SESSION NOTES: Multi-Modal (Multiple)

The ‘Multi-Modal’ session combines multiple fields of exercise to deliver multiple benefits.

While these sessions are not the best way to develop any single element of fitness, they have the advantage of being an extremely efficient way of developing multiple elements of fitness at the same time.

Multi-modal sessions are not the best way to maximise strength, stamina, power or work capacity individually, but they are very effective in improving them all collectively.

A session will train whatever the limiting factor of that session is. In an Absolute Strength session for example, the limiting factor is strength. Therefore, the session will make you stronger. In a Continuous Cardiovascular session, the limiting factor is cardiorespiratory endurance, therefore that is what it will train.

In a multi-modal session, there is not one limiting factor, but many. You should be equally limited by strength, stamina, power and work capacity, therefore, each will be trained.

The selection of movement types in this session ensure a balance between lower body anterior and posterior chain, and between upper body pushing and pulling. Not only does this ensure balance within the body, but it also allows us to engage in ‘blood shunting’. Blood shunting is when we cycle between alternating and conflicting muscle groups to maximise the cardiorespiratory benefit of the session.

Multi-modals contain a balance of movements that require you to use your bodyweight as resistance, and those that use an external load as resistance. In this way, we’re able to train both your relative strength and stamina, and your absolute strength and stamina.

There is a high degree of variation in all elements of a Multi-Modal session. Different loads and rep schemes deliver different benefits, so Multi-Modals will deliver a wide range. You will also find different session lengths and intensities. These sessions may range from a few minutes to an hour, with different times training different energy systems and delivering different benefits.

Health and body composition benefits of resistance-based exercise in Multi-Modals:

Resistance training (using your muscles to lift heavy weights, either external weights or yourself) makes you stronger. Strength is one of the greatest predictors of both your lifespan (how long you live) and your healthspan (how long you live in a healthy state).

Resistance training like this will also improve your flexibility (by going through a full range of motion), posture and coordination. It will also build stability around your joints and spine to give you a healthy musculo-skeletal system and reduce joint and back pain.

The session will minimise losses in bone mineral density and will improve your balance. Strength and balance are the two strongest predictors of falls later in life, so this is an effective way to train fall prevention, and ensure your independence into old age.

Health and body composition benefits of bodyweight exercise in Multi-Modals:

Bodyweight movements in Multi-modals provide a form of resistance training that creates a stimulus with lighter loads and higher volume than an absolute strength or power based session. While the high levels of fatigue in this session makes it less effective to increase strength and power, it will improve your stamina – the ability of your muscles to resist fatigue.

Often, higher repetition movements are neglected for the upper body (while walking/cycling etc are included for the lower body), but by including these higher repetition upper body movements, we’re helping to develop blood vessels in the upper body which will help reduce cardiovascular risk factors.

High repetition resistance training like this will also improve your flexibility (by going through a full range of motion), posture and coordination. It will also build stability around your joints and spine to give you a healthy musculo-skeletal system and reduce joint and back pain. These movements will also help develop tendon strength.

Health and body composition benefits of the cardiorespiratory element of Multi-Modals:

Cardiorespiratory exercise has considerable health benefits, with this session creating favourable changes to cardiovascular disease (including reductions in blood pressure) and respiratory disease. This session will also lower your resting heart rate and increase blood flow to the brain.

The cyclical nature of some of the movements in this session are the most effective types of movements to stimulate the release of endorphins, feel good chemicals that will not only improve mood and mental health, but will also help to reduce pain levels in the body.

General health and body composition benefits of Multi-Modals:

As a result of this style of session, you will experience changes in blood chemistry, including favourable effects on cholesterol, blood glucose, triglyceride and lipid levels.

This session increases your lean muscle mass and muscle fibre size. Muscle is a metabolically active tissue, so increasing it will maximise how much energy your body burns at rest. This makes it an effective session to reach healthy levels of body fat, both visceral fat (around the organs) and subcutaneous fat (under your skin). After this session, your body will go through a prolonged state of ‘EPOC’ (excess post- exercise oxygen consumption), meaning you’ll continue burning energy long after you finish training – further aiding healthy body composition.

