The High-Low Training System

The high-low training system was developed and popularised by track and field coach Charles Francis to ensure there was enough time between sessions for neural recovery. 

While the system was initially designed for sprint training, the concepts carry over and can be applied to most speed/power/strength sports, including those in the combat sports realm. 

The theory behind the method is that rather than splitting your sessions up throughout the week based on the recovery times needed for the muscular system to recover, you would split up training into days categorised by "high" and "low" CNS activity. 

For example, maximally taxing your nervous system from a hard rolling or sparring session will hurt your ability to recruit maximal force benching or squat the next day. Meaning that if we continue to try to perform consecutive 'High Days,' you will be significantly underperforming and increase your risk of injury. 

The goal of the strength and conditioning coach in the combat sports realm is to then differentiate between the athlete's sessions that require a higher level of physical preparedness and recovery time with those sessions that have lower levels of force, speed, stress, and fatigue. Understanding this allows us to manage better the stress and recovery of our athletes across a training week, allowing them to be as fresh as possible every time they show up. 

Categorizing high/low training sessions in combat sports can be done with S&C sessions and skill practice sessions.

High Intensity - For the most part, these sessions require higher speed, force, and stress must be separated by a 48-72 hour window to avoid accumulating neural fatigue, harming performance, and increasing injury risk. High training activities include and are not limited to:

• Sprints and bounds

• Explosive jumps

• Weights >80% of 1RM

• Explosive med ball throws

• Maximal conditioning

• Hard sparring, rolling, or pad/bag-work sessions

Low Intensity - These sessions are essentially the opposite of the high days and require lower speed, force, and stress levels. Lower intensity sessions require lower neural demand a shorter recovery window of 24 hours or less. Low training activities include and are not limited to:

• GPP circuits

• Mobility flows

• Weights <80%

• Aerobic based conditioning

• Med ball circuits

• Core work

• Light partner grappling or striking drills

Note: Charlie Francis was adamant about excluding moderate-intensity training activities or runs (76-94%) out of his sprint training. The problem with these activities is that they aren't intense enough to stimulate the CNS, but are too intense to recover from within 24 hours, so we essentially get all of the fatigue with no benefits. 

We can categorise the high/low sessions based on the interaction between volume, intensity, and cognitive load. Still, it is also crucial in the combat sports realm to remember that this system isn't always perfect and that training intensity or effort exerted by the athlete isn't always in their control. Training partners change frequently, and there are times when combat sports coaches may demand more out of the training drills when developing techniques and so forth.

The most important concept to remember when training your athletes is that each session has an associated recovery cost, which will affect the performance in the sessions following whether they fall on the same day or very next. We can utilise the high/low system to help deal with what can quite often be a chaotic training schedule for our combat sports athletes to map out our weekly strength and conditioning sessions.

References:
- Charles Francis
- Geoffrey Chiu
- Keir Wenham-Flatt