In our podcast episode with Dr. Martin Gibala about high-intensity interval training, he mentioned a high-intensity workout program that was developed by the Royal Canadian Air Force during the late 1950s, took only eleven minutes to perform, and became hugely popular with the civilian population. Duly intrigued, we decided to dig up the program to see what it involved.

The 5BX plan (Five Basic Exercises) was born out of a particular need: a third of the RCAF’s pilots were deemed unfit to fly and needed a workout program that 1) could be done without any specialized equipment, as the pilots were often stationed at remote bases without access to standard gyms, and 2) could fit into airmen’s busy schedules.

While high-intensity training hadn’t yet won mainstream acceptance, the pioneering research of Dr. Bill Orban had showed that by increasing the intensity of exercise, people could get the same fitness-improving benefits in much less time. Orban used this insight to develop 5BX, which involved doing five exercises — four of which targeted flexibility and strength and one that worked aerobic capacity — in just eleven minutes. The Canadian military encouraged not only its pilots to perform it, but their children as well. Orban also developed a plan for women called XBX, which involved doing ten exercises in 12 minutes.

In the 1960s, the programs were published together as the Royal Canadian Air Force Exercise Plans and distributed outside the military. The booklet became popular with civilians not only in Canada but around the world; it was translated into thirteen languages, sold 23 million copies, and is credited with helping to launch our modern fitness culture. 

If you’d like to try it out, we’ve reformatted and republished the 5BX plan below. It features six “charts,” each of which includes the program’s five main exercises:

1. Stretching
2. Sit-up
3. Back extension
4. Push-up
5. Running in place, interspersed with various jumps (can be substituted for an actual run or walk)

Each chart offers progressively more difficult variations of the five exercises, and you work your way from one level of performance on a particular chart to the next, and then from one chart to the next. Charts 5 and 6 get into some elite-level athletics — good luck with those toe-touching jack jumps, friends.

For a visual demonstration of some of the exercises, watch this 1959 Royal Canadian Air Force training video.

The Five Basic Exercises (5BX) Plan presented in this booklet is designed to show you how to develop and hold a high level of physical fitness, regardless of where you may be located. The scheme is not dependent on elaborate facilities or equipment. The exercises require only eleven minutes a day and can be done in your bedroom or beside your bed in your barracks.

The diversity of work assignments, combined with lack of adequate gymnasium facilities at many of your stations makes it difficult to schedule formal physical training periods for all our personnel. The 5BX Plan puts physical fitness training within reach of every member of the RCAF.

It is your duty and responsibility as a member of the RCAF to maintain a high level of physical fitness and be ready for any emergency which may require the extended use of your physical resources. Positive physical well-being is also closely allied with mental and emotional fitness, all of which are essential in the discharge of normal daily tasks.

Warming Up

The 5BX Plan was designed so that no additional warmup is necessary in order to receive its maximum benefits.

The older one is, the more necessary proper warming up becomes to avoid “strained” muscles. The 5BX Plan has a built-in method of warmup. This is achieved in two ways:

• by the arrangement of the exercises; and
• by the manner in which these exercises are performed.

For example, the first exercise is a stretching and loosening exercise which limbers up the large muscles of the body. In addition, this exercise should be started very slowly and easily, with a gradual increase in speed and vigor.

Let us see how this principle applies to exercise No. 1, which requires you to touch the floor. You should not force yourself to do it on the first attempt, but rather start by pushing down very gently and slowly as far as you can without undue strain — then on each succeeding try push down a little harder, and, at the same time, do the exercise a little faster so that by the end of two minutes you are touching the floor and moving at the necessary speed. All the exercises can be performed in this manner.

What Is It?

The 5BX Plan is composed of 6 charts arranged in progression. Each chart is composed of 5 exercises which are always performed in the same order and in the same maximum time limit, but, as you progress from chart to chart, there are slight changes in each basic exercise with a gradual demand for more effort.

A sample rating scale for Chart 3 is reproduced below and is to be used in the following way:

These are the Physical Capacity levels, each indicated by a letter of the alphabet.

Exercises 1, 2, 3, and 4 apply to the first four exercises described and illustrated. The column headed 1 represents exercise 1 (toe touch), etc. The figures in each column indicate the number of times that each exercise is to be repeated in the time allotted for that exercise. Exercise 5 is running on the spot. Two activities may be substituted for it, however, and if you prefer, you may run or walk the recommended distance in the required time in place of the stationary run of exercise 5.

The allotted time for each exercise is noted here. These times remain the same throughout all the charts. Total time for exercises 1 through 5 is 11 minutes.

NOTE:

It is important that the exercises at any level be completed in 11 minutes. However, it is likely that in the early stages, an individual will complete certain exercises in less than the allotted time while others may require longer. In these circumstances, the times allotted for individual exercises may be varied within the total 11 minute period.

How Far Should You Progress?

The level of Physical Capacity to which you should progress is determined by your “Age Group.” Levels for “Flying Crew” are listed separately. See “Your Physical Capacity Level” below.

How to Begin

Check your daily schedule and determine the time most convenient for you to do the exercises. It should be the same time each day.

Here are some suggested times:

• Before breakfast
• Late morning or afternoon, at your place of employment
• After your regular recreational period
• In the evening just before you retire

Regardless of the time you choose, START TODAY.

Maximum Rate of Progression Through Chart 1 According to Age

• 20 years or under, at least 1 day at each level
• 20-29 years, at least 2 days at each level
• 30-39 years, at least 4 days at each level
• 40-49 years, at least 7 days at each level
• 50-59 years, at least 8 days at each level
• 60 years and over, at least 10 days at each level

(If you feel stiff or sore, or if you are unduly breathless at any time, ease up and slow down your rate of progression. This is particularly applicable to older age groups.)

A Note of Caution

Even if you feel able to start at a high level and progress at a faster rate then indicated — DON’T DO IT — Start at the bottom of chart 1 and work your way up from level to level as recommended.

For best results from 5BX, the exercises must be done regularly. Remember, it may take you 6, 8, 10 months or more of daily exercises to attain the level recommended for you, but once you have attained it, only 3 periods of exercise per week will maintain this level of physical capacity.

If for any reason (illness, etc.) you stop doing 5BX regularly and you wish to begin again, do not recommence at the level you had attained previously.

Do drop back several levels — until you find one you can do without undue strain. After a period of inactivity of longer than two months, or one month caused by illness, it is recommended that you start again at Chart 1.

How to Progress

Start at the lowest Physical Capacity Level of Chart 1 (D-). Repeat each exercise in the allotted time or do the 5 exercises in 11 minutes. Move upward on the same chart to the next level (D) only after you can complete all the required movements at your present level within 11 minutes. Continue to progress upward in this manner until you can complete all the required movements at level A+ within 11 minutes. Now start at the bottom of Chart 2 (D-), and continue in this fashion upwards through the levels, and from chart to chart until you reach the level for your age group.

Chart 1

Feet astride, arms upward. Forward bend to floor touching then stretch upward and backward bend. Do not strain to keep knees straight.

Back lying, feet 6” apart, arms at sides. Sit up just far enough to see your heels. Keep legs straight, head and shoulders must clear the floor.

Front lying, palms placed under the thighs. Raise head and one leg, repeat using legs alternately. Keep leg straight at the knee, thighs must clear the palms. Count one each time second leg touches floor.

Front lying, hands under the shoulders, palms flat on the floor. Straighten arms lifting upper body, keeping the knees on the floor. Bend arms to lower body. Keep body straight from the knees, arms must be fully extended, chest must touch the floor to complete one movement.

Stationary run. Count a step each time the left foot touches the floor. Lift feet approximately 4 inches off floor. Every 75 steps do 10 “scissor jumps.” Repeat this sequence until the required number of steps is completed.

Scissor jumps. Stand with right leg and left arm extended forward and left leg and right arm extended backward. Jump up and change position of arms and legs before landing. Repeat (arms shoulder high).

Chart 2

Feet astride, arms upward. Touch floor and press (bounce) once then stretch upward and backward bend. Do not strain to keep knees straight.

Back lying, feet 6” apart, arms at sides. “Sit up” to vertical position, keep feet on floor even if it is necessary to hook them under a chair. Allow knees to bend slightly.

Front lying, palms placed under thighs. Raise head, shoulders, and both legs. Keep legs straight, both thighs must clear the palms.

Front lying, hands under the shoulder, palms flat on floor. Straighten arms to lift body with only palms and toes on the floor. Back straight. Chest must touch the floor for each completed movement after arms have been fully extended.

Stationary run. Count a step each time left foot touches the floor. Lift feet approximately 4 inches off floor. After every 75 steps, do 10 “astride jumps.” Repeat this sequence until required number of steps is completed.

Astride jumps. Feet together, arms at side. Jump and land with feet astride and arms raised sideways to slightly above shoulder height. Return with a jump to the starting position for count of one. Keep arms straight.

Chart 3

Feet astride, arms upward. Touch floor 6” outside left foot, again between feet and press once then 6” outside right foot, bend backward as far as possible, repeat, reverse direction after half the number of counts. Do not strain to keep knees straight, return to erect position.

Back lying, feet 6” apart, arms clasped behind head. Allow knees to bend slightly. Sit up to vertical position, keep feet on floor, hook feet under chair, etc., only if necessary. 

Front lying, hands interlocked behind the back. Lift head, shoulders, chest and both legs as high as possible. Keep legs straight, and raise chest and both thighs completely off floor.

Front lying, hands under the shoulders, palms flat on floor. Touch chin to floor in front of hands — touch forehead to floor behind hands before returning to up position. There are three definite movements, chin, forehead, arms straightened. DO NOT do in one continuous motion.

Stationary run. Count a step each time left foot touches the floor. Lift feet approximately 4 inches off floor. After every 75 steps, do 10 “half knee bends.” Repeat this sequence until required number of steps is completed.

Half knee bends. Feet together, hands on hips, knees bent to form an angle of about 110 degrees. Do not bend knees past a right angle. Straighten to upright position, raising heel off floor, return to starting position each time. Keep feet in contact with floor — the back upright and straight at all times.

Chart 4

Feet astride, arms upward. Touch floor outside left foot, between feet, press once then outside right foot, circle bend backward as far as possible, reverse direction after half the number of counts. Do not strain to keep knees straight. Keep arms above head and make full circle, bending backward past vertical each time.

Back lying, legs straight, feet together, arms straight overhead. Sit up and touch the toes keeping the arms and legs straight. Use chair to hook feet under only if necessary. Keep arms in contact with the sides of the head throughout the movement. Allow knees to bend slightly.

Front lying, hands and arms stretched sideways. Lift head, shoulders, arms, chest and both legs as high as possible. Keep legs straight, raise chest and both thighs completely off floor.

Front lying, palms of hands flat on floor, approximately 1 foot from ears directly to side of head. Straighten arms to lift body. Chest must touch floor for each completed movement.

Stationary run. Count a step each time left foot touches the floor. Lift feet approximately 4 inches off floor. After every 75 steps, do 10 “semi-squat jumps.” Repeat this sequence until required number of steps is completed.

Semi-squat jumps. Drop to a half crouch position with hands on knees and arms straight, keep back as straight as possible, right foot slightly ahead of left. Jump to upright position with body straight and feet leaving floor. Reverse position of feet before landing. Return to half crouch position and repeat.

Chart 5

Feet astride, arms upward, hands collapsed, arms straight. Touch floor outside left foot, between feet, press once then outside right foot, circle bend backwards as far as possible. Reverse direction after half the number of counts. Do not strain to keep knees straight.

Back lying, legs straight, feet together, hands clasped behind head. Sit up and raise legs in bent position at same time twist to touch right elbow to left knee. This completes one movement. Alternate the direction of twist each time. Keep feet off floor when elbow touches knee.

Front lying, arms extended overhead. Raise arms, head, chest, and both legs as high as possible. Keep legs and arms straight, chest and both thighs completely off floor.

Front lying, hands under the shoulder, palms flat on floor. Push off floor and clap hands before returning to starting position. Keep body straight during the entire movement. Hand clap must be heard.

Stationary run. Count a step each time left foot touches floor. Lift feet approximately 4 inches off floor. After every 75 steps, do 10 “semi-spread eagle jumps.” Repeat this sequence until required number of steps is completed.

Semi-spread eagle jumps. Feet together, drop to a half crouch position hands on knees with arms straight. Jump up to feet astride swing arms overhead in mid-air, return directly to starting position on landing. Raise hands above head level, spread feet at least shoulder width apart in astride position before landing with feet together.

Chart 6

Feet astride, arms upward, hands reverse clasped, arms straight. Touch floor outside left foot, between feet, press once then outside right foot, circle bend backwards as far as possible. Reverse direction after half the number of counts. Keep hands tightly reverse clasped at all times.

Back lying, legs straight, feet together, arms straight over the head. Sit up and at the same time lifting both legs to touch the toes in a pike (V) position. Keep feet together, legs and arms straight, all of the upper back and legs clear floor, fingers touch toes each time.

Front lying, arms extended over head. Raise arms, head, chest, and both legs as high as possible then press back once. Keep legs and arms straight — chest and both thighs completely off floor.

Front lying, hands under shoulders, palms flat on floor. Push off floor and slap chest before returning to starting position. Keep body straight during the entire movement. Chest slap must be heard.

Stationary run. Count a step each time left foot touches the floor. Lift feet approximately 4 inches off floor. After every 75 steps, do 10 “jack jumps.” Repeat this sequence until required number of steps is completed.

Jack jumps. Feet together, knees bent, sit on heels, finger tips touch floor. Jump up, raise legs waist high, keep legs straight and touch toes in midair. Keep legs straight, raise feet level to “standing waist height.” Touch toes each time.

