The Art of Manliness - Strong, Conditioned, and Ready for Anything

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00:01:10.160 Varies by plan.

00:01:12.180 Brett McKay here, and welcome to another edition of the AOM Podcast,

00:01:15.540 which since 2008 has featured conversations with the world's best authors, thinkers, and leaders

00:01:20.200 that glean their edifying, life-improving insights without the fluff and filler.

00:01:24.220 The AOM Podcast is just one part of the McKay mission to help individuals practice timeless

00:01:28.520 virtues through thought, word, and deed.

00:01:31.180 Also, be sure to explore our articles in artofmanliness.com,

00:01:34.020 read the deeper dives we do in our sub-stack newsletter at dyingbreed.net,

00:01:37.540 and turn our content into real-world action by joining the Strenuous Life program at strenuouslife.com.

00:01:42.780 Now on to the show.

00:01:43.920 For decades, fitness culture has tended to break people into two categories.

00:01:55.320 You're either a strength guy or an endurance guy.

00:01:57.700 You lift heavy or run far, but not both.

00:02:00.800 But my guest today says you don't have to choose.

00:02:02.720 You can excel at both modalities and be ready for anything.

00:02:05.920 Alex Viata is a coach, a physiologist, and the author of The Hybrid Athlete.

00:02:09.820 He's a powerlifter who's also completed Ironman triathlons,

00:02:12.780 and he's deadlifted 700 pounds and run an ultramarathon in the same week.

00:02:16.760 Even if your goals are much more modest, you'd like to, say,

00:02:19.080 set some weightlifting PRs in the gym and be able to run a decent 5K,

00:02:22.520 Alex's training philosophy can help you combine lifting and endurance

00:02:25.160 in a smart and sustainable way that builds true all-around fitness.

00:02:28.860 In our conversation, Alex explains how to combine training for strength

00:02:31.880 with distance sports like running or cycling,

00:02:33.960 how to test your progress,

00:02:35.400 how to recognize and avoid the two kinds of fatigue,

00:02:37.480 and why becoming a hybrid athlete will help you live more adventurously

00:02:40.360 and more capably.

00:02:42.120 After the show's over, check out our show notes at aom.is slash hybridathlete.

00:02:58.760 All right, Alex Viata, welcome back to the show.

00:03:01.440 Matt, thank you very much.

00:03:02.700 So we had you on the podcast.

00:03:04.080 In 2023, we talked all about Zone 2 Cardio.

00:03:07.480 That's right.

00:03:08.380 And I wanted to bring you back on because you've got a book out.

00:03:12.140 You've written the book on a fitness approach called hybrid training.

00:03:16.680 And this combines strength training with endurance training.

00:03:20.460 So this is if you want to be a power lifter

00:03:22.100 and run ultramarathons at the same time.

00:03:25.200 I think to better understand hybrid training,

00:03:28.020 I think it would be useful to talk about your own fitness background.

00:03:31.480 How has your approach to strength and fitness evolved over the years,

00:03:34.680 and how did it eventually lead to hybrid training?

00:03:38.140 Sure, yes.

00:03:38.620 So my first fitness started, I was actually back in, oh gosh,

00:03:41.920 even pre-elementary school days.

00:03:43.880 Always a really active kid.

00:03:45.100 Did a lot of different sports all through elementary school, middle school, high school.

00:03:49.180 You know, everything I could get thrown into.

00:03:51.440 Everything from, you know, football, boxing, track, swimming, tennis, whatever.

00:03:56.500 And went to college, went to a D1 school, and was clearly not good enough to play on any team.

00:04:00.860 So for the first couple years of college, I lost the ability to do anything,

00:04:05.260 except I still ate like a 17-year-old who was playing, you know, six different sports.

00:04:10.580 So, you know, got really out of shape.

00:04:12.480 Finally, by my senior year, dialed it back in, got back into shape.

00:04:15.720 Got back into shape primarily through lifting.

00:04:17.680 Got really into lifting heavy.

00:04:18.920 Got really into power lifting.

00:04:20.460 Got a lot of enjoyment out of it.

00:04:21.720 And after a couple years, I was just chatting with some friends,

00:04:25.420 and long story short, got challenged to run a 5K with them.

00:04:28.800 And the training for that, like the first session,

00:04:31.120 was probably one of the most eye-opening slash embarrassing slash,

00:04:35.680 you know, I just realized all my fitness that I had for most of my youth was gone.

00:04:40.280 I was a one-trick pony, and I hated it.

00:04:42.360 So I kind of resolved.

00:04:44.180 I said, all right, I'm a power lifter.

00:04:45.580 I'm talking to runners.

00:04:47.020 None of them know how to still run while respecting my lifting.

00:04:50.880 You know, all of them say, well, yeah, I don't know how you do both.

00:04:54.360 So I kind of made it this personal experiment.

00:04:56.220 And for the next couple years, I tried and failed magnificently to combine them all.

00:05:00.600 And, you know, after a couple more years, I finally got better at it

00:05:02.960 and started branching out.

00:05:04.580 I kept progressing into lifting, really got into long-distance cycling.

00:05:08.180 I got into more long-distance running events.

00:05:10.960 And really, the whole practice at that point just became,

00:05:13.280 all right, let's come up with a methodology.

00:05:15.500 Like, let's talk about the system that I actually used

00:05:17.820 to be able to train for all these things without crashing and burning in any of them.

00:05:21.660 So you're doing cycling.

00:05:22.920 You're doing running.

00:05:23.740 Have you done, like, marathons, ultra-marathons?

00:05:26.320 Yeah, I've done a couple of marathons, done a couple of ultras,

00:05:28.740 done a few Ironman triathlons.

00:05:30.740 You know, and on the endurance side of things, I was far from elite.

00:05:33.680 I had some decent performances there, here and there.

00:05:36.020 But, you know, the events I like doing, the ultra-long-distance ones,

00:05:38.980 I've just always been a little too heavy to do them really fast and efficiently.

00:05:42.860 But I enjoyed them.

00:05:43.920 Enjoyed them a lot.

00:05:44.760 You know, really like doing things like, you know, long mountain hikes,

00:05:48.280 you know, big summits, things like that.

00:05:50.260 And, yeah, so really just kind of tried to do a little bit of everything.

00:05:53.980 Like I said, I think what I enjoy and what I've always maintained

00:05:56.420 is that this is all about developing the capability to go do fun things.

00:06:00.760 So what are the benefits of hybrid training?

00:06:02.080 Like, why would someone want to do it?

00:06:03.360 Let's say they're a powerlifter.

00:06:05.040 They're like, man, this is just my thing.

00:06:06.300 I'll just focus on that.

00:06:07.180 Or let's say they're just a runner.

00:06:08.840 Why would I want to start powerlifting?

00:06:10.200 I mean, what are the benefits, you think?

00:06:12.460 Yeah, you know, it's funny because it's very easy to stay with one sport and say,

00:06:16.580 hey, man, this is everything I want.

00:06:18.060 Like, you know, why would I start doing any sort of hybrid training?

00:06:20.580 I mean, the first is, and this is kind of the most like cliche slash boring one,

00:06:24.460 is, you know, honestly, health.

00:06:26.440 Single-minded pursuit of any one sport does not typically lead to the best health outcomes.

00:06:31.260 And we can see that for people who do nothing but run, you know, there's kind of this almost

00:06:35.880 dose-dependent inverted U-curve in terms of running and health, where, you know, a little

00:06:40.320 bit of it to a good bit of it is quite good for you.

00:06:42.500 But when you really become all into it, it leads to all sorts of other problems.

00:06:45.780 Kind of same with lifting.

00:06:46.920 You know, to be healthy when you get older is all about good cardiovascular health.

00:06:51.000 It's about maintaining muscle size, bone density, coordination, all those things.

00:06:55.020 And training for all that, you know, training to keep all that requires some sort of hybrid

00:06:58.600 approach.

00:06:59.140 But, you know, again, that's kind of that quote-unquote boring one.

00:07:02.140 The second one would be simply because you want to try new things.

00:07:05.180 And I think a lot of people, they think, okay, yeah, you know, I'm a gym rat.

00:07:08.580 I love lifting heavy or I'm a runner.

00:07:10.500 A lot of times people might have some level of interest in what is the draw behind this?

00:07:15.720 You know, you're a powerlifter.

00:07:16.720 You love spending time in the gym.

00:07:18.280 You might very well say, yeah, you know, I wish I could just go like hike that mountain

00:07:22.540 and go camping or go hiking with the kids or go backwards hunting or anything else.

00:07:26.320 And you might feel like that path is shut off to you because you've never trained for it.

00:07:30.920 You know, you think I'm a big, strong guy, but, you know, if I have to walk five miles,

00:07:34.840 I'm done.

00:07:35.940 And I think it's allowing yourself as an individual to say, well, there's some exciting stuff out

00:07:40.380 there.

00:07:40.560 I want to try that.

00:07:41.480 I want to feel like I can dip my toe into any activity and at least give it a credible

00:07:46.080 shot.

00:07:47.440 No, I was going to say, I can see the appeal of that.

00:07:50.280 So I'm a strength guy.

00:07:51.020 I just do powerlifting, the major barbell lifts.

00:07:54.540 In this past Thanksgiving, I did a turkey trot.

00:07:56.940 It was a 5K, a little short than a 5K.

00:07:59.800 And man, I'll tell you, winded.

00:08:02.360 I mean, I was kind of proud of myself.

00:08:03.760 I kind of stuck with it for maybe the first mile and a half.

00:08:06.620 And then eventually I had my hands on my head, huffing and puffing, walking.

00:08:11.580 But it's cool though, right?

00:08:13.200 You're like, hey, man, I'm out here.

00:08:14.480 I'm, you know, with family.

00:08:15.540 I'm doing this.

00:08:16.120 And it doesn't even have to be about saying, all right, next year, I'm going to be like

00:08:19.420 top 10% of my age group.

00:08:20.840 I'm going to be up.

00:08:21.700 Nah, sometimes it's just saying, hey, you know what?

