How to Plan a Hybrid Athlete Training Week

There’s a lot to get in during a week of hybrid athlete training. It takes intelligent planning to get it all in without burning yourself out – and to get the best possible results.

We take a counterintuitive approach that a lot of other hybrid coaches disagree with. But, tell ya what, we don’t care because we’ve seen it work with too many people and it has too much science to justify it.

It begins with understanding the difference between neurological and metabolic stress. It continues on with planning appropriate training loads to build peaks and troughs throughout the week. And finishes with an understanding that training frequency is an individual deal.

Using the advice from this article will set you up for success as a hybrid athlete.

So, read carefully, take notes, and reach out with your questions.

Onto the nerdy stuff.

Follow the Neural-Metabolic Continuum

Some training stressors are predominantly neurological. Heavy strength training and intense power training land in this bucket. Some training stressors are primarily metabolic. Intense conditioning and high-volume strength training fall into this bucket. It’s important to separate these stressors from each other during the training week, otherwise, you get a mishmash of fatigue and not a lot of results. I’ll explain.

Metabolic stress causes metabolic fatigue that limits access to neurological intensity. That means if you’ve accrued a bunch of metabolic fatigue, you won’t have access to your full measure of strength. That further means you won’t get what you could have gotten out of your strength training session.

To avoid this issue, place your most neurologically demanding training sessions at the beginning of the training week, and your most metabolically demanding sessions at the end of the training week. The neurological intensity early in the week primes your body for hard work later in the week. Saving metabolic fatigue for later in the week ensures that you put the full measure of intensity into your strength training.

Plan for Peaks and Troughs

As much as you might enjoy it, you can’t just hammer down every day. Well, you can. You can’t expect good outcomes from that kind of behavior. There must be peaks and troughs throughout your training week. That means days with higher training volume/intensity and days with very low volume and intensity. This gives your body a chance to regather resources and adapt to your more intense and higher-volume training days. If you don’t appropriately stack and spread stressors, you build too much fatigue. Which either leads to overtraining or decreases the effectiveness of your training because you don’t have enough gas to train hard when you’re supposed to.

Before I show you an example of planning for peaks and troughs, we need to define the types of sessions we use so that it all makes sense.

We use three types of sessions: Developmental, Stimulatory, and Recovery.

Developmental sessions focus on the main attributes you’re training to build right now. These get the most volume and intensity.

Stimulatory sessions are designed to maintain an attribute. They are lower in volume and intensity than a Developmental session.

Recovery sessions are short easy sessions that…well…stimulate recovery.

Okay. Now we can lay out an example peak and trough training week.

Monday: Developmental

Tuesday: Recovery

Wednesday: Stimulatory

Thursday: Developmental

Friday: Stimulatory

Saturday: Stimulatory

This is just one example. Some folks can handle three developmental sessions per week. Others can only handle one. But notice the flow of the week; it goes up and down. This is how you give yourself the best chance to adapt to your training.

Pair Intense Training

We’ll often pair two intense training sessions together on the same day. This is counterintuitive to a lot of other hybrid training advice, but it makes the most sense. Stacking intense stressors on one day gives you a better trough on a recovery day. Instead of doing a hard lift on Monday and then a hard run on Tuesday, do both on Monday. Then, use Tuesday as an easy day so that you get true recovery instead of accruing fatigue two days in a row.

You probably guessed that we do this on Developmental days. That’s correct.

We’ll program doubles on Stimulatory days as well, but they are, well, lower intensity and volume.

Figure Out Your Training Frequency

We lay out our programs with six days per week of training. This is to offer options; it doesn’t mean that we think someone must train six days per week to optimize their results. The options allow us to dial in on the most impactful schedule for a given person. For some folks, it is six days per week. For others, it’s five. For others still, it’s four.

The important thing is to design a schedule that gives you the best results based on your available time, the demands of the rest of your life, and the stress of the rest of your life. A schedule looking good on paper is one thing; it working for you is another. This takes experimentation, self-honesty, and honesty with your coach. If you’re forcing yourself to train six days per week and you’re not recovering because the rest of your life is super stressful, then you need to make a change – either in the rest of your life or in your training.

If you want the most out of your hybrid training, you have to nail the training week. Follow the neural – metabolic continuum and plan peaks and troughs. Pair your intensity so you get true recovery and pay attention to the training frequency that works best for you.

How to Plan a Hybrid Athlete Training Week

Follow the Neural-Metabolic Continuum

Plan for Peaks and Troughs

Pair Intense Training

Figure Out Your Training Frequency

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