Your Physical Capacity Level

Each age group is given a Physical Capacity level to attain; that is, a goal which they should try to reach.

The Physical Capacity levels in this plan are based on the expectation of average individuals. 

With every average, there are individuals who surpass it, and those who fall below it. In terms of the 5BX Plan and the goals, this means that there will be some men who are capable of progressing beyond the level indicated, and on the other hand, there will be persons who will never attain this average level. 

If you feel able to move further through the charts than your Physical Capacity level, by all means do so. If, on the contrary, you experience great difficulty in approaching this level you should stop at a level which you feel to be within your capability. It is impossible to predict accurately, a level for each individual who uses this program. Use the goals as guides, and apply them with common sense. 

Here are a few tips:

When you start, defeat the first desire to skip a day; then defeat all such desires as they occur. This exercise program has plenty of bite; the longer you do it the more you will enjoy it.

As you progress well into the program you may find certain levels impossible to complete in 11 minutes — work hard at that level — it may take some days or even weeks — then suddenly you will find yourself sailing ahead again.

Counting the steps in exercise 5 can be difficult. You can lose count very easily at times. If you have this problem, here is an easy way to overcome it. Divide the total number of steps required by 75 and note the answer—place a row of buttons, corresponding in number to this answer, on a handy table or chair. Now count off your first 75 steps—do your ten required movements—and move the first button. Repeat until all the buttons have been removed, finishing with any left over steps.

For diversity, occasionally an exercise from the previous chart may be substituted.

Wishing is not good enough.

With our archives 4,000 articles deep, we’ve decided to republish a classic piece each Sunday to help our newer readers discover some of the best, evergreen gems from the past. This article was originally published in March 2024.

This article was originally published on The Art of Manliness.

Search and rescue (SAR) teams in U.S. national parks respond to lost hikers, injured climbers, stranded boaters, missing children, and backcountry medical emergencies. Their work ranges from relatively simple trail searches to high-angle rope rescues, swiftwater recoveries, helicopter evacuations, and multi-day backcountry operations.

The National Park Service (NPS) has its own search and rescue capability. Many parks employ commissioned law enforcement rangers and specialized rescue rangers who are trained in technical rescue, emergency medicine, and incident command. Some large or high-risk parks maintain dedicated SAR teams made up of full-time staff.

At the same time, the NPS frequently works with volunteer and partner organizations. Depending on the park and the incident, they may coordinate with local sheriff’s offices, county SAR teams (often volunteer-based), mountain rescue groups, state agencies, the Coast Guard, or even military aviation units. In some parks, volunteers are formally integrated into SAR operations under NPS supervision.

Among the parks that partner with outside organizations is the Great Smoky Mountains, America’s busiest national park. That’s where the Backcountry Unit Search and Rescue (BUSAR) team, which is headed by Andrew Herrington, operates.

When the members of BUSAR train, they do so through their own nonprofit organization. When a rescue mission kicks off and they respond, members are temporarily hired as emergency employees of the National Park Service. Some members don’t take the pay that’s given and just volunteer their time and talent. Nobody’s getting rich from this; that’s not why these guys do it. They find the work incredibly challenging and fulfilling.

If you break your leg while hiking in the Smokies, chances are Andrew and his crew are helping the PSAR Rangers haul you out. They’ll do it whether it’s raining, snowing, dark, steep, or completely off-trail. And carrying an injured person on a litter through rough terrain while wearing packs loaded with medical and survival gear is brutally strenuous work.

To pull that off, these guys have to be fit. Not Instagram-influencer fit. Useful fit.

To create a team of usefully fit guys, BUSAR has developed a fitness test that screens for members who will be able to do the hard, back-breaking work of rescuing people.

I recently talked to Andrew about why he formed BUSAR and the fitness test he uses to assess whether potential team members will be ready for action — and for anything.

Meet Andrew and BUSAR

Andrew is a professional hunter and trapper who has worked for the National Park Service in the Smokies for over two decades. He grew up outdoors, taught his first survival class as a kid (he still teaches them), and eventually landed in the law enforcement division of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. That’s where he got his first taste of search-and-rescue work. Whenever there was a rescue mission, park rangers would call in personnel from various park divisions. Andrew’s experience as a hog hunter in the park gave him deep knowledge of its vast, complex trail system.

Though, in fact, his first real experience with search and rescue was getting rescued himself after a rock climbing accident as a teenager. That accident left him with a skull fracture, partial temporary paralysis, and a metal plate in his head.

Twelve years ago, while working on search-and-rescue teams in the Smokies, Andrew noticed that not everyone tasked with the job was physically prepared for it. He’d sat in meetings where leaders admitted they couldn’t send certain rangers on rescues because they weren’t fit enough. 

So about a decade back, Andrew decided to start an elite, dedicated backcountry search-and-rescue team. He wanted the most knowledgeable and physically capable people available and set out to recruit guys who had extensive outdoor, military, tracking, survival, firefighting, law enforcement, and medical experience and possessed superior levels of fitness.

The BUSAR Fitness Test

 

 

 

 

 

 

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A post shared by Team BUSAR (@teambusar)

To assess the readiness of potential members of this crackerjack search-and-rescue team, Andrew developed a rigorous fitness test they would have to pass to join up. The test is designed to answer one question: Can this person do the work?

The Park Service requires that rangers assigned to “arduous” duty pass the USFS Work Capacity Test, but it’s not particularly strenuous or revealing: rangers have to walk three miles on level terrain while carrying a 45-pound pack, in under 45 minutes. The test is easy to pass and doesn’t tell you much about how someone will perform off-trail, under fatigue, while handling awkward loads.

Andrew’s test is different. It’s stripped-down, demanding, and designed to replicate the effort someone needs on an actual rescue mission.

Here’s the BUSAR Fitness Test:

Thirty-Minute Loaded Carry Test

Candidates must first do the USFS pack test described above. They then exchange their 45-pound pack for a 20-pound search-and-rescue pack. While wearing that pack and holding a 45-pound kettlebell, the candidate must step up and over a picnic table in a continuous circuit for 30 minutes.

The movement is awkward by design. It mimics lifting, lowering, and repositioning weight in uneven terrain. Grip fatigue shows up fast.

Trap Bar Deadlift

A candidate must lift a trap bar loaded with two hundred and twenty-five pounds for as many reps as possible in one minute. The minimum to pass is fifteen reps.

Back injuries are the most common injuries among rescue personnel. Carrying litters and repeatedly handling victims stress the posterior chain. If your back can’t tolerate that kind of work under fatigue, you’re a liability.

Burpee Pull-Ups With a Pack

This is the hardest part of the test.

Wearing the 20-pound SAR pack, candidates perform a burpee, jump up to grab a pull-up bar, and pull themselves up. They have 10 minutes to complete a minimum of 50 reps.

This isn’t about strict pull-up strength. It’s about mobility, coordination, and the ability to get up and down off the ground repeatedly. Crawling, climbing, scrambling, and recovering from awkward positions are constant features of real rescues.

It’s also a test of how candidates manage energy and fatigue. A lot of guys make the mistake of trying to go too hard too fast, and they gas out. Knowing how to pace yourself is a skill you need while carrying someone out on a litter.

Andrew has had people recommend that he change the test to make it “more scientific.” But he figures if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. In the ten years he’s been giving the test, he hasn’t seen anyone who passed it fail to perform on an actual mission.

Training Together

All BUSAR members are expected to maintain fitness so they’re ready when the call goes out. A lot of them do CrossFit and rucking.

For a while, Andrew’s team met weekly for group training. They’d show up at a park with their packs, and someone would bring kettlebells and sandbags. They’d create a workout on the spot: sandbag tosses, buddy carries, burpees, crawling, kettlebell swings. The workouts weren’t fancy or optimized. They were practical.

But more importantly, according to Andrew, they built cohesion. Shared physical suffering creates trust. When you’ve watched someone grind through fatigue without complaining, you have a better sense of how they’ll behave when things go sideways in the wilderness.

Life eventually intervened, and the weekly workouts faded for a time. Andrew is now looking at bringing them back, especially for newer team members.

In addition to maintaining physical fitness, the team meets quarterly to keep their technical skills sharp: land navigation, tracking, first aid, shelter systems, and moving litters over terrain.

During high-visitation periods, the team sometimes stages in the park for pre-deployment. They train, stay ready, and can respond quickly if a call comes in. During busy seasons, they may get called out multiple times a week.

Be Strong to Be Useful

Most of us aren’t going to be hauling injured hikers out of the Smokies. But I reckon the average guy can learn from how BUSAR approaches fitness.

These guys are, as 19th-century physical culturist Georges Hébert put it, strong to be useful.

You don’t know when you’ll need to move furniture all afternoon, shovel snow for an hour, carry a kid who fell asleep, help a friend move, or deal with some minor emergency that turns physical. Training for general strength, basic conditioning, and handling awkward loads helps you be ready for those moments.

So yes, keep doing your hypertrophy work and chasing PRs on your deadlift. But make sure to incorporate some BUSAR-type training so you’ll be ready when you’re called to action.

And if you’re feeling intrigued about doing volunteer search and rescue work, here are some reasons you might join up.

This article was originally published on The Art of Manliness.

If you’ve moved beyond machines in your strength training journey and are getting under a heavy barbell to do squats, cleans, or presses, you may have wondered if you should get yourself a pair of weightlifting shoes.

If you’ve started to work with significant weight, you really should.

Here’s why weightlifting shoes matter and what they do.

Weightlifting Shoes Do Three Jobs

A weightlifting shoe does three things, and all three can significantly improve your lifting experience:

It supports your foot. “Lifters” surround your feet in a tight casing so that nothing wiggles around while you’re moving heavy loads. Everything feels nice and secure, which is a good feeling to have when you’re lowering into a squat with 400 lbs on your back.

The sole does not compress. At all. There’s zero squish. This is important! If any part of the sole compresses as you drive upward out of the bottom of a squat, part of your force gets absorbed into the squish. It’s like trying to squat on a mattress. All that effort you’re generating from your legs, your hips, and your back disappears into the foam under your feet. You don’t want that. No energy leaks! This is why you don’t want to lift in running shoes or cross-trainers. They’ve got too much give.

The elevated heel changes your mechanics. Most weightlifting shoes have a heel that’s raised somewhere between 0.5 and 1 inch. That heel elevation lets your knees travel further forward over your toes at the bottom of the squat, which does a couple of things. First, it allows you to sit deeper into the squat more easily, especially if you have limited ankle mobility. Without the heel, a lot of guys compensate for tight ankles by leaning their torso way forward, which turns a squat into more of a good morning. I like good mornings, but you don’t want to good morning when you’re squatting. The heel-assisted knees-over-toes position also shifts more of the workload to your quads by keeping your torso more upright (helping you with those quad goals).

What to Look for in a Weightlifting Shoe

A good weightlifting shoe will have 1) a hard, non-compressible sole (often made from stacked leather, wood, or hard plastic), 2) a snug fit that locks your foot in place with straps or laces (or both), and 3) a slightly elevated heel.

Several companies make solid lifting shoes. I’ve tried several of these lifters over the years:

Adidas Adipower. This was my first lifting shoe. It checks all the marks for a good lifter: plastic non-compressible sole, snug fit, and elevated heel. The thing I didn’t like about it is the shoe is too narrow. My wide Fred Flintstone feet would start hurting about halfway into my workout.

Do-Win Classic. Do-Win was the second pair of lifting shoes I tried. I mainly bought them for the looks. They’ve got a handsome, vintage design. Looks like something Vince Anello would wear back in the day. Instead of a plastic sole, it uses stacked leather. The shoe has a nice elevated heel and plenty of support. It’s a bit more roomy than the Adidas Adipower.

TYR L-1 Lifter. This is my current shoe. I’ve been using it for a few years, and I love it. Here’s what I love about the TYR L-1 Lifter: The anatomical toe box is a game-changer for those of us with wider feet — no more feeling like your toes are in a vice grip while trying to maintain stability in a heavy squat. The 21mm heel-to-toe drop puts it right in that sweet spot for Olympic lifts and squats. This is the lifter I recommend that guys get.

Besides the above brands, Nike has their Romaleo series. I haven’t used them, but have heard good things about them.

Whatever you choose, you want support, no squish, and a raised heel. Those are your three non-negotiables.

Why Plunk Down $200 for Gym Shoes?

Fair question. A good pair of weightlifting shoes will run you up to $200, which feels like a lot for something you’re only wearing a few hours a week.

But here’s the case for them:

For starters, they’re going to improve your barbell training. Unlike most gear purchases, you’ll actually feel the difference the first time you lift in a pair of weightlifting shoes. Take that first squat with a solid, incompressible base under your feet and your knees tracking forward over your toes the way they’re supposed to, and you’ll wonder why you spent all those years squishing around in running shoes.

Second, your lifters are going to last a long time because you’re only wearing them for your workouts. You’re not running in them or walking the dog. You’re standing on a rubber gym floor, squatting and pressing and pulling for an hour, then taking them off. With that kind of limited use, a quality pair of lifting shoes can easily last a decade or more. That pair of Adidas Adipowers that I stopped using? I disinfected them, cleaned them up nice, and gave them to a guy who was just getting started on his iron journey. He’s still using them. They’re 13 years old. Spread $200 over 15 years of training, and you’re looking at about $13 a year. That’s a pretty solid return on investment for a piece of gear you use every single session that’ll improve your lifts.

Get yourself a pair. Your squat will thank you.

This article was originally published on The Art of Manliness.