00:08:23.620 Maybe if I find a way to just incorporate a little bit of intelligent running into my

00:08:28.440 program, I can, you know, keep going out and doing these things and say, hey, man, yeah,

00:08:32.140 I gave it a shot.

00:08:32.840 Yeah, I felt good about it.

00:08:33.820 And I think that's really, it doesn't have to be about pursuing elite performance in these

00:08:37.900 other things.

00:08:38.380 Sometimes just saying like, yeah, I want to go out with the family and do this.

00:08:41.580 That sounds cool.

00:08:42.200 So I'm curious, whenever you are dealing with clients who come from, let's say, just a strength

00:08:48.080 background, what are the biggest challenges that they have in starting like, okay, I'm

00:08:53.280 going to start running 5Ks, you know, marathon?

00:08:56.680 You know, I think sometimes the, one of the biggest challenges, of course, is body type.

00:09:00.740 Because, you know, you typically, a lot of lifters, not only do they tend to be a little

00:09:04.240 bit bigger than the average runner or a lot bit bigger than the average runner, but, you

00:09:08.680 know, a lot of lifters over time, you've got a lot of what I would call sort of functional

00:09:12.180 tightness and functional, different functional ranges of motion, as much as I hate that term.

00:09:17.320 You know, a lot of lifters can be a little bit tighter in the hips.

00:09:19.900 Sometimes, you know, ankle mobility may not be.

00:09:22.020 Sometimes the things like running efficiency, like quick rebound, you know, a lot of things

00:09:27.720 that are developed through plyometrics, some lifters may not have.

00:09:30.260 Some do, certainly.

00:09:31.320 There are some lifters out there who take great pains to do this.

00:09:33.760 But there are a lot of things in your running mechanics that may be slightly off because

00:09:37.840 you've spent so long in your career training in certain body positions, training certain

00:09:42.780 muscles, training for maximum strength.

00:09:44.760 So I think a lot of lifters who go to running find running just extremely uncomfortable at

00:09:49.280 first.

00:09:50.160 The gait doesn't feel natural.

00:09:51.760 Everything gets sore really, really quickly.

00:09:54.300 So one of the biggest things is just getting lifters kind of loose, limber, and feeling good

00:09:58.600 about running.

00:09:59.700 And one of the great things is things like plyometrics are great for runners of all levels.

00:10:04.520 They will just make you a faster, more efficient runner, whatever you do.

00:10:07.620 And a lot of lifters take really well to plyometrics just because you're like, hey, you know, this

00:10:12.100 is explosive power.

00:10:13.280 I can kind of vibe with this.

00:10:14.880 And getting a lot of lifters just into running and having them start doing some plyometrics,

00:10:18.580 they go, oh, wow, you know, this is a good challenge.

00:10:20.920 I feel uncoordinated, but I don't feel wildly out of my element.

00:10:23.960 And sure enough, they immediately start becoming better runners on top of it.

00:10:27.720 What about endurance athletes transferring over to strength training, like power lifting or something

00:10:31.760 like that, or even like power building, combining hypertrophy training with it?

00:10:36.680 Yeah.

00:10:36.940 And I think one of the toughest things there is I think lifting inherently, it's not that

00:10:42.300 it requires a greater pain tolerance by far.

00:10:45.060 I mean, you know, endurance sports actually do require a greater pain tolerance slash threshold

00:10:49.380 than lifting.

00:10:50.500 But lifting is very much about momentary discomfort and second to second aggression.

00:10:56.260 Being able to attack a lift, being able to get that level of dialed aggression, and also

00:11:01.580 to deal with that level of kind of full body strain, the increase in inter-adominal pressure,

00:11:07.020 the sudden axial loading, things like that.

00:11:09.600 A lot of endurance athletes, it's not that they're worse at that than the average person.

00:11:14.120 It's just, I think it's very much a surprise.

00:11:16.520 It's a very different way of approaching exercise.

00:11:20.100 It's a completely different mindset.

00:11:21.680 You know, running is very much about managing discomfort.

00:11:23.800 Running is about breathing and getting in the zone and everything else.

00:11:27.020 And for a lot of them, lifting is an inherently straining activity.

00:11:31.500 And I think getting into that mindset and saying, all right, this is going to require

00:11:34.720 a different way of thinking about exercise and a different way of thinking about effort.

00:11:39.480 That's one of the hardest things.

00:11:41.200 Yeah.

00:11:41.360 It's a different kind of hurt.

00:11:43.120 Yeah, exactly.

00:11:43.920 Yeah.

00:11:44.100 Like you said, it's a different type of exertion when you lift weights.

00:11:47.300 That's kind of it.

00:11:48.040 Like you're under a heavy squat.

00:11:49.220 You feel the bar on your back pushing on your neck.

00:11:51.340 Like, you know, you've got that intra-abdominal pressure.

00:11:53.960 You got a little bit of that strain in your knees and hips.

00:11:55.960 Like it's a very different sort of thing.

00:11:57.340 And you have to be, you have to be at the mindset for it.

00:12:00.440 Yeah.

00:12:00.800 So I imagine a lot of people who have a focus on one fitness modality.

00:12:05.040 So if they're strength training, doing hypertrophy, they probably have the mindset, I want to

00:12:10.320 see progress.

00:12:10.920 I want to be able to test myself to see if I'm making progress.

00:12:13.820 And so for a strength athlete, that's going to be every once in a while, you're going

00:12:17.140 to do a one rep max lift, all exertion to see, okay, how am I doing with my strength?

00:12:22.200 With an endurance athlete, I imagine it's the same thing.

00:12:24.360 They had this focus.

00:12:24.920 I want to get better.

00:12:25.660 I want to be able to run longer, faster.

00:12:27.820 And so they're going to do a marathon or a 5K and try to beat their best time.

00:12:32.540 With hybrid training, you're training both of these things at the same time, strength

00:12:37.200 and endurance.

00:12:38.340 How do you test to see how you're doing?

00:12:41.080 Are there challenges you set up for yourself?

00:12:43.880 Like, okay, I'm going to deadlift 600 pounds and then immediately afterwards go run a marathon

00:12:48.560 or is it, I mean, what does that look like for you?

00:12:52.820 See, and that's, that's actually a really, really good question because there is a whole

00:12:55.560 subset of hybrid athletes are all about the challenges and you know, there are all these

00:12:59.700 numbered challenges and combinations of events and everything else.

00:13:02.500 And to me, I, you know, my view of hybrid training has always been, yes, you're training

00:13:06.420 for different sports, but you want to train to be capable at any moment.

00:13:09.340 And one of the ways that I, I personally do a lot of my endurance training, a lot of my

00:13:14.520 lifting training, I will, when I first put together my programmer for start a new client

00:13:19.400 or start a training cycle, I have a pretty good idea what my run one rep maxes are and

00:13:24.020 kind of what my running threshold is.

00:13:25.820 You know, that, you know, lactate threshold slash a little bit like the 5K slash 10K pace

00:13:30.940 somewhere in between there.

00:13:32.020 And I know what those numbers are.

00:13:34.420 And as I put together my program, my workouts for the week or for the month, I'm thinking,

00:13:39.540 okay, you know, this week I'm lifting 90% for X number on the bench press and then 85%

00:13:45.200 of my max for X number repetition, so on and so forth on the running and going, okay, this

00:13:50.740 week, this workout is three by 10 minutes at 97% of my threshold.

00:13:56.140 Okay, great.

00:13:57.500 And so what I'll do is I'll run those for a couple of weeks.

00:13:59.740 Then what I do is I take that one rep max or threshold number and say, okay, these workouts

00:14:04.440 are getting easy.

00:14:05.440 Let me recalculate all this based on a five pound increase in my one rep max or a five

00:14:11.840 second per mile improvement in my threshold pace.

00:14:15.420 The next week or next two weeks, I run these new numbers.

00:14:18.800 Everything seems good.

00:14:19.840 I'm still getting them done.

00:14:20.960 I'll increase it again.

00:14:21.840 So what happens when you do this, you're not actually retesting your one rep max.

00:14:26.560 What you're doing is you're re-estimating your peak performance and seeing how all of

00:14:31.980 this sub max training matches up to it.

00:14:34.660 And this doesn't sound very exciting, but it's sort of like the thing you realize when,

00:14:38.840 hey, like I'm doing my old max for, you know, for a triple now, my max is clearly better

00:14:43.540 or yeah, you're like my, I'm doing, you know, 10 minute intervals at a pace where I could

00:14:48.300 barely run three minutes, you know, a couple months ago.

00:14:50.840 A lot of this type of continuous reevaluation, I'll tell people like set benchmarks for yourself,

00:14:56.640 a specific run, a specific run course, a circuit, a workout, you know, same thing with the lifting,

00:15:03.080 no kind of how a triple feels and how five reps feels.

00:15:07.020 And as you progress, as things get easier, continue to challenge yourself by upping those.

00:15:12.960 You don't ever have to test your max.

00:15:14.360 So that way, when you're finally ready for an event, you can say, cool.

00:15:17.160 All right.

00:15:17.920 Well, you know, my threshold is now this, let me test it.

00:15:21.160 There should be no question in your mind, which you can hit.

00:15:23.860 Now, I know a lot of people like to say, oh, well, I like getting benchmarks every couple

00:15:27.580 of weeks, every couple of months.

00:15:28.560 But my thing with benchmarks is they always disrupt the training.

00:15:31.420 And my whole thing is just keep doing quality work as long as you can until you actually

00:15:38.200 need to test it.

00:15:40.060 Yeah.

00:15:40.160 Going for a benchmark does disrupt your training.

00:15:42.200 I've seen that in my own strength training.

00:15:43.780 Whenever I do like go for a one rep PR, I'm out for a couple of days.

00:15:48.060 Yeah.

00:15:48.380 The amount of fatigue that you build up in just that one single exertion, it fries you.

00:15:54.640 Yeah.

00:15:55.120 And you know, the thing is it can also be mentally tough because, you know, especially in a hybrid

00:15:59.580 program and one of the reasons I use this method is because fatigue always masks fitness.

