Power-Endurance

For this cycle the format is in the AM: Endurance work, 1x stready state, 1x medium, 1x Threshold and in the PM 3x/week strength, 1x/week power, 1x/week IWT (Power-Endurnace), 2 days off.  

IWT today.  I'm starting to understand why they are so great and amazing at building work capacity.  I wonder what the outcome would be on a diet of 3x/week IWT's.

Warm Up:
10 min easy row

I got my heart rate receptor this morning and immediatly hooked it up. 

Workout (as intended):
10x Power Clean 132#
Row 2' @ 90% HR
Rest 2 min.
3 Rounds
Rest 5 min
10x Front Squat 155#
Row 2' @ 90% HR
Rest 2'
3 Rounds

Pat O'Shea (inventor of this horrible thing) called for a circuit in phase 3.  The circuit was complementary exercises and I usually throw in some Pull ups, push ups, dips, sit-ups, back extentions, KB Swings and the like.  Today, I ran into timing issues and cut it out. 

The rest period "should" allow for recovery down to 110 BPM, but what I was experiencing was about 3 min to recover to that level.  So I tried to pull back on the "free exercse" portion so that my HR didn't get over 160 so as to allow for a recovery to 110, but I just couldn't pull off the thottle and kept pushing the HR higher and higher.  I wasn't even noticing the split time or wattage, just HR.  The strenght exercises were all unbroken which too some committment on round 3 of the front squats.

I'm excited to keep track of HR and use it as a gauge for exertion during workouts.  Some coaches argue that it's useless because things like anxiety before the workout can cause elevated HR and it's as useful as "percieved exertion" scales.  I'm starting to think that this is BS though.  No workout is ever in a vaccum, and my anxity is going to be a part of the deal.  If my heart rate is elevated for any reason it will effect my performance so I can still use HR, if not better than pure power ratings to understand what my body is capable of in the moment.  To know how long I can operate at 170 bpmin these conditions, is useful; just like for some people out there it would be useful to know at what HR and for how long they can operate in more hostile enviornments, like say Afghanistan mountains?

Thoughts?

Up next, the last Strength day of the week before 2 rest days.