The Power-Capacity Continuum
Several days ago I posted the following quote from a Charlie Francis lecture I was watching onto my facebook wall and finished it with a few comments of my own:
“A pitcher should have a pretty good aerobic component. They need to recover and they need to be able to heat their joints which the aerobic capacity allows them to do. The power component is big but the aerobic component is big too.” -Charlie Francis
My comments: Now the real fun is in figuring out the ways of developing that capacity without killing the beast and turning them into an endurance athlete (as they used to do to pitchers back in the day). For some reason everyone hears “aerobic” and they get scared but I think much of this fear comes from a lack of understanding how to train the system in order to develop sport specific work capacity.
What followed was an enormously long discussion (something like 180 total posts) about Charlie’s quote and a lot of people misunderstanding what Charlie Francis was saying. That misunderstanding probably stems from Charlie using the term “aerobic” which tends to make people feel uncomfortable and think that if something is “aerobic” then it is is some way not “athletic” or not necessary for any other sport besides endurance sports. The interesting thing is that if we removed the word “aerobic” and changed it to the phrase “work capacity” (or just “capacity” as I did in my comments that followed) most people probably wouldn’t have a big problem. The issue is more one of semantics then anything else because if you heard Charlie Francis discuss the training approach there is probably little that anyone would disagree with.
The Power-Capacity Continuum
All sports lie on a continuum between Power and Capacity. Power is the ability to do something for a shorter period of time but do it at a maximal or near maximal effort and then enjoy a complete or nearly complete recovery period. Capacity is the ability to either do something for a long period of time, such as run a marathon, or be able to express high, powerful efforts repeatedly with minimal or incomplete rest. Not only can all sports be classified on this continuum but energy systems can be classified in this manner as well:
Aerobic Power
Aerobic Capacity
Anaerobic-Lactic Power
Anaerobic-Lactic Capacity
Alactic Power
Alactic Capacity
The Power-Capacity Continuum looks something like this:
| POWER | <————> | CAPACITY |
| Olympic Lifting | Marathon | |
| Power Lifting | Ironman Triathlon | |
| Track and Field Throws |
As you can see, on both ends of the spectrum are the extremes. To the left you have events that require huge amounts of output but are followed by long periods of rest and on the right you have events that require you to perform efforts for an incredibly long period of time with no rest at all.
As I stated earlier, all sports fall somewhere on this continuum between the two sides and most team sports are closer towards the capacity side as they require the expression of high energy outputs followed by minimal or incomplete rest and they require this to be done over the course of an entire game or match.
Using the Continuum to Evaluate Sport
To successfully use the continuum you need to first understand where the sport in question lies keeping in mind that various positions within the sport may be shifted towards one direction or the other.
For example, teams sports are generally “capacity” driven. While the athlete needs to output high amounts of power and strength to often be successful they need to do so over the course of a game with minimal or incomplete rest periods as well as be able to recover adequately and perform in a similar manner over the course of a long season. Thus, these sports are often categorized as being “alactic-aerobic” or requiring a large work capacity to support the athlete’s ability to consistently repeat their effort at the highest level. Now, when we start to look at positions within the various sports we see can see even more distinctions. Here are some examples that come to mind:
- Football is a sport skewed toward capacity and alactic-aerobic in nature (even more so now a days with teams running hurry up and no huddle offenses). However, the guy on my team that does nothing other than run back kick offs does not need as much capacity as my running back who gets 40 carries a game because the guy running back the kick offs pretty much goes in, does his thing, and then gets a really long rest period before he needs to do it again. While many of the guys on the field are skewed towards the capacity side the kick off returner is skewed more towards the power side.
- Baseball is an interesting sport as there can be a huge amount of downtime for most of the guys on the field (especially the designated hitter – who would be skewed most towards the power end of the continuum). The players in the field are not as capacity driven as the pitcher, who needs to make 100 or more pitches at extremely high velocities over 5-6 innings with brief rest intervals (longer rest period when his team is batting obviously). The pitcher needs a pretty sound alactic capacity to keep repeating those efforts.