00:16:03.960 The lifting you're doing might make some of your fast runs feel a little bit harder.

00:16:07.740 And, you know, the running you're doing might make your lifting feel a little bit more challenging.

00:16:10.920 So I'm like, hey, if you're really going to take a test of benchmark and you've really

00:16:15.040 got a peak for it or you've got a taper for it, you got to pretty much take a whole week

00:16:19.700 off of training for both to let yourself recover so you can really test an honest benchmark.

00:16:24.620 And that gets disruptive.

00:16:26.160 So I'm like, hey, always just have an ongoing sense of what your performance is.

00:16:31.860 Check your current performance against like benchmark workouts, you know, ones that are

00:16:36.540 sub max, but you know how you perform and you'll always be able to tell where you stand.

00:16:40.960 And I mean, using this method, I've got, you know, I've got some marathon runners.

00:16:44.540 I got one, one person I work with on marathons, just as a recent example, her running threshold

00:16:48.940 went up by 45 seconds per mile over the course of eight months.

00:16:52.480 And just by tracking her threshold and telling her to run at a certain percentage of that

00:16:58.100 threshold, I was able to get her marathon time.

00:17:01.080 Like her final marathon time was within, I think, 45 seconds of what we predicted.

00:17:04.860 And we hadn't had to test anything in that whole time period.

00:17:09.220 Yeah.

00:17:09.400 So, I mean, so it sounds like your approach to hybrid training, I mean, you can do the

00:17:12.580 challenges that are out there.

00:17:13.880 Like, I'm going to one rep max all the big barbell list and go run a marathon.

00:17:17.620 It sounds like your approach is I'm just going to do this continuously.

00:17:19.880 So I'm like ready for anything.

00:17:22.580 Exactly.

00:17:23.360 Exactly.

00:17:23.840 Because, you know, the challenges are cool.

00:17:25.340 They capture the imagination and all that.

00:17:26.960 But at the end of the day, like if you're just training for two specific things like

00:17:31.080 that, why do them both in one day?

00:17:33.080 That's not the best way to get the best performance of each one.

00:17:35.500 Like do them a couple of weeks apart.

00:17:37.240 Go register for a marathon and, you know, sign up for a powerlifting meet three or four weeks

00:17:40.940 later if you really want to test them.

00:17:42.580 You know, I'm like, do something real with it.

00:17:44.860 Because I think a lot of these challenges, you're intentionally making it harder than

00:17:49.040 it has to be by, you know, kind of creating something arbitrary.

00:17:52.460 Just be the best lifter you can be and be the best runner you can be and see where that

00:17:55.540 ends up.

00:17:56.540 Well, do you do that?

00:17:57.380 You know, if every year do you kind of plan out, okay, I'm going to run these events

00:18:00.960 and then I also want to do, you know, one or two meets a year.

00:18:03.420 Like, do you schedule that out for yourself?

00:18:05.700 Yeah, I actually haven't done the last couple of years.

00:18:07.620 I've just been dealing with a lot of moving a couple of times in the last few years and

00:18:12.360 all that, haven't really had the intent of doing it.

00:18:14.360 But this next year, I've definitely got probably planning a powerlifting meet sometime in the

00:18:18.960 late summer, probably do an event in March, a running event.

00:18:23.340 So yeah, just planning out ones.

00:18:24.540 And for me, the most important thing is my whole thought with training for events, unless

00:18:28.880 there's like one event you really wanted to do for years and years and years, my whole

00:18:32.200 thing is if you need to decide, if you think, okay, what should I train for this

00:18:36.140 year, think about the kind of person and the kind of athlete and the kind of individual

00:18:41.180 that you'll become while training for it.

00:18:43.800 And if that's what you want to be, then it's a good event.

00:18:46.140 You know, if I'm thinking, all right, I'm going to go train for this, you know, Ironman

00:18:49.380 or whatever, what this is going to mean is, you know, like a lot of long weekends of this.

00:18:53.880 Here's how my body's going to feel.

00:18:55.160 Here's how my schedule is going to feel.

00:18:56.320 Here's what I'm going to get good at.

00:18:57.600 If I like the way that looks, then it's a good event to sign up for.

00:19:00.900 If I just want something to test myself and I don't like how that training is going to

00:19:04.840 look, then I just should keep training for fun until something comes along.

00:19:09.800 That's going to force me to be more of the person that I want to be.

00:19:13.560 I imagine another benefit of doing hybrid training is that doing strength training will probably

00:19:19.660 improve your endurance training and endurance training will improve your strength training.

00:19:24.060 Yeah, that's, that was a huge thing.

00:19:25.700 That was actually going to be the third thing that I mentioned earlier.

00:19:28.800 If you're a lifter, your recovery between lifts and honestly, the amount of density and the

00:19:34.260 amount of productive volume you could do in a training session does have an aerobic component

00:19:38.100 to it.

00:19:39.040 Better aerobic engine.

00:19:40.080 You're going to recover faster between sets.

00:19:42.060 The work later on in a session is going to be higher quality.

00:19:45.280 You could do more dense work, which means you can benefit from more productive work.

00:19:49.240 I told the story a million times and I might even have told you the story before, but I've

00:19:53.700 always got the example of that one power lifter I worked with who, I mean, strong guy,

00:19:57.480 like 400 kilo deadlift, strong guy.

00:20:00.840 And he was commenting that since he started doing more cardio, he hadn't done cardio before.

00:20:05.180 He was like, you know what, man?

00:20:06.680 I realized today that when I wrap my knees for squats, I'm not winded afterwards.

00:20:11.700 And I think what, what really drove that home was here was a lifter who was a great power

00:20:17.040 lifter and something as simple as like wrapping his knees or even like loading plates and all

00:20:21.340 that was creating so much fatigue that he wasn't able to lift at his potential.

00:20:25.760 You give him a little bit more condition, a little bit cardiovascular endurance, and suddenly

00:20:29.420 his training sessions were more productive.

00:20:31.760 He could do 10 to 15% more productive work by the time he stood on that platform than he

00:20:37.360 could before.

00:20:37.940 That's just going to make him a better lifter.

00:20:40.080 And, you know, same thing on the running side, like, uh, talking to one of my colleagues,

00:20:44.380 he's a ultra marathon runner.

00:20:45.740 And you said, you know what the craziest thing about starting to do more serious strength training

00:20:49.800 was he said at mile 96 on the downhills, I still felt like I was racing and not

00:20:55.740 just holding on my quads didn't get torn up.

00:20:58.320 I felt like I still had power in my legs.

00:21:00.280 I felt like I could actually still accelerate and be a fast runner when I would normally just

00:21:06.940 be shattered.

00:21:08.000 Yeah.

00:21:08.480 That's awesome.

00:21:09.320 And I've noticed that since our last conversation about zone two cardio, I started implementing

00:21:14.180 zone two cardio into my programming.

00:21:17.140 So I get two hour long sessions in a week.

00:21:20.400 And I definitely noticed an improvement in my strength training sessions.

00:21:23.960 It's like not winded.

00:21:25.120 I could get stuff done.

00:21:26.340 I didn't have to rest as long between sets and it was just a lot more productive.

00:21:31.000 Yeah.

00:21:31.580 That's huge.

00:21:32.240 Yeah.

00:21:32.560 That's huge.

00:21:33.380 Oh, so let's talk about hybrid training, but I think to do that, let's talk about each

00:21:37.120 component first.

00:21:38.440 So the strength and the endurance separately, and then we'll look at how you program the

00:21:42.660 two.

00:21:43.300 What does strength training look like for a hybrid athlete the way you do it?

00:21:49.340 Yeah.

00:21:49.900 So a lot of it is very, very dependent.

00:21:52.140 And my, my main thing with training, especially hybrid training is training with intent and

00:21:56.440 realizing that, you know, you need to know exactly what you want to stimulate during a

00:22:00.980 session in order to put the session together.

00:22:02.980 So strength training, specifically training to get stronger.

00:22:06.260 I always say strength is a skill.

00:22:08.280 Strength training is all about getting stronger at a specific movement.

00:22:12.080 So strength training can be more than one thing.

00:22:14.820 Strength training, I, you know, I use a lot of conjugate cues before, you know, I've talked

00:22:18.420 about using max effort and dynamic efforts and what I also now term skill effort.

00:22:23.540 So strength training program for hybrid athlete, if their goal is to get stronger in a specific

00:22:27.900 movement, isn't just going in and doing like three sets of eight or three sets of 10 or

00:22:31.960 anything else.

00:22:32.800 Usually it's saying, okay, what aspect of strength in this movement do I want to train

00:22:36.920 today?

00:22:37.240 Say I'm going into bench press.

00:22:38.800 Do I want to do some heavy near max effort bench press?

00:22:41.920 Do I want to do some heavy near max effort?

00:22:43.540 And then do some speed work, velocity work, repetitions where I'm focused on high bar

00:22:48.540 speed, full recovery in between, or skill work where I'm focused on nothing but bracing and

00:22:53.740 proper form and all that.

00:22:55.240 The reason why I do that is because a workout like that may be very minimally fatiguing.

00:23:00.080 If somebody does dynamic effort slash skill work in their lifting, they're not exhausting

00:23:04.780 themselves.

00:23:05.400 They're not exhausting their arms.

00:23:06.740 They're not reaching muscular failure.

00:23:08.140 So strength training is very much about movement specific and working on maximum force production,

00:23:14.920 rate of force production, and skill in the movement.

00:23:17.360 So if you say, all right, I'm putting together a strength program.

00:23:20.000 I'm a hybrid athlete.

00:23:20.900 I want to get a really strong bench press and squat.

00:23:23.280 You're thinking, okay, do I need to do endless sets of chest press and endless sets of leg press

00:23:27.340 and no, no, no.

00:23:28.180 No, let me start with my strength day or two days for the week here.

00:23:32.680 I'm starting out with some max effort bench.

00:23:34.320 I'm doing a couple of dynamic effort, drop down sets, and that's it for the strength

00:23:38.340 side of things.

00:23:39.720 Maybe I'll then do some hypertrophy work after that, which is a little bit different.

