#85 - Strength Training For Tactical Athletes: PR The 2 Mile (Part 2)

"Strong enough" is a phrase every tactical athlete needs to internalize. Not a powerlifter, not a bodybuilder, and not a typical runner. The goal: strength stops being the limiter, and injuries stop derailing your training. In today's episode, we cover:

• A recap of Part 1: (Podcast) How Tactical Athletes PR the 2 mile 
• Part 1: (Article) 3 Runs The Tactical Athlete Needs To Dominate The 2 Mile
• Why "strong enough" is the target
• 3 mistakes that keep tactical athletes hurt and slow 
• The Everyday Responder System build for strength sessions - warmup, primer, main movers, finishers

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hey, what's going on, everybody? Welcome to the Everyday Responder podcast. And we have strength training today. So I know everybody gets uh pretty fired up about strength training. Maybe not so fired up about the running portion, but that's why it's part one. I think it's uh it's the biggest leverage point for I would say the most people. So um we talked about running in part one, which I'm gonna give a quick recap in a minute. We're gonna talk about strength training today, and then just to give you some foresight, we have nutrition. So nutrition on part three is coming, and I'm very excited about that. I've gotten many different questions surrounding nutrition, which I touched on some of them in the QA last podcast. Um, but we're gonna get into the uh the nitty-gritty of what we can really focus on when it comes to nutrition. So backtracking a little bit to part one. So the biggest takeaway for part one, and that was three runs that I'd be focusing on if I wanted to uh crush the two mile. Um, the biggest takeaway is really understanding your RPE, right? I think that is the most important training tool when it comes to running, and it's something that a lot of people butcher. So I like keeping it very simple, right? And I'm gonna, like I said, I'm gonna give a quick little recap. I like keeping it very simple, hard, easy, and moderate, right? Those three different types of runs. And again, those are more containers. Obviously, you can have fun within those containers through different types, uh, but big picture, it's like, okay, if we can understand those three types of runs and we practice those three types of runs, we're gonna develop a full RPE scale. So when it comes to our testing, when it comes to time trials, anything like that, we understand our pacing approach to those things, right? Or we can kind of have a better grasp of those things. Because I know, even from my own experience, pacing, it's it's the best thing that we can focus on. But the reality is sometimes it goes out the window. But the mo the more that we can focus on the hard, easy, uh, and moderate, the better that we're gonna be for that. So again, hard is though are those repeats, right? Speed work, leg turnover, building the engine. We're talking when we talk about easy, we're talking about the traditional zone two type stuff, right? Building capacity, we're uh we're practicing the skill, right? So if you were to think about um your performance as a whole, if you were to think about it as a pyramid, the base of that pyramid is your aerobic capacity, which is built by that long and and slow work, right? So the more that we can widen that, the more that we can put more speed work or more volume, more training intensity, all those different types of things on top of that. So again, one of the big mistakes that I see is a narrow pyramid or a narrow base of the pyramid. And then we try to stack all these different different types of goals on top, then we come it comes crumbling down. But again, the more that we can be intentional with that easy work, and you're gonna hear that word intentional a lot throughout this podcast, but the more that we can make the uh the easy work actually easy, the more wide, uh the wider that we're gonna have that base. Then the last one here is moderate, where we're practicing pacing, right? And just to give you an example, one thing that I love or one session that I love is like three by five minutes, where you're progressing that over time. So the first five minutes, maybe that's an RPE four to six, right? And then we're walking for two minutes. So resting. Then you're bringing a uh easy to moderate intensity on the second one, resting. Now you're bringing a you know moderate, a full moderate to the last five minutes, and now we can kind of debrief that data and look, okay, we're did our our splits improve, right? Did our our RPE go up, right? So that is a great tool that I like to use where we can kind of see different intensities and feel different intensities so we know what easy should feel like, or we can look at certain targets for easy and for hard and for moderate. But big thing, like the the one focus I would say or recommend is a pay like pacing practice, right? If we, like I said, can understand our RPE, we will drastically improve our runtime without even touching on aerobic capacity. Um, and obviously we want to build a robust base if we want to actually perform. But even if you were to not improve your run whatsoever, but you were to improve your pacing, you would improve your runtime. Now, what we're gonna talk about today is bringing strength to that, and that's gonna be the uh the unsung hero when it comes to uh maintaining and more importantly, being able to repeat some of that mileage um when it comes to your runtime. So strength is going to take your runtime to the next level. So it is not a separate