The Nick Bare Podcast - 024: Why You Should Train Like A Hybrid Athlete

Episode Date: July 24, 2023

I believe hybrid training is one of the best ways to train for optimal health and performance year-round. Today, I break down what exactly a hybrid athlete is, share three reasons you should consider training like a hybrid athlete, and debunk some common myths you hear about hybrid training. Enjoy the episode! Save 10% at BPN Supps: https://bit.ly/nickbare10audio Follow for more:  IG: https://www.instagram.com/nickbarefitness/ YT: https://www.youtube.com/@nickbarefitness Topics: 00:00 Intro 1:18 Hybrid athlete evolution vs. revolution 4:39 Why hybrid training has gained popularity 14:27 My hybrid athlete journey 23:56 3 reasons to train like a hybrid athlete 36:32 Hybrid training myths

And there's so much research or so many benefits by combining both strength training and cardiovascular conditioning. But if there's one thing I'm certain of, there's going to be more credible people supporting this style of training because it bridges the gap between health and performance. And that's going to be the goal in the future for everyone to really maximize the years that we spend on this earth in our bodies, but also the quality that we experience before disease or disorders. Before we dive into today's episode, I want to thank you for tuning in and supporting the brand. Now, I have spent the last decade plus of my life building bare performance nutrition, and we create effective supplements that you can trust to support your wellness, endurance, and performance goals. We offer high-quality, great-tasting weight protein powders, effective pre-workouts, superfoods,

sleep support, electrolytes, and much more. So if you want to support the content that we produce and the message that I am sure, sharing through my content and on this podcast, I would greatly appreciate it if you went to BPNSups.com and you can use code Nick Bear 10 to save 10% off your next order. So thank you guys. I appreciate you. And let's dive into the show. What's going on, guys?

Welcome back to another episode of the podcast. Today's episode is all about hybrid training or hybrid athlete training. And in this case, for me, specific, and I'm sure I'm talking to a lot of similar people. It is combining two areas of focus training and specifically running and strength training or weight training. And I want to talk about the evolution of the hybrid training model. And I think this will provide a different perspective and outlook on hybrid training that I haven't really leaned into as much as of recent. mainly because a lot of these are just observations that I've made recently that I wanted to share.

And I did an interview with Inside Hook a few weeks ago, and it was just recently published. I shared this on social. And the title of this article was how Nick Baer pioneered the hybrid athlete revolution. The interviewer was great. It was an amazing experience. The article turned down really well. But my only, I'd say, pushback or change that I would have made in retrospect now, after reading the article, was I won't refer to it as a revolution. I would refer to it as an evolution.

And I'm currently reading the book. It's called Principles by Ray Dalio, which I, highly recommend. It has been a great read so far. It's a big one. It's a long one. But I've been listening to it on some of my runs, my drive to and from work, and just my morning time before my family wakes up. Principles by Ray Dalio.

And in this book, there's a lot of discussion around evolution. His view on evolution and the importance of evolution. Now, the opposite of evolution is revolution. A revolution is a sudden, complete, or radical change. And I imagine a revolution as opposites. A complete 180. You go from doing one thing, and if there's a revolution, you've changed completely. Right?

An evolution, though, as Ray Dalio explains, evolution is the single greatest force in the universe. It is the only thing that is permanent and it drives everything. Everything from the smallest subatomic particle to the entire galaxy is evolving. It is the process of adaptation and generally moves things towards improvement. It is simply the process by which we either adapt and improve or die. And like I said, this article that came out from Inside Hook, I would have changed it to read how Nick Baer humbly pioneered the hybrid athlete evolution. I'll talk about why I believe that may be true and some of my thoughts behind that.