If you’re looking for a way to improve your fitness, boost your mental health, and reconnect with a deeply human activity — all without going to the gym or pounding your knees on a daily run — then rucking may be the practice you’ve been looking for.

Rucking is simple: throw some weight on your back and start walking. But a little context and a few key tips can make it a safer, more effective, and more satisfying experience. Here to unpack those principles and practicals is Michael Easter, author of Walk With Weight: The Definitive Guide to Rucking. Michael and I first explore the evolutionary and military history of carrying load. We then dive into why rucking is perhaps the most accessible form of training for strength and stamina, and such an effective tool for alleviating back pain, building bone health, and fostering fat loss. We get into using a backpack versus a weighted vest, how much weight you should carry, and how you can get started today with stuff you’ve probably already got lying around.

Resources Related to the Podcast

• Michael’s previous appearances on the AoM podcast: 
  • Episode #708: Overcome the Comfort Crisis
  • Episode #930: Break Your Bad Habits by Escaping the Scarcity Loop
• The Comfort Crisis by Michael Easter
• AoM Article: Cardio for the Man Who Hates Cardio — The Benefits of Rucking
• AoM podcast interview with the founder of GoRuck
• AoM Podcast #682: Get Rucking
• AoM Article: Don’t Just Lift Heavy, Carry Heavy
• AoM Article: How to Take Care of Feet on a Hike or Ruck
• AoM Article: One Weird Trick for Busting Through a Weight-Loss Plateau
• AoM Article: The Benefits of Hanging for Strength and Mobility
• AoM Article: Lessons From the Roman Art of War
• GoRuck

Connect with Michael Easter

• Michael’s Substack: Two Percent

Thanks to This Week’s Podcast Sponsor

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Transcript 

Brett McKay:

Brett McKay here and welcome to another edition of the AoM podcast. If you’re looking for a way to improve your fitness, boost your mental health, and reconnect with a deeply human activity, all without going to the gym or pounding your knees on a daily run, then rucking may be the practice you’ve been looking for. rucking is simple. Throw some weight on your back and start walking. But a little context and a few key tips can make it a safer, more effective and more satisfying experience. 

Here to unpack those principles and practicals is Michael Easter, author of Walk With Weight: The Definitive Guide to Rucking. Michael and I first explored the evolutionary military history of carrying load. We then dive into why rucking is perhaps the most accessible form of training for strength and stamina and such an effective tool for alleviating back pain, building bone health, and fostering fat loss. We get into using a backpack versus a weighted vest, how much weight you should carry and how you get started today with stuff you probably already got lying around after the show’s over. Check out our show notes at aom.is/ruck. 

All right, Michael Easter, welcome back to the show.

Michael Easter:

Thanks for having me back, man. I’m excited to be here.

Brett McKay:

See you got a new book out called Walk With Weight: The Definitive Guide to Rucking. For those who aren’t familiar with rucking, you’ve become kind of the evangelist, the Paul, the Apostle of rucking. For those who aren’t familiar with the activity, what is rucking?

Michael Easter:

That’s a fine distinction. The evangelist of rucking. I like that. The simplest way to put it is rucking is just throwing some weight in a backpack and going for a walk. Now I also think it gets interpreted and starts to capture things like putting on a weight vest and going for a walk, but basically carrying weight on your body, walking across the earth. That’s it. Pretty simple.

Brett McKay:

That’s pretty simple, but there’s more to it than that, as we’ll see in this conversation. But how did you discover rucking? 

Michael Easter:

So my background was, I was an editor at Men’s Health magazine for about seven years, and so I’m always in that role looking for fitness trends coming out and rocking had sort of popped up as this kind of interesting thing that was tied to the military. But I think when I started to really understand why it is such a powerful physical activity for humans, it came when I was reporting my book, The Comfort Crisis, and for that book I spent about a month up in the Arctic and we were on this caribou hunt. So it took us about two weeks to finally hunt a caribou and then we had to pack it out. And as I was doing that pack out, I started to sort of realize, and we can get into the sort of evolutionary science of this, that humans are really unique in our ability to carry weight. So we’re the only mammal that can carry weight for distance. And I’ve always been really interested in the things that shaped us as humans in the past, how can they still help us today? So that sort of set off the idea that packing out 120 some odd pounds of caribou across this freezing tundra. That’s terrible to walk on.

Brett McKay:

How long ago was that? 

Michael Easter:

Yeah, that was the fall of 2019.

Brett McKay:

So I love rucking. I do it about once a week. I discovered it back in 2012 because the founders of Huckberry, Andy and Richard, they introduced me to the founder of GORUCK — at about that time Huckberry started doing some partnerships with GORUCK and…what’s the name of the founder? We’ve had him on the podcast.

Michael Easter:

Jason McCarthy.

Brett McKay:

Jason McCarthy. He invited me to do a GORUCK Tough. Never heard of this. And I was like, okay, why not? So I got a ruck sack, started training for it, and I did the GORUCK Tough with my brother in Oklahoma City in November, I think 2012. It was cold, I remember it was like 30 degrees. And have you done a GORUCK Tough?

Michael Easter:

Is that the 12 hour one?

Brett McKay:

Yeah, the 12 hour one.

Michael Easter:

Yeah. So I’ve done a Tough and a Heavy . . . I did a Tough in Providence in probably about the same time you did. Maybe 2012. And that was for a Men’s Health story, and then I ended up doing a 24 hour one in maybe 2013 or 14 or something like that. So yeah, that was a good introduction. 

Brett McKay:

Yeah that was my introduction to rucking. I mean, for those who aren’t familiar with the Tough events, it’s all night, it’s 12 hours. You got a rucksack on with I think 40 or 30 pounds of weight. And then you get there and you do these calisthenics, bear crawls, pushups, you’re carrying people around and then they get you wet. The first thing, they found a pond and it’s like get in the pond and it was 30 degrees and so the rest of the night you’re just cold and wet and you’re carrying logs. It was brutal. I’ve done a few other events since then. Been a while since I’ve done one, but I still ruck. I caught the bug and I just enjoy it. We’re going to talk about why I enjoy it and why I think it’s so great and why you think it’s so great, because I think you did a really good job capturing it in this book. So people have probably heard the idea that humans were born to run, but you argue that they were really born to carry. So you kind of alluded to it a little bit in your answer previously, but what’s the history of humans carrying stuff?

Michael Easter:

Yeah, so I mean for some context, there’s this 2004 paper that came out from a guy from Harvard whose name is Daniel Lieberman, and he basically argued that if you look at the way the human body is built the way it is, we stand on two feet, we sweat, we don’t have much hair. One of the reasons for that is that we evolve to run long distances in order to hunt prey. So most other animals can’t cool themselves in the heat, and so if you get ’em running in the heat, they’re eventually going to tire. We don’t overheat when it’s hot out and we’re running. So we would use that to our advantage. We’d run like 10 miles chasing an animal. Eventually it would get too hot, it would topple over, we would sprint or whatever, and then we would successfully complete this hunt. Now what got lost in that, though, and this is kind of the realization that I had when I was hunting up in the Arctic, is what happens after you have killed the animal and you’re 10 miles from camp, you got to carry that thing back.

And if you look at us compared to many other animals, pretty much every animal can run, but we’re the only animal that can pick up weight and carry it a long distance across the earth. And that was only in the context of hunting. If you look at what humans sort of evolved doing every single day, we were carrying all the time where hunters and gatherers and gathering is simply an act of walking around finding food. You pick it up, you carry it, you gather more. We also had to carry our children, and that really shaped us as a species. So once we started walking on two feet, this was about 6 million years ago, by the way, once we start walking on two feet, it all of a sudden frees our hands. And once our hands are free, we can use them to manipulate the world, we can use them to carry tools into the unknown. We can do all these really interesting things with them that allows us to eventually take over the world. And that makes us really unique and explains why we are doing this over the internet in these lovely built houses as my dog hasn’t evolved much more than just sitting around begging for treats.

Brett McKay:

Alright, so carrying stuff really opened things up for us as a species. And you also get into the history of rucking. So it seems like the first carrying devices that we would think of as backpacks started with mothers who used them to carry their kids and that freed up their hands for doing other things. And then a lot of the development in the practice of humans carrying cargo on their backs happened in the military. So rucking, this idea of rucking, it comes from the military. Rucking is a military phrase. Talk about the history of soldiers in war carrying load in order to do what they do

Michael Easter:

When it comes to warfare, especially for most of history, these soldiers were having to take equipment really long distances by marching it. So you might have to walk 300 miles to a battle site with all of your unit as it were, and you’re carrying your gear the entire time. And a lot of this gear was very heavy loads in the past a couple thousand years ago, they might range from 35 pounds all the way up to 85 pounds. But this act of rucking, of carrying your gear as a soldier, that has really been the foundation of military training for basically all of time. If you look at how military units throughout the world have trained, the foundation has always been marching with weight and it still is.

Brett McKay:

Yeah, I mean you talk about a manual written by a Roman guy where he talks about how to train a soldier and one of those training exercises was you had to just carry load for distance as much as possible.

Michael Easter:

Yeah, that was basically it. And a lot of the military units throughout time when they were trying to test their soldiers to see if they were ready for battle, the tests were basically tests of being able to march with weight. It could be, you have to be able to walk 12 miles with say 50 pounds in X amount of hours or whatever it might be. And these tests, they all sort of varied throughout different places, different military units and different periods of time, but they all are fundamentally based around can you carry X load for Y distance in Z time?

Brett McKay:

Yeah, you had some examples from history. So the Macedonian soldiers, Alexander the Great’s soldiers, they marched to battle carrying about 80 pounds, a Greek hoplight, 50 pounds of gear in armor, and even their armor was just heavy. I remember when I took a class in ancient Greek history and they described how much the shin covers weighed, their spear, their shield, like, man, that’s got to be exhausting.

Michael Easter:

Oh yeah. And I will also add what makes this even more amazing is that, I mean those loads are heavy for anyone today, but when you look at the average size of men back then, they were far smaller than we are today. The average American man right now weighs about 200 pounds, and back then they would weigh say about 140 pounds. So if you’re carrying 85 pounds and you weigh 140 pounds, that’s like an average guy today carrying say around 120 pounds. So these are not insignificant loads. I mean these guys were unbelievably fit.

Brett McKay:

And they were doing it for long distances and sometimes really fast. After the Battle of Marathon, the Athenian army marched 25 miles back to Athens to head off the Persians, and they got there pretty fast and they were carrying their gear.

Michael Easter:

Yeah, it’ll definitely make you feel a little bit soft when you start reading about these soldiers of the past. One thing that I would add that I found pretty interesting is that as technology advances, you would think that the loads that our soldiers carry would’ve gone down. We would’ve made lighter gear, things would’ve become lighter, easier to carry. That’s not actually what happened. So some of our gear did become lighter, but we started adding more and more gear. So by the time we were in World War II, Vietnam, even the Iraq War, the loads that the average American soldier was carrying were around a hundred pounds. So we’ve kind of just ramped up the weight over time. That said, those soldiers were bigger, but these weights have just kind of gone up over time.

Brett McKay:

If you saw Saving Private Ryan, that D-Day invasion seemed like the very beginning. You saw some of those guys, they just drowned because they had too much stuff on ’em when they got into the water.

Michael Easter:

Yeah.

Brett McKay:

So in the military, rucking has been a big part of their training. What has the military learned about walking with weight that has carried over into civilian life? What have we learned about the science of walking with weight from the military?

Michael Easter:

I think that there’s been some good and some bad. So I’m going to start with the good. Always give the hug first. Right? There’s some research especially conducted around the 1950s that found effectively the military was noticing, Hey, as we’ve loaded these guys up with more and more weight, we’re starting to see all these injuries. Not to mention to your point about the D-Day invasion, if you load a soldier down with too much weight and someone starts shooting at him, good luck getting out of the way. You can’t move as quick. So the military started looking at, okay, what is an amount of weight that will, one, reduce injury risk? And two, allow our soldiers to move swiftly and efficiently when they need to. And they basically found that one third of your body weight is about as much weight as you should carry to reduce injury risk and also be able to move well.

If you go over that, injury risk rises, you don’t move as well. So there was this push to try to lighten soldiers loads, but of course the industrial, military industrial complex of, Hey, you need more gear one out, we didn’t quite meet that. But that said, I think it gives the average person a good marker to know, Hey, you should probably never go above this weight. And in the book, I argue most people, the vast majority of the time, for your average, you should be going a lot lighter than that as well. Now lemme talk to you on the bad. I think one of the bad things is that because rucking, especially as it has become more popular, it has been framed through this sort of military lens.

But remember, humans evolve to carry, I mean, this is a fundamentally human act we’ve been doing very, very long before we had militaries. And so when rucking becomes popular, people look up rucking and they start to look at, okay, well how much weight are soldiers carrying? But you got to remember, soldiers are carrying these massive weights because their mission is to win a war. Whereas the average person, you’re not going into warfare, you’re just trying to improve your health and fitness. And so a lighter load is going to be a lot more appropriate, and I think it pushed some people into using maybe a little too heavy a weight at first.

Brett McKay:

Do you have any idea when rucking started becoming a civilian fitness activity, were you able to figure out the evolution of that?

Michael Easter:

That’s a good question. I mean, I think you had soldiers come back from the military. Some groups of veterans were doing it. Those that hadn’t been too scarred by the a hundred mile marches they had to do in training. I think you had some brands sort of pop up like GORUCK that started to put it on people’s radar. I think probably the rise of it being popular today, I think my book, The Comfort Crisis helped with that a little bit. Now I will say that took me going on shows like yours and talking about it to sort of give it a bump to the average person, but it’s kind of in this slow trajectory of more people doing it. People who have a sort of platform like I do writing about it, people inviting me on their platforms and it just sort of spreading.