thing, it is one system, and we're gonna be talking about that, but we need the strength to support what we are trying to do when it comes to running, right? So that's going to improve our mobility, which strength training is a great mobility tool. It's going to obviously give us more strength, hypertrophy, power. That's what we can kind of focus on throughout our blocks. So now we have a raw capacity to produce force, aka running. Um, or when or that's what's happening when you are running. Durability, that's going to be huge, right? We build up our tissue tolerance, we bring it through different ranges of motion, we get comfortable with different movement patterns and ranges of motion. Now all of a sudden, we are more durable to be able to handle more mileage. So there's a ton that goes into it. I'm not going to like give you a huge deep dive. We're looking at this from a scope of a two mile and what you can kind of do from a strength perspective. But ultimately, strength is going to be one of the biggest injury prevention and uh force production tools when it comes to that final push on your two mile. So I will say that it is not, you know, magical, it is not perfect. But I would say, you know, most people do too much too soon, too often, too fast, which strength training could help alleviate some of that. But ultimately, it's not something where it's like, okay, we're gonna do uh more strength training and then we're just going to, you know, reduce injuries as we're progressing running. And that's usually what happens when we look at these as all separate domains instead of looking at it as stress and recovery as a whole. So that is the the biggest thing. Like if we go into it and ultimately do too much too soon, too often too fast, we progress too fast, we do a tack on, you know, strength training program. That's when we see the shin splints, the achy knees, the bad back, and and any other common running injury. So again, we're gonna use this as a tool to help us, but it's not going to solve bad programming, right? So like injuries, the the reality is obviously we want to try to get ahead of them and avoid them in the first place. But injuries, especially depending on what you do for work and different things like that, um, sometimes it is the reality. But the the good news is if you have a proper program and you are strength training properly, many of those could be prevented, right? So with those shin splints, with achy knees, with those things that I just talked about, or just the the common running injuries as a whole, usually those are a symptom of bad programming, of doing too much. It's not necessarily a diagnosis and strength training. If you are strong enough, we're gonna talk about strong, what strong enough means. But if you are strong enough, that's a great way to get ahead. So, big picture when you think about strength training, especially from a uniform context and a hybrid athlete context, I like to look at it as stealing the best things that we can from other modalities and using it to our advantage, right? Making it more uniform specific. So, what I mean by that is if you think about a bodybuilder, right? They they are you know experts at putting on masks in the in the right spots, right? So if you think about it from that perspective, what can we steal from them from a strength and strength and size uh perspective to bring up lagging muscle groups that could cause an injury in the future? You think about a power lifter, they're really good at putting on max strength, right? Or sub-max strength in in all capacities, right? So, what kind of strength can we get, or what kind of rep ranges can we use from a power lifter to make sure we are durable enough to handle the impact? Last thing here, it's like, okay, we're we're also not trying to be a typical runner. Um, and I I say that with no shame in typical runner builds. Um, but it's like we we don't want to be that, you know, featherweight, if you will, where it's like, okay, yeah, they can run, but they might collapse under a ruck or under a trapwire deadlift or or anything like that, right? But we can steal some tactics that that they use from a capacity uh capacity perspective. So again, moving at different speeds, uh, moving, you know, long and slow, right? That that type of perspective is something that we can incorporate. Now we just need to make some of those modalities or some of those approaches that it that's more uniform specific. But that's really what, in my opinion, a a hybrid athlete is you're taking multiple goals and you're kind of you know reverse engineering what you need, taking the best of what you need and getting rid of all of the extra stuff that you don't, right? So, with that said, I think it's important for tactical athletes to think about strong enough, right? And what I mean by that is we need to be strong enough to handle potential demands and also strong enough where the you know being injured is not a limiter, right? That is the the big thing that we need to focus on so we can actually repeat the work. So I like to look at you know two potential things here for strong enough. Number one, strength relative to body weight, right? So we need to be strong to strong for our body weight. So, what I mean by that is you know, if you, for example, are not the strongest in the world, but maybe you have some pounds to lose, we can use strength training to our advantage. And obviously it's it's a big nutrition portion, um, a massive nutrition portion, but maybe you know it will help us in the long run, no pun intended, if we can lose some weight