00:23:43.300 That's, you know, picking more isolation movements or externally brace movements, you

00:23:47.360 know, things like machines and the like, and then doing a couple of sets, you know, I abide

00:23:51.940 by the effective reps model and, uh, you know, staying well shy of failure on that.

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00:26:10.260 And now back to the show.

00:26:12.320 Okay, so basically it sounds like what you're saying is that we shouldn't just go into the

00:26:15.960 gym and lift until we're dead tired.

00:26:17.460 So if your goal as a hybrid athlete is to get stronger on the main barbell lifts, for

00:26:22.460 example, you need to treat strength as a specific skill, almost like practicing it as a sport.

00:26:28.300 So for the main lifts, you might have one workout where you're doing max effort on a lift.

00:26:32.360 Let's say, for example, the deadlift.

00:26:34.360 You might do a heavy set of three, and then the next workout where you deadlift, you're

00:26:39.880 going to do that dynamic effort stuff where the focus is on velocity and the bar speed so

00:26:44.020 you can practice the movement in an efficient way.

00:26:46.920 And the weight's going to be lower so you're not overly fatiguing yourself so that interferes

00:26:51.180 with your endurance training.

00:26:52.780 And even if your primary focus is strength, you can always end the strength workout with

00:26:56.680 some hypertrophy work with some machines and dumbbells if you want.

00:27:00.500 But then you talk about in the book, if strength isn't your primary goal as a hybrid athlete and

00:27:04.320 you just want to be a jacked runner, you don't have to do the barbell lifts and you can just

00:27:08.400 focus on workouts using machines and dumbbells at higher volume to stimulate hypertrophy.

00:27:13.120 So with that strategy in mind, whenever you're, let's say, programming a hybrid athlete for

00:27:17.840 strength training, what's the split looking like?

00:27:20.320 Are you doing upper-lower split, full body?

00:27:23.320 What does that look like typically?

00:27:25.260 Yeah, I do typically do upper-lower.

00:27:26.960 I think really it comes down to frequency.

00:27:29.800 And for both strength and hypertrophy, stimulating a muscle every three days or so is pretty close

00:27:34.340 to ideal.

00:27:34.980 So that's anywhere between two or three workouts per week.

00:27:37.780 I find with full body, it's a little bit harder to do because with that frequency, you

00:27:41.860 have to do way too much in every single session to hit everything kind of optimally.

00:27:45.420 So I find that too upper, too lower.

00:27:47.760 And as a general, I try to make the emphasis of each one of the upper and each one of the

00:27:52.780 lower a little bit different.

00:27:53.720 So they could be the same basic things.

00:27:55.600 Like your upper could be a push-pull, but on one day, if this is just a generic athlete

00:28:00.100 who just wants to get better at everything, one day may be more strength-focused.

00:28:03.700 So what we're doing is we're potentially doing heavier weight, fewer reps, and then we're

00:28:07.480 doing comparatively lightweight and velocity emphasis.

00:28:11.100 And then the next day might be hypertrophy-focused.

00:28:13.500 Instead of the bench press, we're going to do a machine chest press or something similar.

00:28:17.200 And rather than heavy weight or lightweight quickly, we're going to do moderate weight

00:28:22.420 and aim for like one to two reps in reserve, you know, something like that.

00:28:27.160 Gotcha.

00:28:27.500 How do you go about driving progressive overload in a hybrid strength program?

00:28:33.180 So my perspective on progressive overload is that, and I'm sure you've probably heard

00:28:38.360 this a million times already, but it's that progressive overload is typically misinterpreted

00:28:42.440 by people as thinking you have to add load every week.

00:28:45.020 And, you know, my contention has always been with progressive overload that overload refers

00:28:49.260 to the general physical principle that if a stimulus exceeds the body's current capacity,

00:28:55.280 the body will adapt to that stimulus.

00:28:58.260 That's the overload principle.

00:29:00.380 And progressive overload principle just means that as the body gets stronger and fitter and

00:29:05.320 better adapted, that stimulus needs to eventually increase in order to remain adequate to trigger

00:29:11.740 that adaptation.

00:29:12.400 My whole thing with progressive overload is let's just say the limits of my potential

00:29:16.520 are right now I can bench 225 for 10.

00:29:19.940 And that to me is kind of the limit of what I can do.

00:29:22.020 So I bench 225 for 10 for three sets or whatever this week.

00:29:25.060 Next week, do I have to change that?

00:29:27.420 There is almost a 0% chance I am now so strong one week later that 225 for 10 for three sets

00:29:34.080 doesn't still represent a great stimulus.

00:29:36.300 So when I'm talking about progressive overload for strength athletes on a hybrid program,

00:29:41.720 remember how I said before, you know, I kind of predict, go back and, you know, predict

00:29:45.580 what their one rep max would be.

00:29:47.320 Let's just say I'm an athlete and I predict my max at 300 pounds and I say, okay, and I

00:29:52.800 can do 225 for 10.

00:29:54.140 I'm just making up numbers right now.

00:29:55.340 And let's just say, all right, now I've done that for a couple of weeks.

00:29:58.940 This still is feeling easy.

00:30:00.520 Let me set my one rep max to 305 and recalculate my percentages based on that.

00:30:07.940 And I'm going to say, okay, well this week I've got 230 for 10.

00:30:11.400 Let me try that because that's the same percentage.

00:30:14.160 230 for 10 still feels easy, still feels good.

00:30:16.280 There should be no question.

00:30:17.080 So that's what I'll typically do is say, as long as you're increasing that metric that

00:30:23.560 you're basing your workout percentages on, if you're increasing it steadily, like month

00:30:28.220 to month, you're making progress.

00:30:30.040 It's a little bit, the same thing was running and we can talk about that a little bit later,

00:30:33.160 but you know, again, my main thing is as long as those underlying one rep max or underlying

00:30:39.500 peak performance metrics that you're calculating your percentages go on, as long as that's improving,

00:30:44.280 you're improving.

00:30:44.900 It doesn't even have to be at a quick rate.

00:30:46.520 I mean, heck, a lot of lifters would be happy to add 5% to one of their big three, you know,

00:30:51.620 over the course of six months.

00:30:53.440 So, you know, in doing that, I make sure that, you know, every week you might rotate number

00:30:58.920 of repetitions and, you know, percentages and all that, but you're sort of circled around

00:31:03.280 this benchmark that you're increasing every couple of weeks.

00:31:06.400 Yeah.

00:31:06.840 I thought that was interesting.

00:31:07.700 You mentioned that just now, and then you talked about this in the book, but with progressive

00:31:11.680 overload with strength training doesn't necessarily mean you have to increase the weight

00:31:15.240 or the rep every single week.

00:31:17.540 Yep.

00:31:17.760 Because I've fallen into that trap where it's like, okay, I got to get, if I did 225 on

00:31:22.980 the bench this week at five reps, then next week I got to do 230.

00:31:27.340 I had this problem earlier this year for about the past, I would say from September through

00:31:33.460 November, I was on this tear.

00:31:36.200 I was doing 5-3-1 with my strength training and I was making awesome progress.

00:31:41.040 And I remember I got to the point where towards the end of November, I was getting pretty high

00:31:46.340 with the weight on the big lifts.

00:31:48.580 And I did my max lifts for the one rep thing on the 5-3-1.

00:31:54.140 And I just, it wasted me.

00:31:55.400 I had to deload for like two or three weeks.

00:31:58.320 Yeah.

00:31:58.680 Because it just destroyed me.

00:31:59.960 Because every week I was trying to push further and further and further.

00:32:02.640 I mean, I'll admit, I enjoyed it.

00:32:04.680 It was great.

00:32:05.360 Oh, yeah.

00:32:05.820 But the aftermath of it, it's disrupted my training.

00:32:09.560 I'm finally getting back to where, okay, I'm feeling better now.

00:32:12.820 I'm starting to build myself back up again.

00:32:14.700 And I imagine as a hybrid athlete where you're combining endurance training and all this,

00:32:19.020 like you don't want that to happen because it'll just not only disrupt your strength

00:32:21.960 training, but it's going to disrupt your endurance training as well.

00:32:25.260 Exactly.

00:32:25.840 You know, because that's one of the things I've always maintained is like, let's say on any

00:32:29.060 given day, you're operating at 94% of your peak potential.

00:32:33.380 For example, like, okay, you know, I'm going in, I'm doing a pretty hard workout.

00:32:36.740 I think, okay, that's a tough workout.

00:32:38.300 It's probably not the hardest I could have pushed.

00:32:41.200 It's hard.

00:32:42.080 It's hard.

00:32:42.640 Don't get me wrong.

00:32:43.520 But, you know, like if I was really, if this was like the last workout of my life,

00:32:47.060 I probably could have pushed harder.

00:32:48.640 Now, if I'm hell bent on making progress and I'm like, I'm going to add five pounds to everything

00:32:53.080 next week, I probably could.

00:32:54.880 There's probably enough buffer in there that I could probably push a little bit harder next week.

00:32:59.060 Even if my fitness didn't improve.

00:33:01.440 And I see this a lot with newer runners because they're like, all right, you know, every week,

00:33:05.900 I'm just going to try to go a little bit faster on this one course that I do.

00:33:09.040 Now I'm going to try to shave a couple seconds off this loop around my neighborhood.

00:33:12.260 Chances are the main reason they're able to do that so consistently is because they're

00:33:15.880 pushing themselves closer and closer and closer to their limit every single week.

00:33:20.140 They're improving.

00:33:21.180 Yeah, but they're probably improving at a slower rate than the numbers seem to be going up.

00:33:25.900 And eventually they hit that limit.

00:33:28.080 They hit that ragged edge and then they realize they're either not making progress or they

00:33:32.120 start doing things like on the lifting side, you know, they change their form.

00:33:35.980 They cut depth a little bit.

00:33:37.300 Their bench gets a little bit messier so they can maybe make progress another week or two

00:33:41.140 in the numbers.

00:33:42.020 And then they've really hit a wall.

00:33:43.980 Every workout is a herculean effort.

