Conditioning, The Ultimate Bridesmaid To Your Strength Training

How are those muscles feeling after the pump, today team?

I know a few of you have reevaluated your training programs and broken them down into a bit more depth which is awesome.

I’ve also had other people reach out and ask questions which is great as well.

I’m more than happy to help so if you do have questions, please feel free to reach out at any time.

So onto today’s break down, we’re talking about conditioning and the importance of it all.

So like normal, let’s understand what conditioning is…

...Conditioning, in physiology, 


is a behavioural process whereby a response becomes more frequent or more predictable in a given environment as a result of reinforcement, 

with reinforcement typically being a stimulus or reward for the desired response.

Well if you look at that explanation, lifting weights is conditioning right?

Well yes, but no.

The reason we use the term strength and conditioning is that we build strength lifting weights yes

But we spend very little time conditioning our bodies to accustom itself to handling that newfound strength or added muscle mass.

This is why so many athletes who have injuries, re-injure themselves... 

...they’ve done the strength work but haven’t reconditioned their bodies back to their natural movement patterns.

Before I delve into this more, let me break down the two major mechanics of conditioning.

The first is infant mechanics with the second being primal

Infant mechanics is most commonly applied when someone has suffered a serious injury, been in a car crash or suffered from a life-threatening situation.

In order to coach our muscles back into movement, the ideal way to do this is through infant mechanics or infant strength conditioning.

This is where we take the person right back to movements when they were a baby and get them retraining their motor patterns so they can neurologically connect everything back together again and move properly.

Remember, after one of these incidents, they’ve been bedridden or been on some sort of support apparatus for weeks…

...so they will have serious compensational variances they’ll have to readjust right from the get-go.

This sort of conditioning takes time but is the best way to rehab your body in situations like this to ensure the best recovery possible.

Now primal conditioning is taking the strength work we have been doing with our weights,

And using that newfound strength in everyday movements. 

Things like sled push, farmers walks, wheelbarrows and strong man carries.

All things that we do in everyday life that have direct carry over to the strength work we do in the gym.

Take the farmers walk and deadlifts for example. 

Both engage your core at extension, 

challenge your lumbar muscles for stabilizing the midsection, 

both work on your grip, 

both demand good posture and both activate your glutes to keep your hips square.

This, therefore, brings me back to the SPP and GPP email I sent a few day’s back.

If you understand what your Specific Physical Preparedness exercises are 

then you can base your conditioning work around these exercises

And achieve more overall progress in your programs, faster. If your SPP exercise is barbell cleans... 


...then to complement that, Deadball ground to shoulder would be a great conditioning exercise.


Both focus on spreading the floor at the bottom and hip drive to get the weight to the shoulder.

You can also use certain conditioning exercises to build up your GPP for instances like recovering from injuries so you add strength and hypertrophy work into your program

If you were a runner, suffered a knee injury and was building up muscle mass in your quads through isolation work, 

doing sled pushes would help give functionality back to the knee without adding the jarring you would get if you started running again.

It means when you’re actually cleared to run, 

your quads have got some functional work in already and will be in a better position to support the knee when you start to run.

Conditioning is such an essential part of your training if done properly,

and can really take your training to the next level.

The wrong conditioning, however, can do more harm than good at times.

Fatigue can become a factor if you over condition and underdevelop strength and if this happens

Injuries happen pretty much every time!

It’s a delicate balance getting all these moving parts in line but when you understand your program and why everything is designed the way it is, 

you begin to fall in love with the process and that’s powerful as an athlete!