Strong Principles: The Blueprint for a Balanced Strength and Conditioning Program

In this episode of Strong Principles, co-hosts Zach and Rob, along with Larry, dive deep into the philosophy behind effective strength and conditioning programming. They break down why you shouldn't just run or lift heavy every day and how a well-structured plan can prevent injury and enhance performance.

Rob, the owner of Vero Strength and Conditioning, explains the crucial concept of separating strength and conditioning to avoid the "interference effect." The hosts outline their proven weekly schedule, featuring three dedicated strength days and two distinct conditioning days—one for high-intensity intervals and another for building an aerobic base. They also touch on the importance of the "test day" and how they handle client goals and egos to ensure long-term progress over short-term gratification.

Tune in to learn the key principles of progressive overload, why consistency beats random workouts, and how to create a "roadmap" that guides you toward your fitness goals.

Zach (00:00)
All right, guys. Welcome back to Strong Principles. Thanks for tuning in. If you've been listening, then you probably already know, but I'm Zack, the head coach at Vero strength and conditioning.

Larry (00:08)
I'm Larry Medina.

Rob (00:09)
And I'm Rob Dela Cruz, owner of Vero strength and conditioning.

Larry (00:14)
All right. So today we're going to talk about what your programming looks like here, right?

Zach (00:18)
Yeah. So we talked a little bit about in episode one, what a good strength program looks like, what's involved. And we talked about a couple of different things involving that. But now we're going to talk about, okay, so what does a good full program look like? So strength and conditioning. Conditioning. How could you outline that? What should that look like? Basically, Robin, let's go into it.

Rob (00:38)
When you're creating a strength and conditioning program, first of all, is if you don't separate it properly Basically, you can overlap them and then cause what they call an interference effect.

Zach (00:49)
Okay, mixed stimulus.

Larry (00:51)
Before we get into it, why should I focus strength and conditioning over just conditioning?

Rob (00:58)
Well, if you just focus on conditioning, you're going to get more condition, but you're going to lose strength, and you could possibly lose muscle. You want to incorporate them together.

Zach (01:07)
Muscle is very hard to keep. It's not energy-sparing. It requires a lot of energy to keep. When you're doing conditioning and you're not doing anything then to build that muscle, you can actually have an adverse effect on muscle. Just a conditioning program could cause those effects.

Larry (01:26)
Okay. All right. Sorry. Go ahead. Yeah.

Rob (01:28)
That's a good question. When you You know it's a great question. When you lay it out, you want to look at it because when you go ahead, and it depends on what's your time domain that you have. Let's say we're going to put it within an hour because it's basically almost like a class set up, or individuals just don't have that much time. Then what's your focus point? All right, I want to... Strength is my main focus. That's the one you want to put the most time in. Then conditioning is my second focus. Because when you're asking, let's say, and I'll switch it real quick, you're more of a triathlete and more of a conditioning athlete. Then you would have a little a little more focused on the conditioning than the strength. So like a day or more. We're going back, we're going back. We're strength-focused. We're going to go 2-3 days a week of strength, Trent, laid out by itself.

Zach (02:12)
Throughout your week. Yep.

Rob (02:14)
And so it starts out with a Monday, a Wednesday, and a Friday. Yep.

Larry (02:19)
Those are your strength days? Yep. Okay.

Zach (02:21)
That's just what we do.

Rob (02:23)
Yeah. Okay. A lot of universal strength condition coaches do the same thing. And so then when we go in there, it depends on what training phase you're doing, what your focus points, but your strength days are going to incorporate. There's several ways, but it could be a full body, like legs and push, pull, upper body.

Larry (02:41)
So Monday could be a mix of all? Correct.

Zach (02:44)
Full body. It could be a full body. It could be a movement, two or three movement base, push, pull. Then the other two days, then you would look at the other movement basis, hinge carry, whatever it may be, lunge, or maybe on the other day. Then we oftentimes also use a lot of strongman exercises, too. A lot of strongman principles in maybe that day three. It doesn't necessarily have to be just looking at those movement patterns. You could also focus on different dynamics of strength.

