The Art of Manliness - Becoming a Hybrid Athlete

00:00:00.000 brett mckay here and welcome to another edition of the art of manliness podcast now when it comes

00:00:11.020 to fitness people tend to either focus on endurance or strength they're runners or power

00:00:15.880 lifters but wouldn't it be pretty cool to be able to deadlift 500 pounds and run a marathon

00:00:20.000 my guest says that combining real strength with true endurance to become a hybrid athlete isn't

00:00:24.580 only possible it also makes for a wonderfully adventurous and fulfilling path to pursue

00:00:28.880 his name is fergus crawley and he's the co-founder of omnia performance which offers coaching to

00:00:33.140 hybrid athletes today on the show fergus shares how he found his way into hybrid training what a

00:00:37.160 struggle with depression had to do with that journey and why he decided to take on some incredible

00:00:40.800 challenges that combine strength and endurance including deadlifting 500 pounds running a sub

00:00:45.760 five minute mile and doing a marathon in a single day and power lifting 1200 pounds and doing a sub

00:00:51.000 12 hour ironman triathlon in a single day we then turn to the technical side of programming hybrid

00:00:56.380 training and how you can incorporate both endurance and strength workouts in a single week we had a

00:01:00.420 conversation with fergus's case for the benefits of hybrid training to body mind and spirit which

00:01:04.600 made me want to go out for a run something i don't say every day after the show's over check out

00:01:09.520 our show notes at aom.is hybrid all right fergus crawley welcome to the show thank you for having me

00:01:26.740 so you are a strength and conditioning coach that advocates for something called hybrid training

00:01:31.760 this combines strength training and endurance training and i think to better understand hybrid

00:01:37.000 training and your approach i think it'd be useful to talk about your own fitness background how has

00:01:42.480 your approach to strength and fitness evolved over the years i mean i think you started off

00:01:46.280 doing a lot of different athletic domains and you became a power lifter right yeah in essence in

00:01:52.560 essence so i was a rugby player for most of my my sort of childhood and teenage years i was lucky

00:01:57.920 enough to have um family that sort of allowed me to try me and my brother have always been allowed to

00:02:02.260 try and participate in whatever sport whatever activity we we wanted to so growing up was golf

00:02:08.220 cricket rugby football skateboarding snowboarding and anything else we wanted to try really the

00:02:13.500 things that really stuck for me was rugby and skateboarding skateboarding sort of tailed off

00:02:18.720 towards 17 years old for jamie it was cricket he's now a professional cricketer and i got knocked out

00:02:25.420 three times in four weeks well knocked out twice in four weeks three concussions in four weeks which

00:02:30.900 ended an aspirational rugby career at the age of 18 i did have ambitions of sort of taking it beyond

00:02:36.220 sort of what would be a high school level i had evolved through positions over the years and just had

00:02:41.780 really enjoyed the community side of things but that's where i got my real first taste of health and

00:02:46.240 fitness in self-driven terms so following that third concussion i very quickly had to fill that gap

00:02:52.260 from a community and activity point of view because rugby for me at the time was

00:02:56.420 monday it was tuesday afternoon thursday afternoon and saturday games with monday wednesday friday at

00:03:03.400 6 a.m gym sessions so for me it was a huge part of my life and all of a sudden gone so i had to fill

00:03:10.000 that gap and i basically trained as if i was going back to rugby but kind of knowing that i never was

00:03:16.420 because i'd been told no contact sports ever again so i don't really know what i was doing i think i was

00:03:20.020 just filling time and hoping that the doctor would change their mind but they didn't but then i

00:03:24.460 quickly found the black and white reward system of if you commit yourself to consistency in the gym

00:03:31.600 consistency and your calorie intake and you really take control of these things the rewards will come

00:03:36.440 and for the first time in my life i had a really simple reward system to work to and i really enjoyed

00:03:40.460 that so from 17 to 19 i kind of just got as fit as i could and as in shape as i could but i did what

00:03:47.580 most people do and i did too much too soon and burnt out so then specialized in powerlifting

00:03:54.360 because i met a friend of my good friend of mine still who sort of dragged me into my second

00:03:59.200 competition i actually did a competition where i didn't enjoy it that much but he then brought me

00:04:02.900 over to a different federation and i thought you know what this is cool i'm gonna stick with this for

00:04:05.980 a few years and yeah to cut a long story short four to five years of powerlifting all over the world

00:04:11.200 internationally uh so anywhere from finland to las vegas to southern seaside towns in england

00:04:16.680 that are not very glamorous but make a great powerlifting competition host town so i really

00:04:21.680 enjoyed it but then 2017 i did my last competition which was the british championships and i just

00:04:28.220 finished it with a bit of a sense of uh was that really worth all the effort and the training and

00:04:34.540 the fighting for two and a half kilos on the bar and i think the answer was no so i stopped traveling

00:04:40.260 an hour and a half each direction in london to get to a really specialist gym and i just started

00:04:44.680 training a sort of local leisure center to just kind of body build kind of power lift but kind of

00:04:51.100 honestly just go through the motions and i started doing a bit more just general fitness training then

00:04:56.020 broadened my horizons a little bit but still had that masculine ego in me that wanted to hold on to

00:05:00.160 the weight on the bar so i i kept up the heavy reps but i i got a little bit leaner and just focused

00:05:06.160 on kind of doing what i enjoyed around work at the time and then we'll move on to it i'm sure but the

00:05:12.500 context which is kind of important for what happens next is that i suffered from severe depression from

00:05:16.940 2014 to 2016 and to sort of return to that masculine ego conversation i stayed completely silent about

00:05:23.760 that for that entire period because i was so afraid of being deemed weak or vulnerable as a man by those

00:05:29.180 around me so i stayed completely silent and that ultimately led to a suicide attempt in may of 2016

00:05:35.460 i then came around from that helped by a 14 week old french bulldog he's now six and he ultimately

00:05:44.680 helped me come to terms with my own reality to then share those outwardly to then actually understand

00:05:50.440 how i could move forwards and i got through two years before i think i really had to tackle it

00:05:55.580 internally i was kind of just brushing it under the carpet and then in august 2018 i was sitting a coffee

00:06:03.080 shop in london and i opened my laptop and i just got hit with this white noise this sort of

