Weightlifter Cardiac Adaptation 101

Anyone who has worked in the Chinese National Sporting system before will be able to tell you that most coaches believe in the basic maxim that more and harder is always better. But within a system that, for many sports, blends Soviet training models with Chinese characteristics and modern technology, a wide range of interesting and challenging ideas and practices can emerge.

Weightlifting is one of the early specialisation sports that thrives in China and often leads athletes to develop obsessively specific training practices. For example, I have seen some athletes refuse to train a split squat because their jerk technique relies on a stiff rear leg, and they believed that training that involves bending the back knee would compromise their jerk technique. Similarly, asking an athlete to perform a squat with a stance different from their normal squatting stance, for either assessment or training, has at times led to 30-minute conversations about how it won’t undo their 10-plus-year training history.

In the context of a near-obsession with replicating only weightlifting-specific conditions among some athletes and practitioners, it is understandable that someone might collect competition training data on athletes' heart rates and use it to hypothesise that weightlifters should train only at this high heart rate for their conditioning sessions. It also aligns perfectly with the idea that not training hard is lazy and that hard is better.

There is also the common and misguided belief that training with less intense movements and lower heart rates would make weightlifting athletes slow, somehow magically undoing years of sport-specific training adaptations. Which, somehow, applies only to the occasional conditioning session, not to every rep of their weightlifting training that isn’t performed near maximal effort. As the same line of logic and ignoring of physiology would suggest, reps not done heavy or fast enough will make you slow and weak, or even that leisurely walking is dangerous, as heart rate is too low.

The idea that all conditioning should involve competition heart-rate training not only ignores the factors that influence heart rate but, more importantly, ignores the fundamentals of cardiac adaptation. Thus, I encourage it to finally be put in the dumb idea graveyard where it belongs.

Cardiac Adaptation to Exercise

In a normal, healthy, untrained heart, ventricular volume and muscle wall thickness are unaltered.

Normal cardiac tissue.

In response to high-intensity cardiovascular training or resistance training, the primary adaptation is concentric ventricular hypertrophy. The heart walls thicken to increase contractility and allow the ventricle to eject more blood more quickly, without allowing the ventricle to fill.

Concentric hypertrophy.

In response to low-intensity steady-state cardiovascular training (approximately 120-150 beats per minute), the primary adaptation is eccentric ventricular hypertrophy. A lower heart rate allows greater blood flow to the ventricles, thereby stretching the heart wall and enabling more blood volume to be pumped with each beat. Thus, increasing cardiac efficiency and lowering heart rate.

Eccentric hypertrophy.

As you would expect, you can have too much of a good thing, and for peak athletic performance, you typically want a blend of adaptation where you get a mix of concentric and eccentric ventricular hypertrophy to maximise efficiency. Weightlifting already emphasises concentric ventricular hypertrophy, which is similar to high-intensity cardio training. Without eccentric ventricular hypertrophy to increase stroke volume and cardiac output, the only option for a weightlifter's heart to move more blood is to increase heart rate further, which is limited, so more of the same training doesn’t actually help the athlete.

To increase the athlete's capacity, performance, and even ability to recover, they need to spend time generating eccentric ventricular hypertrophy. This means that, just as you will alter training phases to elicit specific performance adaptations in weightlifting, you should do the same for cardiovascular training.

Mixed cardiac adaptation of both concentric and eccentric hypertrophy.

Chinese Athletes

For some athletes who regularly participate in other activities or are physically active outside training, this may be less relevant than for the Chinese athlete. Chinese athletes typically engage in little physical activity outside their sport-specific training. They typically take transport to and from training facilities. Walking is typically over short distances and at insufficient intensity to promote cardiovascular adaptation, and other activities that could promote adaptation are not performed with sufficient consistency.

The two groups of Chinese weightlifting athletes who are likely to achieve eccentric ventricular adaptation are younger provincial athletes, who often perform significantly more conditioning training, and athletes maintaining lower bodyweight categories. These athletes often perform more low-intensity steady-state cardio to maintain their weight and also engage in long-duration sauna sessions. Both of which likely fall within optimal training zones for eccentric hypertrophy. Saunas may be a good option for promoting adaptation in Chinese weightlifters, as they are available at most training facilities. However, consistent with the common "harder is always better" practice, most athletes use extremely hot, short-duration saunas that likely raise heart rates too high or do not last long enough to elicit eccentric adaptation.

In Chinese weightlifting, female athletes may receive greater exposure to activities that elicit more robust cardiovascular adaptations. As they typically train for longer overall and participate in a wider variety of activities.

Beyond Just The Central Cardiac Adaptation

There are additional benefits beyond the enhanced cardiac capacity produced from balancing an athlete's concentric and eccentric hypertrophy with alternating training periods. A more efficient and robust cardiovascular system improves recovery between sets of exercise and from training sessions. This is perhaps the greatest benefit that is not captured when focusing solely on producing concentric hypertrophy. In key competition moments with limited recovery time, the ability to recover and regulate will affect how the athlete performs on subsequent attempts.  

Slower, steady-state cardio is generally the type of activity that downregulates sympathetic nervous system activity. This can help shift athletes from highly sympathetic-driven states into parasympathetic recovery states, thereby aiding between-session recovery, particularly through increased sleep depth and restfulness. Additionally, increased cardiac efficiency can aid recovery by enhancing the overall aerobic system, which is the most efficient ATP-PCR replenishment system.

No Good Argument Against It

To produce more balanced cardiac adaption all we are talking about is 30-90 minutes of steady state training at 120-150bpm a week during an eccentric cardiac hypertrophy training phase. This can involve training as simple as incline treadmill walking or as complex as bodyweight or circuit training that maintains the targeted training zones.

Whatever periodisation you are using, there is a place for steady-state conditioning to promote eccentric hypertrophy, and you should be doing it and experimenting with which sessions and phase allocation are most effective.

Some may still cry wolf over interference effects from training, but if you actually understand that you are purposefully using it specifically produce an adaptation you won’t get from just resistance training and high intensity cardio, which is the positive interference you actually want, then you are already halfway there. Combine that with the fact that 30-90 minutes per week during the limited training phase represents a small fraction of the overall training volume, and the finish line is now in sight. All you need now is to program your conditioning sessions so they produce minimal adaptive interference, using cycles, separating sessions by 6-8 hours when possible, and scheduling conditioning work at the end of sessions.

Chinese weightlifters already schedule most conditioning sessions either at the end of training or on Thursdays, their non-lifting or minimal-lifting training day. Apart from training camp blocks, where they go through morning activity blocks, where they get the athletes up at 6 am, to using just walking or very slowly jogging laps.

Hidden Benefits

As noted, Chinese athletes are often highly sedentary outside their training sessions. Which, to be fair, is understandable when you realise weightlifters are usually training 8 sessions over 6 days for approximately 18-21 hours a week. The majority of which involves high-intensity resistance training. This is where I think there is an additional benefit for Chinese lifters, especially as they get older and joint fluid becomes thicker, and their bodies are generally more beat up. Low-intensity motion that helps lubricate joints, maintain mobility, and support health and training capacity. Additionally, older athletes generally have more external commitments and less time for play and socialisation, and fewer opportunities for physical activity than younger athletes.