Concurrent Training: Build Strength, Conditioning, and Speed

How to Build Strength, Conditioning, and Speed at the Same Time

Gone are the days of focusing on a single fitness goal.

You don’t have to choose between being strong, looking good, or having excellent conditioning.

• Just because you like to lift heavy doesn’t mean you should avoid conditioning.
• Just because you love to run or bike doesn’t mean you can avoid strength training.
• Just because you like bodybuilding style workouts doesn’t mean running a mile will wreck all your gains.

Although terms like ‘hybrid athlete’ are on the rise, this style of training isn’t anything new to the health and fitness industry.

It’s certainly not new to our programs at Garage Gym Athlete.

All of our programs have followed concurrent training principles for over a decade (which has similarities to..but is not the same as..hybrid athlete training, crossfit, or hyrox).

The healthiest, strongest, fittest people understand that you can’t just train strength or just do endurance work and expect to be your best.

You need both.

Strength and cardio.
Power and conditioning.
To be able to go fast and far.

But this is where most hybrid training programs out there today fall short.

They think that simply going for a run in the morning and lifting in the afternoon makes you this esteemed athlete.

Decades ago that was just something the average fit person did as a baseline.
They could lift some heavy weights and run a few miles without a problem.

Since then specialization has come around.
People started training solely with bodybuilding, powerlifting, or endurance principles.

A lot of this came out of fear of the interference effect…which is basically a term that said combining strength and endurance will negatively impact your performance (which is completely false if your program is set up correctly)

While running and lifting are part of a well designed program, they aren’t the only thing.
Most hybrid training programs just stack a running program onto a lifting routine.

Combining two good programs doesn’t make a great program.
Sometimes it makes a bad one that leads to overtraining.

When done poorly this can lead to poor results in your strength, your endurance, and even your body composition.
More is not always better…especially if you can’t spend hours a day working out.

A well designed concurrent training program should include:

• Strength: absolute strength, strength/speed, speed/strength, and speed
• Endurance: aerobic endurance, muscular endurance, strength endurance, power endurance
• Energy system training: oxidative training, glycolytic system, phosphagen system
• Along with mixmodal aerobic and anaerobic training.

If that sounds like a lot…it is.

But it doesn’t have to be overwhelming or time consuming.
Because it’s important to note…

• There can be overlap between many of these areas when programmed correctly
• You don’t have to include each one into your training every workout (or even every week).

So while you don’t have to hit each area every workout, over the course of a month or a training cycle, it’s a good idea to include all of these fitness domains.

At least if you don’t want to have to choose between looking great, being strong, being fit, or living longer.

If you choose not to incorporate these training principles, you won’t lose your fitness or be less healthy overnight.

By ignoring all of these you probably won’t notice a major dip in performance in the next few weeks or even few months.

But eventually you will.
And you will be leaving a lot of potential on the table to be healthy, fit, and strong…both now and for years to come.

At GGA we fit all of these into a month of training with workouts that don’t last longer than an hour.

If you’re short on time, you don't have to specialize in one thing.
If you're more intentional with your program, it’s possible to see incredible progress in your fitness, strength, and physique.

If you want to dive deeper and learn for yourself, here are a few resources to get started with:

• ​A beginner’s guide to concurrent training​
• ​The benefits of concurrent training (live longer and stronger)​
• ​Concurrent training vs hybrid athlete​
• For a deeper dive on the 13 training methodologies listed above, you can find more explanation on our podcast starting with episode 273 (GGA Podcast)

We don’t want your training to be one dimensional.

Our athletes don’t have to choose between better health, better performance, or better body composition.

Whether you’re just starting our or getting back into fitness, or you’re looking to take your fitness to another level, getting this balance right is step one to getting all the results that you're after.

We want you to have it all when it comes to your fitness, without spending your entire week in the gym.