00:06:08.780 sense of depression coming back to me and i defaulted back to that masculine thing of i'll

00:06:14.300 just just get on with it just get on with it but realized that i almost died last time i took that

00:06:20.480 as my attitude so i thought let's do things differently what were you missing last time you're

00:06:24.320 missing a sense of fulfillment sorry what are you missing now a sense of fulfillment so i sort of

00:06:29.320 pieced it together okay let's try and find you a sense of fulfillment what are you good at

00:06:32.380 you're good at squatting what can you do something for charity okay okay what can we think of movember

00:06:37.120 a charity that focuses on starting conversations through a mustache so there's a bit of humor there

00:06:41.640 that's a bit of me i'd done it as part of the rugby crowd in years gone by so i thought i'm going to do

00:06:46.820 something for movember what's it going to be and then do you look look to the statistics plain and

00:06:52.080 simple and the one that really stood out to me was 500 000 men half a million men around the world

00:06:56.840 every year die by suicide and that was a statistic that was not something i'd realized up until that

00:07:02.320 point because i'd been very very

00:07:03.560 sort of unselectively ignorant of the actual reality of suicide because i'd come out the other

00:07:14.460 side i thought therefore i was okay so i didn't need to confront this stuff but once i started sitting

00:07:20.340 down with the statistics i then thought wow this is something that really needs to change and

00:07:24.580 looked online and did some maths and then decided to commit to try and squat half a million kilos in 24

00:07:30.920 hours as you do so in 2018 i started my first movember campaign to do so and that is when i

00:07:37.880 really reconnected with my hybrid training methodology as i did when i was younger because

00:07:43.760 trying to squat 500 000 kilos in 24 hours i what the plan was 7666 reps at 60 kilos or 135 pounds

00:07:52.660 in uh in freedom units as we call it over here was as much an ultra endurance event as it was a strength

00:07:58.980 event so i brought on my coach now business partner jonathan payne who basically helped me bring up my

00:08:04.620 aerobic base alongside my strength base and ever since then i have tried to be as hybrid as i possibly

00:08:10.540 can and that's the real methodology which is it's ever evolving the science on it is not as black and

00:08:15.640 white as it is in other elements of snc and a lot of concurrent training studies trying to look at

00:08:20.520 the impact of one thing on a sport that's dominant rather than looking at balancing two sports

00:08:24.920 independently together so for example a lot of the studies focused on how can strength training

00:08:29.900 support cycling and therefore how do we best put together programming to make the cycling better

00:08:35.100 whereas the way we do things is we're trying to be as competent across disciplines that we enjoy doing

00:08:39.580 as possible so there's a lot more backstory to fill in there between what happened from 2018 to now

00:08:44.520 but that's sort of the evolution of my my fitness and strength conditioning journey to get me to

00:08:49.840 where this is all really really aggressively sort of become my existence as of 2018 really

00:08:57.640 well i think that's interesting i mean your your fitness progress early on resembled mine in a lot

00:09:03.440 of ways i played american football and then when i got done after high school i continued to train but

00:09:09.840 i still trained like i was playing football because i enjoyed it you know lifting the big barbell lifts i would

00:09:14.980 do sprints and then i somehow found my way into powerlifting that became my thing for several

00:09:21.140 years and then last year i started i had some injuries you know something tennis elbow some knee

00:09:26.420 problems and i started shifting gear to more sort of like just bodybuilding type stuff uh not really

00:09:32.560 going for the numbers as much but i think it's interesting you found a way to i think a lot of people

00:09:38.140 who are doing some type of physical training over long years one of the things that happens to them is

00:09:43.400 they they lose like what am i supposed to do now like what's the point of this and i liked how you

00:09:47.660 connected your fitness uh your physical practice to a higher purpose with this you're helping raise

00:09:54.660 awareness of male mental health that's it and it's um for me it's i mean fitness for all of us in in one

00:10:01.420 way or another is a sense of fulfillment and i think in the western world these days what we as humans

00:10:06.400 lack the most in our busy lives is finding a sense of fulfillment outside of our jobs and outside of

00:10:12.500 going through the motions of family life of work life of everything in between because

00:10:17.020 life is fast it's busy and some of us don't like what we do for a living some of us love what we do

00:10:21.880 for a living but outside of that you still need to have other sources sources of fulfillment so

00:10:26.180 training for for anyone where it becomes an end in itself rather than a means to an end

00:10:32.000 is an evolving journey and i think interestingly a lot of the clients that come to us now have been

00:10:36.940 training for a long time so they're people that have either been bodybuilders or powerlifters or

00:10:40.680 crossfit athletes for a long time and they think you know what i'm just going to do more of what i

00:10:44.240 enjoy and i like the idea of lifting heavy weights but i also like the idea of running half marathons

00:10:48.400 so why can't i do both so i think there's a real there's a real tide turning in the fitness industry

00:10:53.940 not not necessarily even the industry the fitness community should i say of people really confronting

00:10:58.080 why they do what they do because it underpins a broader holistic health and lifestyle offering

00:11:03.420 which i think is essential for us to cope with the busyness of the world these days so

00:11:07.840 for me my higher purpose and the fulfillment that's come from these big campaigns so i've done

00:11:13.340 three three years of big campaigning i've managed to raise a hundred thousand pounds which is i think

00:11:18.100 at the moment about 140 000 which i'm very very proud of but the most amazing thing is that the

00:11:23.120 conversations that have happened along the way and the people i've met and all the things that

00:11:26.180 have happened so for me fitness has become as much a part of my life as anything else has and

00:11:31.000 i've learned more from it i've developed as a human being as a businessman as a sort of husband to be

00:11:38.260 as a dog dad whatever you whatever you want to call me i'm a better person for it and i think

00:11:42.840 it sounds silly sometimes to say oh look you look at the resilience you can learn from going to the gym

00:11:48.180 because it does just seem a bit trite but i've seen firsthand how much there is to be gained of just

00:11:54.720 consistent selective willing adversity over time that builds and builds and builds that means that

00:12:01.880 when we get thrown a curveball it doesn't knock us back quite as much as it does which means we're in

00:12:06.520 better control of our mental health we're more reliable to those around us we're better athletes

