You’ve come to the right place if you’re looking for a serious strength and endurance training plan. After all, no one wants to be either fast or in good shape. In this article I will provide part one of a great 8 week program. It includes plenty of heavy lifting, endurance work, and WODs to keep it fun. Keep reading for more information.
I’m not going to lie. This program is very challenging. It includes a lot of work, and it will require you to complete two training sessions a day, a few times a week, for best results. It has to be this way if you want to gain muscular strength, while building your aerobic capacity.
This plan is a 6 day split program, with one complete day of rest. You will be doing heavy compound exercises each training day, accessory work, and either a WOD, or some other form of cardiovascular training. Before we get to the details of the 8 week hybrid strength and endurance training plan, here’s a quick overview.
8 Week Hybrid Strength and Endurance Training Plan
- 6 Day per week split
- Each major muscle group trained twice per week (upper body and lower body)
- Zone 2 Cardio sessions are key for endurance athlete gains
- One day per week of short sprints
- Several functional fitness WODs per week
- Part 1 is four weeks in length, as is Part 2
If you’ve seen any of my other training programs, then you know that I write a lot of different types of fitness plans. I’ve got plans for pure bodybuilding, pure strength, hybrid bodybuilding functional fitness, and much more. I encourage you to check those plans out if this plan seems like a bit too much.
This hybrid strength and endurance exercise program is appropriate for intermediate and advanced athletes who have a few years of serious training under their belt. You must be able to execute all the major lifts, with proper form, using full range of motion.
I also have a confession to make. I wrote this program for myself, and as such, I’ve biased some of the movements towards lifts and programming that I tend to favor. I’ve also programmed the difficulty of the program so that I can continue to progress. I think this is a great program for anyone who wants to build functional strength and conditioning, even if it isn’t an easy one.
Before we get to the nitty gritty details of the program, we need to discuss how to properly combine endurance training, with heavy strength training. As you’ll see, you can certainly combine these two disparate styles of training, provided you do it correctly. Otherwise, you’re likely to lose strength, and slow muscle growth.
Why Cardio Matters for Strength Athletes
Most functional fitness athletes have very little understanding of the importance of their aerobic capacity. Even during the hardest WOD, or longest strength training workout, your aerobic energy system is providing the vast majority of your energy.
If you read this study, you’ll see that even for the 400m sprint, the aerobic energy system provides 40% of the total energy. In the 800m run, it provides 60-70%. For events as short as a minute, your aerobic energy system provides the bulk of energy.
Similarly, if you want to be a high performing athlete, you need to have the right body composition for your goals. The best way to achieve this is with a combination of strength training for muscle mass, and conditioning for aerobic capacity. This isn’t just my opinion either. There are mountains of research showing the benefits of this style of training, for almost all athletes.
Concurrent Training Research (Strength and Cardio)
In research parlance, combining cardio and lifting is called concurrent training. This has been a hot topic of research, over the last few years. The most recent research shows that you can actually gain more muscle size by lifting weights and engaging in cardiovascular training.
More importantly, research also shows that combining these two types of training actually increases the amount of fat you can lose, compared to either single type of training. In this research study, these researchers combed the internet for all research relating to concurrent style training. They included over 100 reference studies in their systematic review of the research, and they came away with some striking results. Here are the key points from their review.
Key Benefits of Resistance Training and Cardiovascular Training
- Aerobic exercise training alone can induce hypertrophy
- Concurrent exercise training may augment the hypertrophic response to resistance exercise training in some circumstances
- Maximum muscle mass is best achieved when separating cardio and lifting by 6–24 h
- Volume, caloric intake, and recovery must be considered closely for concurrent training
- High intensity interval training can increase muscle and fitness
- Cycling should be favored over running
I really enjoyed reading that research review, and there were many valuable nuggets of information. The key takeaways are the most important bits. We can see that combining cycling and strength workouts is a great way to build more muscle than lifting alone. Moreover, this style of concurrent training does not interfere with building serious strength. Don’t forget to join the email list below.
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Now that we’ve covered the research on concurrent style training, we can move on to the 8 Week Hybrid Strength and Endurance Training Plan. We’ll review a lot of different information, including how I like to have my athletes warm up and cool down. Later on I’ll review some nutrition, and recovery information.
8 Week Hybrid Strength and Endurance Training Plan
Once you see the details of this program, you’ll understand that there isn’t any fluff. I’ve focused your efforts on the best compound strength exercises. There are also a decent amount accessory lifts, in this workout program. These lifts are muscular endurance training designed to build mass.
