Work to Rest Ratio’s in Conditioning work

By now if you have been reading the articles we have put up, you will be well aware of the premium that we place on replicating game demands as closely as possible in all forms of training, including running based conditioning. This means that when doing running work on your own, you would be best served doing shorter and more intense work interspersed with rest times, rather than longer duration steady state work. One key component to this that arises is the work-to-rest ratio – that is – how much time is spent resting in between the running bouts, relative to the running itself. This is a very important variable – in fact probably the most important of variables when doing this interval based work, so lets a have a short discussion about it.

 

Just to be clear, if you are sprinting for 20 seconds and resting for 40 seconds, this is a work to rest ratio of 1:2 – as there is twice as much rest time as work time. If you are running hard for 30 seconds then slow for 30, this is a work to rest ratio of 1:1. By manipulating the work to rest ratio, you are able to not only change the difficulty level of what is essentially the same program in every other way, but also modify the training adaption you will get (or in other words, how your body will respond the to training – and what specifically will improve.)

 

One of the things we cover in depth early in Agility, Speed & Conditioning for Aussie Rules Footy is a GPS analysis of matches from several sources. We used this to highlight many different factors of the demands of footy specific running like the number of accelerations and decelerations, the number of changes in directions, the different speeds that are hit, the changes in speed, etc – but one key element that is also highlighted in a fairly simple early table, is that of work-to-rest ratio.



So referring to the screenshot from above, the average work to rest ratio is 1:2.2 in the data from players measured. In other words, for every minute of hard work, you will get 2 minutes and 12 seconds of rest – which is defined as total rest like standing or walking, or active rest which is a slow jog up to 6km per hour.

 

Just a quick note – even though these are AFL figures, and we bang on about how there are differences between the way the game is played at the elite level in comparison to how it is played closer to grassroots and local - especially in terms of the interchange numbers and style of play, we purposely chose date from 10 years ago from the AFL, as this was prior to the interchange boom and gives a much more accurate picture of the work-to-rest ratio of a game of footy in general. Not only that, but when comparing these figures to a couple of smaller GPS studies of local and amateur league footy (yes believe it or not a couple do exist – and we reference and give links to them in the ebook), this work to rest ratio is very much the same.

 


When laying out a running session plan – or hopefully a running based program where you plan several months in advance how you will gradually progress from point A (the beginning) to point B (what you want to be able to do in several months time) – it is important to consider this ratio, and adjust it depending on the goal. This ‘rough’ 1:2 work to rest ratio that we highlighted before is always a good starting point or reference to remember. Generally speaking you will have twice as much rest time in a game as work time – and you might find this hard to believe given how absolutely buggered you feel during a game – but of course remember this ‘work’ time isn’t just jogging around the place, it is high intensity work.

 

When setting your work to rest ratio, you can ‘overload’ the work time, so that you have closer to a 1:1 work to rest ratio. For example, going hard for 30 seconds, followed by a 30 second walk or slow jog. Repeat 400 meter sprints with a 90 second rest will also be a similar overload, as these repeat efforts are likely to take 60-75 seconds, meaning these are far closer to 1:1 than they are to 1:2. Generally speaking, the overload is best kept higher at the beginning of pre-season, and progressing to a greater rest ratio (and more closely mimicking the game-day ratio) the further into pre-season and the closer to games you get. A primary reason for this is to avoid too much intensity too early – in other words, you wont be able to maintain as much speed and power of movement in the running intervals if the rest times are lower, however when the rest intervals are progressively longer compared to the work ones – the work component will be very powerful indeed (and this is a recipe for muscle strains early in a pre-season.) This is not to say that the interval running will not be intense early on – it will be (and certainly more intense and specific to footy than 5km runs) – it just will not be as intense as the same running with longer rest.

 


We are talking about work to rest ratio’s for the general conditioning work, but agility (and speed work for that matter too) is a different discussion altogether. We wont go into it here as it becomes too long, but in short, when working on pure agility based work, the rest times become a lot longer. This is because agility is an expression of maximum explosive power – and you can not develop this in a fatigued state. Generally agility work will have a work to rest ratio of at least 1:4, often more. This varies if the agility work is being used as conditioning work too, rather than just pure agility work. This already may be sounding a little confusing now, so we will leave the agility for another day. This is all covered in clear detail in Agility, Speed & Conditioning for Aussie Rules Footy. In short, the work/rest ratio that you choose will have a dramatic effect on what specific quality you will train - just as it does in strength and power training - running is no different - it certainly isn't a case of 'all running is running - just as good as the other - and more is better' as is so often thought.

 

Just briefly, as we touched on earlier, there are different types of rest too – total rest (just walking or standing) and active rest (slow jog.) What type of rest you use is dependent on the type of running you are doing – or even on your current ability level in terms of what you can tolerate. ‘Rest’ is a very subjective measurement for each individual, so it is also up to you to adapt and adjust this, depending on where you are currently at. But don’t fall into the trap of thinking there is anything wrong with walking, if the ‘work’ component is intense. After all, just think about how much time you spend in a game actually walking.


If you would like more detailed and personalised direction, checkout our personalised online programming, or if you would prefer even more personalised and detailed in-person coaching (for those lucky enough to live in the beautiful city of Adelaide), check out our Athletic Development Coaching and Junior Athletic Development Coaching.
 

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