00:12:10.880 we're better workers however you want to put it i i i don't want to uh i don't want to sort of steal

00:12:16.000 the phrase from pain and gain and whatever it was i'm uh i am freddie lugo and i love fitness or

00:12:20.000 whatever whatever the opening line is but it sort of feels like that's the direction i'm going in but

00:12:24.160 for me it really underpins much more than just the weight on the bar it's community it's self

00:12:29.940 exploration it's resilience it's my mental health it's a way to meet people and for me it's become a

00:12:35.420 method of starting conversations around mental health that might not have otherwise happened

00:12:39.660 okay so you start off the november thing with the you know you're going to squat 500 000 kilos and then

00:12:46.480 from there you've done these other challenges these crazy challenges that combine both strength and

00:12:50.900 endurance for example you squatted 501 pounds and then right after you ran a sub five minute bile

00:12:57.620 and then i think it was run a marathon in the same day i mean how did you find your way into that like

00:13:03.500 how did you come up with that one so for those that might not be aware the 500 pound squat and sub

00:13:09.260 five minute mile is something that's been spoken about in crossfit level one teaching as quote unquote

00:13:15.220 not exact quote but generally speaking the ideal crossfit athlete would be able to do this and i

00:13:22.500 think it was first coined in the early 2000s and until 2020 no one had ever managed it and since 2018

00:13:30.220 i'd kept my squat strength up really quite high i'd managed an iron man a 6 890 meters of bodyweight

00:13:37.840 lunges a ultra sort of 13 hour workout a 100 mile run a some 50 mile runs some 60 mile runs in between

00:13:47.480 and then when it came to early 2020 i was training for the kelp man which is basically a extreme

00:13:54.380 triathlon and by extreme i mean harsher weather conditions it's much much colder it's much much hillier

00:14:00.580 it's much much windier it's much much more rough as an event than a regular iron man in some ways i mean

00:14:06.520 iron man's faster which puts more demand on it so i was training for the kelp man and i booked in to

00:14:10.800 do a powerlifting competition in april 2020 and we all know what happened in around march time 2020

00:14:15.940 so once i was told gyms are closed everybody's working from home etc etc events aren't happening

00:14:24.240 i thought okay i'm enjoying training like this at the moment so i'm just going to keep doing it

00:14:28.080 but we didn't really know how long the pandemic and the lockdown was going to go on for

00:14:31.760 i moved back to my parents house in the northwest of england at that point because we had a gym at

00:14:36.160 the house i want to keep training it was it was as we've said it's a fundamental part of my existence

00:14:40.720 so i want to keep it up and then garage gym reviews actually posted somebody ran a 517 mile and a 500

00:14:47.760 pound squat and said who's going to be the first person to do this and i got tagged in a few times

00:14:51.320 and thought yeah yeah it's on the list it's on the list and i do actually have a list and then i saw

00:14:56.000 that somebody else in america was getting tagged to do it and then he started to commit to do it so i

00:14:59.840 thought well if there's going to be a race i might as well throw him a hat in the ring

00:15:02.280 so we both sort of set up on trying to do it by that point and then adam clink from virginia

00:15:08.320 managed it a week before i did just because the way our training unfolded adam's a very

00:15:13.840 competitive crossfit athlete but where i had i don't want to say advantage but where my training

00:15:20.120 lended itself better to was the the actual endurance stuff as well because crossfit use the word use the

00:15:25.060 word endurance probably a little bit incorrectly in my humble opinion i mean no offense by that but

00:15:30.180 true definition of endurance in terms of sort of long long distances hours and hours at a time in

00:15:35.220 zone two and coping with that so i thought why not try and run a endurance event off the back of the

00:15:40.500 500 pound squat sub five minute mile and then a marathon in the same day just to add that real

00:15:46.520 across energy system spectrum so i wish i could say it was an original idea for me thinking up the neat

00:15:51.840 505 but it was something that crossfit level one had coined for years and let me tell you the track

00:15:57.440 sessions that it took for me to get a 458 mile at i think it was 208 pounds when i did it i have never

00:16:04.680 ever had my perception of rpe 10 change as much as i have on those track sessions it was just

00:16:09.660 soul destroying at points and i don't think since then i've struggled to balance the fatigue from

00:16:16.340 anything quite as much as i did the really hard effort track sprints and the real top end squat work

00:16:21.480 because it is just so demanding but that was what was fun figuring it out as i went and understanding

00:16:26.860 that yes there's one way of doing this there's probably another way but it's not a black and 1.00

00:16:30.340 white formula to get there it's about how we understand perception and training methodology

00:16:34.360 to sort of move things forward but to sort of answer your question in simple terms i fell into it quite

00:16:40.540 luckily because i'd been training for an endurance event whilst building up my strength and then the

00:16:44.780 pandemic put me in a position where i thought well what am i going to do the rest of the year

00:16:47.800 and because i could get access to a track because i had a gym at home i could continue training and

00:16:52.400 there was a bit of fun in sort of racing somebody over the other side of the world to get there so

00:16:55.880 that was that one yeah it sounds like the race of the south pole it's like we're gonna he's gonna

00:17:00.660 get there it was a bit warmer it was a bit warmer but it is yeah something similar and then i mean after

00:17:06.220 that i guess you kind of caught the bug because you did some other challenges too like where you

00:17:09.260 squatted benched and you deadlifted 1200 pounds and then you ran a sub 12 hour iron man

00:17:15.400 triathlon so again this is biking cycling running so was this after you did the initial 500 five minute

00:17:22.060 submit five minute mile so that was exactly one year to the day afterwards so it was the sunday to

00:17:29.440 the sunday one year on so i'd um since the 505 i thought you know what it's a fun premise choosing a

00:17:36.180 a sort of metric for measuring strength and measuring it against a metric for measuring speed endurance

00:17:42.060 whatever you want to call it and the 505 was neat with the numbers so i thought okay what else can i

00:17:46.800 do 1212 which was a 1200 pound powerlifting total into a sub 12 hour iron distance triathlon so i set

00:17:53.760 off on thinking about this and then i had the kelp man which was postponed from 2020 i did that in 2021

00:18:00.500 incredible incredible race and then reconditioned to faster flatter roads faster road running from what