and and make sure it's like, okay, well, now we're improving our relative strength, right? Or somebody who, you know, is a is a at a great body comp, but maybe they're not as strong. Well, I would say maybe we can prioritize some more max strength and and put on some strength. So again, we can make you able to repeat some of that mileage and and increase your durability. The other thing that I would look at is potential demands, right? So again, when you think about a two-mile or you think about a PT test, that is not, in my opinion, that should not be the end goal, right? I always think we should think so much bigger, right? Like we want to ultimately prayer worse doesn't happen, but we need to train like it will, right? So you think about a uh, God forbid, a combat situation or a foot pursuit or a fire, right? These types of things are the things that we need to think about, not necessarily a PT test. I think we should be training well above you know minimum standards and well above what the PT test is actually testing you on, because ultimately, you know, PT tests are impossible to have that perfect for every single demand that you could face. So, in my opinion, it is on you to think about your potential worst day and then reverse engineer it to make sure that you have the strength to be able to handle that. Because the the bottom line is if you train for that, you train well above and beyond, say, a two-mile or a trap bar deadlift or whatever that may be. You train well above and beyond that, then you're going to be a-okay. You're going to be thriving on a two-mile or any kind of assessment that comes your way, right? The goal here, and I was thinking about this the other day. The goal is to be an absolute freight train, right? Like a freight train. You could do anything, you go for long distance, you are massive, you are in a good spot overall, right? So a freaking freight train, like that's what we want to see coming around the uh coming around the track or coming around. Um, usually, like some I know some places don't have a track and you're running on like pavement with potholes and all these different types of things for your two mile, and it was just measured 10 minutes ago. But either way, like you got to come around the corner like a freight train, and that is the goal. So a couple different mistakes, like if we are our if that is our target, a couple different mistakes that I've seen. Um, we're gonna go through three of them. And ultimately, I think these are the three mistakes, and and there's definitely more, but I tried to be broad here and I'm gonna speak to obviously these three. Um, but I think these are the mistakes that uh keep getting tactical athletes hurt and keep us slow, right? So, number one, not respecting the system, right? And I like to think about this from a perspective of our body as a system. It is, right? So we need to start thinking about it as such. Where what I mean by that is all the volume, it doesn't matter necessarily from what domain, right? Doesn't matter if it's running or if it's strength training or power output or uh even if you talk about stress levels, right? Everything that we're doing is a stressor. So we need to start looking at it from that perspective. So you can't just do, I've seen this before. You can't just go on, you know, somebody's like, oh, uh, I want to increase my durability, I want to lose some pounds, I need to get my strength where it needs to be, I need to shave five minutes off my run, and I want to improve my calisthenics. And I'm like, okay, like this is this is great. So you you want to be a tactical athlete. Like all jokes aside, those are are really good goals, right? And I love them. I think they're they're great, especially if they're they are competitive. I just had somebody the other day who sent me a message or uh no, did the um the tactical readiness blueprint and was like under 12% body fat, deadlift two times body weight, uh 60 to 80 push-ups, three mile in under 22 minutes, 20 pull-ups, bench press, you know, one times body weight. And I'm like, okay, like this is is really good stuff. I like these competitive numbers. But we need to start looking at the lowest hanging fruit and ultimately remove your e-break, right? So I would want to test you on things similar to those things and figure out, okay, what is the the easiest room for growth? And then we can focus on that, right? So I think it should be always, you know, in my opinion, the way that I like to do it is okay, there is a primary target, secondary, and tertiary. Is there a way that we can make a primary target that's gonna going to have a positive effect on your secondary and tertiary? And I would 100% say that there is. So it is our job now to figure that out. So for example, somebody that, you know, maybe they're in a season where they want to that person work on their deadlift and their bench press. Maybe strength is the primary, maybe secondary is aerobic capacity, tertiary, maybe that's power output, right? Or calisthenics. And then we can we can also kind of like stick and move where it's like, okay, maybe we're in a season where the aerobic capacity, like we test that, and it's not even close to um three mile run under 22 minutes. Not even close, right? So, okay, we're gonna put the primary as aerobic capacity, secondary strength, and tertiary calisthenics or something like that, right? So now if we were to focus on the primary and kind of I hate the words like periodize because you're still hitting on everything, it's not just like, okay, we're gonna go into this season and then