Rob (03:10)
Yeah, it could be more dynamic strength, moving fast. We're going to incorporate that. But so we have three strength days.

Zach (03:17)
So that's the outline?

Rob (03:18)
Yeah. It's Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. So now you got your conditioning days that you want to go in. You got to put those in there. What you got to look at is, so if strength is your base, and that's what's most important, what you're working on, which that's most general population should be, is that you don't want the conditioning days to affect the strength days. So you got to be really careful. Also, you need to be really careful on what are you using for the conditioning days. And what I mean by that is, are you using strength exercises, basically, or are you taking those movement patterns away from your strength day? If you're doing squats and push-pull, you don't want to be using the same movement patterns on that. On the aerobic day. Yeah. We tend to like to use concentric, like machine-based a lot, most of the time. So you talk about rower, skier, bike, air bike, slide, running.

Larry (04:10)
That's on your non-That's on our conditioning days, aerobic days.

Zach (04:14)
Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Not to say you can't throw those things in there, like a wall ball, which would be a squat or even like an Olympic lift, like a clean drug. Not to say you couldn't throw those in there, depending. Again, you don't want it to affect your strength.

Rob (04:28)
Yeah. So you're just trying not You're trying not to overlap too much, the best as you could do with that. But one of the condition days you want to do can be more intensity-based, interval-based. And then your other one on Thursday, if that's one of your days that's intense, then your other day should be more moderate intensity to lower intensity.

Larry (04:51)
Yeah, for a recovery, like an active recovery.

Rob (04:54)
Correct. But not only just active recovery, moderate to low intensity is a base builder. It's going to build more of an aerobic base.

Larry (05:04)
What do you mean?

Rob (05:06)
A lot of times... All right, let's think of it like this. When you're training, let's go with the back squat or bench press. If you just worked up to a one rep max, and that's what you kept on doing, you're not building a strength base. You're testing your strength a lot of times. Lower intensity aerobic is a base builder. It'd be like doing the back squat or bench press five by five. Now you're building strength work. Lower intensity a lot of times is building a base aerobic.

Zach (05:35)
You're not just testing aerobic. Basically, you're not going to be laying on the floor at the end of the workout destroyed because you didn't actually build any basis for aerobic conditioning.

Rob (05:44)
That's a big mistake people make.

Larry (05:45)
Yeah, so I never thought about that.

Zach (05:48)
It's just like you wouldn't want to have max every day.

Larry (05:51)
Yeah. No, that's something that I've never really... To me, it's always like, I go for a 5K, I'm going for a 5K, right? Every time.

Rob (06:01)
Yeah, so you're testing your 5K.

Larry (06:03)
Constantly, right? But in theory... Yeah, that makes sense. In theory, we would go into, instead of doing the 5K, maybe the next day you do one on, one-off. One minute running. Correct.

Rob (06:16)
One minute walking. Yeah, or it would be a 1K at 75% effort, basically, like a five, and then a couple of minutes rest, and then again.

Larry (06:29)
Really more like, all right, well, concentrating on your form. Correct. While you're doing the 75%.

Rob (06:34)
Let's say your 5K is like a 25-minute 5K. If you were building in a base in a ruby… It's not. All right, so we'll go 30 minutes. You're building the aerobic base. You would go for a longer jog, slower than race pace. You'd be out there for like 45 minutes. We like to do two different types of basically aerobic work on there, and it could be used differently in implements. But the one that's the more intense, we'd use all different types of intervals or it just depends on what we're doing. But if you're doing one intense, the other one needs to be a lot less intensity in there.

Larry (07:14)
Okay, that makes sense.

Rob (07:15)
Because you'd be working similar systems constantly, which a lot of people make a mistake. Yeah.