- In soccer you would see a similar difference between various positions on the field with regard to the amount of running guys do and the speeds at which they do it. Additionally, the goalie would lie more towards the left of the continuum than the others players on the field.
Training for Sport
Once you analyze where the sport is on the continuum you must then determine ways of going about testing the athlete to see what sort of qualities they currently posses and what sort of qualities they are currently lacking. This will allow you to plan training and determine which qualities to train first. Unfortunately, one size does not fit all. As we see above, while all sports have similar general qualities (which I discussed in my article Developing Requisite Competencies) after a certain period of time it is essential to then begin to focus on the specifics of the sport and raising the sport specific qualities necessary for success. As I discussed above, this may mean that some players on the team, depending on position, may have different targeted training goals. Just because they play the same sport may not mean that they should have the same training program.
As you develop the training program keep in mind where on the continuum the sport falls and ensure you are preparing the athlete for those sports demands. This may include thinking outside of the weightroom (remember, strength isn’t the only factor in developing sports fitness). When thinking about capacity sports be sure to choose methods that work towards the similar demands of that sport. Initially, you may start very general as training specifically for the sport may require the athlete to first develop overall fitness, mobility, or foundational strength in order to progress further. Dr. Drabik, in Children & Sports Training: How Your Future Champions Should Exercise to be Healthy, Fit, and Happy, makes the following distinctions (pg. 94):
“General endurance is the ability to perform over a long time any physical effort involving numerous groups of muscles that has a positive influence of sports specialization.
Directed endurance is the ability, based on aerobic fitness, that creates the functional basis for special endurance. In training methods the structure of movement is identical and the character of an athlete’s effort is similar to that of the sports specialization.
Special endurance is the ability to perform efforts typical in a given sports discipline, for the same duration as that required in the discipline, while preserving the necessary quality of techniques.”
The methods you choose to employ within each of those three “buckets” is up to you but the phase of training should have a theme and a goal of achieving some sort of physiological outcome.
Sequencing the Training Week
The Charlie Francis quote that started this article created quiet a stir because Charlie used the word “aerobic”. What it really comes down to is that the aerobic system is critical as it underlies all other energy systems and the more developed the aerobic system is the better the other energy systems can function. This does not mean that a baseball pitchers needs the aerobic capacity of an Ironman Triathlete but it does mean that they need to develop a work capacity (noticed I didn’t say “aerobic capacity” because that phrase tends to upset people) to support the demands of the sport.
In training, it is impossible to go hard every single day - I shouldn’t say it is “impossible”. It is entirely possible but it is also entirely reckless and potentially damaging to the individual. Thus, the week needs to be sequenced properly. Charlie Francis was fond of the “high-low” approach where he group high intensity training stresses on one day and low intensity training stresses on other days as a way of allowing the athlete at least 48hrs to recover from the intense training. Generally, the “high” days were more powerful, short, alactic efforts and the “low” days were more extensive in nature – even for the fastest 100m sprinters in the world at the time (a sport that would be shifted much more to the left of the continuum) Charlie understood the importance of general fitness and developed their aerobic systems to a certain level using things like tempo runs and various circuit training methods to build them up to a certain point and then maintain that while they focused more on sprinting and preparing for competition. They did very little work in the “middle zone”, which Charlie referred to as being “Too slow to be speed work and to fast to be recovery work”. This work tends to be more lactate producing and isn’t really representative of the energy system demands for American Team Sports (as I wrote about in a previous article, Some Thoughts on Training the Lactate System).
As a way of honoring this “high-low” approach one should sit down and determine the training methods at their disposal that represent high and low training stressors, determine what aspects these training methods target (which energy systems and are they more power or capacity driven), and finally sit down and structure the training week in a way that makes sense and has a good balance between intensive and extensive training and allows the athlete efficient time to recover and adapt so that they can make adequate improvements.
