Can You Train Both Strength and Endurance?

Seen the name Hybrid Training thrown around a lot lately?

Take a moment to read through this blog, detailing what it is, its relevance to you and how you’d go about starting it. 

It’s not just a functional training plan and adding a little bit of running. This is a seriously committed process in attempting to achieve more than one goal - being at either end of the strength and endurance spectrum. 

The aim of hybrid training/concurrent training is to simultaneously improve both strength and endurance training adaptations.

The negative connotations surrounding this way of training stemmed from research labelled the 'interference effect'. It states that training in both styles, strength and endurance, can impact performance, strength & muscle gains. If you wanted to achieve a competitive marathon time but also be able to Deadlift 200-plus kilos in the same training cycle, you’d probably struggle to do so without a structured plan but it’s not impossible.

Hybrid athletes continue to defy these findings with specific programming and correct training intensities and recovery periods. Through a carefully designed programme, more people are demonstrating that it is possible to increase both strength and endurance goals and improve overall fitness and physical preparation.  

5 BENEFITS OF HYBRID TRAINING:

1. Improved Overall Health

2. Improved Body Composition

3. Reduce Risk Of Injury

4. Greater Physical Preparedness

5. Efficient Use Of Time

so being smart in your training plan, with particular consideration to intensities, volume, distance, and training times, will all significantly impact your adherence to the program.

Hybrid programming often includes the following elements:

• Strength training

• Running

• Functional training

• Flexibility & mobility

• Rest & recovery

The best way to go about building these elements into a successful program is to follow these steps:

1. Set your goals: Start with one main goal – this will be your priority that will dictate the direction of your training and frequency of the disciplines.

2. Decide training frequency: How much time can you give to training? How many days a week? Do you want to train multiple disciplines in one session (i.e. functional fitness and strength training), or would you prefer to split different disciplines into different days?

3. Implement periodisation & progressive overload: In order to make progress, it's important to continually challenge yourself. This means keeping track of your workouts, and varying the reps, weight or sets each week, to continually challenge your muscles and avoid reaching a plateau. 

By structuring your hybrid training with the considerations made above, it should be possible to reduce the impact of fatigue and injury, therefore keeping recovery times optimised.

Hybrid training takes a considerable amount of planning, ensuring structure to make sure you don’t burn out. Top tips to avoid overtraining or underreaching your goals:

• Focus On Recovery: hybrid training is demanding and you'll need plenty of sleep, along with structured recovery days to adhere to the plan, including mobility. 

• Consider Your Goals: there's a good chance one of your goals may be a priority over another. For example, if you have a park run coming up, you may increase endurance training and slightly reduce resistance training for a 4-week period. Stick to a plan.

• Fuel Your Body: You'll need more calories and protein to maintain your energy balance and recovery, and this could mean planning your meals ahead of time to ensure you're eating enough of the right foods.

Hybrid athlete training is a great way to improve overall fitness and can be an interesting approach to fitness and exercise due to the variety that hybrid training plans can offer. And those who want to combine strength and endurance training into one programme should consider the hybrid training approach to their fitness.

If you want to really focus on one training discipline, then hybrid training may not be for you – however, you still may benefit from including small amounts of strength or endurance within your training. For example, runners can improve their efficiency by following a regular strength training program around their running training.

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