00:18:08.000 was sort of specifically hill running because the kelp man had a 1900 meters of elevation on the run

00:18:14.360 which is about four maybe five thousand feet i think i'm not completely sure again my freedom units

00:18:19.680 aren't that up to speed but it was a tough race so you have to train for it differently than you would

00:18:24.600 for a fast repetitive marathon on concrete so the big challenge for me was getting all the speed work

00:18:29.780 in and keeping my top end strength and deadlift work ticking over because it's just that they're at

00:18:33.860 such a polar opposite ends of the spectrum but i was working towards this same neat numerical formula

00:18:39.320 1212 505 and yeah that was that was a tough day i'm not gonna lie i had to be up at half one

00:18:46.180 to get to the gym for three so i wanted to get some food in me i wanted to get a little bit of caffeine

00:18:51.440 in me not too much though because i didn't want to crash later on i had to deal with the pre-iron

00:18:56.480 man race fear number one which is clearing out your bowels so i wanted to get that done as soon as 0.99

00:19:01.100 possible i wanted to get some food in me before lifting and give it time to digest and i just

00:19:06.080 needed a bit of time to switch on because i wanted to be under a barbell at 3 a.m so 3 a.m 205 kilo

00:19:12.520 squat again i can't remember what it was in pounds but the total ended up being 1200 pounds so 205 kilo

00:19:18.540 squat about 320 121 kilo bench and then about 340 was a 220 kilo deadlift so totaling 546

00:19:30.180 kilos and 1200 pounds then finishing up just before four we had to get to the triathlon transition

00:19:39.400 zone to be in by five otherwise you weren't allowed through the doors and then the race kicked off at

00:19:44.360 six in the water so it was a very very stressful morning and there's probably not many people out

00:19:50.460 there that have done a heavy bench press and a heavy deadlift before swimming an iron distance

00:19:53.760 3.8k swim or 2.4 mile swim but let me tell you it hurts your scaps it hurts your pecs and it slows

00:20:00.800 you down so that was the main lesson from there but other than that the actually the rest of the

00:20:04.680 race day i was really slow in the swim because i realized after about five ten minutes that the

00:20:09.080 bench and the deadlift had hurt me just really felt my stroke being a little bit haphazard didn't feel

00:20:13.980 like i had control of my core as much as i normally would and where i was hoping for a one hour 15

00:20:18.280 minutes swim it took me closer to one hour 30 but i got in the headspace of thinking right just get the

00:20:23.300 water done get out get on the bike and you'll make up the time there because the water isn't

00:20:27.540 significant in terms of distance in the long term and i had plenty of time to make up for the time

00:20:32.320 that i wanted the bike went really well i think i was five hours and 23 minutes or something like that

00:20:37.760 and then marathon i was hoping for something around the four hour mark just keeping it steady but it was

00:20:43.020 really quite humid that day a lot of people were dropping like flies and dropping out because the

00:20:47.100 humidity got to them so much and everybody was a little bit unwell from the water that we'd swam in

00:20:52.520 everybody was struggling to keep food down but i managed to hold on and come in at 11 hours 52 minutes

00:20:57.700 and 51 seconds or something so 1200 pound total between the hours of 3 and 4 a.m and then from 6 a.m

00:21:04.580 until 5 53 p.m was a sub 12 hour ironman distance triathlon exactly one year on from 505 1212

00:21:15.040 we're gonna take a quick break for your word from our sponsors

00:21:17.840 and now back to the show so now with your coaching work you not only work with people who want to do

00:21:25.920 that kind of super high level performance that you're doing but you're working with regular people

00:21:30.500 who just generally want to get in better shape both with their strength and in their endurance and

00:21:36.960 when they come to you they're these people aren't aren't necessarily the you know the most amazing

00:21:41.400 athletes starting out so let's talk about the kind of programming you do for your clients and i want

00:21:46.100 to talk about each component separately before we see how we combine them together on the strength side

00:21:52.160 what kind of lists are you having your clients do is just kind of like the basic barbell lifts

00:21:55.440 so for the most part it's it's barbell focused it's it's it's big three focused or bodybuilding style

00:22:01.020 focused with some strength strength endurance stuff worked in which is more metcon style

00:22:07.320 threshold work stuff but we we generally work to the client's preference we work in ollie lifts but

00:22:14.420 generally speaking we try to unless they're quite advanced we try to have them do that in certain

00:22:20.620 classes in certain groups because not being there on hand to look at the technical side of things

00:22:24.800 is a challenge with online coaching but the the baseline is heavy compound lifts that you probably more

00:22:32.200 see regular well regularly see in power lifting than you would a little bit lifting or crossfit but

00:22:38.100 again it's dependent on the client and there's no one way to skin this hypothetical cat it's what does

00:22:43.560 the athlete want to achieve and then how do we fit that into their goals gotcha so we're talking the

00:22:47.520 big barbell list bench press squat deadlift yeah and overhead press dumbbell pressing and variations of

00:22:54.280 so so we're working a hinge we're working a press and then we're sort of assisting those things along the

00:22:58.200 way through as well as a squat obviously and what's your approach to reps and adding weight i mean are

00:23:03.040 you are you doing like a three by five five by five is it going to differ throughout the week what does

00:23:08.080 that look like so i guess generally because every every every client's going to be different correct

00:23:13.980 correct but i mean loose structure is we tend to work in three to four week blocks of linear progression

00:23:18.500 and we we then monitor over time how how much the athlete responds to that and then how do we adjust

00:23:24.440 things moving forward because the challenge with balancing the sort of programming is you can't

00:23:28.680 apply the logic of conventional periodization to the strength work because you are not accounting for

00:23:34.080 the fatigue induced by the endurance slash speed slash triathlon work because they're opposing ends

00:23:39.660 of the spectrum so where we try to monitor and focus on things is sort of the perception and feedback

00:23:45.360 that we get from the athlete in terms of how they're feeling how it felt what their pace is what their

00:23:50.260 heart rate is whether it moves as well as it did last week etc etc because bar speed on a triple one

00:23:56.820 week if it's significantly slower the following might be indicative that the volume over the weekend

00:24:01.620 on let's say a trail run leading into that was too demanding so we therefore either have to reduce the