Performance benefits of resistance-based exercise in Multi-Modals:

The heavy levels of resistance in this session are designed to increase your strength – increasing both your one rep max, and your ability to lift submaximal weights. By being stronger, you can lift more weight, and you will be able to lift submaximal weights faster and for higher reps because they’ll be at a lower percentage of your max.

As strength is an element of power, getting stronger will also improve your ability to move faster – beneficial for more power-based, explosive movements (like Olympic lifting).

This session will also improve the efficiency of your fast-twitch muscle fibres (those responsible for lifting heavy and fast), and will improve your neuromuscular efficiency (your ability to turn on a very high percentage of your muscle fibres).

Performance benefits of bodyweight exercise in Multi-Modals:

The high repetition movements in this session train the ability of your muscles to resist fatigue – increasing their stamina. This comes from improvements in the efficiency of slow twitch (fatigue resistant) muscle fibres.

As a result of the volume of repetitions, this session will increase the mitochondrial density in your muscle cells, allowing them to more efficiently convert energy into fuel. This means you can sustain higher rates of muscle contraction before fatigue or failure.

The higher volumes will also increase capillary density in your muscles, allowing for efficient delivery of oxygen and fuel, and removal of waste products (further adding to the fatigue resistance).

Performance benefits of the cardiorespiratory element of Multi-Modals:

The primary benefit of training for cardiorespiratory endurance from a performance perspective is to improve the ability of your body to sustain repeated muscle contractions.

This session achieves this by training a certain energy system which generates ‘ATP’ (adenosine triphosphate) which fuels movement. By completing this session and training these energy systems, we’re able to raise the threshold at which fatigue kicks in. This results in the session not only improving your work rate, but also improving your ability to sustain a higher work rate for longer, with less fatigue.

As a result of this session, you’ll experience performance-boosting changes in intramuscular substrate storage (increasing energy availability for muscle contractions) and increased enzyme activities (increasing the rate of energy delivery to the muscles).

Additionally, the repetitive muscle contractions create positive changes at a muscular level.

From a psychological point of view, if your pacing is correct, this session can be an effective method of entering a ‘flow state’, an optimal physical and mental zone which can help to maximise your performance.

With a huge variety of session formats and structures in Multi-Modal sessions, you should abide by the following laws of strategy:

• Determine and protect against the limiting factor.
• Find maximum sustainable pace, and maintain until near the end.
• Don’t hit the wall.
• Short sets with short rests.
• Base cycle rate on the length of the session.
• Just because you CAN do something, doesn’t mean you SHOULD.
• Consider the impact of muscle recruitment patterns.
• Overlap rest motives.
• Minimise ‘lowering’ and ‘eccentrics’.
• Have a plan A, B and C.

In this session, you should feel like you’re equally limited by strength, stamina, power and work capacity. No one element should limit you, it will be a combination.

Modify around injuries with exercises as close as possible to the stimulus of the movement you’re modifying.

In a lot of Multi-Modal sessions, you will be able to choose your movement from a clickable link. A common mistake is not choosing a ‘novel’ exercise.

The physical purpose of this variety is that if your body does a wide range of exercises, you will experience a wide range of benefits. Even though exercises are similar enough to ensure you’re constantly progressing (for example ‘ring dips’ and ‘parallel bar dips’ will both improve each other), they’re also different enough to force your body to keep adapting to new things (for example, there are some benefits that are unique to ‘rings dips’, and some that are unique to ‘parallel bar dips’). In particular, ‘unilateral’ movements (those where your right and left arm/leg have to work independently, like you’d get with dumbbells or kettlebells for example) are a great way to build joint and muscle health, balance and stability.

The mental reason behind the variety lies in both the ‘novelty’ value of new exercises, and also in the fact that the movement alternatives give you some freedom in an otherwise structured program. The mind thrives off these novel movements, and they inject some fun into your training.