neglect everything else. That is that is not it can't be the case for tactical athletes. We don't have an off season, but we put your aerobic capacity in the primary slot, and now we improve your aerobic capacity, so your runtime goes down. Now we can also recover a little bit better because your aerobic capacity is better, and now all of a sudden your strength starts going up, and that's even in the secondary spot, right? So I say this to say that that does not mean just because something's in secondary or tertiary, that does not mean we are sandbagging sessions. That means we are ultimately trying to keep the main thing the main thing, right? So ultimately, excuse me, by focusing on the main thing, that's going to affect everything else, right? So it is not just saying, hey, this is our run run game plan. I found this over here. Cool. Oh, I heard this is good for strength training. So maybe we combine that with the run program. And then I saw this article about improving your pull-ups. So I'm I might tack that on to the strength training, and then you're just like, it's like, holy crap, we're we're doing way too much of uh a ton of different things. So that is the way that I like to break it out. And um, like I said, this was from the tactical readiness blueprint. So hopefully that person is good to go. Um, so with that blueprint, a little shameless plug here. Uh, this is ultimately how we can get you from being a hybrid hopeful to crushing in all domains, right? So I truly believe that every tactical athlete should be a hybrid athlete. So, what we are going to do from that, there's I I think there's 11 or 12 questions. Um, but once those are filled out, uh, I'll I will get you an individualized uh assessment based off of what you should be prioritizing and how you can do it. And then we'll get into specific tactics um of the one thing that you should be targeting while maintaining everything else. So if you're interested in that, I will put it below. But the big thing there is I get it. So they will be uh they will be respecting first and foremost um the uniform. So keep that in mind. And if you're interested, uh fill it out, it's free, and then I will get you a video going over it. Um, so number two here is strength training like a runner, and again, don't mean that by any shame, but strength training is is not conditioning, so we can't, you know, try to overlap these for max gains, right? It doesn't work that way. And you know, I've seen people, I I don't like I hate talking about people like this, but there's a guy in my neighborhood that I see almost every day when I'm doing my walks. Um, by the way, still getting attacked by birds. So a little tangent here. I looked up the uh, I think it's a swallow, and they're like super aggressive in a uh like a one point in the year. So obviously this is that that point in the year, and they just like like freaking swan dive you and literally come like inches from your head, go up, circle around, and then come back for more. This it's happened to me three times, and I've I've it's all in different spots. So I am uh I'm a little I'm like a target zone out there, but but anyways, I I go on uh my daily walks and I see this one guy. Uh he he runs with a weighted vest, and I'm like, oh man, like I this guy's gonna get hurt. Like, I'm not gonna be seeing him for long because it just does not, it doesn't, and and this is me being judgy, but it doesn't seem like he's at the spot where I don't think anybody really should be running with load unless you are that 1% who's you know ruck running and you are at that point in your program. But this guy does not seem like he's training for selection. Um, so it's just you see that and it's like, what is the the point there, right? Like what is the goal? And then it's the same thing with body weight calisthenics for quote unquote strength training or you know, high rep, low load work, and ultimately just strength training that looks like running, right? Where that that is not, in my opinion, what the weight room is for. The weight room is to create that you know that that uh force production when it comes to running, right? Especially with these specific targets. So it is not just about you know doing something that looks like running or talking about it like that, stacked onto a quote unquote weak body. That is how you ultimately break down. So when it comes to some of the tactics when with strength training, you know, remember the intent of strength training in general that I just had mentioned. So we are trying to load the tissue enough that it adapts and not just ultimately just try to get it tired. So, with that said, we do not need to recreate the wheel and do some, you know, gymnastics on a BOSU ball or or whatever that may be, or have like uh I think unilateral work is great, um, and it's always in some of my programs. But the idea here is to not have your entire thing be unilateral work or trying to simulate running, right? So the example that I like to use here to kind of put it in perspective is if you think about the soleus in the calf, right? That is able to you know produce force of eight times your body weight, and it's going to take on force, most likely, of eight times your body weight when you are running, right? So that is a lot of that's accumulating a lot of impact over time and over runs and over mileage, right? So the idea here is okay, if that is a weak link, right, or maybe we're like I'd mentioned a little bit too heavy for our body weight, just think about all that impact over time, right? And that is not saying that running is