3 Great Conditioning Finishers to Improve Your Workouts
Anyone who has read the title of this blog will know that I tend to focus on strength training. I’ve spoken previously about how this training can be hugely beneficial for a number of reasons that extend beyond the desire to make your body look different. That being said, there is another aspect of training that can play a huge role in how we move, perform and feel: conditioning.
What is Conditioning?
Conditioning is training that prepares you to perform under a specific set of circumstances. Because these circumstances can vary from person to person, the definition of conditioning will vary from person to person. For example, the conditioning that a 100m sprinter needs is different from that of a footballer.
In many circles, the term has become synonymous with “fitness,” but fitness is another one of those terms that has a pretty broad definition. To understand if you are fit or not, you need to ask yourself: “fit for what?”
However, it is possible to take a very broad approach to conditioning and fitness. I’m going to avoid delving into energy systems and sports specificity in this blog. Instead, the conditioning examples I provide will be geared towards general preparedness for everyday life.
All of the finishers you see here will work on one or more of these principles:
- Tolerating the discomfort of being tired/sore;
- Not wanting to die as soon as you get out of breath (we’ve all been there);
- Building up muscular fatigue;
- Completing whole-body tasks such as pushing, pulling, carrying, etc.;
- Improving your ability to do repeated bouts of work with reduced recovery;
- Avoiding overly sadistic and risky forms of conditioning.
The most important part of conditioning is that you do not need to wreck yourself by the end of the workout. Training should be about making you better, not just making you tired. I’ve previously referred to this desire to beat yourself up in the gym as “The Rocky Mentality.”
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