00:33:46.160 Everything has gotten worse, but they're like, all right, all right.

00:33:49.740 Well, you know, I've hit some maxes.

00:33:51.320 I'm not saying that's what you did, but I'm saying this is this definitely happens.

00:33:53.860 All right, well, let's shift more into endurance to talk about it specifically.

00:33:57.680 You train people who are running, biking, they're swimming, all sorts of different events.

00:34:02.380 But with endurance, there's different philosophies on how you train for endurance events.

00:34:07.280 A lot of competing theories.

00:34:09.080 One is, you know, most of your stuff just be low intensity.

00:34:12.120 Then maybe a bit is high intensity or no, that's not right.

00:34:15.940 It needs to be medium intensity.

00:34:17.220 What's your approach to endurance training?

00:34:22.980 So do you mind if I ramble a little bit on this one?

00:34:26.200 Because I think it's kind of, okay.

00:34:28.040 It's all, I mean, yeah, because it's all over the place.

00:34:29.900 Like I read about it.

00:34:30.920 I'm like, oh man, I don't know if I want to run because it sounds complicated.

00:34:34.520 Yeah.

00:34:34.860 And that's honestly one of the most fascinating things is how much of this stuff has been like

00:34:37.740 almost misrepresented over the years.

00:34:39.520 So if you look at like Siler's old research and 80-20 and all of that, and you know, how elite

00:34:44.640 athletes do 80% easy work and 20% hard work, all of that stuff was coming out at the same time

00:34:50.180 as a lot of these coaches and researchers were still trying to define what these zones meant.

00:34:54.860 Like, how do we define zone two?

00:34:56.760 Is it a percentage of heart rate?

00:34:58.660 Is it a percentage of output?

00:35:00.280 Is it that first ventilatory threshold where your rate of breathing picks up and you can't

00:35:05.640 breathe through your nose anymore?

00:35:06.680 Like, what is that line?

00:35:08.160 And there are so many different definitions.

00:35:10.680 Same thing with like the zone three to zone four.

00:35:13.320 Like your lactate threshold, onset of blood lactate accumulation, VT2, you know, 97, 92%

00:35:20.460 of your VVO2 max.

00:35:22.020 There are so many different definitions for all these delineations that you're kind of

00:35:25.560 like, okay, how do we all even know what we're talking about here?

00:35:29.680 Because when we analyze elite athlete programs, one of the things that really happened in I

00:35:34.140 would say the 2000s is there was this idea among a lot of American trainers, especially

00:35:39.440 that higher intensity stuff was king.

00:35:42.500 And just going for slow, easy jogs was not the way to get your best results.

00:35:46.680 Personally, I found a lot of discussions at the time stem from the fact that if you're

00:35:50.920 a trainer or you are training in a gym, telling somebody to go run for two hours is probably

00:35:56.620 not the best way to control their progress.

00:35:58.620 Being able to sit with them through a 15 minute, you know, high intensity interval session

00:36:02.840 is a lot easier.

00:36:03.980 So there's a certain element of, uh, I would say a little bit of bias from some of these

00:36:09.160 governing bodies, at least in the West on what kind of training we have our athletes

00:36:13.120 do, or certainly our gym goers.

00:36:15.000 The other thing is if we get away from this idea that, you know, I think the most important

00:36:20.760 thing is high intensity stuff has its place and high intensity doesn't always mean sprinting

00:36:26.840 high intensity.

00:36:27.860 In a lot of these programs means what we would consider like high zone three slash low zone

00:36:32.720 four, like all this work around threshold.

00:36:34.840 What it comes down to at the end of the day is I consider high intensity and low intensity

00:36:40.180 work the way I consider like protein and carbs in a diet, high intensity work, elite athletes

00:36:46.680 do high intensity work until they reach a limit.

00:36:49.400 And then everything else becomes zone two.

00:36:51.640 And that's because they're training 14, 15, 16 hours a week, and they can probably only

00:36:56.540 handle two to three hours of high intensity work before they start breaking down.

00:37:00.920 So to get in all the work that their body can actually adapt to you like low intensity work

00:37:06.220 is volume dependent.

00:37:07.660 You can do lots of it.

00:37:08.780 It still has positive heart benefits.

00:37:10.700 They're putting in 10 hours of zone two work per week just because they've hit the limit

00:37:15.820 on how much high intensity work they can do.

00:37:18.360 It's like saying, okay, if I'm only going to eat 2000 calories a day, I need to make sure

00:37:23.440 I get at least 150 grams of protein.

00:37:25.940 If I eat 7,000 calories a day, I probably don't need to eat 500 grams a day of protein.

00:37:32.220 I'm going to make up all the difference in carbs.

00:37:34.160 So that's my approach to high intensity versus low intensity training.

00:37:37.980 If you only have 45, 50, 60 minutes a week to do conditioning work, it can probably all

00:37:44.460 be higher intensity.

00:37:45.720 And that means like, you know, close to your threshold.

00:37:49.100 That means like repeats at your 5k pace, not like sprints, but you can probably do 45 minutes

00:37:55.460 to an hour of that.

00:37:56.260 If you're doing two hours and two hours of high intensity work per week is probably a

00:38:01.400 lot for somebody who is not a huge runner.

00:38:03.380 So maybe stick with that hour of high intensity and do an hour of zone two.

00:38:07.340 If you've got six hours a week to train and you're like, Hey, I'm also a lifter, but I

00:38:11.700 really, really want to train for this marathon or whatever else you say, okay, an hour of high

00:38:16.140 intensity work you can do.

00:38:17.620 When you get a two hours of high intensity work, your lifting sessions start to suffer

00:38:21.560 as well.

00:38:22.040 Cause that's just too much high intensity work on top of the lifting.

00:38:25.320 So you as a hybrid athlete may do an hour of high intensity and five hours of zone two.

00:38:30.980 So my thing is that all of these have their place.

00:38:33.860 You get more bang for your buck with the high intensity, but you also hit a limit on what

00:38:37.880 you could do pretty quickly.

00:38:38.900 So think about what you could do in terms of high intensity.

00:38:42.140 What's the maximum amount you can do and feel good about doing and have all the recipes

00:38:46.780 on two.

00:38:47.280 So what is a sort of a generic typical week look like of endurance training for a generic

00:38:54.100 hybrid athlete?

00:38:55.640 Sure.

00:38:55.800 So let's just take a generic hybrid athlete who says, look, I've got, I'm in the gym three,

00:39:00.100 four days a week, let's say four days a week.

00:39:01.660 And I've got another 150 to 180 minutes, like, you know, three hours or less, two to three

00:39:06.920 hours to do some additional cardio.

00:39:09.400 I'll typically say, all right, you know what, then you've got three or four days of training.

00:39:13.580 Let's just condense your conditioning into three workouts.

00:39:17.320 You can do, let's say 45 minute high intensity intervals on Monday.

00:39:21.500 You can maybe do a slightly shorter session on Wednesday.

00:39:25.600 That could be 30 minutes of high intensity with a long zone two cool down.

00:39:29.960 And then on the weekend, you just do another hour and a half of zone two.

00:39:33.140 That's it.

00:39:33.880 I'll typically say like, you know, one speed workout, if you can handle it, one peri threshold

00:39:38.900 workout and one easy workout.

00:39:40.380 If you're not into the speed workout, you do one threshold workout and two zone two

00:39:44.720 or two threshold workouts and one zone two.

00:39:47.960 Okay.

00:39:48.040 Really simple.

00:39:48.660 Yeah.

00:39:48.900 That doesn't seem too bad.

00:39:50.640 Yeah.

00:39:50.880 Yeah.

00:39:51.320 It's, and the thing is like those threshold workouts for people will say, okay, they say,

00:39:54.660 well, what's a threshold workout?

00:39:55.640 I say, well, what's your 5k pace?

00:39:58.000 Add 30 seconds to that pace.

00:40:00.540 Consider that your threshold pace.

00:40:02.200 Now just do three by eight minutes at that pace and, you know, jog or walk for two minutes

00:40:08.120 in between.

00:40:08.660 Okay.

00:40:08.980 That's pretty easy.

00:40:09.920 Great.

00:40:10.140 There you go.

00:40:10.680 There's your threshold workout.

00:40:11.680 That's all you have to do.

00:40:12.640 That's 24 minutes of threshold work right there.

00:40:15.960 Boom.

00:40:16.240 Done.

00:40:16.940 Yeah.

00:40:17.420 I've learned that, that high intensity doesn't have to be as hard as you think it is.

00:40:22.140 Yeah.

00:40:22.560 So I started doing the Norwegian four by four.

00:40:25.860 Yeah.

00:40:26.100 There you go.

00:40:26.660 After a strength training session on the salt bike.

00:40:29.820 Yeah.

00:40:30.140 And when I first started doing it, I was just doing an all out sprint on this thing, just

00:40:33.300 going as hard as I can.

00:40:34.220 And then I was like, oh my gosh, four minutes.

00:40:37.460 I can't even do this for like a minute.

00:40:40.320 This is crazy.

00:40:41.000 And I had to do this four more times.

00:40:42.440 This is insane.

00:40:43.980 And then I started reading up about it.

00:40:45.600 It's like, no, you dummy.

00:40:46.460 Like, it's not an all out sprint on these things.

00:40:48.280 Like you're going hard, but it's like 90% of your heart rate, which is not that hard.

00:40:54.060 I mean, it's hard, but not as hard as you think it would be.

00:40:56.340 And I, once I started doing it like that, I thought, okay, I could do this for four minutes.

00:41:00.920 Well, and that's exactly it.

00:41:02.480 I always kind of liken it to lifting where, yeah, if you go all out for four minutes, you

00:41:06.780 can do it, but you're probably not going to be able to do another quality interval like

00:41:09.900 that.

00:41:10.280 On the other hand, if you do it the way you approach lifting, if you go to failure on your

00:41:14.440 first set of lifting, you're going to get one set done.

00:41:16.860 And the next couple of sets are going to be garbage.