In general terms, I recommend starting each workout session the same way. Do 3-5 minutes of easy cardio. You can choose to jog, row, assault bike, or any other machine you desire. The goal is to increase your heart rate, and get your entire body ready for action.
Next, I recommend doing bodyweight exercise, using the same major muscle groups. For example, if you have bench press and squats as your primary lifts, then push ups and air squats are good warm up movements to choose.
I normally like to do a mini-circuit, at an easy pace, with these movements. If we continue with a bench press and back squat day, I would probably do something like 3 rounds of 10 reps of each movement, at a moderate pace. By the end of this specific warm up, you should be sweating a bit, and ready to warm up your main lifts.
Get the full hybrid training plan below with coaches notes, warm ups, and all the workouts!
Movement Warm Up
This doesn’t mean that you’re ready to jump right into to your working sets with the barbell. You still need to take your warm up sets, working up to your first work set. This is one area where athletes often err on the side of not doing enough warm up sets.
The best rule of thumb for these movement warm ups, is to start with just the bar, and make 10-15% jumps for each successive set, once you get somewhat close to your working weight. Here is an example progression you could follow.
- 1×10 at 30%
- 1×8 at 50%
- 1×5 at 60%
- 1×2 at 70%
- First Work Set
If you’re very strong, and are working up to a heavier weight, then you might have to add even more warm up sets. It’s also important to note that you don’t need to warm up with the same sized sets as your working sets. The specific goal is to ready yourself for the actual work, not tire yourself out prematurely. Now let’s get to the first week.
8 Week Hybrid Strength and Endurance Training Plan: Week 1
This week is designed to introduce you to this programming style. Each day you’ll have some heavy lifting, and then accessory work. Three days per week you will have a WOD, and two days per week you will have some Zone 2 cardio.
This type of cardiovascular training is incredibly important. It is by far the the most common issue with functional fitness athletes that I see. Quite often athletes spend all their time working on their anaerobic fitness, which provides some aerobic benefit, and they never focus on their aerobic capacity. The best way to train your cardiovascular system is to do Zone 2 cardio.
This type of cardiovascular endurance training is the maximum amount of output you can sustain, prior to becoming anaerobic. The easy way to tell if you’re in Zone 2 is to exercise while breathing through your nose. If you can’t breath through your nose, you’re working too hard!
For these aerobic training blocks, I’ve left them up to you to choose your method. I use cycling because it’s awesome, and research indicates that it interferes less with maximum strength training. However, you can use rowing, assault bike, or any other method.
Be careful with jogging. Most folks can’t really run slow enough to stay in Zone 2. If you want to run, I recommend uphill walking on a treadmill, or you can run / walk as needed. Now let’s talk about week two, and some of the specifics of the lifting.
8 Week Hybrid Strength and Endurance Training Plan: Week 2
If you’re Rain Man, or very nerdy, you can count up the number of reps for each muscle group. Mysteriously, you’ll find that most muscle groups have 40-60 hard reps per session. Each muscle group is also trained twice per week. This is for good reason.
Research has consistently shown that this 40-60 rep range is ideal for building muscle mass. In fact, you can build as much muscle with very heavy weights (low reps) as you can with the traditional 60-70% weights that most bodybuilding programs use. It’s much harder to get the required volume with heavy weight.
Think about it this way. If you do 4×10 on bench press, you’ve already hit that lower limit for the muscle building range, in only four sets. However, if you’re doing heavy triples, then you need 14 sets before you get there. This is too much training intensity to recover from, which is why you need some lighter weight in the plan.
In this hybrid strength training program, I’ve planned the primary movements to be the heaviest movements. The secondary, and accessory movements, are providing the required volume, so you can build muscle mass. This is important because the amount of muscle mass you carry is one of the driving factors for your overall strength gain.
In the next week we’ll talk about how this programming progresses week over week. We will also cover some of the acronyms I use, and clarify how you should execute these sets.
8 Week Hybrid Strength and Endurance Training Plan: Week 3
For this program you will see percentage based work for the lifts where you’re likely to have a one rep max. I highly recommend you work up to a one rep max for these lifts, if you don’t have a recent 1RM, prior to starting this program. Alternatively you can take a set of 80% or more in a lift to failure, and put it in a rep max calculator to get an approximate value. If you don’t do this, then your percentages are just a wild ass guess.