dangerous or you are going to get injured or those different types of things. It is just to paint the picture of why we can't have weak links and why we can't be just weak in general, not only for our job, but running specifically. So again, uh tying that analogy, if you think about the soleus and you're thinking in a system, if you're saying you know, all these different injuries, hip, knee, foot, calf strains, shin splints, plantar fasciitis, all these different types of things. What if the root cause was uh pain being referred out from the soleus? Right. So thinking about it from that perspective, again, we need to make sure that running is is never excuse me, strength training is never a weakness. So that is the goal, right? Strength train like you were supposed to. Don't try to strength train like a quote unquote runner. The last one here, number three, is too much volume, not enough intent. So again, I talked about how I'm going to be mentioning intent. I think it's super, super freaking important. And I am going to keep beating that drum because I think a lot of people struggle with it. Right. I would say, and I don't know if this is a uh we'll call it a warm take, maybe a hot take. I don't know. I would say I don't think tactical athletes train as hard as they think they do. Right. So that is not saying that people aren't sweating, aren't sore, and aren't fatigued. I like to look at training hard as see three separate qualities here. So again, number one, intentional. So when it comes to strength training and going through the movement patterns and getting in, like what we're supposed to be getting in in the gym, form is completely dialed in, right? You're not just throwing weight around, form is dialed in. You are using full range of motion. There is an attempt. I get it's not always perfect, but mind muscle connection is engaged. You are thinking about and you are targeting the specific muscle group. Tempo is controlled, you're hitting the desired RPE, right? That is a thought process there. So, again, not just throwing around weight or trying to load up the bar as much as possible to try to look impressive for people who aren't even paying attention to you. It is about, okay, I am going really slow. I don't really care necessarily about the weight. Obviously, we want to, you know, progressively overload over time, but it's like, okay, I am really thinking about this movement pattern. I am going slow. I am just focusing on the stimulus and the intent of that specific movement pattern. So slow the hell down, right? Number two, resting. So this is a big one where I've heard people talk about it and it's saying, Oh, I don't, I don't think I need two minutes for rest, or I don't think I need a minute or a minute 30 with accessories or whatever that may be. And I would say that you're not working hard enough during your set. So when you are training intentionally, you need that rest, right? You you should be training hard enough in your set that that rest period is like, oh wow, I'm thankful that's coming, right? Like that is the goal. So you should want to need your rest period when it comes to you know bringing the correct intent. The last one here is more mentality focused, and it's the idea of training over testing, right? So this is the mentality that's brought to each rep set and rest interval. So again, when you think about testing, we are moving weight, we are, you know, going extremely high effort, we're going on a time trial, or if you were thinking about a power lifter, right? Like you are testing the strength or you are unveiling that the strength that you built in prep. That does not mean you are hitting that weight every single week or every single day on prep throughout prep, right? So again, we're focusing on the required stimulus for that specific exercise. We are not just throwing weight around. So keeping that intent, like I mentioned before, full range of motion, and we are actually training, right? So noting those differences. And again, with that intent, you bring the intentional, uh intentionalness. I don't know if that's a word, um, that I just talked about. You are resting when you need to or because you need to, and then you're focusing on training over testing. With that brought to each rep set and rest interval, you won't need some of the nonsense training that I've seen out there. You won't need four sets, six sets, or you know, 12 reps, 25 reps, whatever that may be. You won't be able to have a high output with that. So that is a big mistake that I've seen. You see all this volume and intensity on certain programs or looking through it, and it's like, there's no way that you are able to bring the proper intensity for each exercise there. There's just it, it's impossible. So, why are we doing it? Right. That all the volume, intensity, and energy that you are putting into that stuff would have way would have been way better suited for putting some of that stress that you're going to accumulate to your runtime, right? So if you try if you start training with the way that we just talked about, you're you know, sessions, and you do that with some of the the nonsense programs, like this one, the sessions would take way too long, reps and sets would get wicked sloppy, increasing the the risk of injury, and also recovery would be non-existent throughout the week. So when it comes to a lot of the programs that I do, I again there's a ton of nuance, and it depends on the specific person and their targets. But I've found for many, like two to three sets of strength through hypertrophy is is a great start for