Brett McKay:

Yeah, because I see it often. I see it more often when I’m in my neighborhood. I see women might not have a weighted backpack on, but just like a weighted vest on, and you didn’t see that five years ago.

Michael Easter:

Totally. Yeah. The weighted vest phenomenon has become really popular. It’s a great thing.

Brett McKay:

Well, let’s talk about why rucking is so great for health and longevity. You start off in the book in this section talking about why rucking is a great activity for weight loss. So why is rucking a great activity for weight loss?

Michael Easter:

Yeah, simplest way to think about it is that rucking combines strength and cardio. So you’re getting a strength stimulus because you’re carrying weight and your muscles have to work harder to carry that weight. Now because you are also walking, that’s an endurance activity, so you’re getting endurance. So by mixing those two things, you see that from a per mile perspective, rucking burns more calories than walking or running alone. And so you kind of get more bang for your buck. Now I will say, of course you can cover more miles in a quicker span of time if you’re running, but then you won’t get that strength stimulus. So when you look at calorie burn, it really depends on how much weight you’re carrying, what is the terrain like, et cetera, et cetera. But anywhere from 20% to about 200% more calories compared to walking or running. And again, it really kind of depends. Of course, the heavier you’re using, the crazier the terrain, the more calorie burn you’re going to get.

Brett McKay:

So it’s a lot of bang for your buck in terms of calorie burn.

Michael Easter:

Yeah, tons of bang for your buck. And one thing I would point out too is that it seems to be uniquely good for fat loss. So there’s some interesting studies. There’s this one on this group of backcountry hunters, and what scientists did is they took this group of hunters, measured their body fat percentage, took a bunch of other health measurements, whatever. Then these guys went out and they did, I believe it was a 12 day hunt. So when you’re doing a backcountry hunt, you have this heavy backpack full of all your gear. You’re also not packing in a ton of food because food is heavy. So you’re generally undereating, which sort of simulates the exact same thing that people do when they’re trying to lose weight. You want to move more, you want to eat less. Now when most people lose weight, you lose a mix of fat, yes, but also muscle.

So you want to lose the fat, but you ideally want to hang on to as much muscle as possible because muscle is going to be good for your ability to function, it’s going to be better for your metabolism, on and on and on. But when these guys came back from their hunt and they retested them, these researchers found that the hunters lost, I think it was about 12 pounds on average. And the entirety of that loss came from fat, which is really surprising. So they hadn’t lost any muscle, and in fact they had gained a slight amount. It was insignificant, but it was still a slight amount, which really shows us rucking can be great for fat loss. And I think the reason for that is rather simple, it’s that when you have this load on your body, your body needs to hang on to your muscle in order to move that load across the ground. So it almost triggers your body like, Hey, we actually need our muscles here. But you’re also pairing cardio, which is generally a much better calorie burner than lifting alone. So it’s almost like it preferentially shifts what you’re burning to fat.

Brett McKay:

That’s interesting. I’ve also heard that this sort of speculative research about how we maybe have this sense in our body like gravity of weight, and that determines how many calories you burn. So if you weigh 220 pounds, that requires a certain number of calories to maintain, but if you lose 20 pounds, now you’re 200 pounds, your body is going to burn less calories. And so I’ve heard of this. One trick you can do is as you’re losing weight and you want to keep losing weight, is to put on a weighted vest that weighs 20 pounds and your body’s still going to think it’s 220 and then you’ll burn calories as if it were 220. And it’s not just because you burn more calories because it takes more effort to move, but it’s because it senses your body weighs more. Have you heard about that research?

Michael Easter:

Yeah, I think it’s new. It’s definitely emerging, but it’s really interesting. They think effectively what happens is your bones sort of do some signaling. And so when you have that load on your body, your bones don’t necessarily know where it’s coming from. It leads you to not get as much of a metabolic drop as would happen had you not had the added vest on after you’ve lost weight.

Brett McKay:

Well, speaking of bones, rucking is also good for bones. How is rucking good for your bones?

Michael Easter:

Yeah, well, and first I’ll say when you start talking about bone health, I think most people sort of roll their eyes because who the hell cares about their bones? But the reason this is important is because as you age, your bones start to lose density. Now this is generally talked about from a female perspective because it happens more often in women, but that said, doctors are finding more and more men facing an issue with bone density. And the reason for that is because as a society we’ve generally become a lot more sedentary. And so your bones need impact and loading in order to maintain and even improve their density. So rucking gives you this ability to load your bones for quite a long time, much longer than lifting because the average set of lifting exercise is going to be, I don’t know, 20, 30 seconds. So you can load your bones for about an hour, get those impact on them, and that seems to help maintain, maybe even improve bone density, which becomes really important because as you age, if you fall and break a hip, that is the worst thing that can happen. I think the stat is about a third of people who are over 65 and break a hip die within the next six months because it just totally wrecks their function and then everything goes downhill.

Brett McKay:

Alright, so yeah, rucking is great for strengthening bones. You think carrying stuff on your back would be bad for back pain, but you point to research that carrying load on your back is probably one of the best things you can do for your back pain. Walk us through that.

Michael Easter:

Yeah, I think people definitely find that counterintuitive. I did. But what happens is there’s some military research about this. When you have the weight on your back, you would think your back starts to work much harder. That’s not actually the case if your back muscles actually end up working less when you have a weight on your back. And so then the question is, okay, well what’s keeping me upright? What happens is that your core actually picks up all of that slack. So your core ends up working a lot harder. And when you look at what one of the root causes is for back pain, and by the way, 80% of people will experience back pain at some point in their life, this is one of the most common pains. The reason is because people’s cores are so weak. So your core is really built to stabilize your spine if you have to pick anything up or move a certain way.

And so as we become more sedentary, our cores have become weaker and then you have to go pick up a bag of mulch or whatever in the backyard. Your core is not strong enough to protect your spine and then you get a problem. So by rucking your strengthening your core in a way that to me is a little more interesting than doing planks and bird dogs and whatever you might do. Now that said, you should do those too. I wouldn’t discourage you from any form of exercise, but rucking really allows you to strengthen your core. And there’s also a researcher up in Canada. He’s kind of considered the world’s foremost back health expert, and one thing that he does with a lot of his back patients is have them ruck because he says that it strengthens their core. It also sort of decompresses their spine, allows their spine to get some light motion in, and that tends to do some good things for your back.

Brett McKay:

Okay, so rucking is great for weight loss, especially fat loss because you’re burning more calories, you’re maintaining muscle as you do the ruck. It’s great for your bones, it’s great for back pain. Another thing you talk about, another health benefit of rucking is that it gets you outside and is social. What are the health benefits of being outside and doing this with other people?

Michael Easter:

Oh man. Well, the health benefits of being outside. Now, I had a chapter about this in The Comfort Crisis and when I first started hearing people say, oh, being outside is good for your health, it’s good for your mental health, I was kind of like, eh, that’s some kind of hippie nonsense. But then I looked into the research and it goes all the way back to the eighties. So we’re talking like four decades of research and it consistently finds that being outdoors tends to reduce stress levels, tends to increase happiness, tends to lead people to be more productive once they get back into the office, tends to improve focus. And it also actually boosts a lot of physical health markers. So time in the outdoors has been shown to lower blood sugar, all these different good things for your health. And then I think on the social component. So when you look at a lot of exercise that’s endurance focused, it can be hard to sort of pair it right with another person and make it social. So let’s say you and I go for a run, and let’s say that you’re a way better runner than me.

Brett McKay:

I’m not.

Michael Easter:

Okay. Let’s say I’m a way better runner than you.

Brett McKay:

Yes.

Michael Easter:

Then we’ll go with that. Then if you and I are going to go for a run and try and have a conversation, well, your lack of running fitness means that in order for us to talk, you’re going to be running rather slow. And that’s really not going to give me that much. I’m really going to be sort of held back right on the opposite coin. If I go, all right, I’m setting the tempo of this run, you’re going to be dragging behind. Like, this sucks. I hate this. We’re not going to be able to talk at all. So it’s hard to sort of get into a deep conversation. You can run together, but you’re not really going to talk. Whereas with rucking, I’ll, I’ll give you the benefit here. Let’s say you’re a way better rucker than me and you can carry more weight. Well, you can simply carry say 45 pounds and get a great workout and walk and I can just carry say 30 pounds and I can get an equally good workout.

And we can have that walk go rucking together and have a long conversation and really connect. And when you look at research about when do humans have the best conversations, how do we connect for men in particular? This is for everyone, but I’ll say for men in particular, it tends to happen when we are shoulder to shoulder out moving across the earth. And so wrecking really allows us to capture that. You get in a good workout, but you’re able to really talk about things with people, connect with people, and that just makes it really sort of universal. So another example is like, I’m not going to go for a run with my mother, right? She’s 75 years old, but I could say, Hey mom, do you want to go ruck together? I could take 35 pounds, she could take like five pounds and we’d be able to do that activity, get in a good workout, but have a conversation. So I think that makes it really social. And then you pair that with the fact that we’re outside that has all those benefits. It makes it really powerful and accessible for people.

Brett McKay:

So going back to what we talked about earlier, how rucking grew out of the military, and sometimes there’s good lessons and parallels we can draw from military rucking to civilian rucking, and sometimes there’s not. Whenever we’ve posted about rucking on the site, military guys will often chime in and say, oh, rucking, that destroyed my joints, it destroyed my body. Don’t ruck. So is rucking safe?

Michael Easter:

The short answer is yes. When I released The Comfort Crisis, I got a few emails from military guys like that saying that I didn’t know what I was talking about because rucking hurt their knees or their back. But you have to ask, what kind of loads is the military carrying? Like I said before, they’re carrying really heavy loads because the mission is the war for the average person. You don’t need to carry that much weight. You can just carry, say anywhere from 5-20% of your body weight and it is really, really safe. So the injury rate for rucking is pretty close to that of walking, and the injury rate for walking is only 1%. Now the rate goes up, the more weight you add, but you don’t have to add a lot of weight to get a really massive benefit. So what was interesting too is that after the comfort crisis has been out for a while, it touches on rucking.

I got follow-up emails from military guys who said I was skeptical about that rucking thing because the military just made me hate it and it injured me. But once I lightened the load, it totally improved my fitness. I didn’t have any injuries. I was able to lose weight to lose fat. I improved my endurance, I improved my body composition. And it also sort of, they said return them to the roots of the military in a way that kind of made them feel good. Like, okay, I’m back at it. So long story short is if you’re not using crazy military loads, you probably won’t get hurt rucking.

Brett McKay:

And I like rucking for cardio because people typically think when I got to do cardio, I got to run. But running can beat up your joints. The injury rate for long distance running is like 20% to 70%, just depending, and it’s usually joint pain. You have something wrong with your knee or something like that because the impact every time you hit the ground, it’s really hard. rucking, you don’t have that issue. So you get a good cardio workout without the stress on your joints again, if you’re keeping the weight reasonable.

Michael Easter:

Yeah, exactly. I mean, how many people do you know that say they’ve been hurt by running? Probably any runner you’ve ever talked to, running takes a toll on your body. I mean, it’s good for us. I think sometimes it’s like you learn from your injuries, you clean up your form, good things happen. But just from a general population health perspective, my opinion is that if you can choose activities that have a lower risk of injuring, you should probably do those. Because what happens when people get injured is that they tend to stop exercising at all. And then when they stop exercising, all their health markers go down, mental health goes down, a lot of bad things happen. So for me, it’s just thinking about what is the activity that I not only enjoy, but that I can also continue to do for decades without worrying that I’m eventually going to blow out a knee or whatever it is and then be sidelined for a really long time.

Brett McKay:

Yeah, I call rucking cardio for the man who hates cardio.

Michael Easter:

Yeah, that’s a good tagline. I should have put that in the book. Should have consulted you.

Brett McKay:

And it’s funny, whenever I’ve introduced rucking to guys, I never done cardio, but once I learned about rucking, it’s changed. I do it all the time and they just love it. So again, I’m a big booster of rucking. That’s why I have you on the podcast to talk about rucking. So let’s talk about how to get started with rucking. For those who haven’t done it before, there are lots of different options these days for carrying weight backpack, there’s special ruck sacks, now there’s weighted vests. What do you think is the best option for someone who’s starting out for the device they use to carry the weight?

Michael Easter:

I think for most people starting out, I just try and make it as simple as possible. Find a backpack you have in your house. Could be backpack you used in college, could be one you used for travel, could be a pack you bought for a hike, fill it with something that weighs something and go out and walk. It’s that simple to begin. You just have to begin because I think oftentimes people get paralysis by analysis when it comes to gear. It’s like, well, should I have this one or this one? And what equipment do I need to buy? It’s like, no, this is just so accessible. Make it that way. And people might often find like, okay, I really love this thing. Great. I want to invest in some proper rucking specific gear. And if that’s you, then I think that can be a good way to find a pack that maybe fits you better, that handles the load more appropriately. But it really can be as simple as just find a backpack and go out for a walk, throw some stuff in it that weighs something.

Brett McKay:

Are there any benefits to the weighted vest? Again, we’ve been seeing those more often.

Michael Easter:

Yeah, yeah, for sure. The book gets into sort of the nuances between packs and vests and it says, for what circumstances might one be more appropriate than the other? My message is generally that you walk with weight matters a lot more than how you walk with weight. So both are beneficial, both have their nuances, but when you’re just starting, I just tell people, don’t overthink it. Just start. If you want to get a weight vest, get it. It also means you’re going to have to invest a bit more money. It’s also a very sort of hyper-specific contraption, whereas like a backpack, you can use that for travel too. It doubles for all these different things.