Wrapping Up
What we can learn from all of this:
- All energy systems can be broken down into “power” or “capacity”
- All sports lie on a continuum between power and capacity
- Different positions within the same sport may lie in different places on the power-capacity continuum
- Developing work capacity in general before transitioning to sport specific work capacity is important
- The aerobic system drives all other energy systems and is a key target when developing general work capacity
- Choosing training methods appropriately is essential when setting up the training week
- Training methods can generally be classified as either “high” or “low” stressors
- Sequencing training through out the week is the key to ensuring that the athletes not only get the most out of the high intensity days but are also able to recover and optimally adapt to those training days
patrick@optimumsportsperformance.com
21 comments
Would you recommend any other thoughts on using crossfit as an example. As in the workouts named “Cindy”, and “murph?” Thanks.
Excellent article Patrick! Along this theme, sometimes coaches make the mistake of focusing too much on muscle physiology and ignoring tissue structure & biomechanics i.e. slow twitch vs fast twitch fibers. Even slow twitch fibers can contribute significantly to power if you train the elastic components of muscle/connective tissue appropriately. With the proper stimulus you develop muscle that has high work capacity physiologically and tissue that has good elasticity and power production structurally.
Curb, thanks for comments!
Preston,
I don’t think I’d be able to give my thoughts on those Crossfit examples because I have absolutely no clue what “Cindy” or “Murph” are.
patrick
My apologies for assuming and/or using CrossFit as something to expand upon if infact it is unfamiliar territory. Cindy and Murph are part of the benchmark workouts that CrossFit uses to, in a way, compare abilities of each person. I was trying to pertain this article to the “sport” of CrossFit by way of power and capacity as you used it in this article and having Cindy, Murph, and maybe Grace as examples. As you used Football, Baseball, and Soccer for examples.
Cindy – 5 pull ups, 10 push ups, 15 squats performed in 20 minutes. your score is how every many rounds you achieve of those 3 combined in 20 minutes. ex. 8 rounds in 20 minutes.
Grace – Clean & Jerk @ 135lbs, 30 reps for time. your score is how quickly you perform 30 reps of Clean & Jerk maintaining form. ex. 2:30 seconds
Murph – 1 mile run, 100 pull ups, 200 push ups, 300 body weight air squats, 1 mile run. for time. Can partition pull ups, push ups, and air squats, though must start and finish with 1 mile.
I realize, my question may not coincide with your points too much or would it make sense for somebody to do 30 Clean & Jerks as fast as possible. Though, I figured you would have some input. I read your articles often and am lead to many other books, links, websites, blogs and other resources from certain things you write about or elaborate on. So I’m trying to expand my knowledge of Power and Capacity and see how it is utilized in any sport. Thanks.
Thanks for clarification, Preston.
In looking at your examples, and keep in mind I am not a “crossfit guy”, I would say that the first and the third, Cindy and Murph, have much more need for aerobic development. The length of time it will take to complete those tasks is significant and the individual will want to have an aerobic system that is highly developed to cause their anaerobic threshold to shift as far to the right as they can in order to support a power output that would satisfy that type of work over those time domains.
The second example, “Grace”, looks to me to be more of a lactatic capacity type of event. You are basically trying to go as hard as you can to complete 30 reps in a time frame that takes ~2:30sec. The intensity you are putting out will cause the internal environment to become pretty acidic.
Like I said, I am not a Crossfit guy but if you want to talk to two guys that train people for Crossfit games that do a better job then pretty much all the other stuff I see out there check out my friends James Fitzgerald (http://optexperience.com/blog) and Michael Fitzgerald (http://optimumperformancecalgary.blogspot.com/). I trust their physiological breakdown of a Crossfit event over anyone elses. They know more about the sport then anyone I can think of.
patrick
for CF, any workout and all workouts can have a different response for different people, just like PW’s example of sprint work, lengths and times and efforts are ALL perceived and felt differently per person, this is where we in S and C can get lost, we “perceive” there to be an affect based on time, effort and situation, but in fact, its a guess…which is OK, but it still is a guess
(remember that the athletes essence, training age, structure, gender, contraction rate, fuel, etc…all have a part to play in determining the “affect)
we DO know that there are principles, i.e. less than “this” amt of time “might” be this, but its still loose at best
when we add something like CF to the picture with various contractions, ROM, scenarios, timelines, tasks, etc…then we are basically guessing even more
some things we do know thus far though, the aerobic system in CF is VERY important, how its developed, a deep shit rabbit hole for each person – based on the above assumptions that each person responds differently to the “task”
-and most comps now have heavier wts and longer tasks, making them MORE alactic/aerobic in nature as requirements, therefore developing each system being impt, that is as far as CF goes for “most” comps that is…
#1. Great job. Well written. Simple and conscience. K.I.S.S.!
