What is Hybrid Athlete Training?

If there is any hill I’d die on in this life, it’s that hybrid training should be an integral part of everyone’s lifestyle.

To some, this may seem a trivial thing to place so much meaning in.

However, my hope is that this brief article explains why it may not be as trivial as it sounds.

To do this effectively, we first need to define exactly what it is we are talking about.

What is hybrid training? What does it mean to be a “hybrid athlete?”

The classic definition for hybrid training is to pursue two different fitness disciplines that don’t directly support one another.

For all intents and purposes, this means combining a strength, power, or hypertrophy (muscle building) goal with an endurance goal.

For example, training to build muscle and to build strength are fitness goals that will directly benefit each other.

Training to build strength and improve endurance may have indirect benefits on one another, but there are no direct benefits.

In other words, if you were to follow a 6-week program aimed solely at building muscle, you will also see a concordant improvement in strength.

If you were to follow a 6-week program aimed solely at building endurance, you will not see a concordant improvement in strength.

So, simultaneously pursuing endurance and strength within the same program would characterize it as a hybrid program.

You should also note that this is different than using strength training to supplement endurance training or using aerobic training to supplement strength training.

Rather, hybrid training entails the intentional pursuit of improvements in each discipline.

Finally, it’s worth noting that there is a lot of room for creativity when it comes to hybrid training.

There are many different endurance and strength & events you can choose to train for; and many more combinations of each.

What are the benefits of hybrid training?

The benefits of hybrid training, as I see it, are many in number.

Arguably, the most notable are in regard to health, variety in your training, and your relationship with training.

Regarding health, it is not unreasonable to say that building strength and endurance are the most health promoting habits that you can adopt.

When I say this, I am specifically referring to the simultaneous pursuit of each and not either in isolation.

It’s not rocket science that exercise is healthy. What many people seem to not understand, though, is 1) how healthy exercise actually is and 2) how much more health-promoting strength and endurance are when performed together.

In other words, the health improvements from strength training become larger in magnitude when combined with endurance training; and vice versa.

For instance, a recent systematic review and meta-analysis [1] looked at the effect of strength training, endurance training, or both combined on blood lipid panels.

The direction of change of improvement between the aerobic training group (endurance) and combined training group (strength + endurance) were the same. However, the magnitude of improvement in the combined group was greater than the aerobic group.

Furthermore, another review looked at the effect of effects of a multi-component exercise program (including multiple types of exercise training; such as hybrid training), metformin, or both combined on the cardiovascular disease risk in individuals with type II diabetes.

They found that the exercise program in isolation resulted in greater improvements than the metformin in isolation, however the combination of exercise and metformin brought the greatest results.

I could go on for hours on the influence of exercise on health, but again, the point is this: there is nothing you can do for yourself that is more health-promoting than building both your strength and endurance.

Another notable benefit of hybrid training is how much variability you can have.

Typically, a good practice in hybrid training is to choose one strength, power, or hypertrophy (muscle building) goal and one endurance at a time, and then pursue them simultaneously.

However, which specific goals your pursue under these umbrellas can change however you’d like over time.

For instance, maybe for 12 weeks you pursue general muscle building and distance running together.

Then, in another 12 weeks, you pursue powerlifting and triathlon together.

The different combinations are endless, and this can help to keep your training interesting.

Finally, I would argue there is something to be said about the kind of relationship with training that a hybrid approach can give you.

The sport that has most greatly influenced the fitness industry is bodybuilding.

As a result, when most people think of fitness, they think of how they or others look.

I am not saying this is to blame for body dysmorphia. However, body dysmorphia is quite common [2] and I would be remiss to think that this would not contribute.

With hybrid training, the fundamental focus shifts from what you can do and not what you look like.

In my experience, this can lead to greater adherence and satisfaction with training, for a longer period of time, than the former approach.

Again, this is claim is my opinion from experience, not evidence, but I figured it was worth noting nonetheless.

Can anyone do hybrid training?

There is this common stereotype that hybrid training has to be this super intense endeavor that takes up loads of time.

This is not the case.

It certainly can be if you want, but the essence of hybrid training is not in its intensity or rigor.

It is simply the combination of a strength (or power / hypertrophy) and endurance goal.

This can be scaled up or down to whatever is appropriate to your needs, your schedule, and your goals.

So, yes, anyone can do hybrid training.

Do you need to train twice per day as a hybrid athlete?

This point piggy-backs of the previous point a bit.

However, I think it is worth bringing up.

The rise in popularity of a hybrid approach to training has been influenced by a number of social media personalities.

Many of these people showcase themselves running in the morning, lifting in the evening, or some other orientation of a twice per day schedule.

It can be easy to conclude that this is required for hybrid training if this has been your intro to it, but this is not the case.

A recent systematic review and meta-analysis [3] looked at the lowest amount of strength training that you can do and still see improvements. Plus, this paper looked at trained individuals, not people new to training.

What was found was that noticeable improvements in strength can be seen with just 2-3 hard sets per week. For a full-body effect, this would have to be 2-3 sets per muscle group per week.

This can be done in just two sessions per week, easily.

When it comes to endurance training, there does tend to be more of a volume-dependency than strength training.

In other words, how much you do is a more important variable in endurance training than in strength training.

However, this doesn’t mean you need to load up your schedule as much as possible.

One thing you can do is choose shorter endurance events to work toward.

If you’re running, then choose to improve your 5k or 10k time instead of your marathon time.

If you’re choosing triathlon, then choose a sprint distance over longer distances.

If it’s general aerobic fitness improvements you seek, then you can easily do this with one high intensity session and one low intensity session per week.

The point is: you can do very little and still make progress with hybrid training; or you can do a lot and make progress with hybrid training.

The only right way is what you prefer and what works with your schedule.

What about the interference effect?

I review this topic in great detail in this article. For a full answer, go there.

For the purposes of this article, I will move on.

Is hybrid training just CrossFit?

From a bird’s-eye view, these can make easy things to confuse.

However, there are notable differences.

CrossFit is a sport where you train everything there is to train.

Hybrid training is an approach where you choose two specific goals to pursue simultaneously.

A hybrid athlete might choose to pursue powerlifting and improve their 10k race time.

A CrossFit athlete would train olympic lifts, plyometrics, strength, hypertrophy, anaerobic conditioning, aerobic conditioning, etc.