Brett McKay:

Yeah, I’ve tried both the vest and the backpack, the weight vest does distribute the weight more and it keeps the weight high and tight, but I don’t think it’s as comfortable as a backpack because you’ve got the weight on the back and on the front. Just having that weight on your chest, it makes it hard to breathe. And you talk about this in the book, one of the benefits of the backpack when you have the weight just on your back, you can lean into it and it makes it a little bit more comfortable with the weighted vest. It’s just pulling you down to the center of the earth and that gets uncomfortable.

Michael Easter:

Yeah, so I think for most people, most of the time a backpack is the answer. I’ll get into a couple points. So the one you made when you have a weight vest, you’ve got when weight is on the front, especially if it’s these military style vests that almost look like bulletproof vests.

When you have weight sitting on your chest, that can make it hard to breathe, especially if it’s a heavy load. So now it becomes harder to breathe as you’re doing cardio. That sucks. Number two is that those get really hot if it’s the summer because your sweat can’t evaporate because you’re sort of enveloped by this thing. The second point that you made is, and this kind of applies more to longer distances and heavier loads, but I’ll give you an extreme circumstance so people can understand it. It’s like if you got 300 pounds and you put it in a backpack and put it on someone, say some random guy, chances are it would of course be uncomfortable. It would be too heavy, but it would still be able to stand because when the weight is at your back, you can kind of lean in and you have something to resist against that sort of balances you.

Now, if you take that same 300 pounds in the form of a weight vest and strap it on someone, they’re probably going to collapse. And that’s simply because there’s nothing to really lean into, resist against. It just sort of covers you like this super heavy blanket and you fall. Now of course, most people aren’t using insane loads, but that begins to matter at everyday loads when you’re going across a long distance. So if you get really tired and your sort of form starts to falter with a vest, you’ve got nowhere to go to sort of maintain proper form. Whereas with a pack just to kind of lean forward and you’ll be able to maintain proper form. And a good case study of this is through-hikers. So backpackers who do month long hikes where they’re hiking every day. Now, those people could figure out some way to have a contraption that keeps their gear on their front and their back, but no one actually does that. Every single person uses backpacks. And that’s simply because when you’re covering long distances and a lot of miles, the backpack just becomes way more comfortable, keeps your form better, leads to fewer issues. And so for me, that’s kind of the answer there. And then I’ll add one more thing is that the vests, especially the military style ones, you kind of look like you’re going to maybe throw a coup against your HOA as you’re walking through the neighborhood.

It’s just like, is this dude wearing a bulletproof vest? Should I be concerned what’s going on here? Just sort of a weird look. Whereas a backpack, it’s like people wear backpacks all the time in all different public places, pretty normal.

Brett McKay:

All right, so just go with backpack. Make it simple if you’re getting started. Let’s talk about weight. When you’re first starting out, how much weight should you start off with? So we learned from the military, you don’t want to go above a third of your body weight when you’re first starting out. What weight should you pick?

Michael Easter:

I mean, I tell people a go-to is 10% of your body weight. Some people might find that too light at first, but I would rather you start light than start super heavy and get out there and go, oh my God, this is the worst thing I’ve ever done. I don’t ever want to do this again. Because you can always add weight later on, and that allows you to get your body used to it to sort of build up some fitness and then you can just sort of add from there. I realize this is called the Art of Manliness, but I’ll point out two things, differences between men and women with the starting. So I think women will sometimes start too light. They might only use say, five pounds, and it’s a little too easy. So I would encourage women, you want it to be uncomfortable, shouldn’t feel soul crushing, but don’t be afraid to use 15 pounds instead of 10. With men, we tend to have the opposite problem where we go online and look at photos of navy seals and think, I’m just going to load this sucker up. I would discourage that at first. I think you want to kind of build a base where you’re used to it, you want some muscles that have been underused to sort of develop, and then you can start adding some weight from there.

Brett McKay:

And for weight, there’s all sorts of different options. It can be as easy as when I first started rucking, I just used a bunch of bricks taped together. That was it. It was pretty rudimentary, but you could use books, you could use a milk jug filled with water, or then you can get as fancy with the ruck plates that they have available.

Michael Easter:

Yeah, there’s a lot of options. I think your milk jug idea is really good. And the reason I like that is because if you get out on your initial rucks and you’re like, oh, I’m starting to fade and I still have three miles to get home, you can always just dump out the water and you’ll be fine. So that makes it rather accessible. Things like sandbags can also be good. You can kind of find the right weight. It also sort of molds to the bag nicely. Bags of rice, some people will use dumbbells. If you use a dumbbell, I would suggest you wrap it in a towel so you don’t have this steel weight digging into your back the whole time, which can be uncomfortable. But really just get creative. The thing just has to weigh something when you load it, you want it tight to your back and you’re good to go.

Brett McKay:

Yeah. So besides having it tight to your back, is there a placement that’s better for comfort up high in the middle low? What should people think about there as far as comfort and avoiding injuries?

Michael Easter:

Yeah, I think generally if you can have the weight higher, do that’s not always easy to do or practical if you’re just using random stuff you find around the house. I mean, one way to fix that is to put maybe a little cardboard box or something at the bottom of your pack or a towel, so it elevates the weight. And then do keep it close to your back. You also want it secure. You don’t want the weight sort of flopping around every step. That can just kind of alter your walking patterns so tight to your back, secure a little bit higher if you can get it higher and then just go out and walk.

Brett McKay:

And then when you first start out, how long should a ruck be? Start off with a mile, two miles, what are you looking at there?

Michael Easter:

I just tell people if you have a normal walking route in your neighborhood that you do, let’s say your walk with your spouse after dinner is two miles, just do that. It’s a good way to start. I would discourage that phenomenon where we choose a new exercise and we decide to just go all in with crazy distances because pretty much with any exercise, doing too much too soon is the main driver of injuries. So it’s like, yeah, just do your kind of normal walk and see how it goes

Brett McKay:

In terms of frequency, how often can you ruck without running into overuse injuries?

Michael Easter:

So I like to say that if humans couldn’t carry every day, we would’ve died off as a species a very long time ago. But that said, today because we carry so infrequently, it might make sense to have a rest day between days that you ruck, but another option is to simply use more weight some days and less weight. Others. For me, I’m rocking nearly every day, and that’s because I have to walk my dogs every day. So I just look at it as, look, I can get more from every step if I just throw this ruck on when I walk the dogs. And I’ve been totally fine. I mean, I’m not carrying crazy loads. I’ve just sort of found, okay, what’s a good go-to weight? And this is a recommendation for everyone. What’s a weight that feels uncomfortable? It’s there, but it’s also not soul crushing, and you feel like you could walk a really long distance with it without tapping out.

So for me, that’s about 35 pounds. That’s what I wear when I’m walking my dogs. If I’m going a really long distance, let’s say I’m doing a 12 mile walk, I might bump that down to say 25, 20 pounds. But sometimes if I’m training for a hunt or a big backpacking trip, I’ll go heavier than 35. I’ll use 45 or 50. And there’s even sometimes a workout that I love and it’ll make you feel like a pack mule is to throw. You can really load this thing, throw a lot of weight in a pack, get on a treadmill, set it to say an incline, 10 to 15 incline and just walk slowly for an hour that will get you ready for the mountains. And it’s one that I love. And because you’re on a treadmill, you don’t have to worry as much about injury because one of the reasons injury risk gets higher when you have heavier loads is that if you misstep and you roll an ankle with say 80 pounds on your back, well now that ankle, that would’ve been a sort of minor little spraining that can become a real problem. But with the treadmill, you don’t really have to worry about curbs. You didn’t see crap in the road, things like that. And there’s a little bit of give to the treadmill, so most people tend to not ever get injured doing that.

Brett McKay:

You mentioned how you ruck whenever you walk your dog. That’s something you talk about in the book is that you can just ruck whenever. You don’t have to make rucking as this thing of, “I’m setting aside time for a ruck.” You can just put on a ruck sack or a weighted vest when you’re doing chores around the house. I’ve done that. I’ll do that every now and then. It’s like, all right, we got a bunch of chores put on the weighted vest and make it a little bit harder. And yeah, it doesn’t destroy you. It’s a little bit harder, but after you’re done, you’re not like, oh boy, I’m beat. I need to spend a day recovering.

Michael Easter:

Yeah, exactly. For another book I’m working on, I had this really long through-hike through Southern Utah. It took like 45 days, and so to get ready to have a pack on my back 12 hours a day, I would just wear my ruck around the house as I was vacuuming, picking up, living life, whatever it might be. And that really sort of slowly got my body ready to be able to carry that weight, and I’m burning more calories just doing my everyday tasks that I already had to do.

Brett McKay:

Have you noticed for people who are doing rucking as a civilian activity for fitness, are there common injuries you see with this population? And if so, what are some of the things you can do to mitigate those injuries?

Michael Easter:

The most common thing, and I wouldn’t consider it an injury, is that people will say their shoulders are uncomfortable during a ruck or after a ruck. And I think that’s just because we rarely carry weight in backpacks anymore. So it’s like you throw some weight on your shoulders, they’re going, what the hell is this? We haven’t done this since you were in high school, but that discomfort isn’t necessarily injury, it’s just your body saying, what the hell are we doing here? A way to fix that is pretty simple. It’s to just do a dead hang from a pull-up bar. So just hang with your body, slack, your arms totally straight for say 30, 60 seconds because the weight is pulling down on your shoulders. That almost elongates them, and that seems to sort of fix that over time. And eventually most people’s shoulders adapt and it fixes the problem really quick. Another one is blisters. Anytime you start adding weight to your body, now there’s more pressure on your feet. And so blisters can definitely happen. My advice there is if you get a hotspot, don’t let it devolve into a crazy blister. Try and treat it. That’s pretty easy. I mean, a lot of it is just your feet need to get tougher over time, but just don’t push yourself so far into the red that now we’ve got a real blister problem

Brett McKay:

Going back to that dead hang. Even if you don’t ruck, I recommend that for anybody. It’s one of the best things I’ve do for my shoulders, especially if you’re a bench presser, shoulder presser, you get really tight in your shoulders, you might have a shoulder impingement, do the dead hang, make it a regular part of your fitness activity. It’ll help your shoulders out a ton.

Michael Easter:

Yeah, I agree a hundred percent. And if you want to level it up, you can just do single arm hangs as you progress. But I agree with you. That’s something I try and do every single day, even for just 30 seconds.

Brett McKay:

So your big proponent of this thing called the 2% mindset, in fact, your substack is called 2%. What is the 2% mindset and how do you apply it to rucking?

Michael Easter:

Yeah, so the 2% mindset, it comes from this study that found that only 2% of people take the stairs when there’s also an escalator available 2%. Now, to me, 100% of people know that taking the stairs is going to be better for their long-term health, maybe even their long-term mental health. But 98% of people choose to do the easy effortless thing, even though it might harm them in the long run, in the context of how little we move today. So the 2% mindset, it’s not really about the stares though in that study. To me, it’s like this overarching idea of being willing to embrace short-term discomfort to get a long-term benefit. So yes, it’s the stairs facing the discomfort of the stairs to get to that second floor instead of doing the easy thing. But you can apply that to so many different areas of your life.

And I think by applying that in as many different areas as you can find, those little benefits you get from each uncomfortable act, they really compound over time and lead to these massive changes. Now to apply it to rucking, I think it goes back to if you have something that you already have to do, but you could throw a rock on as you do it to make it a little bit harder to get more from every step, to me that feels like a massive win. It’s like if you got to walk down to your mailbox in our neighborhood, our mailbox is set away. It’s like a quarter mile away or whatever. If I could just throw a rock on, I’m getting more from every step. And if I do that every single day that I get the mail, that’s going to add up a lot over time.

If I’m vacuuming, throw on the ruck, if I’m doing a nightly walk with my kids or whatever, I’m going to throw on the ruck. And so I think it’s really just finding ways. How can I add this tool into things I already have to do in order to get a bigger long-term benefit from that thing? For example, my doctor, great dude, he started wearing a ruck as he was doing rounds, so he was literally walking around the hospital all day visiting patients, and he just rolls in and consults with people, and he is got this pack on, and it’s like, to me, that is awesome. He already has to do rounds. It’s not impeding his ability to do his job in any way, and he is also showing his patients a really valuable lesson that this exercise thing that I’ve been telling you to do for all these years, it doesn’t have to be that hard. I think that one problem with the way that society views exercise is we view it as this separate distinct thing from our normal lives. It’s like we got our 30 minutes in the gym where we run on a treadmill. It’s a special little time, and then the other 23 hours and 30 minutes of the day were totally sedentary. But to me it’s like, how can I just add more activity into my life? How can I make the things I already have to do a little bit harder so that I can live better?

Brett McKay:

I love the whole idea of the 2% mindset, and I know I’ve talked about this a lot on the podcast, but be a two percenter has become a motto in our family.

Michael Easter:

Awesome. I love it.

Brett McKay:

So whenever we’re at the airport especially, that’s when you see stairs because there’s almost always stairs next to the escalator, and we tell our kids, okay, McKay’s are two percenters. We’re taking the stairs.

Michael Easter:

I love it.

Brett McKay:

Yeah. So let’s say you’ve been rucking for a while and you want to challenge yourself. Any challenges you’d recommend for people to try out after they’ve been doing this for a while?

