Send us a text In this episode, I share my experience training with a conditioning bias, training with a strength bias, why I switched to bodybuilding and where I'm going next in my training. I talk about muscle growth, the importance of cardiorespiratory fitness, gut health, building athletic momentum, and how I apply these lessons learned with my athletes. Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, and I'll see you in 2026! --- Whenever you're ready, there are 4 ways I can help you: Book an Intro Co...
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Send us a text In this episode, I share my experience training with a conditioning bias, training with a strength bias, why I switched to bodybuilding and where I'm going next in my training. I talk about muscle growth, the importance of cardiorespiratory fitness, gut health, building athletic momentum, and how I apply these lessons learned with my athletes. Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, and I'll see you in 2026! --- Whenever you're ready, there are 4 ways I can help you: Book an Intro Co...
Send us a text In this episode, I share my experience training with a conditioning bias, training with a strength bias, why I switched to bodybuilding and where I'm going next in my training. I talk about muscle growth, the importance of cardiorespiratory fitness, gut health, building athletic momentum, and how I apply these lessons learned with my athletes. Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, and I'll see you in 2026! --- Whenever you're ready, there are 4 ways I can help you: Book an Intro Co...
Send us a text Link to the full movement analysis: https://www.instagram.com/p/DSF-hQpEd2H/?hl=en&img_index=1 Most frequent Open movements (2021-2025): BurpeesDouble UndersThrusters Chest to BarBar Muscle UpsWall WalksDeadliftsMost frequent Individual Quarterfinals movements (2021-2024): RowBurpee Box Jump OversRope ClimbsCleansSnatchesWall BallsKipping HSPUStrict HSPURing Muscle UpsGHD Situps(Honorable mention) Wall-Facing HSPU - the more recent precedentMost frequent AGOQ movements...
Send us a text To excel at a multiday fitness competition, you need to be prepared for an immense workload. Athletes who may perform incredibly on Event 1 are gassed by Event 8. While every athlete must be powerful, having so many events over multiple days gives an advantage to the athletes who recover the fastest. By the final day, it may be less about who can perform the best fresh, and more about who is the least tired. The greater your cardiorespiratory fitness, the faster you recover fro...
Send us a text Gymnastics in Fitness Sport When you do gymnastics, you are exercising in what exercise physiologists call the extreme intensity domain, with very few exceptions. The most notable exceptions are the burpee and box jump over, which I train with a conditioning perspective, rather than the approach I'll describe below. For almost every other gymnastics movement, the time to exhaustion is less than two minutes. Exercise that exhausts you this fast is very intense. At these intensit...
Send us a text Strength adaptations come from morphological effects and neural effects. Morphological effects (mainly muscle growth) are why strength sports have weight classes. Assuming similar training styles, the more muscular athlete usually lifts more. However, neural effects are why world class female lifters are stronger than most men, despite having way less muscle. Neural effects are also why powerlifters aren't good at snatching, and weightlifters aren't good at jiu-jitsu. Neural ef...
Send us a text In this episode, I describe a Long Term Athletic Development (LTAD) model for fitness competitors. The model depends on three concepts: Extensive to intensive trainingLong to short residual training effectsPre-requisites to expressionWith these in mind, I created a phased approach to each of the three disciplines in fitness sport. Strength Functional HypertrophyBasic StrengthOlympic Weightlifting SkillStrength and PowerBatteryGymnastics Gymnastic StrengthMovement EfficiencyVolu...
Send us a text In this episode, we discuss the differences, pros and cons of hybrid and mixed training. Hybrid Training Less interference than mixed workoutsBigger adaptations to each training stimulusMore targeted to a specific modalityAdaptable to injury history, equipmentHigher training loadsMixed Training More specific to fitness competitionImproved pacing of mixed workoutsVaried and excitingIncreased motivation via the group effectFrequent intensityContextual Considerations: Beginner vs....
Send us a text Common Conditioning Mistake: Too frequent high intensity trainingIntensity limiting total training loadOnly practicing race pace at high RPEsAll-out effort in hard sessionsExcessive training varietyStarting workouts too hot"Always ready" approach to trainingBest Practice: High-low modelLarge training loads with more low intensity trainingPractice race pace at submaximal RPEs often to lower perception of effortControlled effort in hard sessions, save all-out efforts for raceWeek...
Send us a text In this episode, I discuss: The confusion among health and wellness leaders and coaches about the utility of Zone 2Zone 2 for living long and healthyZone 2 for performanceWhy your time is the most important factor in how much Zone 2 you should doThe energy intake-training load relationshipComparing low intensity training to high intensity trainingExceptions for people at physiological extremesFor those who want to dive deeper, join us for the live training Conditioning for Fitn...