Zach (07:21)
We use an RPE scale to figure that out, basically. If you have an interval day and the rate of perceived exertion. If you have an interval day, those RPEs might be a little bit higher, sixes, sevens, versus a more of a duration aerobic workout. You might be much lower, RPE, threes, fours. Then you're targeting different energy systems. You're also targeting... You're building your aerobic base on those longer duration days. The interval days, too. But the key is you're not testing every single day. You're not doing the same thing every single day. If you want to do a 5K, the best way to get better at a 5K is not to run a 5K every single time. Although maybe that will get you a little bit better, but we would want to vary, just like we would vary strength That makes sense.

Rob (08:01)
Yeah, so now we got it laid out. You got your strength. Three days a week. Yep, three days a week. Then you have your two days of two different types of conditioning. Then our Saturday is a lot of times what we call our test, which is more like mixed modality workout.

Zach (08:13)
That's your test day.

Rob (08:14)
That's your test day. Now, that's the week. But what we're going to do from week to week is we're going to progress the exercises through either reps, load, tempo, and then we're going to progress the conditioning work through maybe changing the type of conditioning work, the rest intervals, making them less, making them longer. When you look at a program, it's like a map. You should be able to read where they're trying to take everybody. If you look over If it's a six weeks and you look over six weeks, you should quickly see within two weeks like, Oh, I see where they're going. If you have no idea where they're going, then they're not going anywhere.

Larry (08:55)
Fair enough. That's actually the way to put it. Yeah, it is a good way to put it. That's interesting. Yeah, I guess the whole cardio piece is tripping me out because I never really thought about it. I just think like, Oh, yeah, just go for it. I think it's basically because of just a pass, working out Running, you just go for a run. You don't think about the accessory work to make that better.

Rob (09:22)
I'm not saying that that doesn't work to a certain extent, but when you have things laid out really well, and I try to explain this to people, it's more effective. Yeah. Then there's less time wasted. Right.

Larry (09:35)
And longevity.

Rob (09:36)
Not only the longevity, but it could be fun because you're working on different things instead of just going out there and running for 20 minutes every time. Now, this time Instead of running out for the 20 minutes, now you're running 10 minutes with a couple of minutes rest, 2-3 times. Then the next time you go on this 5. You change things around, and that'll keep it in someone's head a lot more fresh.

Larry (09:56)
Yeah. When you're trying to get better at the squat, you may want to incorporate a box jump.

Rob (10:01)
Yeah. For contrast or something. Yeah. Okay.

Larry (10:05)
That makes sense.

Rob (10:06)
Yeah. There's certain ways to progress conditioning. Every boot camp, every freaking franchise model, they have conditioning in it. It's somewhat effective, but it could be so much more effective that they use proper methods and lay them out better.

Larry (10:21)
Now, this may be an unfair question, but based on your programming, typically, what is your favorite day to come in to see, to do the workout?

Rob (10:33)
I'll let Zack go. I'm a bit... Even though we're big, we're known for our strength programming, we know just about as much as conditioning as we do strength. A lot of people, especially some high-level that come around that are endurance athletes, they know our conditioning is bar none.

Larry (10:55)
Yeah. I know a couple of those guys that are beast. They're older, too.

Zach (11:00)
That's also a great question because we see it a lot in our classes. My favorite day is to come in on Monday, Wednesdays. They're the strength days. But then people tend to lean towards the Tuesdays because Tuesdays tend to be maybe a little bit more interval-based. They feel a little bit harder. Then people try to turn a Thursday into a Tuesday workout where it's supposed to be a little bit lower RPE. We do run into that.

Rob (11:22)
A longer duration.