One of the things that I talked to inside hook about, and I also recently talked to men's health, men's health about too, was about why hybrid training, this hybrid training model has become so popular. as of recently. And if I'm being completely honest, if we're being completely honest about hybrid training, hybrid athlete training, the evolution that we're experiencing, it's becoming more popular,

it is by no means new. That's why it's not a revolution. People have been combining cardiovascular conditioning and resistance training, weight training, for decades. And I was recently listened to a podcast between Andrew Huberman

and Andy Galpin. And if you haven't listened to their their mini series, I think it's a six-part podcast series on the Huberman Lab podcast, they actually talk about hybrid training. I don't think they refer to it

as hybrid training, but they talk about the evolution of the interest of of individuals and groups of people training style over the last hundred years. And Andy identified that it was as early as the 1920s, that people started to train in a way of combining cardiovascular conditioning or endurance focus training and weight training. And a few things happen from the 20s up until now where for a period of time, endurance

training became the one and only way to train. And there were a lot of people pushing back against strength training, weight training, because there were a lot of myths that were being published that were not yet debunked. Like it

limits mobility and functionality and stunts growth. So for a period of time, say that the 30s, 40s, 50s, maybe even 60s, a lot of people believe that endurance training was is the ideal way to train.

And there wasn't a lot of focus or press or media or anyone talking about the importance of strength and resistance training. But based off of what Huberman and Galpin were talking about, what changed was in the late 1970s when Arnold Schwarzenegger started promoting bodybuilding and just creating and developing this. godlike physique, right? People started gravitating towards the gym, towards strength training and resistance training. Once people like Arnold Schwarzenegger started to be published in magazines and on TV and he became more popular and he was envied like a god by a lot of people, a lot of younger men who wanted to develop bodies like that. And we've seen this evolution. over time where today we're seeing a lot of people combining strength training and endurance training in this quote unquote hybrid training model or style because we know it's great for

health span and lifespan. It is amazing for performance and vitality and wellness and reducing risk of mortality and and disease and death and all of these things that are obviously pretty negative. Dying is a pretty harsh consequence of lifestyle factors, like not incorporating a healthy diet and fitness in your everyday life. So I think that's one of the reasons that this hybrid training model is becoming more popular. It's always been a thing. And I think we are just experiencing this evolution based off.

of change and adaptations and a desire for improvement across all different types of people with different goals. So we're just, you know, experiencing this evolution of training in the everyday athlete or the everyday person. So I really wanted to make that obvious that, you know, combining endurance training and weight training is by no means of revolution. It's not breakthrough. It's not new in itself, but we are experiencing more people incorporating both.

And I have some other ideas, a hypothesis, an observation of why I think that could be. Just like I talked about Huberman and Galpin talking about combining cardiovascular training and conditioning and weight training, there is more education, there's more content, there's more research analysis being published. on social media, online in articles. And we're debunking a lot of myths that used to be, you know, relevant. And there's more real and solid information that's being published by credible people about the importance of, like I said, again, cardiovascular conditioning and weight training. So it's just getting more eyeballs by more credible people.

in mediums and sources that is easily digestible. I'd say primarily podcast or YouTube videos. And here's my third observation. I think the pandemic from COVID initiated a huge response to the hybrid training model. You know, my brand has obviously grown a lot over the last couple years. and it's really grown around the promotion and dorsment of this style of training. It was about 2018, 2019 that I started training and talking about hybrid athlete training. And I'll get to kind of, you know, my story here in a little bit of how I got here and why it interests me and why I enjoy and love endurance and strength training.

but what happened during the pandemic. So gyms were shut down all across the world. People who were traditional strength, bodybuilding, hypertrophy, just gym rats, didn't have access to the weight room anymore. And those people still wanted to train in some sort of capacity. So a lot of non-runners evolved into runners during the pandemic. pandemic. And they started searching for how to start running, how to get better at running, what shoes to wear, how to fuel, how to maximize zone two aerobic conditioning.