Michael Easter:

Yeah, I list a handful in the book, and a lot of them are based off of some of the military challenges that we talked about. I’ve of course adapted them for the average person. So there’s a big list there. But I think just it could be using a certain weight for a certain distance. I mean, my favorite thing personally is once a year I’m going to take a long backpacking trip somewhere, say three days out with my friends. That gives me incentive to keep rucking all year. So I’m able to handle those loads when I go into the mountains. And that in itself is a good challenge. It’s like, all right, we’re going to try and do 20 miles a day. We got our 35, 40 pounds of gear on our backs, and we’re going to do this big loop, this big circuit, wherever it is in the mountains. And so I think finding these big challenges, I think can incentivize you to get those little wins we talked about with the 2% mindset, and then give you something that sort of pushes you up against the boundaries of your limits and teaches you something about yourself.

Brett McKay:

I love it. Well, Michael, this has been a great conversation. Where can people go to learn more about the book and your work?

Michael Easter:

Probably the best place to find me is on my Substack. It’s called 2% as we talked about, and the website is twopct.com. There’s a lot of rucking material on there. You can find links to the book on there. And the book is of course available at pretty much anywhere you buy books, which I think for the vast majority of people is amazon.com.

Brett McKay:

Fantastic. Well, Michael Easter, thanks for your time. It’s been a pleasure.

Michael Easter:

Yeah, thanks a lot, man.

Brett McKay:

My guest today was Michael Easter. He’s the author of the book Walk With Weight. It’s available on amazon.com and bookstores everywhere. You can learn more information about his work at his website, 2%, and you can find that at twopct.com, twopct.com. It’s a great substack, one of my favorite newsletters. Check it out. Also check out our show notes at aom.is/ruck, where you can find resources to delve deeper into this topic. 

Well, that wraps up another edition of the AoM podcast. Please consider sharing the show with a friend or family member you think would get something out of it. As always, thank you for the continued support. Until next time, this is Brett McKay reminding you to not only listen to the podcast, but to put what you’ve heard into action.

This article was originally published on The Art of Manliness.

When the physician and psychiatrist Leonard Schwartz surveyed his life at middle-age, he was not particularly happy with the state of himself as a physical specimen. Decades of smoking, overwork, and living a sedentary lifestyle had left him with high blood pressure, chronic back pain, and a generally subpar level of energy.

Dr. Schwartz began incorporating swimming and running into his routine, and found these exercises brought him to a decent level of fitness. But he still felt he wasn’t where he wanted to be health-wise.

It was at this point that the good doc developed a fitness system that ultimately lowered his heart rate, cut his running times in half (despite doing less mileage), upped his strength, dropped his weight, and exponentially boosted his vim and vigor.

The name of his system was “Heavyhands” and with the publication of Heavyhands: The Ultimate Exercise and Heavyhands Walking in the 1980s, Schwartz’s methodology became something of a national sensation. Though the workout has now largely been forgotten, it’s deserving of a resurrection.

The Origins of Heavyhands Walking

The idea for Heavyhands grew out of Schwartz’s discovery that the athletes with the highest VO2 max (generally considered the best indicator of cardiovascular fitness) were not cyclists, nor runners, but cross-country skiers.

From this insight, Schwartz drew a conclusion that was both intuitive and seemingly neglected: when it came to achieving cardiovascular fitness, “Four limbs are better than two.”

Most forms of cardio, the doctor observed, greatly emphasized the lower body over the upper. Activating the latter as much as the former, Schwartz hypothesized, could thus significantly increase the workload, and the subsequent health benefits, of exercise.

Schwartz began to test his theory both on himself and in a laboratory by taking small dumbbells in each hand and then performing all sorts of exercises: striding and swinging the dumbbells using the “double pole” maneuver cross-country skiers employ; running (for distance and in place); lunging, jumping, and dancing; and just generally moving his legs and swinging dumbbell-laden arms in all kinds of directions and combinations.

While all these varied calisthenics proved effective, Schwartz found that doing the “Heavyhands Walk” — essentially walking while pumping dumbbells with one’s arms — was the “best way to begin combined, four-limbed movements” and the most natural form of heavy-handed exercise.

The Benefits of Heavyhands Walking

Walking is an oft-recommended exercise, and while it’s certainly better than doing nothing, it’s a pretty light form of activity, with lightweight benefits to match. A Heavyhands Walk transforms a pedestrian saunter into what Dr. Schwartz believed is “an exercise that makes one more mechanically strong and aerobically powerful than any other combination of exercises could.” Schwartz called it “Walk Plus” — an activity that couples all the normal benefits of walking (gets you outside, doesn’t involve real skill, can be done anywhere) with these additional advantages as well:

Whole body exercise. Even in our day-to-day life, outside of a dedicated workout, our legs get “exercise” by default by having to carry us from one place to another. Our arms, in contrast, typically just kind of hang there. Even when we do engage in intentional cardio, our lower bodies often do a greatly disproportionate amount of the work; the arms and torso are fairly inert in cycling, for example, and even when running, one’s arms swing through the air without resistance. That leaves a lot of the body on the passive table; as Schwartz observed, “While arms are small compared to legs, the upper body contains fully 65 percent of our total muscle mass!” Heavyhands engages all the muscle groups of the body, bottom to top.

Strength + cardio. While Heavyhands is primarily a cardiovascular exercise, it does build a bit of strength too. While doing thousands of repetitions with light weights isn’t going to make you big and strong, it does engage the muscles more than some other types of cardio, and athletes who have tried it have found surprising carryover improvements in their performance in their primary sports.

The same kind of benefit from doing loaded carries can of course be found in something like rucking. But not only actively carrying but manipulating the weight engages different muscles, and makes one’s walk more inefficient and effortful; carrying weight with the hands may produce up to twice the workload of carrying it supported on the back.

Convenient. By engaging the whole body, Heavyhands gives you a better workout, in less time. Plus, you hardly need any equipment and can do it anywhere, even packing your little dumbbells on a trip.

Improves cardiovascular health. Schwartz’s testing found that by adding the pumping of weights, and engaging all four limbs simultaneously, the workload, and thus the cardiovascular benefits, were greatly improved compared to conventional walking. For example, vigorously pumping 3-lb weights while walking briskly generated 2.5-3X the workload of walking without the weights, and at certain levels, Heavyhands Walking approaches the cardiovascular workload of jogging.

Effective, but low impact. Even though the cardiovascular workload from a Heavyhands walk does approach that of jogging, it’s a form of exercise that is much gentler on the body. With most forms of cardio, if you want to up your workload, your only option is to move your legs faster and harder, and that can lead to injuries. With Heavyhands, you can increase the intensity in both arms and legs, distributing the effort. And unlike with running, both legs never leave the ground at the same time, minimizing the impact of the movement. For these reasons, it can be a great cardio workout for those who are recovering from certain injuries that prevent them from engaging in their usual modality, or for those who are older and simply feeling the wear and tear of time.

Go longer, more comfortably. Relying on the intensity of your legs to power your workout can be uncomfortable and lead to the premature cessation of one’s workout. Schwartz found that by incorporating all four limbs, exercise felt easier and more comfortable, allowing people to keep at it longer.

Fat loss and improved body composition. Having observed that people hated to be deprived and almost never stuck with modifications to their eating, Dr. Schwartz did not believe in dieting for weight loss. Instead, for the exact reasons we recently outlined here, he advocated for the “Overall legitimacy of exercise as the supreme weight-controlling device.” Confident that you could shed pounds simply by adding the exercise habit alone, he thought Heavyhands — and the way it engaged the whole body and allowed for longer periods of steady-state cardio — was the most effective workout for achieving this aim.

By doing Heavyhands, Schwartz himself lost 15 pounds while eating more, and more of his favorite foods. He also found that Heavyhanders not only lost weight in general, but saw their lean muscle mass go up and their fat go down, improving their overall body composition. Strength coach Dan John, who first introduced us to Heavyhands and does the Heavyhands Walk himself, has seen this very effect born out in both himself and the clients he trains. Indeed, John says that Heavyhands is “still the best fat-burning workout for the masses.”

All in all, Schwartz considered Heavyhands Walking the optimum workout for everyone — whether young or old, currently sedentary or long-active — and thought it could be used as a person’s primary form of exercise, or as a supplement to their other athletic pursuits.

How to Do Heavyhands Walking

Back in the 1980s, people heard about Heavyhands through the grapevine, maybe flipped through Schwartz’s books, and figured the concept was simple enough that they needn’t bother to actually read them.

As a result, many thought they knew how to do a Heavyhands Walk and went for it. Then, when they didn’t get the results they sought, they abandoned the idea, blaming the methodology.

Heavyhands is pretty simple, but there are things you have to understand and adopt if you want to see real results. Let’s talk about what those things are:

The Pump. This is key to the effectiveness of Heavyhands Walking, and the most common thing people neglect (and then wonder why the method isn’t working for them). You don’t simply carry dumbbells in your hands when you do a Heavyhands Walk; you pump them.

While carrying weights in any fashion will increase the workload of a conventional walk, pumping them versus letting them dangle by your side will recruit more muscle and increase the required effort, and the attendant benefits. For example, Schwartz’s lab found that you would burn 4X more calories high pumping 2-lb weights than carrying 15-lb weights at a dead hang.

The “pump ‘n’ walk.”

To do the proper “pump ‘n’ walk,” take a “diagonal stride,” swinging the arm opposite the striding leg, i.e., when your left leg is striding forward, your right arm is pumping, and vice versa. Keep your elbows close to your sides, and curl the weight up, palms facing inward.

The three levels at which to pump your dumbbell-holding arms.

There are three standard levels to the pump and each level represents one foot: “Measuring with the hands hanging straight down at your sides, if you’re about average height, Level 1 hits you about belly button high, Level 2 near the front of the shoulder joint, Level 3 about the top of your head.” You can also shoot for the moon and go for Level 4, pumping “about as high as most of us can pump without losing the limb!” The higher you pump, the harder the work. The different pump levels also emphasize different muscles, with levels 1 and 2 targeting the arms, and 3 and 4 recruiting your shoulders, upper back, and chest.

With every pump, don’t just emphasize the upwards arc, but also intentionally pull the weight down on the downstroke rather than just letting it fall; a deliberate pull on the eccentric side of the movement will engage your lats, triceps, and pectorals.

The Weights. To perform a Heavyhands Walk, you walk while holding a dumbbell in each hand. Schwartz describes the Heavyhands Walk as a form of “strength-endurance,” but the emphasis is definitely on the endurance part of things. You want to carry weights heavy enough to offer a little resistance, engage the muscles, and add to the workload, but light enough that you can pump your arms with them for an extended period of time.

If you’ve already been lifting weights, you’ll probably greatly overestimate how much you can heft. As you’ll quickly find, pumping a weight a thousand times is a whole different ball game from doing a set of ten.

So start with two-pounders (or even one-pounders), and go from there. If you really do this regularly, you may end up increasing the weight of each dumbbell to something like 10 lbs, but sub 5-pounders are going to be right for nearly everyone at the start, and for a long time after.

Any hand weights will do, but Schwartz recommends getting ones with a strap that goes around the back of the hand to support the weight and reduce the need to overgrip it; with or without the hand strap, you don’t want to grip your dumbbells too tightly, as this will lead to fatigue and spasm.

Having tested both the soft, sand-filled kind of hand weights, and the solid, firm variety, we prefer the latter.

The Regimen. Schwartz recommended doing three to four 30-minute Heavyhand sessions a week. But you can find a length and frequency that works for you.

A good, moderate place to start (you may need to scale back if you’re totally new to exercise) is walking with 2-lb weights, doing the Level 2 pump, for 30 minutes. You may need to intermittently revert to Level 1 at times to rest your arms before returning to Level 2.

To increase or decrease the intensity of your walks, you can play with three variables: pace, weights, and pump level. To up the intensity, walk faster, carry heavier weights, and/or pump higher; to lower the intensity, do the converse.

If you wish to throw in a greater emphasis on the strength side of things, Schwartz recommends using the heaviest weights you can pump for 10% of the time you Heavyhands Walk. You’ll have to slow your pace, and/or lower the pump height to make this doable. Keep in mind that upping the weights will make the workout more anaerobic and less aerobic.

While Dr. Schwartz believed the Heavyhands Walk alone was plenty sufficient to keep your fitness tuned up, he felt that, ideally, you’d also incorporate other moves into your walk as well in order to target different muscles. This included all manner of goofy-looking kicks, struts, skips, leg lifts, punches, lunges, and duckwalks, which, realistically, the average person is not going to feel comfortable performing. At least in public.

Schwartz himself admitted that there was a potential embarrassment factor to be overcome even with doing the standard Heavyhands Walk itself. Though, he thought it wouldn’t be a factor we’d have to contend with in the 21st century, as he was confident that Heavyhands wasn’t a fad but would instead become a permanent, commonplace fixture of the fitness landscape. “The nice thing about social embarrassment phenomena is that . . . they disappear as fast as they emerge,” Schwartz predicted back in 1987. “When people discover that the odd movements associated with pump ‘n’ walk produce exhibitable muscular rips and cuts, the embarrassment will vanish. You can count on it.”

Well, the good doc was wrong about that. But, he was right about the effectiveness of the workout he birthed. So just try to walk where people won’t see you. Or briefly stop pumping when a car drives by. Or, best of all, put on some sweatbands, embrace your inner, totally tubular 1980s walking dad, and stop caring what people think about you already.

With our archives 4,000 articles deep, we’ve decided to republish a classic piece each Sunday to help our newer readers discover some of the best, evergreen gems from the past. This article was originally published in January 2023.

This article was originally published on The Art of Manliness.

Do you feel like your physical training has gotten stagnant and boring?

Like you’ve woken up in a Planet Fitness Groundhog Day?

Same gym. Same exercises. Same rep ranges. Year after year after year.