For lifts where you probably don’t have a one rep max, I often use the term RIR, which stands for reps in reserve. A set of 10 at 2RIR means that you pick a weight that would allow you to do 12 reps all out. In effect, you’re stopping early, leaving 2 reps in reserve.
Don’t sweat it if you occasionally pick too much weight. In fact, I recommend that you take the final set on these RIR movements to absolute failure, occasionally. This keeps you honest. Very often athletes think they only have one or two reps left in the tank, but when they really push it, the might do 4 more reps.
The other common acronym you’ll see is TM or technical max. This is the heaviest weight you can do with perfect form. This weight can fluctuate from week to week, but it should trend upward across the weeks of this program. The TM is different than a rep max, as there is always some amount of form degradation on a rep max.
In the next section we’ll cover the the last week, in part one of this program, as well as some advice on the sprint training days.
8 Week Hybrid Strength and Endurance Training Plan: Week 4
It’s pretty clear that most of this program is heavy lifting, and aerobic capacity work. The WODs and the sprint training days are aimed at developing your muscular endurance, and anaerobic capacity. As a result I’ve chosen the lengths of each type of workout carefully, to maximize these benefits.
To be blunt, you need to be able to sprint, no matter what your fitness goals are. You don’t have to be Usain Bolt, but running fast is a must for all around fitness. I’ve found that distances between 200-300m seem to be the sweet spot.
You can use them to build decent top end speed, and they remain almost purely anaerobic, for most athletes. Even in a relatively short distance of 400m, most athletes are using 40% or more of their aerobic energy capacity to generate energy. Less adept sprints might be using 60% percent for a 400m run.
Make sure you warm up sensibly for these sprint workouts, and stick to the effort recommendations. You shouldn’t be sprinting at 100% speed in these intervals. It’s not needed at this point, and it is likely to increase the risk of injury, unless you build up to it. Don’t worry, we’ll get there speed demons.
Now let’s talk about the truly important parts of training, what you do outside of the gym. We will cover some basic nutrition info, recovery methods that actually work, and some training techniques to increase power output.
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Nutrition for Strength and Endurance Training
In this section I’m going to write 47 paragraphs about the minutia of micro nutrients and your gut biome. Just kidding, nobody wants to read that, and I don’t have the attention span to write that. Nutrition doesn’t need to be complicated for you to perform your best in this program.
I also don’t particularly care what you eat. As long as you’re hitting your macro nutrient requirements you’ll be ok. Any of the foods on this list will be fine.
Before we get into the details of each macro nutrient make sure you check out my nutrition calculator, and my nutrition guide. These two resources will provide a great starting point for your nutrition plan. They’re also super easy to use.
Protein Intake for Hybrid Strength and Endurance Athletes
Most of my athletes focus too much on protein intake, and pay comparatively little time on carbs and fats. Protein is easy. Try to aim for one gram of protein per gram of lean body mass. A 200 pound athlete, with 160 pounds of lean body mass, should get 160 grams of protein each day.
Contrary to popular belief, there isn’t much of a benefit, for athletes trying to build muscle tissue and strength, to eat tons of protein. Very high protein diets are good for athletes losing body fat. They don’t help if you’re gaining mass. Now let’s talk about carbs.
Carbohydrate Intake for Hybrid Athletes
Carbs are key to your overall performance. They will also require some experimentation. I highly recommend using a fitness device like my favorite Garmin Epix 2 watch. These devices can give you a good idea of your daily calorie burn, and this will allow you to adjust your energy intake accordingly.
This program is a lot of work, and you need to eat to support your output. I recommend weighing yourself daily to make sure you’re eating enough. Ideally, you want to be weight neutral, or perhaps slightly gaining weight if you’re fairly lean. If you have some excess body fat, then a little weight loss won’t hurt your performance.
Don’t be surprised if you need 300+ grams of carbs per day, just to maintain weight. Larger athletes will be in excess of 400 grams per day. I find that most of my athletes will fall around 1.5 – 2 times their bodyweight for grams of carbs per day. A 200 pound athlete would be between 300-400grams of carbs. Next let’s move on to fats.
Fat Intake for Hybrid Strength and Endurance Training
Fat intake is pretty simple. You need a certain amount of fats because your body uses them to create hormones, like testosterone, and many others. If you don’t have enough fat in your diet, then you’re going to perform sub-optimally.