And that then evolved into these non-runners becoming runners now signing up for half marathons and full marathons and ultras and triathlons. So I think the pandemic definitely stimulated this new interest of endurance training for traditional non-endurance individuals. And it did two things off of that. Again, this is just an observation. I've been thinking about this a lot lately. So there was a lot of social isolation. People struggled not just physically, but mentally and emotionally during the pandemic.

I think because of social isolation directly. So this hybrid athlete training model was growing. Pandemic hits, I think a lot of people wanted something to identify with. You know, a lot of people like to identify with a lifestyle. You have people who identify with carnivore. You know, their Instagram handle might even be like carnivore Todd, for example. there are people who identify being plant-based or cross-fit or being a minimalist. Right.

Like I can throw out examples for another two hours. I believe people like to identify with a lifestyle. And the second part of that is people want to be a part of a tribe or a community. That is just, like, that's natural. That is built and baked into our DNA. So I'll take a step back. Pandemic hits, a lot of people start getting introduced to endurance training, who are non-traditional endurance individuals.

They start identifying with this new lifestyle and they search for a community to be a part of. That right there is a hybrid athlete training community. And that, in my opinion, is why we're seeing this evolution and explosion of this new style of training. But even more importantly, just this new lifestyle of training, health, and performance. And that's why I think it's becoming so popular. A lot of those factors I just talked about. Now let's dive into how I started this hybrid athlete training. lifestyle.

Gonna go back a few steps. I really embraced this fully when I was in the military. And for those of you that don't know, I was active duty Army infantry officer from 2013 to 2017. So I commissioned as a second lieutenant in U.S. Army after graduating college. And then I went to Fort Benin, Georgia for a year, then Fort Hood, Texas for a year, where I was an infantry platoon leader. And that style of training, especially in the infantry, I mean, that is combining strength, endurance, calisthenics.

It was the most optimal way to train a functional war fighter. Logging miles in the morning and doing push-ups and pull-ups and carrying sleds and throwing people over your shoulders and doing 12 to 15 to 20-mile ruck marches. and then going to the gym. So, like, my average day when I was in the Army, when I was active duty, is we would have PT, that's physical training every single morning. That was, I believe, from 630 to 8. And, you know, that consisted of running.

We would log miles. Like I said, we do push-ups, pull-ups, body weight exercises. We do ruck marches every couple weeks. obstacle courses, a lot of functional movements. You know, you'd grab like a water can, you grab a buddy and you guys would go out two and a half miles, come back two and a half miles, and keep handing off this water jug.

And in the evening, after I got out of work, I would go to the gym. It was kind of just expected. You know, you were expected to have a second workout that day. Sometimes I would run some more miles, but normally it was strength training, bodybuilding, powerlifting style training. training. The military promotes this hybrid athlete lifestyle. It is functional. You're combining

endurance. You're combining strength. Body weight exercises, calisthenics. And when I got out of the military in 2017, I said out loud. I even recorded it. I put it in a YouTube video. I said, I will never run a day in my life again. I was, I was so excited. to get as big and strong as possible. That was my goal when leaving the military. I thought endurance and running was a way of the past, and it was only meant to make me weaker. Like, that is the way that I looked at my life moving forward

after transitioning out of the Army in 2017. And that's what I did. For months, I got as big and strong as possible. I consumed calories, like a bodybuilder and a powerlifter. I hit a lot of heavy multi-joint compound movements supported with higher rep, lower weight, hypertrophy, bodybuilding style work. I got big. I got strong.

My deadlift got up to 700 pounds. That was the heaviest deadlift I've ever done. It was a few months after getting out of the middle. military and a 700 pound deadlift pulling 700 pounds off the floor was one of the best feelings I've ever experienced. It almost caught me by surprise, but there's a lot of work that went into that because my training was specialized. It was, there was specialization around my training to get as big and strong as possible.