00:24:07.960 volume or reduce the intensity on the lifts to account for that fatigue from the volume but that then

00:24:13.120 comes down to prioritization of the athlete's goals but the the real overarching principle is that johnny and i

00:24:19.640 peak intensity at the start of the week and we peak volume at the end of the week so practically

00:24:24.500 speaking that means that our heaviest fastest sessions are on a monday and our longer slower

00:24:29.520 sessions are on a saturday or sunday and that allows us to monitor intensity over the week how it affects

00:24:34.780 volume how it affects the recovery how it affects fatigue and vice versa so just to run you through

00:24:40.820 things i'll run through the example of my let's go 1212 so regular 1212 week for me for the eight

00:24:49.380 weeks leading to it would have been monday morning heavy lower body so that would have been heavy

00:24:52.480 squats heavy deadlifts and then some assistance work monday p.m would have either been track work

00:24:57.940 from 800 meters to 1500 meters or a high intensity big gear turbo trainer session so i alternated those

00:25:05.840 mondays week by week but the essence of the lifting was linear progression from 80 to 90 so we'd go 80 for

00:25:13.160 five by three and then two amraps and then 85 for sort of four by four the following week and we'd work

00:25:20.000 up to heavy triples and then from there we'd see how i was reacting because once you start going into

00:25:23.580 the 90 plus range that's when neurologically you really start to get hit quite hard by the heavy lift

00:25:29.440 so it's all a balancing act but back to the the sort of programming monday heavy lower body am pm track

00:25:36.360 reps or turbo reps tuesday morning heavy upper body tuesday evening intervals in the pool wednesday

00:25:43.060 morning more sort of tempo style ftp which is functional threshold power and there's the same

00:25:49.220 premise as lactate heart rate lactic threshold heart rate that i mentioned before with the running

00:25:53.060 it's basically the estimate on how many watts can you hold for an hour and then we we sort of program

00:25:58.820 certain percentages based off that so a a more sweet spot functional threshold power training session

00:26:04.360 on the turbo wednesday morning wednesday evening would be a tempo run tempo running is basically

00:26:08.620 we are working at half marathon pace give or take so it's sub threshold generally and then thursday

00:26:13.920 would be a volume swim friday would be a full body session focused on pre-fatiguing us ahead of the

00:26:20.240 saturday so that we hit localized fatigue sooner which means that we can induce systemic fatigue on the

00:26:25.820 saturday and therefore improve overall efficiency and the saturday is where we focus on our real long

00:26:30.440 low intensity steady state work so for triathlon that would be let's say a four-hour bike ride into

00:26:36.040 a one-hour run and that would incrementally build volume over time and we also work in low intensity

00:26:40.720 steady state work after the pre-fatigue session on the friday as well so that we're running or riding

00:26:44.760 on heavy legs which from a psychological point of view as well feels awful but it means that when you

00:26:50.620 feel fresh there's a bit of a varied perception in terms of effort on then how much you can suffer

00:26:55.120 through so there's a balancing act going on here and how much can we get away with without

00:27:00.640 overspilling our maximum recoverable volume and causing injury or fatigue that we can't recover

00:27:05.460 from and how much can we can we adjust so the athletes developing psychologically in terms of their

00:27:11.080 preparedness for an event as well as physiologically for how much can we actually force them to adapt

00:27:16.040 without having these different disciplines interfere with one another too much but that that was the way

00:27:21.440 that i approach things it can be loosely translated for others but the prescriptions in each session

00:27:26.020 is obviously going to be different and the main thing is johnny is still very focused on the data

00:27:29.860 that i provide the feedback that i provide and we're constantly adjusting this and the prescription

00:27:33.560 based on how everything's going so hopefully that that gives an answer quite long-winded but um

00:27:38.460 hopefully that covers it yeah so okay just big picture i'm going to summarize this so you're

00:27:42.640 going to start off early in the week it's going to be high intensity so it's going to be in the

00:27:45.560 weight room it's going to be heavy weight and then with the endurance stuff it's going to be

00:27:49.580 sprints and things like that like the turbocharged stuff hit type things and then as the week

00:27:54.140 progresses it's getting you're shifting from high intensity so heavy weight to lower weight but more

00:28:00.700 volumes you're doing more reps and then on the the endurance component you're shifting from you know

00:28:06.080 the sprint type work to longer distance work that's the volume correct correct correct and then on the

00:28:12.340 strength stuff are you i mean it sounds like you're doing an upper lower split so one day you're doing

00:28:16.920 lower body the next day you're doing upper body is that you carry that split with you throughout the

00:28:21.040 week kind of alternating between the two yeah so if if i'm slightly more endurance biased so if i'm

00:28:26.380 training for an ultra or training for a full distance triathlon i'll probably go upper lower and full body

00:28:30.700 if i'm training for something that's slightly more strength biased i'll probably go lower upper lower

00:28:34.920 upper depending on how the week unfolds but it'll be two uppers two lowers if i'm strength biased

00:28:39.800 depending on my goals and sort of the prioritization hierarchy and if i'm endurance biased i'll be upper

00:28:45.500 lower and a full body gotcha and the goal of this again is you're building up fatigue enough fatigue

00:28:52.600 throughout the week so that you can induce an adaptation both with strength and endurance correct

00:28:58.740 it's just to some degree so so we're manipulating fatigue to try and elicit certain effects the

00:29:07.020 and that that really is improved efficiency improved tolerance for volume improved tolerance for

00:29:13.280 suffering as well from an endurance point of view because if you're running 40 kilometers when you're

00:29:17.620 really beaten up the 40 kilometers where you feel fresh is going to feel much better which from a

00:29:23.180 perception point of view is is a critical component of being an effective athlete really so

00:29:26.880 we really in build resilience conditioning into our programming as much as we can because that is

00:29:32.900 ultimately where a lot of people get their first ultra wrong their first triathlon wrong is because

00:29:36.420 they focus on the wrong things stick to the plan too rigidly without focusing on right what can go

00:29:41.680 wrong why does this feel so bad and then they get inside their own head and things fall apart we know

00:29:46.580 that our heads are powerful things and they can send us in one direction or the other so we try and

00:29:51.220 present people with as many uncomfortable situations in training so that when it comes to event day that