for many people. And a lot of people, if we are bringing that intent, we don't need much more to hit the strength stimulus, especially if you want to be that hybrid athlete. So that's like a that's a that's a hill I'll die on with the the minimum effective dose, right? The goal with that is to do the least amount of work to elicit positive adaptations, right? That is the goal. And now with that approach, we have room to add, right? We don't always need to subtract. And like think about it from this perspective, right? So you take a four, four by ten, right, of a certain movement pattern, say at 185 pounds. And I did this this math beforehand. Um, I this is not off the cuff. I'm not, I'm not too good at math. Um, but four by ten, right, at 185. So say uh, I don't know, a a back squat. You're doing four by ten at 185, that's 7,400 pounds, right? Over time over the the sets. That's a that's a lot of volume. Now, if you were to take that same kind of approach and you were to do three by five at 235, so now we're able to hit more of a strength stimulus or elevate that intensity a little bit, that is 3,525 uh pounds of volume over time, right? Total load. So again, that's less than half, and you are still getting a, in my opinion, better strength stimulus for for that specific movement pattern. So just wanted to put that into perspective because I think it's it's very important to look at uh when you start looking at you know a microcycle of a a week of programming, right? So something, something to think about there. Now, overall, with the the targets, right, and I'm gonna be able to give some general recommendations. I can't just like shell out programs. I don't even know who I'm talking to right now. Um, but overall, general recommendation, you know, two to four strength training days per week, right? And I know that obviously there's some variance there, but I've found, and I, you know, looking at my clients right now, the majority of people are training either two strength training days per week or three, and then there's some people training four. Um, but you don't need to push too much beyond that, in my opinion. I've seen people with like uh, you know, uh six days of strength training, and then all of a sudden there's no room or no bandwidth for conditioning, and then vice versa, right? It's like, okay, well, what are we doing? We gotta we gotta give take from somewhere. So whatever kind of split or um setup that you choose, you know, I would say my overall approach, the the structure stays very, very similar. So I'm gonna go over some of our system here with when it comes to strength training um with the everyday responders, and we keep it very simple and punchy. So, first thing is a general warm-up, right? And this is something that's drastically overcomplicated and it's turned into, you know, uh 30 minutes of foam rolling, you know, doing uh banded walks and all this, these different types of things. I just saw I was just I just trained a little while ago, and I just saw a guy, and again, I I feel like I'm being super judgy today. What's up with that? Um, I saw a guy doing like all these different movement patterns. He had a bandout and and all these different types of things, and it's like you I don't know, like you you might as well go do some like hopscotch. It's it's the same thing, right? So, in in my opinion, especially for tactical athletes, I know I am not oblivious. If I put 20 minutes of prep work, people are like, all right, well, I'm gonna skip that. I don't have a lot of time, I'm just gonna do what I got to do, right? So I think we gotta kind of like play to that a little bit, but general warm-up, elevate heart rate, hit touch on the ankles, knees, hips, shoulders, and then get moving through different ranges of motion and just get rolling, right? So that is my thought process. And even today for me, it's uh what did I do? Um, I did five minutes on the air bike, 45 seconds easy, and then 15 seconds moderate to hard. So it's just like, okay, we're we're moving, heart rate's elevated, we're good to go, right? And then from there, after a general warm-up, and there's other things that you can do. Um, I'm not trying to just like shit on different movements, but um, there's like, you know, uh, I like Y handcuffs and different things like that. But what I what I do as well is get into a primer before the main movement patterns. So with primers, there's a lot of different things that we can target. Again, it depends on the person and their specific weaknesses, but you can target stability, mobility, you could do CNS prep, um, durability, right? We can target a bunch of different things and we can address certain weaknesses or certain things that will make the main movers feel more comfortable. Um, so what I like to hit in primers, um, sled work is a big one, pump work. So, just for an example, if you were to do uh seated leg curls before like a squat, right? You're gonna you're gonna get a nice pump in the hamstrings and you're most likely gonna be able to sit in a better squat, right? Or a more comfortable squat. Um, maybe it's uh face poles before um before any kind of like pressing movement pattern. There's a ton of things you can do. Another thing that I like to do is like I mentioned, single leg work. So uh something that that I actually did today before a leg day was a single leg RDL, but unsupported, right? So now we're working on a little bit of stability. Um we're we're priming the movement, we're priming for the main movement pattern. And like even at sometimes I'll superset that with a uh deep squat hold. So