And I got bigger. I put on weight. I got stronger. I thought it's what I wanted. But something was missing. Something didn't feel right. I didn't feel fit. Yeah, I remember I keep saying, I kept saying that I, you know, I was living this life of

fitness, but I didn't feel fit. I felt like I couldn't put the word fit in fitness because I was just getting big, strong, and jacked, but not tan at that point in my life. And, you know, I was just feeling like something was missing for months. And I decided to start running again. I felt maybe that would fuel or fix what I thought I was missing. So, you know, after work, I would go and just log a few miles here and there. I didn't track mileage or pace or I didn't look at heart rate or anything like that.

I just went out and jogged for a few miles and came back. And instantly, there was this transformation. more mental than physical, mental and emotional rather than physical. Or like that, that, that run was uncomfortable. It hurt. I wasn't in cardiovascular shape or, or conditioning. I didn't feel strong in terms of endurance, but it released some sort of endorphin during and after that run where it was like just this, this, this,

high. I felt like I had so much clarity in my mind and my thoughts and ideas were more organized and I felt lighter. Like mentally I felt lighter. Stress dissipated a little bit and I just felt, I just felt good. It's the only way to describe it. So I kept doing it. I kept logging some miles here and there after work and it always felt pretty good after doing it. I was I was missing the feeling of discomfort while running. And I experienced that a lot when I was in the military. And when I started adding this back into my life in late 2017, I started experiencing this hurt again, this discomfort.

But this discomfort, this hurt, it felt good because I had direction, I had purpose, I had feeling again. So I decided, you know, what the hell? I'm going to sign up for my first. Marathon. That's what I did. Sign up for the Austin Marathon. It was a soup sandwich.

It was a disaster. Everything after mile 16 was a run walk. Cross finish line. Three hours, 57 minutes. After that, I was like, you know what? I'm not meant to be a runner. I'm not going to run anymore. Let's go back to getting big and strong.

Then the following year, I decided, you know what, I'm going to do the Austin Marathon again. Didn't change my training style. Ended up crossing the finish. line slower, four hours, 15 minutes. Again, everything after mile 16 was painful, uncomfortable, which I wanted, a run walk, but it wasn't something that I was proud of. After that race, that's when I went all in on endurance.

I went after Iron Man, Florida, sub three-hour marathons, 100-mile ultra-marathons through the Rocky Mountains of Leadville, Colorado. And when I went through this big endurance block, I was still supplementing and incorporating strength training in a true hybrid training model. And this is the one thing I want to point out with that. The opposite of this hybrid training model that I talk about is specialization.

And specialization is the process of concentrating on and becoming an expert in a expert in a particular subject or skill. If you think of professional athletes, you know, power lifters, bodybuilders, maybe you play tennis, elite marathon runners, swimmers, those sports, those styles of training require an immense amount of focus and expertise. And that is specialization. You know, it wouldn't make sense for an elite marathon runner who's going to be a lot of focus,

who's going for, you know, a 204, 205 marathon to go and max out on the bench pressed, deadlift and barbell squat on a weekly basis. That just wouldn't make sense because that style of training does not complement and support them being an elite marathon runner. There's a time and place. There's a time, place, and goal that requires, specialization, and I am not going to ignore that.

However, for majority of the population who's not focused on some level of specialization, I truly believe that the hybrid training and lifestyle bridges the gap between performance and health optimization, and it has less specialization than a focused sport or style of training, but it is the most effective, most optimal for, everyone else. I truly, truly believe that. So we recently made and published a YouTube video that supports a lot of these topics that I'm about to talk about. And you may have seen that. What I love about the podcast platform is I can dive deeper into topics and subjects that I'm really interested in. With YouTube, we typically keep the subjects pretty focused and the content

around them pretty focused for that type of consumer and audience. But for the podcast, that's why I love the podcast. It's like you have the opportunity just to go deeper into certain things. So reasons that you should incorporate or evolve your hybrid training lifestyle or model. There's three that I'm going to talk about. One is body composition. I've gone all in on endurance events where I've really reduced almost all strength training. I'll never do that again.