00:29:56.260 they're better set up for it but in principle we're sort of stacking and building and ramping up fatigue as

00:30:00.920 we go throughout the week and that's culminating in our low intensity steady state work on the

00:30:05.080 saturday generally speaking we then restart that micro cycle within the context of a week with the

00:30:11.020 high intensity work on monday and high intensity work to some degree works as a great recovery

00:30:15.420 mechanism for low intensity work and low intensity work to some degree works as a great recovery

00:30:19.820 mechanism for high intensity work and then that's why we consolidate the stresses into intense

00:30:25.340 intense lifting and intense running or riding and then less intense running less intense riding and less

00:30:31.100 intense lifting because if we consolidate the stresses into those certain days then the groupings of

00:30:36.840 energy systems you're working they're slightly closer together which means that you don't need to

00:30:40.580 recover from that that dosage that session that hit of demand on your body twice within the context

00:30:48.260 of a micro cycle in this case a week gotcha no i've experienced that with my power lifting like

00:30:53.260 there'll be periods where you're doing the high intensity stuff and to recover from that

00:30:56.400 you just lower the weight you do more volume and if i think if you're a runner you've probably

00:31:00.600 experienced you might have had a period where you're doing just like sprints and the recover

00:31:05.400 from that you just shift to a slow like a steady state run and then that'll help you recover from

00:31:11.040 the high intensity work well that's it it's where the phrase recovery runs recovery rides comes from

00:31:16.840 it's basically zone two and blood flow that those are the key real mechanisms working here to allow for

00:31:22.180 that recovery to take place so yeah exactly so the strength work you're doing the primarily focusing

00:31:28.000 on barbell lifts generally for the endurance work is are you just having the client pick what they

00:31:32.720 want to do whether they want to focus on running swimming biking etc to some degree it'll depend on

00:31:38.700 what they're competent in and confident in already if they're training for a triathlon we're obviously

00:31:42.700 going to have them swim bike and run if they're just running we might throw in the odd bike session if

00:31:46.940 they've got access to it but unless they explicitly say they they want to swim we might not add in

00:31:52.280 swimming unless it fits because yes we want people doing as many things as they as we can but we also

00:31:56.840 want to give them the maximum amount of adaptation from a limited opportunity because you can't work

00:32:04.680 at 100 lifting and 100 endurance because you're working at 200 there and you can do the maths as well

00:32:09.680 as i can that doesn't work so we need to try and reduce the volume reduce the intensity refine the

00:32:14.460 dosage as it were so that what we're giving the athlete is eliciting maximum adaptation for the

00:32:21.220 the sort of maximum return that we can get on the limited adaptive energy we're sort of demanding from

00:32:26.800 them so in terms of endurance stuff running is the sort of key thread of dna that runs through this

00:32:33.720 it's the most accessible it's the one most people have done before it's the least sort of cost

00:32:39.040 prohibitive i guess as well and it's probably least intimidating so for those that are earlier

00:32:44.440 on their journey we focus on running but we do have a lot of triathletes and then working in

00:32:47.940 the premise is still the same it's still the same of high intensity start the week low intensity end

00:32:51.980 of the week varied intervals steady work and sort of tempo work as well it's then a case of how do we

00:32:57.560 stack things on top of one another like certain days we'll put am bike pm run or stick them together

00:33:03.720 for certain effects are there benchmarks you want your athletes to hit i mean i know one thing i liked

00:33:08.500 about powerlifting is that you could always like chase numbers whether it's like a one rep pr or it's

00:33:13.660 like well i i did a set of five at 405 or 500 pounds like it it gives you like something to shoot

00:33:19.160 for do you provide those for your clients as well if they don't have goals we'll help them ascertain

00:33:25.740 some but generally speaking people come to us with clear goals or if they're there's no there's no

00:33:30.220 minimum entry requirements to work with us put it that way it's a case of we we can see steady

00:33:35.600 improvement across the board like you said powerlifting or running it's easy to chase numbers if you do a 5k

00:33:41.280 time trial sort of week one or a mile time trial in week one eight weeks later we might retest that

00:33:47.260 mile and see you've shaved off 90 seconds which is going to be a huge win that's going to give you a

00:33:51.040 real fire up your backside to sort of do more so i think the uh the universal desire to see numbers

00:33:58.840 on the board is is always there but most of our athletes come to us with pretty clear goals but if

00:34:03.780 they don't then we try and work some in as we go and it's kind of built into the program anyway

00:34:07.140 because it's linear agree linearly progressive so four weeks from week one you might ppb your squat

00:34:13.540 triple just because of the way things have unfolded but i think in short there's no benchmark that we

00:34:17.940 require for athletes to work with us the only real benchmark that we aim for is improvement so what do

00:34:23.660 you think the benefits are of this type of hyper training you know maybe in general but also you

00:34:27.780 know especially in regards to someone you know who may be specialized in a type of fitness modality

00:34:33.120 maybe they were you know formerly you know just focused on something like power lifting

00:34:36.800 the main the main lessons and things i've spotted people have learned is as an overarching

00:34:44.040 weakness i sort of hold off on using that term weakness because it's not necessarily a weakness

00:34:50.480 but something that we can all benefit from doing more of as a entire world is more zone two training

00:34:55.480 and i think when a lot of people come to us saying i've never really enjoyed running i've never really

00:34:59.240 got much better i've always got injured it's because they have no concept of what zone two

00:35:03.720 low intensity work looks like so we focus on heart rate get them to understand heart rate and perception

00:35:08.640 to start with and then that helps them understand pacing zones and then they can actually work through

00:35:13.340 different energy systems different energy pathways and actually start to progress across the board and

00:35:19.740 this allows us to then monitor how is their fatigue what are the stresses they're dealing with in their

00:35:24.580 personal lives how is this all piecing together to give us a bigger picture perspective of how the

00:35:29.320 athlete ticks okay what is zone two training for those who aren't familiar so zone two training is

00:35:34.240 basically our aerobic zone so it's for me for example working off we tend to work off lactate

00:35:39.540 threshold heart rate so we'll put people through a 30 minute max effort run so once you hit 10 minutes

00:35:45.560 into that 30 minute run you then hit lap on your smartwatch and then the heart rate and the distance

