Cal Dietz - Triphasic Training Aerobic Training Bloc One

Cal Dietz explains the five minute isometric hold training method he uses with his athletes during his aerobic training block.

Transcript:

This method, the five minute isometric hold, I basically do two days a week as you saw in the previous protocol laid out weekly. It was invented originally by a Russian high jump coach in the 1960’s - I know there’s other people that claim credit for inventing it, but that was the original guy- he had some pretty good results holding positions for five minutes.

It’s local aerobic endurance: basically what happens is, during the five minutes iso-hold, it restricts blood flow to the muscles, creates a hypoxic environment. Now, there’s some other things that can happen: you also may think about doing blood flow restriction training. At this time it’s a possibility, but what I’ve found over the years was that 30% load seems to be the cut-off, it actually avoids lactate effect to the highest levels {...} and allow oxygen to leak into the muscle still so, it truly didn’t get into a complete hypoxic state. What this does is it actually remodels the tissue: during post season the fascia gets stretched and basically I’ve found improvements in posture; it allows athletes to hold various positions.

{...} Here’s a sample. Basically the do a five minute wall sit, they take three minutes off. {...} And then basically these positions, they do an incline trap hold, and you can click on these videos to get the exercises, so you can see those. They’re just an example that you can use to make your own workouts. I just try to do a full body effect and this particular isometric hold has some huge benefits and it builds a localized endurance.