Zach (11:23)
Then they try to go really hard on the Thursday workout. But you just did Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. We're trying to change energy system on Thursday. I like Tuesdays, too, because we all do. We all like putting in a hard workout, feeling good after you leave and you're like, Man, I really worked hard today. You might leave on Thursday and be like, Man, I feel like I didn't go as hard as I did on Tuesday. But yes, that was the intention. That's a great question because we run into that a lot. Now, that would be the outline of a full program. If you had somebody who can't come in, maybe they only come in two days a week and they can only do Monday and Thursday, well, then, yeah, we would talk to them on an individual on a individual basis, we could change this from week to week to be a little bit different. You could go a little harder today on Thursday because you didn't do Tuesday and you're not doing Saturday. But then next week, let's turn it into how the workout is actually outlined. It depends on person to person. That's where communication comes in.

Zach (12:15)
It's a really big deal when it comes to a class base. That's why we believe that there should be coaches at every single class, know all your members, and then know who's where.

Rob (12:24)
When it's class-based, one thing you want to remember, it's class-based programming, as much as I love ours, is group programming. No matter how good and how well it's laid out, it's more for the bell curve of the majority of people. Then there's some things that are going to be in it that might be not set up well or inappropriate for an individual. You just got to know that, and then you got to know yourself and what are your goals and how to change and modify or speak to coaches with it.

Larry (12:51)
Okay, that makes sense.

Zach (12:53)
I think another thing, too, is we talk about how we phase our programming. Every 4: 00 to six weeks, we're in a different phase. We talk about what we're going to be doing differently from the last phase, why we're doing this phase. But that can be a little boring to some people. But that is progression of movement. It tends to be more boring on the strength days for people than it does to be on the aerobic days. It's because if we're focusing on dynamic work or unilateral work versus strength work, well, then we're going to be focusing on just this style of training, just strength work. We back squatted last Monday. We back squatted two weeks in a row. We back squatted three weeks in a row. It's like, Are we going to change what we're doing? No, because that's our focus. But that, again, is what a proper full program would look like.

Rob (13:42)
Yeah. It's a progression from week to week to week. It's just not just constantly moving around and changing the whole thing up every other day or every week. But a well-laid-out program has got a lot of intent in it. Obviously, you hear us talking about it. All too often, you see programs do not well-laid out, and their intent is all over the place.

Zach (14:02)
That's why I thought it was a really good point you brought out about the map. So week to week, we're constantly changing what we're doing. We're never doing the same thing in there. It's like, well, you're never focused on any one thing. You're just jumping around.

Larry (14:13)
That's a great point, right? Because if you are jumping around to other things and your back squat is not going to get better.

Zach (14:19)
You're not improving.

Rob (14:20)
No, your movement patterns. You need enough of touching an exercise or a movement pattern repeatedly in a row to get better at it.

Larry (14:32)
Makes sense. Okay.

Zach (14:34)
Basically, we talked about how the outline goes then. If your focus is on strength work, you have three days of strength, you work on the aerobic work, different variations of aerobic work, and then we have a test day on Saturday. That's how we outline it. But some variations of that, depending on anybody's schedule, I tell you to outline a full program.

Larry (14:49)
What's the test day?

Rob (14:50)
Specifically-more of a time-based workout or something like that, which we don't allow every individual to do it. Yeah, correct.

Zach (14:58)
Not right away? No.

Rob (15:00)
Okay. Yeah. It takes a while before we tell people it's okay to go ahead and do that. All their movement needs to be in a certain place, and their understanding of how to pace and being able to keep their composure through a workout.

Larry (15:12)
How do you handle that? Because my ego would get in the way. Somebody may come in and be like, Well, I can do it. How do you handle that conversation?

Zach (15:23)
Larry, what's your goals?

Larry (15:26)
Okay.

Zach (15:26)
What's your goals?

Larry (15:27)
My goals would be, yeah, to get strong.

Zach (15:29)
Okay, so you want to get stronger. You want to maybe, and I'm just using you for example, but anybody. You want to get stronger. Okay, you want to lose a little bit of weight. Saturdays are not going to suit your goals at all. In fact, it'll only suit your goals when you're about two months in. If you do a Saturday, we're having an adverse effect to what your goals are. Let's stick to Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and then you can pick Tuesday or Thursday for your conditioning days. You're going to reach your goals much faster.

