Most of the articles that are written on this subject seem to emphasize HIIT, for example Hill Sprints or Prowler work, over LISS.
What's your personal view on LISS for Strength Athletes, Tosa?
I think there's a cultural dislike of cardio, especially steady state, among strength athletes. I know I'll make jokes about it at the gym, even though I do conditioning regularly.
LISS offers some specific benefits to strength athletes. First, during a heavy lift, blood pressure and heart rate skyrocket. This isn't as much of an issue for younger/lighter athletes, but for older/heavier athletes, it means that LISS better prepares their cardiovascular system to handle this stress.
Second, LISS stimulates the parasympathetic nervous system, which, to simplify, is the one that relaxes you, bringing things like HR down, slowing the release of adrenaline, etc. Whereas lifting stimulates the sympathetic nervous system, which increases HR, increases release of adrenaline, Ie. the fight-or-flight response. So the inclusion of LISS improves recovery, reducing overall stress.
Third, all energy produced by the body ultimately comes from aerobic metabolism. Ie. recovery of the anaerobic energy systems is dependant on the aerobic energy system. Because of this VO2max is strongly correlated with recovery between bouts of high intensity exercise. In other words, if you're in better aerobic condition, you can recover better between sets.
However, there are also potential downsides. LISS can stimulate adaptation in the muscle (Ie. peripheral adaptation) as well as the cardiovascular system, towards being better at endurance, rather than strength & power. The most important factor in minimizing these adaptation is keeping in mind duration relative to intensity - so you want to do LISS long enough that you get the benefits to the cardiovascular system and parasympathetic nervous system, but not so long as you stimulate much in the way of peripheral adaptation. So at a typical LISS intensity, you'd want to stay between 20 and 30 minutes.
Next, you conditioning that involves greater ROMs and higher velocity contractions may interfere with strength adaptations less. Eg. cycling with lower resistance, higher RPM, is better than cycling at a higher resistance, lower RPM, which in turn is better than jogging, because of the greater ROM. Although this is an area where more research is needed, IMO.
All that said, I think conditioning for strength athletes should be based on need. Look at basic markers of cardiovascular health, like resting HR, HR recovery, blood pressure, VO2max, and whether they are in a normal range for someone who is healthy and active. I can't find VO2max data for powerlifters, but for weightlifters it's typically between 40 and 50 ml/min/kg, which is lower than most other athletes, but it's healthy, maybe even "fit", if that word means anything. I'd expect that for powerlifting, you might actually want a VO2max slightly higher than for weightlifting, since the lifts are more metabolically taxing, and slightly more reps per set are often done.
All of which ignores strongman, but since conditioning is very significant in strongman, that'd be a whole other thing. Also ignoring HIIT, which is relevant to strength athletes, but I've written enough for now.