00:35:50.500 covered in that 20 minutes will give us your lactate threshold heart rate as well as your pacing on your

00:35:58.140 feet that you can hold in a sort of threshold pacing zone so we then take 84 to 89 percent of that and that

00:36:05.220 is zone two so for you can also work on max heart rate you can do 220 minus age it's not as accurate but

00:36:12.160 as a starting point let's say we've got a 40 year old 220 minus age is 180 and then we look to be around

00:36:19.260 75 percent of that for zone two and that is the aerobic zone where you are working at a conversational

00:36:26.840 pace you don't need to necessarily work off heart rate if you can breathe through your nose

00:36:30.680 without needing to breathe through your mouth to start with then that's a good indication that you

00:36:36.020 are in zone two if you can hold a conversation with somebody you're running with without having to

00:36:39.740 gasp for air without having to take breaks between sentences that's a good way of indicating your own

00:36:44.220 zone two but principally we've got sort of there's different zones that we work in zone two is

00:36:49.920 aerobic zone three is sub threshold zone four is moving to threshold zone five is sort of moving up

00:36:55.040 towards real real hard efforts and then we've got zone five a b and c where we're just redlining

00:36:59.720 but zone two for the most part unless you've got a way of measuring it you don't know that you're in

00:37:04.840 it so we get people coming to us that say oh whenever they run they just put on their shoes and run as

00:37:09.340 fast as they can for 5k and then oh my calves are sore my tendons are sore but zone two forces you

00:37:14.500 to drill and discipline pacing it allows you to become more efficient and then zone two training

00:37:19.900 is what ultimately helps your recovery not only from a recovery from session to session point of

00:37:26.440 view but for example if you're a bjj athlete your recovery between rounds is going to be massively

00:37:32.200 ramped up because you can then use that aerobic base to support your recovery and get your heart rate

00:37:36.760 back down lower and steadier so you can go into the next round with a little bit more confidence

00:37:41.060 and a little bit less fatigue that's still sitting there so hopefully that answers your question but

00:37:45.660 it's um it's basically the aerobic zone that we we can work in and where the majority of our running

00:37:51.560 work as beginners should be gotcha now yeah imagine if you have a lot of you know power lifters coming

00:37:57.040 in they don't they've probably never done zone two training no and the thing is like like myself

00:38:01.920 they're used to real high intensity burst it's a very very different attitude to training

00:38:06.560 so it's kind of a slit knot in your ears smelling salts up your nose big fight moment to get that

00:38:12.360 single up whereas zone two is really quite peaceful it's really quite steady you can focus on your

00:38:17.000 environment you can switch off a little bit whereas if you switch off and focus on your environment with

00:38:20.940 500 pounds in your back you get to break your spine most likely which is not what we want

00:38:24.600 so the beauty of combining zone two with heavy lifting is that you can actually train yourself across those

00:38:30.860 psychological elements as well which can give you a more balanced attitude to

00:38:35.980 resilience suffering how to train when when you're really got to dig deep and fight through things

00:38:42.300 for example i think i'm better at fighting through certain levels of ultra endurance events

00:38:46.440 because i know when i can switch on that get your head down and really just fight through it

00:38:51.220 momentarily whereas pure ultra runners who only spend time running and doing supportive exercises

00:38:56.500 rather than having real heavy weight on the back might not have that immediate fight mechanic that

00:39:01.340 you can build in your head through the heavy lifting so the two massively support one another to a degree

00:39:06.100 obviously we know with concurrent training and hybrid training it's not optimal for the individual

00:39:10.320 discipline and that's something that we need to accept and actually was what held me off getting

00:39:14.400 back into it in the first place when i was a power lifter but are you the question i ask people to ask

00:39:18.780 themselves is are you going to podium on the tour de france probably not in that case i'd focus more on

00:39:23.780 doing what you're doing what you enjoy at a good level rather than focusing about not being the

00:39:29.780 best at something that you're not going to be the best at anyway and that's not to say that people

00:39:33.340 can't aspire to be whatever they want to be but more a case of look at your training goals look at

00:39:37.780 what direction you want to go in assess what you enjoy assess what you want to achieve and then let's

00:39:42.600 try and piece together a roadmap to get there and i know road cyclists sort of try and talk down

00:39:48.420 to triathletes for being average at three things rather than uh good at one but a lot of those road

00:39:53.200 cyclists aren't podiuming on the tour de france anyway so why not do five six things that you're

00:39:58.360 good at or at least average at above average at and then in my mind you're having more fun you're

00:40:03.480 doing more things you're better rounders as an athlete you're benefiting more from it psychologically

00:40:08.020 you're seeing new places you're spending time with varied people and you're not the one that's

00:40:12.800 talking down to other people for trying different exercises at the end of the day okay so that's a

00:40:17.100 good point to make i mean we call it we can call it a downside it's not a down doesn't have to be

00:40:20.760 way you frame it can be a downside if you decide to go hybrid training you're and you're not

00:40:25.180 specializing you're not you're probably not going to deadlift 700 pounds or you're probably not going

00:40:30.440 to run a sub four mile because that yet in order to do those things like very specific displays of

00:40:37.220 strength and endurance or speed or intensity and that takes concentrated training with hybrid training

00:40:42.880 you're trying to just do both at the same time you're going to be okay at both or you i mean you can

00:40:47.100 get pretty good i mean the results can be good but they're not going to come fast and it might take

00:40:51.220 a while and they might not be as great as if you had specialized agree yeah that that is in essence

00:40:57.260 i think the four minute mile and 700 pound deadlift is a good example because there are certain

00:41:01.220 physiological limitations that come with being human right and you're not gonna you're not gonna be

00:41:05.480 running a sub four minute mile at 200 pounds like there are a few people that might get close hunter

00:41:09.180 mcintyre for example is an excellent runner hunter and i spent some time together in september last year

00:41:14.020 and he is just a fantastic runner for the size that he is but even him getting down to a sub four

00:41:20.180 he'd need to lose 10 15 maybe 20 pounds just because there is a physiological drop off where you can

00:41:26.440 actually output that much speed over that much time so there are considerations but then again are you

00:41:33.140 going to deadlift 700 pounds anyway without diverting five six years of your life to get there it's all about