I’m a big fan of consistency and repetition. I think there’s a virtue in being okay with and even taking joy in doing the same thing over and over again.

But when it comes to my physical training, I’ve learned over the past decade that adding some seasonality to my fitness programs yields big benefits, both physiologically and psychologically.

We’ve written before about the value of seasonality in daily life in helping you get over the “horror of the same old thing.” And we’ve offered the example of creating seasonal music playlists: you make playlists, whether for general listening or for your workouts, that consist of songs you only listen to during spring/summer/winter/fall. Putting your music into this kind of rotation builds anticipation for the return of certain albums/artists, keeps songs fresh, and adds more of a distinct atmosphere to each season of the year. The repetition is still there, but it has rhythm. It makes the year feel more textured, rather than a monotonous slog of sameness.

That same principle applies just as well to physical training, and arguably with even greater payoff.

Why You Need to Add Some Seasonality Into Your Training

Seasonal training provides focus. When you train the same way all year, your fitness goals sort of congeal into a vague, amorphous lump that provides zero focus for your effort. Without a clear focus, you try to train to be strong, lean, well-conditioned, mobile, and pain-free at the same time. None of those goals are bad; the problem is that your training never clearly emphasizes one over the others. Changing your training with the seasons gives it a focus for long enough to get things done, but not so long that you get bored with it.

Seasonal training gives your body a break. Heavy lifting is one of the best things you can do for long-term strength and health. It’s also stressful on joints and connective tissue when it’s pushed hard, week after week, month after month. Runners have the same issue. If all you do is long runs after long runs, week after week, you’re going to accumulate overuse injuries.

You can give your body a break by simply changing what you do. Change is a rest! For example, during the fall and winter, I focus on heavy barbell lifts. After a while, it beats up my tendons. In the spring and summer, I give my connective tissue a break from heavy lifts with lighter weights and more variety beyond barbells.

Seasonal training keeps motivation fresh. When there’s no shift in focus, training can start to feel like a job with no off-season. You begin to feel like Sisyphus pushing that boulder up the mountain over and over again. Training becomes a chore and not something to express your vitality. Seasonal shifts create something to look forward to without requiring constant program changes. By the end of winter, heavy lifting starts to feel stale, and you’re ready for higher-rep work and lighter loads. By late summer, volume feels played out, and the thought of moving heavy weight again is appealing.

Also, just as saving certain music for certain seasons adds texture and rhythm to your life, saving certain activities for particular seasons can do the same. It gives you something to anticipate and re-relish. When summer arrives, you enjoy returning to the pool for cardio. When fall flows in, you find joy in once again running on crisp mornings.

Seasonal training aligns with how your energy actually fluctuates throughout the year. Your schedule, sleep, stress levels, daylight exposure, and social calendar don’t stay constant throughout the year. During the fall and winter, I’m busy taking kids to basketball games and other after-school activities, so I don’t have time for super long training sessions. I need something that lasts about 45 minutes. During the summer, my schedule opens up so I have time for longer workouts. Training as if your life is an unchanging constant will only create frustration and friction. What feels like a good workout in July can feel burdensome in January. Seasonal training works with those shifts instead of fighting them.

How to Add Some Seasonality Into Your Training

Seasonal training doesn’t require complicated periodization charts or constant program-hopping. It simply means changing your primary training focus, the length of your workouts, and/or the modalities you engage in as the seasons change.

You can put both your strength training and your cardio routine into a seasonal cycle. For example, you might focus on building strength with barbells one half of the year, and then shift to emphasizing size by using machines to develop hypertrophy in the other half. And/or you might do running and indoor rowing for cardio during the fall/winter, and then shift to rucking and swimming during the spring/summer.

Here’s how I incorporate seasonality into both my training, and my diet as well:

Fall and Winter: Strength Season

From September through March, my focus is on strength and mass.

This is when I prioritize low-rep, heavy barbell work on the main lifts — squats, presses, and deadlifts. The goal during this phase isn’t variety or conditioning; it’s performance — moving weight, reacquainting myself with heavy loads, and practicing the skill of max-effort strength.

I still do accessory work and some hypertrophy training, but it’s secondary. I do a little cardio, but it’s minimal and mostly there to support recovery and general health, not to push fitness boundaries. Because, as mentioned, my schedule is busy during this time, these sessions are pretty short — usually just 45 minutes.

This is also the season when I bulk. I eat up to 3,600 calories a day and can put on as much as 15 pounds of muscle and fat during this time.

I don’t dirty bulk. I take it nice and slow. I slowly titrate up my calories during these months. When the holidays hit, I loosen up the reins on my macro tracking a bit. The timing makes sense. Colder weather naturally increases appetite. I can lean into the holidays’ many eating opportunities without feeling socially out of sync. Trying to maintain a tight cut through Thanksgiving and Christmas is possible, but it takes extra effort and is mentally expensive.

Spring and Summer: Hypertrophy, Leanness, and Movement

As winter breaks and the days get longer, I intentionally shift away from heavy, low-rep work.

Spring and summer are when volume goes up, and loads come down. I focus more on hypertrophy-style training: higher volume and more exercise variety. My joints and tendons get a break from near-max efforts on the main barbell lifts.

Mobility also becomes a bigger part of training during this season. The goal is to improve my range of motion and undo some of the stiffness that heavy winter lifting can create.

I do more cardio during the spring/summer, and because the weather allows it, more movement happens outside. I’ll ruck more. I’ll do some heavy carries. We also try to get out as a family to hike and backpack more often during the spring and summer. Got to take advantage of those long days!

I start cutting during this season, and my calories come down. I gradually work toward leaning out, usually aiming to get back to around 11% body fat. Interestingly, eating less feels easier to do in warm weather. Appetite tends to be lower. And honestly, after a bulk, cutting down to 2,600–2,800 calories a day feels like a relief. It’s nice not having to think about getting enough food every day. I do more fasting during the warmer months, too.

How to Add Seasonality to Your Training Without Overcomplicating It

Here’s a simple way to apply seasonal training to your own routine. Don’t overthink it!

Pick one primary focus per season. Choose a focus for your season and let the others play a supporting role. Maybe during the fall/winter, your focus is strength, and in spring/summer, it’s cardio/endurance. Figure out what you like and do that.

Adjust your environment. More indoor, gym-based work in winter. More outdoor movement in the warmer seasons. (Although try to get outside during the cold months too!)

Decide when the season ends. Having an endpoint prevents a productive phase from turning into a stale grind. Your training “seasons” don’t have to follow the literal seasons of the year, but I like to break up mine into spring/summer and fall/winter chunks.

Experiences that unfold in set cycles offer both novelty and familiarity — a sustainable freshness. By adding seasonal rhythms to your training, the pursuit of good health becomes easier to maintain over the long haul, more productive, and a lot more satisfying.

This article was originally published on The Art of Manliness.

For decades, fitness culture has tended to break people into two categories: you’re either a strength guy or an endurance guy. You lift heavy or run far — but not both.

But my guest today says you don’t have to choose; you can excel at both modalities and be ready for anything.

Alex Viada is a coach, a physiologist, and the author of The Hybrid Athlete. He’s a powerlifter who’s also completed Ironman triathlons, and he’s deadlifted 700 pounds and run an ultramarathon in the same week. Even if your goals are much more modest — you’d like to, say, set some weightlifting PRs in the gym and be able to run a decent 5k — Alex’s training philosophy can help you combine lifting and endurance in a smart, sustainable way that builds true all-around fitness.

In our conversation, Alex explains how to combine training for strength with distance sports like running or cycling, how to test your progress, how to recognize and avoid the two kinds of fatigue, and why becoming a hybrid athlete will help you live more adventurously — and more capably.

Resources Related to the Podcast

• Alex’s previous appearance on the AoM podcast: Episode #860: Get Fit, Not Fried — The Benefits of Zone 2 Cardio
• AoM Article: A Guide to the Biggest Thing Missing From Your Fitness Routine — Zone 2 Training
• AoM Podcast #970: The Misconceptions of HIIT (And the Role It Can Play in Your Fitness Routine)
• AoM Podcast #787: Run Like a Pro (Even If You’re Slow)
• AoM Podcast #777: Becoming a Hybrid Athlete

Connect With Alex Viada

• Complete Human Performance
• Alex on IG

Listen to the Podcast! (And don’t forget to leave us a review!)

Listen to the episode on a separate page.

Download this episode.

Subscribe to the podcast in the media player of your choice.

Transcript 

Brett McKay:

Brett McKay here and welcome to another edition of the AoM podcast. For decades, fitness culture has tended to break people into two categories. You’re either a strength guy or an endurance guy. You lift heavy or run far, but not both. But my guest today says you don’t have to choose. You can excel at both modalities and be ready for anything. Alex Viada is a coach, a physiologist, and the author of The Ultimate Hybrid Athlete. He’s a powerlifter who’s also completed Ironman triathlons and he’s deadlifted 700 pounds and run an ultra marathon in the same week. Even if your goals are much more modest, you’d like to say set some weightlifting PRs in the gym and be able to run a decent 5K. Alex’s training philosophy can help you combine lifting and endurance in a smart and sustainable way that builds true all around fitness. In our conversation, Alex explains how to combine training for strength with distance sports like running, how to test your progress, how to recognize and avoid the two kinds of fatigue, and why becoming a hybrid athlete will help you live more adventurously and more capably. After show’s over, check out our show notes at aom.is/hybridathlete. All right, Alex Viada, welcome back to the show,

Alex Viada:

Thank you very much.

Brett McKay:

So we had you on the podcast in 2023. We talked all about zone two cardio, right? And I wanted to bring you back on because you’ve got a book out. You’ve written the book on a fitness approach called hybrid training, and this combines strength training with endurance training. So this is if you want to be a power lifter and run ultra-marathons at the same time, I think to better understand hybrid training, I think it would be useful to talk about your own fitness background. How has your approach to strength and fitness evolved over the years and how did it eventually lead to hybrid training?

Alex Viada:

Sure. Yes. So my first fitness started, I was actually back in, oh gosh, even pre elementary school days, always really active kid. Did a lot of different sports all through elementary school, middle school, high school, everything I could get thrown into everything from football, boxing tracks, swimming, tennis, whatever. And went to college, went to a D1 school and was clearly not good enough to play on any team. So for the first couple of years of college, I lost the ability to do anything except I still ate like a 17-year-old who was playing six different sports. So got really out of shape finally by my senior year, dialed it back in, got back into shape, got back into shape primarily through lifting, got really into lifting heavy, got really into power lifting, got a lot of enjoyment out of it. And after a couple of years I was just chatting with some friends and long story short, got challenged to run a 5K with them.

The training for that, the first session was probably one of the most eyeopening slash embarrassing slash I just realized all my fitness that I had for most of my youth was gone. I was a one trick pony and I hated it. So I kind of resolved. I said, all right, I’m a power lifter. In talking to runners, none of them know how to still run while respecting my lifting. All of them say, well yeah, I don’t know how you do both. So I made it this personal experiment and for the next couple of years I tried and failed magnificently to combine them all. And after a couple more years, I finally got better at it and started branching out. I kept progressing into lifting, really got into long distance cycling, got into more long distance running events, and really the whole practice at that point just became, alright, let’s come up with a methodology. Let’s talk about the system that I actually used to be able to train for all these things without crashing and burning in any of them.

Brett McKay:

So you’re doing cycling, you’re doing running, have you done marathons?

Alex Viada:

Yeah, I’ve done a couple of marathons, done a couple of ultras, done a few Ironman triathlons and on the endurance side of things, I was far from elite. I had some decent performances here and there, but the events, I like doing the ultra long distance ones. I’ve just always been a little too heavy to do them really fast and efficiently. But I enjoyed them, enjoyed ’em a lot, really liked doing things like long mountain hikes, big summits, things like that. Yeah, so really just kind of tried to do a little bit of everything. Like I said, I think what I enjoy and what I’ve always maintained is that this is all about developing the capability to go do fun things.

Brett McKay:

So what are the benefits of hybrid training? Why would someone want to do it? Let’s say they’re a powerlifter and they’re like, this is just my thing, I’ll just focus on that. Or let’s say they’re just a runner. Why would I want to start powerlifting? What are the benefits you think?

Alex Viada:

Yeah, it’s funny because it’s very easy to stay with one sport and say, Hey man, this is everything I want. Why would I start doing any sort of hybrid training? I mean, the first is, and this is kind of the most cliche slash boring one is honestly health, single-minded pursuit of any one sport does not typically lead to the best health outcomes. And we can see that for people who do nothing but run, there’s kind of this almost dose dependent, inverted U curve in terms of running and health where a little bit of it to a good bit of it is quite good for you, but when you really become all into it, it leads to all sorts of other problems. Same with lifting. To be healthy when you get older is all about good cardiovascular health. It’s about maintaining muscle size, bone density coordination, all those things and training for all that training to keep all that requires some sort of hybrid approach.

But again, that’s kind of that quote boring one. The second one would be simply because you want to try new things, and I think a lot of people, they think, okay, yeah, I’m a gym rat. I love lifting heavy or I’m a runner. A lot of times people might have some level of interest in what is the draw behind this? You’re a powerlifter, you love spending time in the gym. You might very well say, yeah, I wish I could just go hike that mountain and go camping or go hiking with the kids or go backwards hunting or anything else. And you might feel like that path is shut off to you because you’ve never trained for it. You think I’m a big strong guy, but if I have to walk five miles, I’m done. And I think it’s allowing yourself as an individual to say, well, there’s some exciting stuff out there. I want to try that. I want to feel like I can dip my toe in any activity and at least give a credible shot.