Most athletes will fall around 0.4 grams per pound of bodyweight for fats. A 200 pound athlete would eat around 80 grams of fats per day. This is one area where some athletes will find they prefer to eat more fat, and a little less carbs, than others
As with all of these recommendations, this is merely a starting point, it’s not a custom diet plan. Pay attention to your workout performance, and weight. If you’re improving performance, and your weight isn’t going crazy, then you’re moving in the right direction. Next, we’ll review some easy recovery methods that actually work.
Recovery Methods for Hard Training Athletes
Recovery methods are one area I’m very cautious about. There isn’t a lot of research that shows significant gains for some common methods. Here’s a perfect example. Ice baths have become very popular, but there is clear research that shows that using them right after working out, drastically reduces the muscle you can build. The same goes with using NSAIDs right after training.
Does this mean there is no value in ice baths? Probably not, but they certainly should not be a regular part of post training recovery. There might be some benefit to doing them apart from training, but I think this is primarily placebo effect.
One of the most effective recovery methods is simply an easy 10 minute cool down, after each workout. Check out my recovery article for more info. Researchers found that sitting on an exercise bike, moving at 60 watts, helped build more muscle mass, and sped recovery. It sounds simple, but it works.
The other big ticket item that can help you recover quicker is wearing exercise tights. There is solid research showing that they drastically reduce muscle soreness, and speed recovery. It sounds like nonsense but I’ve tried it and they really work. Check this article out for all the details. Now, let’s talk about performance enhancement.
Performance Enhancement for Hybrid Athletes
Don’t worry, I’m not talking about blasting Tren, and creating a supplement company. There are only a few ways to increase your performance reasonably. The best way is actually free. You can perform 30% more reps by simply hyperventilating prior to your set.
Hyperventilation should be done by taking 25 breaths 30 seconds prior to your set. You shouldn’t be dizzy before starting. If you are, take it easy with the breathing. This artificially lowers cellular pH, which allows your muscle cells to keep functioning longer, as natural cellular processes change the acidity in the cell during a set. I thought it was nonsense, until I tried it.
This method only works on full body movements. It doesn’t work well for single joint accessory work. A good rule of thumb is if you’re out of breath after the set, then HV breathing can work.
The last part of performance enhancement is supplementation. Obviously I’m not a doctor, but I will share a few supplements that have a lot of scientific backing. The first is creatine (Amazon Affiliate Link). It works well for lifters, and has a lot of ancillary health benefits.
The next is caffeine. It’s been shown to reduce perceptions of fatigue and increase endurance performance. Having an energy drink or some coffee before a workout can certainly help increase power output. Finally, taking a multivitamin is a good idea to cover any gaps in your nutrition. That’s it!
Most supplements are of dubious use. Don’t drop hundreds of dollars a month on something you heard might help. Sleeping 8 hours a night, eating enough, and using common sense, will take your performance much further than any over-hyped supplement.
Final Thoughts
This has been a long article, but I wanted to give you enough detail to really make this program work well for you. As I mentioned above, this is part one of 8 Week Hybrid Strength and Endurance Training Plan. If you’ve finished this portion of the training plan, then you should head over and start part two!
This is a lot of work so don’t worry if you need to move the program around, or add in an extra rest day here and there. That’s life. As long as you’re consistent with your work in the gym, and outside of the gym, you will improve. Don’t forget to join the email list below.
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Hey hello I had a question in the beginning of the article you said this training plan was to be split into two adays or can you just go all the way through the workout until the end can you elaborate on that please thank you
You certainly could do all the work in one session. However, I think you’ll find that you can’t bring any intensity to the running after those hard lifting sessions without a decent break between. Give it a shot if you’d like.
Jake, on week two, day four, it says work to 2x5TM. I read that as two sets of 5 at your technical max. How much rest should be between the 2 sets? Just your standard 2-3 minutes? Thanks!
Yeah 2-3 minutes works well. But you can take longer if you need. The emphasis is on high quality sets, done with no fatigue.
Hello Jake was wondering when you were going to release the second 4 weeks of this training block?
Hey Jake this is a great program. When will you be releasing part 2? Thanks for putting these together!
Yep should be coming out in about a week or two
Part 2 must be coming soon
Putting the finishing touches on it now!
Jake, great programming. When published, I thought, not enough hypertrophy. I was wrong. Perfect programming leading into summer months. Love the strength/hypertrophy mix with the much needed cardio (great mix of zone 2 with speed work). I can already tell my strength numbers can still increase with the type of cardio you programmed. Thanks brother.