again, focusing on some certain mobility, feeling out my body, right? And then we have there's other options of plyometrics, uh, you could hit your core. I like hitting core earlier on in the session. These are all things that again, we can target some weaknesses, but we can actually strength train, right? A lot of people will, you know, uh a lot of people will do it. So we could still target the same things as, you know, or similar things to the the guy that would have done better with just playing, you know, doing hopscotch. Um, we can target certain things that people are actually gonna be doing, but again, loading certain different, like certain movement patterns, I think is a great way to to just prime you in general. Also, it's a great way to feel out your body. So, again, this is gonna be not only from a warm-up perspective, but a good mental primer for auto-regulating. If you go through some of these movements and you're like, ah, wow, my my lower back's kind of lit up right now. Um, I might have to drop back a little bit on my main mover. Or damn, I was feeling a little rough um going into the gym. I started moving around a little bit. Now I'm feeling great. And maybe we can go, you know, you know, smoke a PR, right? That type of perspective. So um that's another hidden benefit of hitting a pr hitting primers like that. Next, after the primers, we get into the main movers and secondary movement patterns, right? Here is where we do not need to complicate it, right? We're thinking about you know building that quote unquote strong enough portion here. Squat variations, hinge variations, single leg variations, push, pull, all these different types of movement patterns, and we are plugging and playing. It's like, okay, this is this is what we're hitting. You know, we're we're uh hitting a staggered set over here, or we want to bias, you know, strength, so we're gonna keep it a straight set. There's a ton of different variations there, but ultimately do not try to get cute with these movement patterns. I usually like to keep it, you know, four, maybe six main movers. Um, no, I would say four main movers, and then maybe a couple accessories, depending on the the bandwidth. But the way that I like to do it is think from a time perspective and then reverse engineer that, right? That's way that's the way that we can get great compliance. So if the person has, you know, just just for an example, like three and a half hours to train per week, it's like, okay, we we need to get what we need to get in with our strength training. We need we have 45 minutes, right? Let's reverse engineer it. So another reason why we can't just spend all day warming up. The last thing on a session, I talked a little bit about it about accessories or different things like that, is I I like putting finishers on sessions, right? So I call this dessert. This is the the fun stuff, but it's earned after the main movers, right? So this is where you could put in your arm farms, maybe like blast biceps, triceps, and and shoulders, maybe hit some uh some shrugs in there, whatever. This is the stuff that feels good, right? So um I actually just had a client the other day, he's like, Hey, like, could we throw on like some more arms after after uh the the main stuff? And I'm like, uh 100%, like let's do it. So that is something, you know, arm farms, uh, another thing, like targeting weaknesses, so we could, you know, directly target secondary and tertiary goals. So remember, like I talked about breaking it out in the beginning. Maybe this person is lacking on a plank. Okay, we're gonna crush some planks at the end of the session, right? With some fatigue. Or maybe the person wants to bring up their push-ups. Maybe that's lagging for them. Well, after we take care of the main work, maybe we do a push-up and pull-up finisher or something like that, right? But again, the the main thing is is taken care of. The last thing is conditioning, right? That's an option. And and realize too, like these are variable. So I'm not saying to do all these finishers. Please don't do that. Um, but it's just a way that we can kind of target certain things after the main movers. So conditioning, right? Maybe we do some higher intensity work, right? I like to put uh higher intensity conditioning after a higher intensity lift and kind of hit it hard, and then we can kind of you know start the recovery process throughout the week. So this can look very different for different people. Maybe it's uh on an airbike or rower, maybe it's just you know, low impact incline walking or maybe an easy run. Um, but I would prefer like some higher intensity stuff. So uh maybe some speed intervals or or different things like that, or sled sprints, something like that where we can kind of hit it hard and consolidate some stressors. So what I'm gonna do now is uh I talk, I'm gonna briefly talk about this. Uh just know that the full split is in the article. So I'm gonna link that below with the part one stuff as well. Um, but I've found it. Like I'm not gonna just sit here and read an entire program. Um, you know, like I said, it'll be in the article if you're interested. But overall, you know, I tend to bias, you know, depending on the targets, uh, full body. I'm sure if you've listened to this podcast, you you know and understand that. Um, but I would say the majority of people will do just fine with two full body days. Again, if we're trying to bias a runtime, that is probably what I would lean towards. So two full body days, maybe two to three conditioning days, and you will be in a great spot. Number