The strength and conditioning world has always been quick to pick up on trends and misinterpret academic literature in order to provide punch lines to the general public. There is no place this is more evident than in the domain of conditioning. The TABATA and HIIT movements have clouded our true understanding of how to develop ALL of the energy systems while long and slow conditioning has been demonized amongst most strength coaches. As with most things there is a place for all of these modalities in your training arsenal. Everything becomes a lot more clear once you focus on the SYSTEMS you want to train and not the MODALITY you want to use. No strength coach has understood this concept better then Joel Jamieson of 8 Weeks Out. Have a read below to understand why aerobic base building is so important.