And I've gone all in on bodybuilding and strength and aesthetics. And I neglected all endurance cardiovascular conditioning. And I'll never do that again. I will always combine both. Now, it really depends on what the goal I have I've set out to achieve, where if I'm going for a PR and a marathon, I'm definitely going to reduce volume and intensity of strength training. And I'm going to, you know, compete in a bodybuilding competition. I'm going to reduce the volume and intensity of my endurance cardiovascular conditioning. That's just kind of my approach that works.

but the reason I think, or the first reason I think you should be incorporating this hybrid athlete training is body composition. And what I found is by incorporating a level of endurance training and incorporating a certain level of resistance training, strength training, I have found that I personally, and I've seen this happen to other people as well, have built my best physique, my body composition was something that I've been most proud of and most comfortable in. Now, when I stepped on stage for my bodybuilding show at like 6.5% body fat, did I look really good on stage? Yeah, it was probably some of the best I've ever looked in my entire life. But I felt like absolute dog crap. It was also like the worst I felt.

You know, oftentimes bodybuilders are people who are competing in bodybuilding. bodybuilding. When they look at their peak, they look their best. They often feel their worst. My personal relationship with my body, body composition, how I felt, how I've looked, how I've performed, has been at its peak while balancing strength and endurance. And I believe if you set your goals on performance rather than physique, and I've talked about this before, I even recorded a podcast just on this topic. I believe if you set your goals on performance

as opposed to physique, you're actually going to achieve better body composition outcomes in the long run. If you look at this past bodybuilding competition I did, I worked really, really hard. I mean, really hard. I dug really deep to get to 190 pounds. And I was essentially starving myself. I had no energy. Hormones were crushed. Vitality. was gone. Sex drive was zero. You know, performance in the gym was horrible. Brain fog. I just felt like, I felt horrible. 190 pounds. It's the leanest I got. You know, last time I weighed myself, as of now, 199 pounds. So I've gained nine pounds, but I'm eating significantly more. my volume and intensity of training is significantly higher.

I'm able to socialize again with friends and family, go to dinner, have some good food, enjoy some cocktails. And I'm not focused on body composition goals right now. I'm not training and eating for body composition. I'm training and eating to support my performance goals through endurance and through strength and bodybuilding in the gym. My diet supports that and my body composition, I would argue, looks better. than it did when I was peak bodybuilding.

Second reason. Improved health span and lifespan. I again will reference the Huberman Lab, Andrew Huberman, Andy Galpin podcast. If you haven't listened to that series yet, highly recommend it. But through experts like, you know, Huberman, Galpin, Dr. Lane Norton, I've talked to Thomas DeLauer extensively about these topics. Peter Atia is a great reference as well. All these guys have content, whether on Instagram, YouTube, podcasts, books that they've published.

But we know that you can either focus on health span or lifespan. Lifespan is the amount of years that you live. If you have a greater lifespan, you're going to live more years. You're going to live a longer life. Hopefully into your 90s and maybe you'll even create. cross that 100 year barrier. Health span, though, is the quality of years that you have within that life that is before death, disease, disorders.

And health span, yes, is influenced by DNA and genetic makeup, but also lifestyle factors. What you're eating, how you're moving, how often you're moving. your social relationships, the food you're putting in your body, lifestyle factors, where you live, exposure to certain things. And we know that you can improve health span and lifespan by focusing on VO2 Max and specifically strength but lower body strength. And through a lot of research and studies, you can identify someone's lifespan and health span quality of and quantity by measuring VO2 max which is built developed and improved

through cardiovascular conditioning a lot of zone two aerobic base building and then you know some threshold stuff in there and then like i said lower body strength through uh resistance training going to the gym using weights it doesn't have to be you're going to the gym and you're max out on barbell squats every week, you know, lunges, leg press, leg curls, building the glutes, the hamstrings, the quads, lower body strength, and V-O-2 max. Those are two pieces of data, information that can determine the health span and lifespan of an individual. And you achieve this, you build this through cardiovascular endurance training and weight training. And weight training. And the third reason that I think everyone should incorporate this style of training,

and I think this will probably be relatable to most people, is that it's sustainable and it's flexible. When I'm in periods of a prep, you know, again, I'll use this bodybuilding show as an example. Towards the back half of that bodybuilding show, especially when I started pulling out running because my coach wanted me to, to reduce just, you know, inflammation and support fat loss. I was getting very fat-finged of going to the gym and doing the same workouts every single day, every single week. I missed going out and logging five, eight, ten, twelve-mile runs.