#2. I’m disgusted that you even had to write this. I’m glad that you did but it mainly sheds light on how little we know as a community. I’m going to mainly blame the colleges and universities for wasting our time in taking our money and not teaching us much outside of anatomy. Sure our medicine is awesome in the US and we do a pretty good job with PT but Sports Science simply is non-existent. I realize that “you can take a horse to water…..” but I’m hoping that’s less of ignorance in this situation.
A few years ago, I searched high and low for quality bioenergetics training resources. “Block Training” talked about the application in cycles but not specific methods. It’s not like there are 15 books and we are fighting about which one is best.
I remember when I became aware of my lack of knowledge. I remember thinking about how ignorant that I really was when I “read all the books” like Super Training, Science and Practice, and several translated Russian Manuals. Turns out that “I didn’t know what I had now idea about what I didn’t know. “ Make sense right? Ha! I was a sponge who worked his ass of trying to study and learn only to be deceived by the system. I read all of the articles and traveled to the “big facilities” to learn from “the best”. That was until James Smith gave me the “red or blue pill test” and I found out how far the hole goes… and I’m still falling to be honest. He and Buddy getting screwed at Pitt is the only reason why I’m where I am right now. James not having a job is the reason why I even know that the “hole” exists. It’s really funny but frankly sad.
At the end of the day, the athletes are the ones getting screwed and that’s what bothers me the most. Actually the big business that is our education system is ripping off the college students and not preparing them to help athletes. How many has the system failed? Because there are so many in the system we’ll never know.
I guess my feelings of betray by the system still linger! Ha!
Keep on keepin’ on Patrick!
“Jesus couldn’t save them all!” (A quote from the Rev Buddy Morris)
Well said, Scott. It is a shame that the education system is so broken.
James,
Thanks for chiming it. Great stuff!
patrick
@ Patrick, Thanks for that info. I too am not necessarily a “CrossFit guy” either. Though, it’s funny because I work at CF gym, but coach and program all the Core Stabilization, Stretch, Interval Training classes as well as Personal Training, that utimately complement our CrossFit classes. It makes sense to what you’re saying in regards to the phases of physiology as to how they pertain with CrossFit and those examples of workouts mentioned earlier. I’ll keep looking up those key words you used, and utilize the links you provided for James’ & Michael’s blogs. Thanks again.
@ James, Thank you also for your elaboration on what Patrick was saying and what i’m trying to understand. I am a firm believer in what you were saying regarding, how each person is very different and their training regimen should showcase the variety of how people take to a program. There so much to learn, and it’s an amazing journey…
@ Scott, I’m actually “In the system” as we speak. I’m working on a BS in Exercise & Wellness over at ASU. ( I guess the “BS” could be interpreted in two ways…) Which is why I’m very grateful for people like Patrick and James’ to help me discern.
What are two benchmarks with corresponding tests to ensure a NHL player is ready to handle both practice and games with Aerobic Power and Aerobic Capacity? How long does it take to develop that in the summer?
Carl,
Not sure. Living in Phoenix I didn’t train any NHL players as that isn’t a popular sport down there. I’m sure there is some sort of repeat sprint ability test that the hockey athletes could use on the ice to determine their capacity and fitness to play the sport (or I’m sure there is some sort of hockey specific fitness test in the literature if you search it).
Offseason for any professional athlete is often shorter then it needs to be so you do what you can with the time you have and hopefully you can hand them back to their team in good condition and ready for pre-season activities.
patrick
Just wanted to thank you for keeping it simple and easy to follow.
