaking down ATP to supply the amount of power needed to execute a maximal lift. The typical rest is 3-5 minutes between sets. What happens during this rest is where the aerobic system is the star. This relaxation is when ATP resythesis occurs in the ATP-PC system. After an intense bout, ATP is reduced to 70% of pre exercising levels and PCr to 20 % PEL. 70% of this is re-sythesized in about 30 seconds and fully in around 5 minutes. The full recovery can be delayed when muscles are occluded from blood flow. Without getting exteremly technical, this fact shows that the adaptations discussed earlier will greatly increase you bodies ability to resythesize the much needed ATP as quickly as possible within the resting parameters.

Don't get me wrong. This isn't saying that you need to be able to run marathons to be able to do maximal strength work. There is however a great benefit of having "optimal" capacity of the aerobic system to set yourself up for success down the road in maximal strength work. Some of hese methods have been discussed previously in my blog (see alactic capacity, Tempo method/oxidative squats). This doesn't stop at max strength but the benefits carry into repeated sprint ability, sustaing power over time, and the ability to produce ATP rapidly aerobically.