00:41:37.980 what do you want to achieve how do you want to approach it are you somebody that's going to be world

00:41:41.800 class and powerlifting my suggestion would probably be pursue that first if you do end up really enjoying

00:41:47.040 it continue to pursue it if you think you know what maybe that wasn't as exciting as i thought it

00:41:50.780 would be then look you've got 700 pound deadlift which means you've got a really good base to improve

00:41:54.760 your aerobic base you can get faster you can get stronger you can see new places you can run in hills

00:41:58.760 you can spend time i know there's a there's actual wildlife that you need to deal with out in trails in

00:42:03.700 america so you know what if you're getting chased down by a bear in canada or anything you're probably

00:42:07.520 going to be better off for it so i think i think broad broadening horizons is a good thing

00:42:11.320 continuing on this idea of the benefits of hybrid training we've had podcast guests psychologists who

00:42:16.940 study the connection between exercise and mental health and one thing they found is that endurance

00:42:23.760 aerobic activity is really good for depression and anxiety and things like that i'm curious and did

00:42:29.940 you notice when you started adding in the the endurance stuff into your training that was that

00:42:34.140 something that you think that helped your mental health i i cannot advocate it anymore honestly so

00:42:39.920 i'll tell you a little story about the sort of real light bulb moment for me was when

00:42:44.400 i i'd never for example i was somebody that didn't understand zone two when i was younger so

00:42:49.840 that that period of time post rugby when i just spent two years just being fit my tuesdays were 5k

00:42:56.120 hard effort my thursdays were 10k hard effort and i had no concept even though i was running a 38 minute

00:43:01.340 10k at the time i had no concept of how anybody could run a marathon because i didn't understand

00:43:05.940 that you could have gears and that you could go slower and your pace over time would be relatively

00:43:10.520 slower so when i three four years later saw two hours in zone two running given to me by johnny my

00:43:19.980 coach now business partner i thought how am i how am i going to do that there's no there's no possible

00:43:25.100 way i could do that but by taking control of my heart rate relying on the engine that i kind of had

00:43:29.700 from strength training and just moving at a really low intensity i spent two hours running along a

00:43:36.940 canal that i'd grown up near never really exploring really switching off and paying attention to my

00:43:43.180 surroundings and because you're moving through a motor pattern but not at a high enough intensity

00:43:48.100 that you've really got to focus on what you're doing you're in this almost middle zone between

00:43:52.360 being conscious and being semi unconscious in in a sort of sense because you're limited in how

00:43:59.720 erratic your mind can get but not so unlimited because you've still got to focus unconsciously

00:44:06.420 on the motor pattern and moving and the pacing and all that stuff so for me my aerobic work now is a

00:44:11.780 real calibration point in my week where i actually use it as an opportunity to think about certain

00:44:15.680 things so before my long runs i actually write down these are the things i want to think about today and

00:44:20.160 they tend to not be work related they tend to be ambition related relationship related how i'm

00:44:25.620 going to spend more time my friends from a social point of view what do i want to achieve this year

00:44:30.240 have i focused on my habits in the right way so i sort of go out with a bit of a task in my head and

00:44:35.040 just think about it because i get a really unique opportunity to switch off the white noise of the

00:44:39.100 world i get to be out in nature key detail here i don't wear headphones when i'm doing my zone two work

00:44:44.320 because it allows me to engage with my surroundings proprioceptively

00:44:48.020 it allows me to look around people watch all these sort of buzzwords that sound a bit trivial

00:44:52.980 but when you actually engage with the zone two work in beautiful settings

00:44:56.960 engage with your surroundings think about certain things for me

00:45:00.720 it's the best opportunity i get all week to switch off

00:45:04.060 and just think and that thinking time for me

00:45:07.340 allows me to decide what to do next for my mental health and

00:45:11.320 how i can constantly improve that's why i choose to drive to certain locations to do my run at the weekend

00:45:17.060 because if i can combine my zone two work which is great for my mental health with spending time

00:45:21.140 outdoors which is great for my mental health if i can bring a friend along to do the training session

00:45:25.440 with me that social connection which is great for my mental health if i take certain things to think

00:45:29.960 about in my zone two work that i can then take back to my day-to-day life that's great for my mental

00:45:33.780 health so i can tick off a lot of boxes as i go and the real beauty of it is that zone two doesn't

00:45:38.580 force you to be thinking right chew the stem get your head down and really work hard like

00:45:43.380 if you're on a track where you've just got to get the work done in and out yes it's great for

00:45:47.380 your mental health in the sense that you've worked hard endorphins are up you achieve something but

00:45:51.360 you're you're in a different you're in a different headspace in a different zone i'd almost call zone

00:45:55.600 two zen that's what i like to refer to it as sometimes and that's somebody with no concept of

00:46:00.240 the actual reality of zen from a buddhist point of view but in my mind it's what i imagine zen to be

00:46:05.000 in many ways well fergus this has been a great conversation is there some place people can go to learn

00:46:10.080 more about your work yeah so personally it's at fergus crawley on instagram and fergus crawley on

00:46:16.120 youtube and for any hybrid training inquiries from a coaching perspective or tips tricks information

00:46:22.260 go to at omnia performance and www.omnia-performance.com we've got a whole load of training programs

00:46:30.300 available there we've got information about one-to-one coaching we have a hybrid 101

00:46:33.680 pdf which is basically with the intention of taking complete beginners to their journey to become a

00:46:39.840 hybrid athlete really so 12 weeks to help get you to set some more specific goals and then we have

00:46:45.180 a few other exciting things going on for the rest of the year but that is where you can find us and i

00:46:49.860 hope to hear from you soon all right well fergus crawley thanks for your time it's been a pleasure

00:46:53.500 it has been thanks for having me my guest there is fergus crawley you can find more information about

00:46:58.840 hybrid training and coaching at omnia-performance.com also check out our show notes at

00:47:03.080 aom.is hybrid where you can find links to resources where we delve deeper into this topic

00:47:07.160 well that wraps up another edition of the a1 podcast make sure to check out our website at

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00:47:50.620 but put what you've heard into action

00:47:59.080 you

The Art of Manliness - February 09, 2022

Becoming a Hybrid Athlete

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