Rob (15:53)
The problem with Saturday is take it away.

Zach (15:55)
Like, I can't do that Saturday. So if you do reach with somebody, it's just about communicating.

Rob (15:59)
The problem with Saturdays, they're fun.

Larry (16:01)
I like that. That is the problem with Saturdays.

Rob (16:03)
That's the problem with Saturdays.

Zach (16:04)
And not saying you can't come in on a Saturday, but we might just give you something else to do.

Rob (16:09)
Okay. And Larry, we're going with strength because strength is the base for everything. That's where we look at it for all athletic endeavors. That's the base that we look at. And then the conditioning comes in right after that. But being stronger can enhance your conditioning. Yeah, I could see that. Being more conditioned could help the strength, and it does. But the strength definitely transfers over, especially when it comes to power intervals where you need to produce more power.

Zach (16:39)
A lot of force in a short period of time. Yes.

Larry (16:42)
Yeah, because one thing I did notice when I was Back in the day when we all were doing CrossFit, the whole world was doing it. You could tell the good athletes were really good because they had a really strong base. Correct.

Rob (16:58)
Yes. Good foundation.

Larry (17:00)
That had a great foundation, either in gymnastics or strong weight lifting. Those were the two things. If you're mediocre, both, you're done. Yeah. Okay, that makes a lot of sense.

Rob (17:13)
Yeah, I mean, CrossFit did a good job of teaching a lot about certain type of workouts. But the thing what it didn't do was it didn't teach people how to separate and build base in all of it. Because you're just constantly mixing it. And then the program and got out of control. And that's what I said. There's no roadmap. You're just all over the place.

Larry (17:35)
Yeah, there is no roadmap. You don't know where you're going. Correct. Yeah. I had no idea. I could say where I went, got hurt.

Rob (17:43)
Yeah, 100% because they worship the clock too much.

Larry (17:45)
Yeah, they worship the clock too much. I agree. Again, it was all about that 5K. How fast can I go?

Rob (17:51)
Yeah, so Larry, let's talk about when we're programming, this is how I lay out the programming. Monday, Wednesdays, and Friday is most That gets laid out first.

Zach (18:00)
We always program those first.

Rob (18:02)
Yup. And then all it is is following the progression. Then Tuesdays, and then Thursdays, and Saturday is last. So that's the least important. It might be the funnest, but that's the least important.

Larry (18:15)
Yeah, and that makes sense, right? It makes that conversation even easier, right?

Zach (18:20)
Because we place the biggest emphasis on these days, not Saturday.

Rob (18:25)
Because Saturday is probably the only day that is You're not going to get any better at anything. You're just testing things you already have. All the other days are building more of strength or conditioning basis.

Larry (18:39)
I'm assuming Monday, this is an assumption. If it is a full body workout, how long does that work out?

Rob (18:47)
Nothing's past an hour.

Zach (18:49)
It's about an hour. Sometimes a little less, sometimes a little bit more, depending on. But yeah, it's about an hour.

Larry (18:53)
Okay.

Zach (18:54)
Then the conditioning, that's a good question then, because conditioning sometimes can be even less. It It depends on what we're working on. Yeah, but the way we outline it is we always have a group warmup, so the group warmup will go, and then we brief the workout. All that, taken into consideration, takes anywhere from 10 to 15 minutes. Then they're working on strength for the next 45 to 50 minutes. Then the conditioning days, when we do the warmup, we do the briefing. Sometimes the conditioning is outlined, maybe it's just within a 20-minute period. On Thursdays, maybe it's within a 30, 40-minute period, so it's a little bit longer. But then we'll always have some mobility, maybe some core at the end, just depending. It just depends on the workout, but it ranges in duration.

Rob (19:33)
All right, perfect. All right.

Zach (19:34)
Awesome, guys. Thanks for tuning in. This has been Strong Principles.

Larry (19:37)
Later.