I missed that because I needed that in my life. I need that in my life to just be happy and fulfilled and passionate. And vice versa, when I'm in a deep marathon prep, those last couple weeks where I start pulling out more strength training and just focusing on running and running volume and intensity really increases and you start feeling fatigued again, I get burnt out from that prep and I start thinking about, oh, I can't wait to go to the gym.

I can't wait to start strength training again. That's why I like using, you know, these preps, sprinkling them in here and there to spice things up in terms of just a new flexible style of training. But I know that balancing the both is the most sustainable for me. The best training model and training program for someone, this applies to diet and training training, is the, is the most sustainable. the one that they can adhere to. That is the best program for an individual, one they can stick to, one they enjoy,

one that they want to do, one that they can do for a long period of time. And if you're on a training program or you're on a diet that you don't enjoy and it's not sustainable, you're not going to do it for a long period of time. And if you keep doing it, you're probably going to be bored or exhausted.

You're not going to put a lot of energy into it. So I found that this hybrid athlete training model, by supporting cardiovascular endurance training and strength training in the gym, it's one very sustainable. You can have chapters and seasons of your life where you're more focused on endurance and vice versa. You're more focused on body composition and muscular development and strength. And when you get bored of one, you can switch to the other and kind of manipulate. the percentage that you dedicate to different styles. And it also provides a lot of flexibility. I remember when I was just bodybuilding.

I wasn't running at all. It's right when I got into the Army. And if I ever had to travel for work or with my family or go on vacation, before we even got to where we had to be, I was searching on my phone to find out where the closest as gym was at.

Going back to the beginning, when you identify with a lifestyle, I'm a bodybuilder. I got to find a gym. I got to eat every three hours. I got to schedule my day based off my training session and my meals and my food and my protein and carry my water jug and take my supplements. And when I would get somewhere and there wasn't any access to a good gym or I couldn't make time to get to that gym because it was 20 minutes away and I had meetings stacked. it was hard to adhere to the training program I had in place.

But when you have more flexibility, you don't run into that issue. You know, if I land at a place that I'm not familiar with and I don't have access to a gym or there is no gym, well, shit, I can lace up my shoes and I can go run anywhere. You know, it's like it gives you that flexibility to adapt and train and manipulate your training program and, you know the workout out of that day based off of what's available to you and to be able to run there's still low barrier to entry you literally just need space time and some shoes and in my case just shorts and socks uh you technically could do it naked if you really wanted to i guess you could do anything naked if you really wanted to um but the three reasons to incorporate hybrid athletic training one body composition

Two, improved health span and lifespan and three, like I said, sustainability and flexibility. And the last thing I want to talk about in this episode is what hybrid athlete training is not and debunking some myths. Hybrid athlete training does not have to be, and this might be a myth, running and weight training. that's what I personally like doing I like running in the morning as a lot of you guys know I wake up part of my morning routine is knocking out my morning run

and in the afternoon or the evening that's when I strength train typically I don't always do two workouts a day but on days where I do two workouts in a day it's the run in the morning and the strength training in the evening and the reason that I chose

or choose those two styles. I mean, you could choose swimming, calisthenics, yoga, rowing, triathlon, I mean,

whatever you, whatever you enjoy, right? It goes back to sustainability and flexibility. But I love to run for the mental, the emotional, the physical benefits.