00:41:18.900 So I consider like hard intervals to be like one rep in reserve to two reps in reserve,

00:41:25.280 like tough, challenging.

00:41:27.500 You're pushing yourself, but you're leaving a little bit in the tank.

00:41:30.040 But so as I say, like, that's, you know, that the exact same philosophy between the

00:41:34.260 two is you should be running and lifting with one to two reps in reserve on each set.

00:41:39.260 Okay.

00:41:39.320 So if you're just a generic hybrid athlete, you want to strength train to do some endurance

00:41:42.960 training at the same time.

00:41:43.820 So that maybe you could do a 5k anytime you want.

00:41:46.160 And it's going to be, what did you say?

00:41:48.220 An hour of like low intensity zone two cardio.

00:41:51.040 That could be just a slow jog or maybe a ruck or an inclined treadmill.

00:41:55.140 And then you say 30 to 45 minutes of high intensity work.

00:41:59.340 Yeah.

00:41:59.580 And you know, the way, the way that can, here comes the other debate.

00:42:02.340 Does that mean 30 to 40 minutes at high intensity?

00:42:04.860 Or does that mean a 30 to 40 minute long high intensity workout?

00:42:08.560 Because if you're doing three by eight minutes intervals, that's 24 minutes, but you've got

00:42:13.120 a 10 minute warmup.

00:42:14.500 You know, you got two minutes in between, you got a five minute cool down.

00:42:16.540 That's a 45 minute workout.

00:42:17.900 I typically mean like 30 to 45 minutes total high intensity.

00:42:21.960 So that could be two workouts.

00:42:24.020 So Monday, do your three by eight minute intervals.

00:42:27.660 Tuesday, mix it up and go crazy.

00:42:29.440 Do four by six minutes at that same pace.

00:42:31.440 You know, both are 24 minutes.

00:42:32.520 And, you know, have a warmup and a cool down.

00:42:34.560 And then later in the week, do your hour and a half of zone two.

00:42:37.800 You can do an incline walk.

00:42:39.260 You can do a rock.

00:42:40.000 You can do an easy run, whatever.

00:42:41.800 That's going to get you probably 95% of the results you could possibly ask for.

00:42:46.920 And then you mentioned this earlier when we were talking about how do you drive progress

00:42:50.300 with strength training, but what does that look like for endurance training?

00:42:54.660 So my favorite thing to do is just adjust that threshold.

00:42:58.060 Like my, my thing is say, okay, like if I am predicting that my threshold is like, you

00:43:03.920 know, let's say an eight 30 pace and I'm going to be doing three by eight minutes at an eight

00:43:09.180 30 pace every couple of weeks, I can just drop that by a second or two.

00:43:13.800 That's all it takes.

00:43:15.260 Okay.

00:43:15.760 Just, just a second or two.

00:43:17.040 And I can even give myself a range.

00:43:18.360 Usually I give myself a range just to allow it.

00:43:20.100 I say, okay, I'm doing my thresholds between eight 20 and eight 40.

00:43:23.840 And two weeks later, I'm going to be doing it between eight 18 and eight 38.

00:43:29.160 And that way I let myself, I give myself a little bit flexibility week to week, but

00:43:32.840 after two months, my slowest allowable pace is going to be the same as my fastest allowable

00:43:38.900 pace was back then.

00:43:41.020 So I'm still going to get that steady improvement.

00:43:43.360 I'm going to give myself room to, you know, kind of fluctuate.

00:43:45.960 If I find myself continuously really struggling to hit the slowest end, I know something was

00:43:50.540 wrong, but that's really all it is.

00:43:52.360 And you're just setting those kind of guardrails on your performance.

00:43:56.040 And that is more than enough to continue to make progress.

00:43:59.160 All right.

00:43:59.260 So that doesn't sound that complicated.

00:44:00.840 No, no.

00:44:01.600 And it could get really technical.

00:44:03.000 Like if I'm doing a complicated program with somebody, I'm adjusting their threshold.

00:44:06.000 I'm looking at all their percentages across, you know, 14 different types of workouts and

00:44:10.580 all of that.

00:44:11.440 But fundamentally you can make it really, really simple.

00:44:14.480 All right.

00:44:14.620 So let's talk about combining the two strength and endurance training.

00:44:17.760 And one of the challenges of hybrid training is that you have to be a bit more thought

00:44:22.240 full about managing fatigue.

00:44:24.760 So if you're training hard with weights, well, you might not have that oomph you need for

00:44:29.840 your endurance work.

00:44:30.820 Or, you know, the same goes for endurance.

00:44:32.400 If you're training hard, you're running hard.

00:44:34.660 And then the weight room and you're like, oh man, I can't get this squat.

00:44:37.780 I loved your section on fatigue because you really get into the weeds of it.

00:44:41.220 We don't have to do that here.

00:44:42.660 But what I thought was interesting is a lot of people, when they think about fatigue, they

00:44:46.380 think there's just one kind of fatigue.

00:44:48.100 But you described there are two main types of fatigue you have to think about as a hybrid

00:44:52.080 athlete.

00:44:52.580 What are those two types of fatigue?

00:44:54.720 So I think we're talking about peripheral versus kind of central and that whole thing.

00:44:58.840 Yeah.

00:44:58.980 So this is really, really interesting.

00:45:00.500 So peripheral fatigue is the fatigue that we all really know about.

00:45:03.080 Sore muscles, you just train legs, you know, you pretty much can't sit down on the

00:45:08.040 toilet going down the stairs.

00:45:09.160 Sucks, like all of that, peripheral fatigue, we're pretty familiar with.

00:45:11.980 And we're pretty familiar, I think, with how peripheral fatigue is going to affect us

00:45:15.780 workout to workout.

00:45:16.900 I just go hammer legs.

00:45:18.480 My sprint workout or my speed workout is going to be garbage.

00:45:21.780 And if I work legs really hard on Friday and trash them, even my like incline ruck on

00:45:27.640 the treadmill is going to feel awful.

00:45:29.660 So we know that's peripheral fatigue.

00:45:31.300 And that's actually the slightly easier one to manage because you go, all right, all I need

00:45:35.680 to do to manage peripheral fatigue is think, if I do this workout today, is this going to

00:45:40.960 hurt my ability not to do the workout tomorrow, but to hit the target objective tomorrow to

00:45:47.200 trigger the appropriate stress?

00:45:49.320 That's the big thing.

00:45:50.800 So am I going to be able to do tomorrow's workout to a level that's going to still force

00:45:55.380 my body to adapt?

00:45:56.620 And that's a pretty low bar, actually, because if you're like, okay, yeah, I'm going to,

00:46:01.600 if I, this, this leg workout is going to hit me so hard that I'm probably not going to

00:46:04.800 be able to do all my intervals tomorrow, well, then probably I should consider rearranging

00:46:09.160 things.

00:46:09.660 If you're like, yeah, I'm going to do all my intervals.

00:46:11.500 They're just going to be really tough.

00:46:12.800 That's fine.

00:46:13.560 Leave them there.

00:46:14.280 So that's peripheral fatigue.

00:46:16.040 The harder one to manage is central fatigue.

00:46:18.260 And central fatigue is so much more about understanding the impact that long-term recovery and the

00:46:25.220 adaptation process has on your actual body's ability to do work.

00:46:30.460 But tell us more about central fatigue.

00:46:31.340 So what is it exactly?

00:46:33.200 Yeah.

00:46:33.380 So central fatigue is actually much more neurological.

00:46:35.900 So the body has a lot of feedback mechanisms.

00:46:38.600 The body has a lot of protective mechanisms.

00:46:40.640 I don't know if anyone's ever heard of Noakes' central governor who's listening here.

00:46:44.260 I'm sure you have.

00:46:45.120 But that was Noakes' whole idea that there's a portion of the brain that limits performance

00:46:50.180 to keep the body safe.

00:46:52.740 And that's if you run too hard, if you're running at your limit, what your brain is doing

00:46:56.880 is telling your muscles, okay, let's turn down the power a little bit.

00:47:00.160 We're running out of energy stores.

00:47:02.020 The muscles are accruing too much damage.

00:47:04.220 We can't sustain this.

00:47:05.540 We're actually going to turn down the maximum throttle.

00:47:09.380 We're going to put a brick under the gas pedal here and stop the body from injuring itself.

00:47:13.660 So what's interesting is there's actually a good amount of merit to that, even if there's

00:47:17.200 no central governor.

00:47:18.720 But the nerves, a lot of the sensory nerves and muscles, if they are overly stimulated,

00:47:23.800 they actually can reduce the amount of force and contraptility that the brain can apply

00:47:29.700 to the muscles.

00:47:30.140 And so this is actually something that is actually really notable when you're doing things like

00:47:34.440 recovering from injury.

00:47:35.600 If something feels painful, if you feel pain in a muscle or around a joint or anything else,

00:47:40.400 that pain signal itself actually turns down the output from your motor cortex, from your brain.

00:47:47.000 When you've just done a hard workout, when you're recovering and when your body is sending out

00:47:51.680 all those pro-inflammatory compounds to, you know, break down old tissue, rebuild new tissue

00:47:56.080 and everything else, those pro-inflammatory compounds, even if you don't feel the discomfort,

00:48:00.660 because, you know, your brain may not even be registering the discomfort,

00:48:03.960 those nerves are still picking up on the damage, on the inflammation.

00:48:07.840 They're still sending that signal to your brain to reduce its power.

00:48:12.340 And what's interesting is that, again, you may not even feel it.

00:48:15.160 So you may go for like, let's just say you go for a really long run over the weekend,

00:48:18.140 but it's all zone two.

00:48:19.300 And you're going, yeah, you know what?

00:48:20.380 My legs are a little bit tight, but I've eaten plenty.

00:48:22.360 I feel great.

00:48:23.140 What you're not feeling is the massive amount of inflammation in your legs at that point

00:48:27.500 and the potent signal that's sending to your brain for the next 48 hours

00:48:30.700 to not produce maximum force in almost any muscle group.