Send us a text Join us for the live training: Conditioning for Fitness Athletes. Thursday, October 23rd, 3pm MT Tap the link to save your spot: https://www.paulbweber.com/conditioning-for-fitness-athletes If you can't make it live, all good, you'll get permanent access to the recording. --- When I start working with a new athlete, the first question we ask is: "What are our training priorities?" To help decide, we look at their: Competition resultsTraining metricsPhysical characteristicsElite...
Send us a text In this episode, we cover: Evaluation of the SportMovement Analysis - which parts of the race create the most separation?Physiological Analysis - what does Hyrox ask of the body?Assessment of the AthletePhysical Characteristics of Elite 15 Hyrox AthletesHeightWeightPerformance Characteristics of Elite 15 Hyrox Athletes5k Run10k RunHalf Marathon2k Row2k Ski3RM Squat3RM Deadlift3RM Military Press3RM Bench PressTraining for Hyrox10k Run ProgressionStationsLiftingResources [1] HYRO...
Send us a text Thank you for sending questions! In this week's podcast, I cover: How much can I condition and still get stronger/build muscle/maintain muscle?How much Zone 2 should I do?When should I do "classic CrossFit"?
Send us a text In the early 2000s, perhaps similar to today, there was plenty of gatekeeping in an attempt to professionalize the fitness industry. The gym culture in many places lacked effort and was full of unnecessary complexity. Greg Glassman (founder of CrossFit®) came in and said, "get rid of all the equipment." Just keep the rower, box, barbell, pull up bar. That’s all you need. And challenge yourself. Go as hard as you can. Greg understood that effort is the currency for results. Ther...
Send us a text The goal for the conditioning-biased athlete is to chronically increase training load while maintaining the load-recovery balance. More simply, conditioning is about learning to do more work. Fitness athletes have no problem with more training. We are often eager to prove we can work the hardest. As a result, we increase training load on too short of a timeline. I remember compressing a week of training into a single day. And wondering why I constantly felt fatigued...
Send us a text In this episode, we discuss how metcons are characterized by severe and extreme intensity exercise that is often intermittent in the context of each task, but continuous in the context of the workout. We cover: the fatigue mechanisms of severe intensity exercisethe fatigue mechanisms of extreme intensity exercisewhy severe vs. extreme intensity matterswhich movements are severe intensity and which ones are extremeWeightlifting and % of 1RMGymnastics and movement selectionMonost...
Send us a text For all that we have to learn from other sports, fitness competition is unique. Few other events last multiple days, or require both strength and conditioning. There's the decathlon, which emphasizes strength and power. Then there are military selections, which emphasize conditioning. Fitness competitions fall somewhere in between. Fitness sport combines many disciplines into one monster weekend: endurance sports (running, cycling, rowing, swimming...
Send us a text Key Takeaways Frequency of higher intensity training - 2-3 days/week/modality, 3-5 quality sessions per week per modalityPeriodize - lower overall training volume and more competition-specific training as you get closer to the competitionControl the "load-recovery balance" - watch for signs of overtraining/underrecovery:joint painweakened immunityGI distresslow libidodisrupted sleepimpaired blood sugar regulationfatigue and irritabilityseverely depressed cortisol curveResources...
Send us a text In this episode, we discuss: The four intensity domains and their effect on physiologyIntensity distributions of elite endurance athletes and fitness athletesBest practices from elite endurance sportfrequency of quality sessionsperiodizationThe intensity-HPA Axis dysfunction-health degradation cascadeA three-phase approach to training and peaking for severe intensity conditioningPhase I - Accumulate Volume - induces general cardiorespiratory adaptations without the physiologica...
Send us a text Depending on the movements, gymnastics may demand: strength (as in legless rope climbs or strict deficit handstand pushups)movement efficiency (as in ring muscle ups and handstand walking)muscle endurance (as in high rep pullups or toes to bar)and/or cardiorespiratory conditioning (as in burpees and box jump overs)The burpee and box jump over are unique in that: Most athletes have the requisite strength to perform the movementsDifferences in movement efficiency between athletes...
Send us a text In this episode, we cover: examples of pure weightlifting workoutshow the work rates in weightlifting modalities compare to traditional endurance modalitiesthe physiology of weightlifting workoutsthe biomechanics of weightlifting workoutsthe 3 step process I use for improving weightlifting capacity:Strength + Raw CapacityBarbell Cycling SkillBarbell Cycling CapacityIn fitness sport, we test conditioning in lots of different ways. Burpees, rowing, thrusters, pullups, etc. ...
Send us a text In this episode, I share my experience training with a conditioning bias, training with a strength bias, why I switched to bodybuilding and where I'm going next in my training. I talk about muscle growth, the importance of cardiorespiratory fitness, gut health, building athletic momentum, and how I apply these lessons learned with my athletes. Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, and I'll see you in 2026! --- Whenever you're ready, there are 4 ways I can help you: Book an Intro Co...