And for me, it's one of the most enjoyable ways to achieve this zone two low aerobic base building that has positive benefits not just on the mind like I've said but also the body in terms of developing and improving VO2 max for long-term health span and lifespan just building this this engine right that is my preferred style of cardiovascular endurance training and then for strength training

I prefer a combination of hypertrophy or bodybuilding and strength. If I look at it in terms of like endurance, we talk about the 80-20 rule. I think I could probably apply that to my strength training as well, where when I'm running, 80% of my runs are done below my max aerobic heart rate. They are in zone two, zone three zone, building this aerobic base. And then 20% is done at higher intensities. Some sprints, some intervals, tempo work, critical velocity. That's the way I split, you know, my, my cardio.

When I'm in the gym, strength training, bodybuilding, I would say that I still incorporate that 80-20 rule, where 80% of my training is done in a hypertrophy or bodybuilding style. This is moderate weight. at higher rep ranges, anywhere from 8 to 15. And I'm focused on muscle isolation, contraction, pump, blood flow. And then about 20% of my resistance training is, you know, more of these heavier multi-joint compound movements going for a big bench press or barbell squat or overhead press.

or deadlift, you know, anywhere from the two to five rep range, definitely heavier. But that's not all the time. It's not necessarily sustainable for me in terms of recovering and having a healthy central nervous system and just different styles of training. But I like combining both of those because running for one provides me, like I said, the cardiovascular benefits that I want and need. It's my preferred style of training. And then two, I like going to the gym and bodybuilding because I can isolate the muscle that I'm intending to train. That's why I've never really fallen in love with CrossFit or some other functional style exercise programs or just ways of training because there isn't as much isolation. programs or just ways of training

because there isn't as much isolation and quality of movement pattern involved for strength and muscle development. And that's why I've just loved about bodybuilding. That's why I choose it. Now, what hybrid training is not, it's not, hey, look what I can do. It is not the occasionally great

instead of the consistently good. What it is, in my opinion, is incorporating these two styles of training to support performance and health goals to optimize the way you look, feel, and perform. But it's not, you know, going out and deadlifting a car in the morning and then running a marathon for lunch and then taking a bite out of an Iron Man for dinner

and waking up the next morning and swimming across the Atlantic Ocean. That is not, in my honest opinion, at least the way that I would consider myself a hybrid athlete. There is no prerequisite for the amount of races you need to have signed up for or accomplished. You haven't had to have run a sub three-hour marathon

and do an Iron Man and an Ultra in the same year. There are no prerequisites or accomplishments that you need to achieve in a way. order to identify and be a part of this hybrid athlete lifestyle. I came across a video by Silent Mike. Silent Mike is like an OG in the fitness. He's an OG in the fitness space. And he made this video. This was months ago because I remember seeing it when I was in my bodybuilding prep. And he's really involved in the powerlifting community. And this was in response to, I believe, what he heard someone say to someone else.

But there was this guy who was going to the gym every day and he was powerlifting. He was getting under the barbell. He was going for these big squats and pulling heavy weight off the ground with a deadlift and then bench pressing. He was following a powerlifting program but he never signed up for a meet.

And someone argued against that saying you're not a real power lifter if you've never got on the platform or a meat or you're not a real bodybuilder if you've never stood on stage and dieted down to get a 6% body fat

and starved yourself on chicken, rice and broccoli and you're not a runner unless you've signed up and run a sub three hour marathon you're not an ultra if you haven't run a 100 mile ultra

through the Rocky Mountains you're not a hybrid athlete if you haven't done a bodybuilding competition and a marathon in the same week. There's no rules to identify with a style of training or a community. If you want to be a part of it, there's no rules. There's no prerequisites. There's no gatekeeper.