This by far is my favorite post.
Glad you enjoyed it.
patrick
Perhaps soccer? What do they need at the professional level ready to handle both practice and games with Aerobic Power and Aerobic Capacity? How long does it take to develop that in the spring?
The Yo-Yo Intermittent Recovery Test is what we have used before. Depending on how trained an individual is over previous years (meaning if they have done consistent training through their youth) they should be able to develop a decent level of fitness in 8-10 weeks (depending on how out of shape they allowed themselves to get).
patrick
Is this for Aerobic Power and Capacity?
Is what for aerobic power and capacity?
patrick
“The Yo-Yo Intermittent Recovery Test is what we have used before. Depending on how trained an individual is over previous years (meaning if they have done consistent training through their youth) they should be able to develop a decent level of fitness in 8-10 weeks (depending on how out of shape they allowed themselves to get).”
So the Yo-Yo test measures both Aerobic Power and Capacity? From the blog it looks like it’s classified separately. Could you share what they did (or who) for the 8-10 weeks and what changes you saw (score wise) on the yo yo test. Why not the 30-15 test? I know this is a lot of questions but this creates good discussion.
The semantics of this stuff is what gets crazy because people all seem to call things different. When I think of Aerobic Power I think of someone doing something at a high intensity (~90% HRmax) for a period of time that is typically around the 3-10min mark (usually they end up burning out after that and slowing down). So for that kind of testing I think of it being more like a Cooper Test or Modified Cooper Test. I have used the Modified Cooper Test before but I don’t think of the Yo-Yo test being exactly the same thing since there is a recovery period (a short period). I think of Aerobic Capacity as being more about an individuals ability to go for longer periods of time at lower intensity, due to the duration – like more traditional endurance based work or cardiac output type stuff. This might be something like a 20 or 30min time trial (which I have played with before also. The semantics gets muddy just because the aerobic system really underpins everything and the better developed an individual is the faster they can recover and repeat efforts. The Yo-Yo test is something that would give you an idea about the individuals capacity and fitness overall but I wouldn’t classify it as any one thing specific (really I would just break things down into “power” and “capacity” to keep it simple). You need good speed to ensure that you can perform the shuttle quick enough (alactic power) and then you need to have the aerobic system to recover you fast enough during the short break to allow you to do it again and at increasing speeds (alactic capcity). I have also used some RSA stuff before (things like 15x15yrds; Rest = 20sec). I have read about the 30-15 test but have not played with it yet.
As far as what they did, my blog is pretty transparent with my training ideas and I base everything on the athlete’s individual needs. I just chunk off periods of time (weeks) devoted to improving a component or quality that needs enhancement and I constantly re-test (not the actual test but each session we use as a sort of re-test to ensure progress is being made and I also use other measures to see what is taking place) to make sure I am moving in the right direction and once I get what I want we move on. I usually will bounce between phases of capacity and phases of power, once the athlete is in shape and developed (if they aren’t then they need to perform more weeks at more general fitness training). This isn’t that difficult really. Just test the athlete, find out what they need, and then train them to get that.
patrick
I think it’s a simple as:
Power = rate of
Capacity = amount of
More specifically, aerobic power is the the body’s ability to produce energy aerobically, and once that threshold is surpassed, the person will reduce intensity or begin to produce more energy glycolitically. Yo-yo tests, therefore, are relatively accurate in determining the individual’s aerobic power (in the specific mode of running back and forth) as the point of failure is approximately at the point where the energy source is no longer predominantly produced aerobically (not 100% accurate obviously considering individual elements of glycolysis and psychology).
Aerobic capacity is important no doubt, but it’s unlikely to be the limiting factor at the professional/elite level in team sports, and if it is, it’s very easily remedied in my experience.
Andre,
A lot of attention to conditioning in professional soccer is likely the culprit of injuries to legs that are simply overworked from being weak. What do you see in your sport key to knowing that an athlete is at the highest percentage of fitness and power? I believe you either did the work or skipped it, not that one group is doing MAS or the other doing specific tempo runs.
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