The Vanguard app · Build an engine
Cardio set to your numbers, not a chart's
Conditioning set against your own critical power or speed, per machine, with strength alongside it and both counted in one week.
Your line
Set against your own critical power
Conditioning in the app is set as a share of your own critical power or speed, per machine, and an easy day has a ceiling it never crosses.
- Per machine
- A rower's number is never used for a bike, and nothing is copied between machines.
- Time in zone, from what you log
- Each interval's average is counted into one zone: power first, then pace on foot, then heart rate.
- Erg mode is a clock
- A phone's browser cannot read a rower's monitor or a heart rate strap, so you type the numbers from the monitor after each piece. Erg mode keeps the time.
Strength alongside
Strength and conditioning, one week
Lifting and conditioning are counted in one week. With a coach, they are also spaced the way the research on concurrent training suggests.
- Two programs at once
- A strength program and a conditioning program can run at the same time, each on its own clock, and Today shows both.
- One week, one ceiling
- Your conditioning counts against each muscle's redline, so a hard week of running can stop the app adding leg sets. It never stands in for a squat set.
- With a coach, the week is placed
- A coach's week planner keeps hard leg lifting and hard leg-driven conditioning off neighbouring days, puts the bike or the rower rather than a run next to a leg day, and on a shared day puts lifting first, hours apart. Every move comes with the sentence that says why.
The research
What the research says about conditioning beside strength
Five papers, each one linked. They are why the app counts the two together, and why running is treated differently from cycling.
Schumann, Feuerbacher, Sünkeler et al., 2022 · Sports Med
Meta-analysis · 43 studies
Adding aerobic training changed muscle growth (−0.01) and maximal strength (−0.06) by effectively nothing. Explosive strength dipped (−0.28), more when both shared a session.
Read the paper by Schumann, Feuerbacher, Sünkeler et al., 2022 (opens in a new tab)Wilson, Marin, Rhea et al., 2012 · J Strength Cond Res
Meta-analysis · 21 studies
Running reduced muscle and strength gains; cycling did not. More frequent and longer endurance sessions went with smaller gains.
Read the paper by Wilson, Marin, Rhea et al., 2012 (opens in a new tab)Poole, Burnley, Vanhatalo et al., 2016 · Med Sci Sports Exerc
Review
Across species and exercise types, power and duration follow the same curve. Critical power is its floor, and above it the time you last is set by a fixed reserve of work.
Read the paper by Poole, Burnley, Vanhatalo et al., 2016 (opens in a new tab)Jones, Burnley, Black et al., 2019 · Physiol Rep
Review
Work right at critical power lasts about 20 to 30 minutes, the maximal lactate steady state usually sits a little below it, and the estimate depends on the test.
Read the paper by Jones, Burnley, Black et al., 2019 (opens in a new tab)Seiler, 2010 · Int J Sports Physiol Perform
Review of descriptive studies
About 80% of elite endurance athletes' sessions were easy and about 20% hard. Making well-trained athletes train harder showed no convincing long-term gain. The 80/20 counts sessions, not minutes.
Read the paper by Seiler, 2010 (opens in a new tab)
Research describes groups of people, not you, and none of it is a promise about you.
Frequently Asked Questions
Read on
The other goals
- Build muscleTone, shape or size, with the focus where you want it.
- Get strongThe squat, bench, deadlift and press, set from your own estimated max.
- Get leanerLifting the whole way down, with a heavy week held rather than piled on.
- Move better for lifeGetting off the floor, carrying, holding a position under load.
- Train for a raceA run or a hybrid race on the calendar, worked back from race day.
The Vanguard app
Try it on your own training
Fourteen days free, then $19.99 a month or $199 a year, in Canadian dollars. In your browser, on any phone or computer. Cancel in the app in two taps.