Enough of the, hey, look what I can do's. But if you want to be a part, join it, do it. And if you don't want to step on stage, if you don't want to sign up for the race, if you don't want to test yourself in that in that style you don't have to. It's okay. One of the biggest myths that we hear in terms of hybrid athlete training

is the amount of time required to just do it. Right? And if you've followed my training in the last couple years, you've seen that there's a lot of days ready to work on in a day. I've already talked about it in this podcast.

There's mornings where I will run most mornings. And then in the evening sometimes, I will strength train too. There's also days where I just run. There's also days where I just strength train. It's going to be a little sidebar real quick. I think it was 2018. I decided that I wanted to pursue CrossFit and get into CrossFit. So I hired a CrossFit coach at the time.

And this CrossFit coach sent me over the training program. every single week. And every day had three workouts plus a mobility session. And I remember getting this program thinking, hey, I think you sent me the wrong training program. This must be for one of your games athletes. Because, you know, I'm building a business.

I got work I got to do. And he said, well, no, if you want to take this serious, you have to train three times a day and you have to do a mobility session in the morning. So I tried doing this for a few weeks, and it didn't work out very well. One, I was exhausted all the time. Two, I didn't have time to work because I was always training. That experience in itself is where I lost my interest in pursuing CrossFit.

So I ended up going back to bodybuilding and starting to incorporate endurance. But I had to try it. I wanted to try it. Now, for the athlete that focuses on specialization, if there's someone who wants to go to the CrossFit games, well, that's what you got to do. That's the way you have to train. You have to train that much to compete at that level with that big of an engine and capacity to do what you got to do to stand on the platform and win the CrossFit games.

I wasn't necessarily trying to win the CrossFit games. I was just trying to get into CrossFit and experience it. And I tell that story to reinforce the fact that hybrid athlete training is not intended to be a full-time job. If you can't fit in a run and a lift every single day, that's okay. That's all right. You can train four or five times a week and still accomplish the same health and performance optimization and complement your health span and your lifespan.

You can achieve the same results with a few training sessions a week. You don't have to have a full. time job and training. It's not intended to be a full-time position or a role. This style of training is just meant to support your life, your health, the way you show up for your personal goals, your family, your co-workers, your business, your work, your faith, every part of your life. Now, at what level of capacity and volume and intensity? Well, that's up to the individual they choose and they decide to allocate and how much time, energy, money, and resources they want to spend on their fitness. I love to train. I love to run and I equally love to lift. And that's why I try to do both of them in the same day as much as possible.

Now, since our daughter was born, that has changed my schedule, my routine, my ability to do both in the same day for a lot of days. So there are days where I just choose one. I just run or I just strength train. And I schedule my day the night before to make sure I get at least one of those in. Now if I get two of those in, that's a great day. That's a win. But as long as I'm moving my body once a day in either a cardiovascular conditioning endurance style, or I'm going to the gym and I'm throwing weight around and I'm getting a pump

and I'm focused on volume, contraction, and hypertrophy. I have achieved the results and the outcome that I set to achieve. So that's like the main myth that I wanted to debunk is the fact that it's not meant to be a full-time job. It doesn't have to be a full-time job. Don't let that intimidate you away from starting. And there's so much research or so many benefits by combining both strength, training and cardiovascular conditioning. This space is evolving.

It's going to continue to evolve. But if there's one thing I'm certain of, there's going to be more credible people supporting this style of training because it bridges the gap between health and performance. And that's been the goal for decades. And that's going to be the goal in the future for everyone to really maximize the years that we spend on this earth in our bodies. but also the quality that we experience before death, disease, or disorders. So that's some of the information I wanted to share with you today.

The evolution, not revolution, of the hybrid training model, why I believe it's getting more popular, how I got into it, why I continue to do it. And I think most importantly, why I recommend if you haven't truly adopted this style of training yet, I highly recommend it because I know you're going to experience positive benefits, not just mentally, emotionally. You're going to see improvements in body composition and your relationship with yourself and improve confidence. And it's going to support your health and performance goals in the future. So thanks for tuning in to another episode, guys, and we'll see you in the next one.