Becoming a Helluva Hybrid Athlete

by Joseph Giandonato, PhD, MBA, CSCS

Rob Floeter

Introduction

The term hybrid athlete has seemingly hijacked the fitness industry in recent years. But what qualifies someone as a hybrid athlete? How is potential as a hybrid athlete determined? What are some benchmarks to shoot for? And how should training be structured? 

All of these burning questions will be answered in the coming keystrokes. But before we provide coverage from multiple angles, let’s preface that a person who lifts weights a few times per week and registers a handful of cardio sessions per week at their local gym surrounded by cocoon of crappy cable TV programming is not a hybrid athlete. They are among the top 1% of the general population and are satisfying the joint recommendations set forth by alphabet organizations, but they are certainly no hybrid athletes.

A hybrid athlete is someone whose fitness qualities and muscle fiber characteristics encompass immense spectrums. They are capable of great feats of strength and yet can grind out miles on the ground, on the bike, or in the pool. They don’t work out. They train. And their end game is usually varied — a 5k, a Hyrox competition, or a sprint triathlon — but training as a hybrid athlete suits them well for virtually any conquests of their choosing.

Characteristics of a Hybrid Athlete

They’re strong!

Successful hybrid athletes bring substantial limit strength to the table. Limit strength represents the size of someone’s engine, and its size and tuning are dependent upon the interplay of the nervous system and skeletal muscle fibers.

Muscle fibers are innervated by efferent motor nerves which comprise motor units. Some muscle fibers have a higher proportion of motor nerves coursing through them such as muscles that govern fine movements like the levator palpebrae superioris or the muscle which elevates and retracts the upper eyelid. And some muscle fibers have a lower proportion of motor nerves which supply them. For instance the innervation ratio of motor nerves is far higher in larger muscles like the biceps femoris and quadriceps which may have as many as 2,000 muscle fibers fed by a single motor nerve. Fewer muscle fibers per motor nerve equals lower force. Greater muscle fibers per motor nerve equals higher force. The latter typically refers to high-threshold motor units that are dispatched to produce great amounts of force when ripping a double-to-triple bodyweight deadlift from the platform or bolting from first base to second. The former involves more mass being displaced whereas the latter entails greater acceleration. However, both activities require an immensity of muscular force which is predicated upon the recruitment of high-threshold motor units.

They’re able to sustain outputs for a long time!

Successful hybrid athletes should also have an enormous gas tank, which in strength and conditioning circles and amid the fitness industry is referred to as work capacity. The size of the gas tank and corresponding fuel economy of the athlete are dependent upon enzymatic and mitochondrial factors as well as nutritional status. 

Muscle fibers require energy to contract. In order to sustain repeated contractions, muscles must have access to a steady stream of substrates which combine to form ATP — your body’s energy currency — and utilize it. Additionally, your muscles must be capable of clearing [and repurposing] lactate which can be converted to pyruvate though lactate dehydrogenase and may be oxidized in the mitochondria where it will undergo a battery of processes and be used to create more ATP. 

And you can’t fathom becoming a hybrid athlete without consuming enough carbohydrates. Keto and Paleo diets and hybrid athlete training mix as well as Sooners fans and Longhorns fans during a late season conference matchup with vats of bottom shelf vodka accessible nearby. So before going into the metabolic battle of training as a hybrid athlete, you must infuse yourself with carbohydrates in order to saturate the intermyofibrillar layer residing between muscle fibers with glycogen.

They have great cardio!

Hybrid athletes aren’t just strong. They can repeat efforts and they can venture out on a run, bike ride, or swim with ease. The ability to cruise through cardio workouts and register a blistering pace on Strava which garners envy from endurance runners is owed to having a superlative aerobic capacity. Training like a hybrid athlete has been shown to elicit improvements in VO₂max from 8-15%. And the improved running, biking, and swimming economy afforded by regular strength training reduces in oxygen demand thus leading to greater aerobic performance.