00:48:35.120 So if you've got a large amount of central fatigue from either a very long endurance workout,

00:48:40.920 a very high repetition lifting workout, a lifting workout with a lot of eccentrics,

00:48:46.400 a running workout with a lot of eccentrics,

00:48:48.340 even like hard sprints or downhill sprints or anything else,

00:48:50.680 you may find that for the next 48 hours, your peak strength is limited.

00:48:55.240 What that can mean is if you're doing anything on those days that requires a lot of perfect

00:48:59.600 coordination, you're doing Olympic lifts, you're doing velocity-based work,

00:49:03.720 you're doing anything like that, you're probably going to suffer.

00:49:07.520 And your max effort work is going to suffer too.

00:49:09.920 So it's important to consider when you're looking at central fatigue, you're thinking,

00:49:13.120 okay, if I have a workout that is just,

00:49:15.360 I know this is just causing a lot of wear and tear,

00:49:18.520 for the next 48 hours, make sure that you're not scheduling anything

00:49:22.020 that requires maximum force output.

00:49:25.120 Like, hey, okay, cool.

00:49:26.200 If I run long on the weekends, then I am not going to start out my week

00:49:29.360 with my quote-unquote strength training.

00:49:31.420 I'm just going to do a couple of hypertrophy days.

00:49:33.880 Because hypertrophy days, it's not as important I build coordination.

00:49:36.660 It's not, no, I'm just doing repetitions.

00:49:38.460 But I'm going to do all of my explosive strength, skill, proficiency work

00:49:42.560 later in the week when I have less central fatigue.

00:49:46.140 And if you did like a one-rep max, a heavy lift session,

00:49:48.760 like you wouldn't want to do sprint work for your cardio the next day, possibly.

00:49:53.240 Yeah, exactly.

00:49:54.160 Because there's also a huge amount of like neurological,

00:49:56.340 psychological fatigue from that kind of stuff as well.

00:49:58.360 You do a heavy one-rep max, that is a lot of trauma.

00:50:00.880 That is a lot of resources your brain and body are expending at that moment.

00:50:05.380 So it is, it's very much saying, okay, even if mentally and physically,

00:50:09.940 I don't feel that bad, I have to take into account that there are probably

00:50:13.460 other factors there that are reducing my performance that I can't see.

00:50:17.660 And this goes back to that idea that you said fatigue, mass fitness, right?

00:50:21.220 Absolutely.

00:50:21.740 People have experienced that whenever I've had this happen to me.

00:50:24.500 In fact, this happened to me about a month ago.

00:50:26.780 So I did a really heavy deadlift.

00:50:28.780 I think it was 585, 575 for a single rep.

00:50:33.380 And then the next week I was scheduled to do 5 reps at some other weight.

00:50:39.220 I think it was like 475, 485.

00:50:42.320 I can't remember what it was.

00:50:43.460 But I couldn't even get the bar off the ground.

00:50:46.500 Because what had happened, because not only had I done a single rep max on that deadlift,

00:50:50.080 but I'd done like a bench press and then a shoulder press.

00:50:53.280 And so I imagine I just kind of fried my CNS.

00:50:55.880 And my CNS was like, no, you're not doing this.

00:50:58.020 You need to take a break.

00:50:58.880 And it's fascinating because one of the things that can happen is when you do a one rep max,

00:51:03.220 I guarantee nobody's form is perfect.

00:51:05.380 And that doesn't mean that they're injuring themselves.

00:51:07.640 But there could be so many microscopic areas where certain muscle groups have just been overtaxed.

00:51:13.640 Certain joints have been overtaxed.

00:51:15.220 Your body at that point is probably dealing with a thousand tiny, quote unquote,

00:51:20.340 you know, micro injuries at that point.

00:51:22.400 And you may not even feel it, but then the next time you go to lift,

00:51:26.200 as soon as you pick up the bar, all of those little micro injuries and everything else

00:51:30.320 are sending these pain signals to your brain.

00:51:32.600 And what's happening is that that initial spike of power that you're used to to get that bar moving,

00:51:37.260 it's just not there.

00:51:39.320 Yeah.

00:51:39.500 So you pull and you're like, yeah.

00:51:40.960 Well, I was going to say, that's what was crazy.

00:51:42.260 So when I did that, when I went into that five rep on the deadlift,

00:51:45.520 I was like, I'm feeling good.

00:51:47.080 I'm awesome.

00:51:47.680 And I get the bar.

00:51:48.620 I'm like, and I just bent the bar.

00:51:50.700 I'm like, no, it's not happening.

00:51:52.440 It's, yeah, it's crazy how that happens too.

00:51:54.060 And that's, and that's why central fatigue can be so interesting because it's not peripheral fatigue.

00:51:57.760 You're like, it's, oh, my legs feel fine.

00:51:59.400 My back feels fine.

00:52:00.240 You go in, you're hyped up.

00:52:01.580 You're like, all right, I'm ready to go.

00:52:03.200 And then you start pulling and you go, wow.

00:52:05.120 It's just like, you're checking for an extra plate.

00:52:07.760 You're like, is this thing stapled to the floor?

00:52:09.580 There's, you just don't have that pop, that aggression, that drive.

00:52:12.800 And sometimes you'll even know subconsciously, you're like, wow,

00:52:15.740 I was actually babying that initial pull a little bit.

00:52:18.360 I wasn't exploding as fast as I know I could.

00:52:21.500 I was, and it's all just kind of subconscious.

00:52:24.440 And it's just that, that lack of central drive and it's killer.

00:52:27.900 And it can be so discouraging.

00:52:29.560 And that's why I'm like, the more aware you are of central fatigue,

00:52:32.460 the less likely you are to make really bad training decisions.

00:52:36.460 If you have a single bad session.

00:52:38.300 All right.

00:52:38.860 So knowing this idea of central fatigue and peripheral fatigue tells like, how do you,

00:52:42.960 I mean, we kind of talked about a little bit, let's get more into detail and kind of lay it out

00:52:45.620 clearly for people.

00:52:46.480 How do you program strength and endurance work so they don't interfere with the training of

00:52:50.620 the other?

00:52:51.960 Yeah.

00:52:52.180 So the main thing is, like I said, it's, there's a little bit of this consolidation of stressors

00:52:56.540 approach that I talk about in the book.

00:52:58.300 Consolidation of stressors is basically saying the way I think about it is a little bit of

00:53:02.400 what I just talked about.

00:53:03.160 Like if I do this workout today, what training stimuli can I still trigger if I'm still recovering

00:53:10.360 from this workout?

00:53:11.380 So if I do a really long run today, if I'm looking at my program and go really long run

00:53:15.180 on Sunday, what lifting sessions can I still do on Monday and Tuesday that I know I can

00:53:20.180 benefit from?

00:53:21.240 That's probably going to be hypertrophy work.

00:53:23.280 And so I'm going, okay, so weekends I have my long run Monday and Tuesday are my upper

00:53:27.800 and lower body hypertrophy days.

00:53:29.540 Okay, cool.

00:53:30.300 Well, if I do a lower body hypertrophy session, I'm probably not going to be able to do some

00:53:34.760 like explosive, uh, explosive running afterwards.

00:53:38.480 So I do a long run Sunday.

00:53:41.280 Do I want to do upper body on Monday and then lower body and a run on Tuesday?

00:53:47.380 No, no, no.

00:53:47.900 How about I do a run on Sunday?

00:53:50.960 I could even say, Hey, maybe I'll lift lower body on Monday.

00:53:53.720 Sounds crazy, right?

00:53:54.760 Well, no, my legs are still probably going to be a little bit sore, but I can probably still

00:53:59.000 do three sets of eight to 10 on leg press with sore legs.

00:54:02.880 Cause that's just that I am not relying on my legs feeling fresh to be able to trigger

00:54:07.500 the target adaptation.

00:54:08.660 Then Tuesday I do my upper body hypertrophy work.

00:54:12.220 And maybe even then, maybe I can do a little bit of tempo work or, you know, even an easy

00:54:16.920 run.

00:54:17.400 Then I do my speed work, my speed session on Wednesday.

00:54:20.480 Then I do now on Thursday, like, Hey, you know what?

00:54:24.380 My legs were covered.

00:54:25.240 Central fatigue is nearly gone.

00:54:26.640 I'm going to do my leg strength and explosive power workout on Thursday.

00:54:30.540 There's not a lot of central fatigue from that.

00:54:32.700 So Friday I could do upper body strength and explosive work and maybe my tempo run take

00:54:37.720 Saturday off Sunday back to the long run.

00:54:40.240 There you go.

00:54:41.480 It seems almost kind of counterintuitive because you're like, I'm doing legs on the, you know,

00:54:44.780 but that's the way you think about it.

00:54:46.900 Yeah.

00:54:47.000 That's interesting with hybrid training.

00:54:49.660 Do you have your athletes, you know, do deloads, like take breaks from the training or are you

00:54:55.800 just kind of, no, as long as things cruising and you're feeling good, you can keep going.

00:55:00.260 Yeah.

00:55:01.080 Usually if I do a deload, it's because there's a burning need to do a deload is something is

00:55:05.100 actually really overreached.

00:55:06.480 So one of the things I use to test for central fatigue is I'll just do a basic broad jump

00:55:10.040 test.

00:55:10.960 So Monday or whatever day, you know, starts the week, starts the cycle, have them do either

00:55:15.260 five or seven broad jumps, you know, drop the highest and lowest average the rest.

00:55:18.620 That's a pretty good description of how well the muscular strength and maximum force production

00:55:23.140 is going.

00:55:24.040 Also check the resting heart rate, things like that.

00:55:26.200 All of that seems good.

00:55:27.040 I think, okay, great.

00:55:28.040 You know, they're, they're still recovering.

00:55:29.360 Well, if they get pretty poor performance, the rest of the week, I tend to sort of reduce

00:55:34.620 everything, reduce the intensity of everything by about 10%.

00:55:37.420 It's not a full deload, but it's a little bit of this.

00:55:40.740 If your program is well-constructed, you should never be pushing and blowing past their thresholds.

00:55:45.880 You should be just pushing on it and, you know, creating a little bit of pressure on

00:55:51.060 their thresholds, on what they can recover from.

