Excerpt from Answering the Call: Proper Physical Training for Police and Military in the in the 21st Century
We introduce something called “High Resistance Intervals” which is in Joel Jamieson’s book, The Ultimate Guide to MMA Conditioning. I read it years ago and kind of blew it off at the time. Then when Craig Weller added it into my (RASP) preparation I saw the value in it. Like most things in strength and conditioning it's already been invented but suddenly it clicks...you just understand it by seeing it in application or written in a certain way. For me, despite doing something like this since I played high school football (running hills) I was too much of a simpleton to see the value.
In summation, it is a form of interval training where one completes a short burst of around 5-15 seconds of resisted/explosive work followed by recovery and then repeating. Remember, I fell into the intensity camp for years and didn’t see the value in resting and then repeating. That is the difference here. You are doing a short interval, but then allowing for recovery.
As an example these can be done pushing a heavy sled for 10-15 seconds, resting for around a minute, and then going again. Each rep should have some power, but as you fatigue it will drop a bit. If power is totally gone end the session for the day or try resting a bit longer.
While wearing a heart rate monitor, push the sled, rest, wait until your heart rate comes down to 130-140 bpm and then go again. Repeat until hitting your rep total. A good way to measure progress is if you keep the volume the same, but just measure the total time it takes to complete the workout. You should watch your rest periods decrease as you gain more fitness. For example, ten to fifteen sets of sled pushes that originally took you twenty minutes to complete now takes you fifteen minutes to complete.
Note: We are not only training your ability to repeat resisted/explosive efforts we are also training your aerobic system in the background, as this is what is facilitating your recovery. Combining a session like this with steady state work (Zone 2) later in the week you’ll be training the best of both worlds.
I’d call that a win. Along the way you also improved your ability to repeat bouts of power while STAYING in the aerobic zone.
Why am I putting emphasis on this? You aren’t a track and field athlete. You are a soldier/First Responder. You need to be able to repeat hard bouts of effort and then recover and go again. It's not uncommon for the infantry soldier to have to move under load for long duration low intensity periods. Then all of a sudden...CONTACT...sprint...stop...hop a wall, then go again.