And since hybrid athletes engage in both intense anaerobic and aerobic training simultaneously, the myocardium undergoes remodeling resulting in the best of both worlds: thickened ventricular walls and contractile tissue (from the repeated pressure loading of strength and sprint training) and expansion of its chambers and connecting vasculature and increased capillary density (from the repeated volume loading of aerobic exercise) which allow for greater blood perfusion at rest and during exercise that enable the delivery of oxygen to and removal of carbon dioxide and waste from muscle tissue. 

All considered, a hybrid athlete should be able to move relatively heavy weight, engage in and be able to tolerate lengthy, high-volume training sessions, and should be able to handle intense cardio like a prime Michael Jordan would slice through physical and disguised zone defenses to pepper midrange jumpers.

True hybrid athletes are good at many things. While they might not be as prolific on the big three as the great Ed Coan, sprint like Usain, or glide through flagship marathons like the rumored to soon be retiring Eluid Kipchoge, their range of fitness qualities sit at an intersection that the average gym goer juggling strength training and cardio won’t approach.

Identifying Potential as a Hybrid Athlete

Like all things in life, the first few yards to miles of your journey are shaped by innate ability. What you choose to do along that path and if you continue to pave it are entirely up to you. Some are content with making the team. Others want playing time. Fewer want to be challenged. A few want to win and are constantly trying to level up. Even at the highest levels, you have the supremely gifted like Tracy McGrady and the gritty like Bill Laimbeer. While your entire success is not predicated on genetic factors, they will obviously influence your ability to respond, adapt, and perform. However, your previous participation in sports — provided it was recent, will play a role in how well you tolerate hybrid athlete training. Since training and competition as a hybrid athlete requires a diverse range of fitness qualities and robustness of multiple energy systems, athletes who participated in sports or events closer to the center of the strength-endurance continuum below are the most turn-key ready.

Strength-Endurance Continuum

Those closer to the opposite ends, such as strength athletes and endurance athletes, who are already highly specialized, will require an arduous transition to develop the full menu of fitness qualities required of a hybrid athlete.

Hybrid Athlete Standards

Though recommendations related to the expression of fitness qualities for hybrid athletes have circulated chat threads and comments on various social media platforms, there are no universal standards for hybrid athletes, apart from norms associated with HYROX and CrossFit competitors. Hybrid athletes should minimally fall near or ideally above the 50^th percentile for their gender and age group across measurements of strength, strength-endurance, muscular power, and cardiorespiratory fitness. To date, not much research has been done on hybrid athletes aside from examining adaptations to high-intensity concurrent training interventions. And there are far too many factors and confounding variables to attempt to account for to set forth hybrid athlete standards, such as training and prior athletics experience as well as adaptive needs.

Structuring Training

Training should be structured to afford sufficient recovery and optimize adaptation. Since multiple levers are being pulled simultaneously, training stressors and modalities should be undulated throughout the week or more broadly, spanning the entirety of the program. If engaging in both strength training and aerobic exercise are required on the same day, it is recommended that a gap of 4-to-8 hours reside between training sessions. But if that is not feasible, one should opt to engage in strength training beforehand which will allow for the expression of greater muscular forces in training as fatigue and nutrient depletion can sap force output of even the most seasoned strength athletes. Below is a sample week for a masters hybrid athlete who maintains a full-time job and a busy schedule.  

Sunday	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday
Active Recovery	Maximum Effort Upper Body: Press	DynamicEffort Lower Body: Jumps	5-mile walk	Maximum EffortLowerBody: Squat or Deadlift Variation	Dynamic Effort Upper Body: Plyos, Throws	7-mile run
	Hill Sprints	2.5-mile run			2.5-mile run

Conclusion

Hybrid athletes represent a select, but growing population segment within the fitness industry. Training like a hybrid athlete or becoming one is an opportunity that is available to many, but requires grit, the ability to properly structure training, and balance multiple competing demands that are metabolically and logistically oriented. Most importantly, limit strength and work capacity are key foundational attributes from which training can be evolved and progressed. Prioritizing both in your training now, whether as a powerlifter, bodybuilder, athlete, or a suburban mom or dad continuing to train hard as they navigate a web of acronyms like PTA, HOA, TPS, and RSV, can help you now in your pursuit of a stronger and resilient body and eventually as a hybrid athlete one day.