00:55:53.160 So if you back off 10%, you relieve that pressure.

00:55:55.640 You give them a week of a little bit easier and they should be ready again to push the next

00:55:59.400 week.

00:56:00.220 One of the things I try to do by, especially by saying, be aware of central fatigue and

00:56:03.720 things like that is so you don't immediately have to think, oh, wow, I'm smoked.

00:56:07.420 Let me do a deload.

00:56:08.360 If I have a day and like, I've had those same things where a deadlift session, I come in

00:56:12.000 and I'm warming up and I'm like, all right, still a hundred pounds off my max.

00:56:15.340 And I pull this thing and it feels like it's barely moving.

00:56:18.400 And I'm like, wow, this is a, I'm, I'm, I'm supposed to do a hundred pounds more than

00:56:21.920 this.

00:56:22.200 And this thing is like 10 out of 10 effort.

00:56:24.740 I know.

00:56:25.280 Okay.

00:56:25.840 You know what?

00:56:26.260 I'm not going to quit.

00:56:27.100 I'm not going to give myself a deload.

00:56:28.420 I'm just going to reduce the intensity of my accessories by about 10%.

00:56:31.940 Have the next two or three lifting sessions be about 10% easier.

00:56:35.520 Maybe take one round off my interval run tomorrow and see how I'm feeling by the weekend and retest

00:56:41.160 weight for next week.

00:56:42.380 That's really all you need to do most of the time.

00:56:44.520 Well, going back to that idea of like, you can't really rely on your feelings, how you

00:56:48.960 feel.

00:56:49.540 I've had instances where I felt like complete garbage.

00:56:53.600 I was just tired.

00:56:54.500 Didn't sleep well.

00:56:55.620 I was like, oh man, this gym session is going to suck.

00:56:57.380 And I go down there and I'm like, man, the bar's fast.

00:57:00.640 Like I could pull this easily.

00:57:02.800 Yeah.

00:57:03.100 And I hit a PR.

00:57:05.100 Yeah.

00:57:05.400 But then you have those moments, like I said earlier, it's like, oh man, I'm feeling good.

00:57:08.300 I'm going to go down there.

00:57:09.080 Bar doesn't come off the floor.

00:57:10.420 And I think maybe those instances where I was feeling not great.

00:57:13.720 Like I'm feeling tired.

00:57:14.760 Like I didn't have any central nervous fatigue, even though it felt like I did.

00:57:18.040 Yep.

00:57:18.320 And so I was able to perform well.

00:57:20.040 Yeah.

00:57:20.280 The human body's weird.

00:57:21.660 It's really weird, man.

00:57:22.700 Like you, like you said, you can do all the tests and be like, well, physically I'm performing

00:57:25.640 great.

00:57:26.040 I feel like absolute garbage, but physically I'm performing great.

00:57:30.740 And, you know, we say, well, okay, you should probably still consider taking it easy eventually.

00:57:34.680 But it is true that, you know, kind of understanding all these things and they do, they stop you

00:57:40.260 from making bad decisions.

00:57:41.240 They stop you from saying, oh, maybe I just need a whole week off.

00:57:44.000 Right.

00:57:44.160 In reality.

00:57:44.840 Yeah.

00:57:45.180 Your sleep's probably not great.

00:57:46.660 Yeah.

00:57:46.860 You're probably tired.

00:57:47.860 Yeah.

00:57:48.040 Getting more sleep is a priority, but, but you know that already it's not the training

00:57:52.200 that's wearing you down.

00:57:53.260 It's everything else.

00:57:54.220 And the training is such a small part of everything that's stressing you out.

00:57:57.840 Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater, you know, keep the training, maybe reduce

00:58:01.340 it by five or 10% and work on everything else.

00:58:04.240 And by the next week, you'll be right back to it.

00:58:06.640 What does recovery look like for a hybrid athlete?

00:58:08.860 Any special considerations there?

00:58:11.720 Honestly, the main thing I see for, for hybrid athlete, you're talking to so many different,

00:58:15.540 you know, potential stressors that you really want to avoid a lot of the more aggressive

00:58:20.040 types of recovery.

00:58:20.900 And I talk a lot about how things like ice baths and all that can be potentially maladaptive,

00:58:25.940 you know, just because if you're a hybrid athlete, you're relying so much on, you know,

00:58:31.160 really rapid adaptation and adaptation could be a little bit more subtle.

00:58:34.980 So anything like ice baths or heavy use of NSAIDs or anything like that, that could diminish

00:58:39.480 the inflammation response.

00:58:40.940 The pro-inflammatory response is going to make you adapt more slowly for a lot of individuals

00:58:46.600 who do hybrid programs.

00:58:47.540 I say really the most important thing in recovery is first of all, compression devices are great.

00:58:53.520 Focus on things like your circulation, focus on things like not, you know, not letting

00:58:58.720 your muscles get too tight.

00:58:59.840 I always say like the best thing for recovery, if you work a desk job, get up every hour and

00:59:04.340 walk for two to three minutes, whatever you're doing, keep moving a little bit, keep steady

00:59:09.580 caloric intakes.

00:59:11.200 I am very, very much about if you're a hybrid athlete, never train starved.

00:59:17.040 And there are a lot of people who are things like advocates of fasted training and so on

00:59:19.780 and so forth.

00:59:20.300 I think you could do that a little bit.

00:59:21.500 I think there's some positive research, positive adaptations on that.

00:59:24.300 But if you're training multiple modalities and you're always dealing with background level

00:59:27.880 of fatigue, avoiding a relative energy deficit is really important.

00:59:32.260 So yeah, little things, stay moving, keep moving, stay mobile, and honestly, feed to

00:59:38.460 fuel your workouts.

00:59:39.880 And since you generally have less recovery time between sessions, feeding to fuel your workouts

00:59:44.160 becomes really important.

00:59:45.960 So what's the general time commitment for hybrid training, just for like a general athlete?

00:59:49.580 I mean, is it possible for a busy dad to do this?

00:59:52.420 Oh yeah, absolutely.

00:59:53.820 You know, because if you're doing a conventional hybrid program, let's just say you're a busy

00:59:57.320 dad, you're like, well, you know what, man?

00:59:58.700 I've got 45 minutes a day to devote to myself, maybe five days a week.

01:00:03.500 And weekends, maybe if I get up early, I could get in a 30 minute run before the family gets

01:00:07.440 going.

01:00:08.020 That's plenty.

01:00:09.120 You do one upper body workout.

01:00:11.520 You know, you could do an upper body hypertrophy, a lower body hypertrophy, and a full body strength

01:00:15.960 workout.

01:00:16.660 That's going to get you a lot of good results.

01:00:19.020 And then you say, I have three cardio sessions.

01:00:21.180 One day I'm going to do, you know, a 40 minute interval session.

01:00:24.580 The next day I'm going to do a 30 minute interval session, and then I'm going to try to do 40

01:00:28.360 minutes of zone two when I first wake up early on a Saturday, or I'm going to do something

01:00:32.540 like take the family for a walk and I'm going to put 55 pounds on my back and whichever

01:00:37.380 kid wants to be carried at that time.

01:00:39.220 And boom, there we go.

01:00:40.560 That is enough.

01:00:41.540 Cause right there, as long as you're training with intent, as long as you're like, man,

01:00:44.760 I'm not just doing curls for the sake of doing curls.

01:00:47.020 I'm doing deliberate exercises here.

01:00:49.140 I'm deliberately training to get stronger.

01:00:50.840 I'm focusing on quality of movement.

01:00:52.840 You know, I've got this conditioning so I can do more density workouts in my training.

01:00:56.680 You can get it done because that minimum effective dose, as long as it's targeted is probably

01:01:01.440 less than you think.

01:01:03.220 And then after that, once you get that going, sign up for a 5k.

01:01:06.880 Yeah, exactly.

01:01:08.220 Exactly.

01:01:08.700 Challenge the family to one too.

01:01:09.780 It's even better.

01:01:10.660 Well, Alex, this has been a great conversation.

01:01:12.420 Where can people go to learn more about the book and your work?

01:01:15.080 Yeah.

01:01:15.380 So my Instagram account is usually the best place to find me.

01:01:18.100 It's just alex.viata.

01:01:19.700 The Complete Human Performance is my website and the book, The Ultimate Hybrid Athlete is,

01:01:24.760 I think it's pretty much everywhere.

01:01:25.940 It's on Amazon.

01:01:26.740 It's on Barnes and Noble.

01:01:27.940 There's a Kindle version.

01:01:28.940 You should be able to find it.

01:01:29.940 So those are probably the best resources.

01:01:32.220 Fantastic.

01:01:32.560 Well, Alex Viata, thanks for your time.

01:01:33.480 It's been a pleasure.

01:01:34.400 Excellent, man.

01:01:34.900 Thank you very much.

01:01:36.920 My guest today was Alex Viata.

01:01:38.380 He's the author of the book, The Hybrid Athlete.

01:01:40.220 It's available on amazon.com.

01:01:41.500 You can learn more information about his work at his website, completehumanperformance.com.

01:01:45.440 Also check out our show notes at aom.is slash hybridathlete, where we find links to resources

01:01:49.340 and we delve deeper into this topic.

01:01:58.200 Well, that wraps up another edition of the AOM Podcast.

01:02:00.920 If you haven't done so already, I'd appreciate it if you take one minute to give us your view

01:02:03.740 on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

01:02:05.220 It helps out a lot.

01:02:06.120 And if you've done that already, thank you.

01:02:08.240 Please consider sharing the show with a friend or family member who you think we could

01:02:11.460 something out of it.

01:02:12.420 As always, thank you for your continued support.

01:02:14.300 Until next time, this is Brett McKay.

01:02:15.660 Remind us on the AOM Podcast, but put what you've heard into action.

01:02:18.800 We'll see you next time.

01:02:23.300 We'll see you next time.

01:02:23.800 We'll see you next time.

The Art of Manliness - January 06, 2026

Strong, Conditioned, and Ready for Anything — How to Become a Hybrid Athlete

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