one, probably because you're able to recover. Crazy concept. Um, but day one, maybe we're doing full body going through the the uh breakout of the session that I just went through, and maybe some speed work. Day two, maybe we're doing easy conditioning, so like an easy run, 30 minutes um to 45 minutes, maybe depending on your starting point. Day three, that's that off or flex day. Day four, full body, and maybe we're we're hitting uh hitting arms after, right? A little arm farm. Day five, here maybe we're doing moderate conditioning, uh, maybe some uh like a progression run or something like that. Um, and then day six and day seven are off or flex days, right? So this is a very solid split, in my opinion, for a couple of different reasons. So, number one, scheduling autonomy, where we have three offer flex days because I know how crazy it can be, right? So the thing that I try to teach clients, and a lot of them absolutely crush this, which makes me so happy, is I will get messages with a plan in place already, and they're just like running it by me for just for second eyes, which I love, right? It's like, hey, um, just to let you know, XYZ happened. I literally wasn't able to train, but you know, I'm going to do this tomorrow, and then just slide everything down to the right. Um, just because they they hate seeing red on the on the uh on Coach Rx. And I'm like, okay, that's good. I love it. And it's like great, great, great plan, right? That is why we have that built-in flexibility. And a lot of people, the problem is they will start with six days per week, and then it's like something happens, something pops up, and you're either running yourself ragged or it's like, oh no, like I missed a day, I'm a piece of crap, and I suck, and I need to lock in, I need to be more discipline. And then it's like it just happens again on a reoccurring cycle. So, again, what I tell people is if they're like, I could probably train four or five days, and I'm like, Well, we're gonna start with four and earn five if if we're compliant, right? That's the perspective that we need to take. So, scheduling autonomy, in my opinion, is never a weakness. Another thing here is time efficient. So, again, you could probably make this three hours per week of training. Um, and then obviously, you know, we can push that a little bit depending on if you have more time. Maybe we extend some of the aerobic work or uh as we extend the speed intervals, or maybe we progress the moderate. Um, but again, we we start with minimum effective dose and then we we earn more or progress from more. Um, another thing, it allows us to hit you know missing links in a lot of common programs where it's like, okay, well, this is a clean, uh, clean, you know, balance. I hate the word balance. Um, I'm gonna call myself on for just saying it, but we have a clean uh I'm trying to think of another word now. We have a clean layout of the week um uh where we can hit multiple different targets, right? So if conditioning is a continual missing piece in a program, then maybe we need to drop down strength training, right? Just just kind of um, you know, uh kind of obvious point, but it's it's very true. Like a lot of people have clear missing links in their program, and it's like, well, I am glued to strength training four days per week, and this is the only thing I know, so I'm just gonna keep, you know, the the quote unquote. That's the way we've always done it. Um, and the last thing here is you're actually able to recover. So I already alluded to that, but the biggest goal here is to recover and be able to do it again tomorrow. And I truly believe that not many people can say that confidently, right? We just go through, we obliterate ourselves, and now we can't show up with uh with good performance the next day, right? So in our profession, it's not you know cool or a flex to be like, damn, I can't even move my legs. It's like, well, what happens if you get a call? Like you're just gonna be, you know, a liability, or you have to chase after somebody, or you have to run up the stairs or something like that. It's gonna be a nightmare. Um, so yeah, adrenaline will only take you so far. The the last thing here is we're able to hit, you know, fast, slow, and practice pacing throughout our throughout our week, right? So we hit all the main things. And I will say, last thing I'll say on this, um, is again, from the recovery aspect with strength training, right? If we're working on multiple goals, if you bring proper intent to your strength training, I call it main gaining, right? You feel like you're maintaining and you're not moving forward because you're only strength training two days per week. But now that you're able to actually recover and adapt, you are going to get some serious gains in the process. So that is the the main gaining. And and I would challenge everybody that's listening that you know, if you think something like this is quote unquote too easy, um, maybe we should go back to uh to our definition of training hard because this is something that I've ran for a very long time, and a lot of my clients are absolutely crushing and um getting some really, really good results. So, overall, make sure you are strength training, make sure that it respects what you are trying to do on the track or on the pavement, and make sure that you know you don't go in the mentality with oh, like I gotta do multiple things, I'm trying to be a hybrid athlete. Doesn't that mean that I'm gonna be, you know, mediocre at everything? That is completely false. You just need to have a system that respects it all.