Brett McKay:

I was going to say I can see the appeal of that. So I’m a strength guy. I just do power lifting. The major barbell lifts. In this past Thanksgiving, I did a Turkey trot. It was a 5K, a little shorter than a 5K. And man, I’ll tell you I got winded. I mean I was kind of proud of myself. I kind of stuck with it for maybe the first mile and a half and then eventually I had my hands on my head huffing and puffing walking.

Alex Viada:

But it’s cool though, right? You’re like, Hey man, I’m out here. I’m with family, I’m doing this, and it doesn’t even have to be about saying, all right, next year I’m going to be top 10% of my age group, I’m going to be up. Nah, sometimes it’s just saying, Hey, you know what? Maybe if I find a way to just incorporate a little bit of intelligent running into my program, I can keep going out and doing these things and say, Hey man, yeah, I gave it a shot. Yeah, I felt good about it. And I think that’s really, it doesn’t have to be about pursuing elite performance in these other things sometimes just saying, yeah, I want to go out with the family and do this. That sounds cool.

Brett McKay:

I’m curious, whenever you are dealing with clients who come from, let’s say just a strength background, what are the biggest challenges that they have in starting like, okay, I’m going to start running 5Ks or a marathon?

Alex Viada:

I think sometimes one of the biggest challenges of course is body type because typically a lot of lifters, not only do they tend to be a little bit bigger than the average runner or a lot bit bigger than the average runner, but a lot of lifters over time, you’ve got a lot of what I would call functional tightness and different functional ranges of motion. As much as I hate that term, a lot of lifters can be a little bit tighter in the hip. Sometimes ankle mobility may not be. Sometimes things like running efficiency, like quick rebound, a lot of things that are developed through plyometrics, some lifters may not have, some do, certainly there are some lifters out there who take great paints to do this, but there are a lot of things in your running mechanics that may be slightly off because you spent so long in your career training in certain body positions, training certain muscles, training for maximum strength.

So I think a lot of lifters who go to running find running just extremely uncomfortable at first. The gait doesn’t feel natural, everything gets sore really, really quickly. So one of the biggest things is just getting lifters kind of loose, limber and feeling good about running. And one of the great things is things like plyometrics are great for runners of all levels. They will just make you a faster, more efficient runner, whatever you do, and a lot of lifters take really well to plyometrics just because you’re like, Hey, this is explosive power. I can kind of vibe with this. And getting a lot of lifters just into running and having them start doing some plyometrics, they go, oh wow, this is a good challenge. I feel uncoordinated, but I don’t feel wildly out of my element. And sure enough, they immediately start becoming better rudders on top of it.

Brett McKay:

What about endurance athletes transferring over to strength training, like power lifting or something like that, or even power building, combining hypertrophy training with it?

Alex Viada:

Yeah, I think one of the toughest things there is I think lifting and inherently, it’s not that it requires a greater pain tolerance by far. I mean endurance sports actually do require a greater pain tolerance slash threshold than lifting, but lifting is very much about momentary discomfort and second to second aggression, being able to attack a lift, being able to get that level of dial digression and also to deal with that level of full body strain, the increase in interabdominal pressure, the sudden axial loading, things like that. A lot of endurance athletes, it’s not that they’re worse at that than the average person. I think it’s very much a surprise. It’s a very different way of approaching exercise. It’s a completely different mindset. Running is very much about managing discomfort, running is about breathing and getting in the zone and everything else, and for a lot of lifting is an inherently straining activity. And I think getting into that mindset and saying, all right, this is going to require a different way of thinking about exercise and a different way of thinking about effort, that’s one of the hardest things.

Brett McKay:

Yeah, it’s a different kind of hurt.

Alex Viada:

Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

Brett McKay:

Like you said, it’s a different type of exertion. When you lift weights,

Alex Viada:

That’s kind of it. You’re under a heavy squat, you feel the bar in your back pushing on your neck, you’ve got that intraabdominal pressure, you’ve got a lure to that strain in your knees and hips. It’s a very different sort of thing and you have to be the mindset for it.

Brett McKay:

So I imagine a lot of people who have a focus on one fitness modality, so if they’re strength training doing hypertrophy, they probably are the mindset I want to see progress. I want to be able to test myself to see if I’m making progress. And so for a strength athlete that’s going to be every once in a while you’re going to do a one rep max lift all exertion to see, okay, how am I doing with my strength with an endurance athlete, I imagine it’s the same thing. They had this focus, I want to get better. I want to be able to run longer, faster, and so they’re going to do a marathon or a 5K and try to beat their best time with hybrid training, you’re training both of these things at the same time, strength and endurance. How do you test to see how you’re doing? Are there challenges you set up for yourself like, okay, I’m going to deadlift 600 pounds and then immediately afterwards go run a marathon or what does that look like for you?

Alex Viada:

See, that’s actually a really, really good question because there is a whole subset of hybrid athletes are all about the challenges and there are all these numbered challenges and combinations of events and everything else. And to me, my view of hybrid training has always been, yes, you’re training for different sports, but you want to train to be capable at any moment. And one of the ways that I personally do a lot of my endurance training, a lot of my lifting training when I first put together my programmer first start a new client or start a training cycle, I have a pretty good idea of what my one rep maxes are and kind of what my running threshold is, that lactate threshold slash a little bit like the 5K slash 10K pace, somewhere in between there and I know what those numbers are and as I put together my program, my workouts for the week or for the month, I’m thinking, okay, this week I’m lifting 90% for X number on the bench press and then 85% on my max for x number of repetition, so on and so forth on the running and going, okay, this week this workout is three by 10 minutes at 97% of my threshold.

Okay, great. And so what I’ll do is I’ll run those for a couple of weeks, then what I do is I take that one rep max or threshold number and say, okay, these workouts are getting easy. Let me recalculate all this based on a five pound increase in my one rep max or a five second per mile improvement in my threshold pace. The next week or next two weeks I run these new numbers, everything seems good, I’m still getting them done. I’ll increase it again. So what happens when you do this, you’re not actually retesting your one red max. What you’re doing is you’re estimating your peak performance and seeing how all of this max training matches up to it. And this doesn’t sound very exciting, but it’s sort of like the thing you realize when, hey, I’m doing my old max for a triple now my max is clearly better, or yeah, I’m doing 10 minute intervals at a pace where I could barely run three minutes a couple months ago.

A lot of this type of continuous reevaluation, I’ll tell people set benchmarks for yourself, a specific run, a specific run course, a circuit, a workout, same thing with the lifting. Know kind of how a triple feels and how five reps feels and as you progress, as things get easier, continue to challenge yourself by upping those. You don’t ever have to test your max. So that way when you’re finally ready for an event, you can say, cool, alright, well my threshold is now this. Let me test it. There should be no question in your mind which you can hit. Now I know a lot of people like to say, oh, well I like getting benchmarks every couple of weeks, every couple of months. But my thing with benchmarks is they always disrupt the training and my whole thing is just keep doing quality work as long as you can until you actually need to test it.

Brett McKay:

Yeah, going for a benchmark does disrupt your training. I’ve seen that in my own strength training. Whenever I do go for a one rep PR, I’m out for a couple days. The amount of fatigue that you build up in just that one single exertion, it fries you.

Alex Viada:

Yeah, and the thing is it can also be mentally tough because especially in a hybrid program, and one of the reasons I use this method is because fatigue always masks fitness. The lifting you’re doing might make some of your fast runs feel a little bit harder and the running you’re doing might make your lifting feel a little bit more challenging. So I’m like, hey, if you are really going to take a test, a benchmark and you’ve really got to peak for it or you’ve got to taper for it, you got to pretty much take a whole week off of training for both to let yourself recover so you can really test an honest benchmark and that gets disruptive. So I’m like, hey, always just have an ongoing sense of what your performance is, check your current performance against benchmark workouts, ones that are sub max, but you know how you perform and you’ll always be able to tell where you stand and I mean using this method, I’ve got some marathon runs. I’ve got one person I work with on marathons, just as a recent example, her running threshold went up by 45 seconds per mile over the course of eight months, and just by tracking her threshold and telling her to run at a certain percentage of that threshold, I was able to get her marathon time. Her final marathon time was within I think 45 seconds of what we predicted and we hadn’t had to test anything in that whole time period.

Brett McKay:

Yeah, so it sounds like your approach to hybrid training, I mean you can do the challenges that are out there like, Hey, I’m one red at max, the big barbell list, then go run a marathon. It sounds like your approach is I’m just going to do this continuously so I’m ready for anything.

Alex Viada:

Exactly. Exactly. Because the challenges are cool, they capture the imagination and all that, but at the end of the day, if you’re just training for two specific things like that, why do ’em both in one day, that’s not the best way to get the best performance of each one. Do ’em a couple weeks apart, go register for a marathon and sign up for a power lifting meet three or four weeks later if you really want to test them. I’m like, do something real with it because I think a lot of these challenges, you’re intentionally making it harder than it has to be by kind of creating something arbitrary. Just be the best lifter you can be and be the best runner you could be. See where that ends up.

Brett McKay:

Well, do you do that every year? Do you kind of plan out, okay, I’m going to run these events and then I also want to do one or two meets a year? Do you schedule that out for yourself?

Alex Viada:

Yeah, I actually haven’t done the last couple years, I’ve just been dealing with a lot of moving a couple times and the last few years and all that, haven’t really had the intent to doing it, but this next year I’ve definitely got probably planning a power lifting meet sometime in the late summer, probably do an event in March running event. So yeah, just planning out ones. And for me, the most important thing is my whole thought with training for events, unless there’s one event you really wanted to do for years and years and years, my whole thing is if you need to decide, if you think, okay, what should I train for this year? Think about the kind of person and the kind of athlete and the kind of individual that you’ll become while training for it. If that’s what you want to be, then it’s a good event.

If I’m thinking, alright, I’m going to go train for this Ironman or whatever, what this is going to mean is lot long weekends of this, here’s how my body’s going to feel. Here’s how my schedule’s going to feel. Here’s what I’m going to get good at. If I like the way that looks, then it’s a good event to sign up for. If I just want something to test myself and I don’t like how that training is going to look, then I just should keep training for fun until something comes along that’s going to force me to be more of the person that I want to be.

Brett McKay:

I imagine another benefit of doing hybrid training is that doing strength training will probably improve your endurance training and endurance training will improve your strength training.

Alex Viada:

Yeah, that was a huge thing. That was actually going to be the third thing that I mentioned earlier. If you’re a lifter, your recovery between lifts and honestly the amount of density and the amount of productive volume you could do in a training session does have an aerobic component to it. Better aerobic engine, you’re going to recover faster between sets. The work later on in a session is going to be higher quality. You could do more dense work, which means you can benefit from more productive work. I tell the story a million times, and I might even have told you the story before, but I’ve always got the example of that one power lifter I worked with who I mean strong guy, like 400 kilo deadlift, strong guy, and he was commenting that since he started doing more cardio, he hadn’t done cardio before, he was like, you know what, man, I realized today that when I wrapped my knees for squats, I’m not winded afterwards.

And I think what really drove that home was here was a lifter who was a great power lifter and something as simple as wrapping his knees or even loading plates and all that was creating so much fatigue that he wasn’t able to lift at his potential. You give him a little bit more condition, a little bit cardiovascular endurance, and suddenly his training sessions were more productive. He could do 10 to 15% more productive work by the time he stood on that platform than he could before. That’s just going to make him a better lifter. Same thing on the running side, like talking to one of my colleagues, he’s a ultra marathon runner, and he said, you know what, the craziest thing about starting to do more serious strength training was he said, at mile 96 on the downhills, I still felt like I was racing and not just holding on my quads didn’t get torn up. I felt like I still had power in my legs. I felt like I could actually still accelerate and be a fast runner when I would normally just be shattered.

Brett McKay:

Yeah, that’s awesome. I’ve noticed that since our last conversation about zone two cardio. I started implementing zone two cardio into my programming, so I get two hour long sessions in a week and I definitely noticed an improvement in my strength training sessions. I’m not winded. I could get stuff done, I didn’t have to rest as long between sets and it was just a lot more productive.

Alex Viada:

Yeah, that’s huge.

Brett McKay:

Yeah, that’s huge. So let’s talk about hybrid training, but I think to do that, let’s talk about each component first. So the strength and the endurance separately, and then we’ll look at how you program the two. What does strength training look like for a hybrid athlete and the way you do it?

Alex Viada:

So a lot of it is very, very dependent and my main thing with training, especially hybrid training is training with intent and realizing that you need to know exactly what you want to stimulate during a session in order to put the session together. So strength training, specifically training to get stronger. I always say strength is a skill. Strength training is all about getting stronger at a specific movement. So strength training can be more than one thing. Strength training, I use a lot of conjugate cues before. I’ve talked about using max effort and dynamic efforts and what I also now term skill effort. So a strength training program for hybrid athlete, if their goal is to get stronger in a specific movement, isn’t just going in and doing three sets of eight or three sets of 10 or anything else, usually it’s saying, okay, what aspect of strength in this movement do I want to train today?

Say I’m going into bench press, do I want to do some heavy near max effort bench press? Do I want to do some heavy near max effort and then do some speed work velocity work repetitions where I’m focused on high bar speed, full recovery in between or skill work where I’m focused on nothing but bracing and proper form and all that. The reason why I do that is because a workout like that may be very minimally fatiguing. If somebody does dynamic effort slash skill work and they’re lifting, they’re not exhausting themselves, they’re not exhausting their arms, they’re not reaching muscular failure. So strength training is very much about movement specific and working on maximum force production rate of force production and skill in the movement. So if you say, alright, I’m putting together a strength program, I’m a hybrid athlete, I want to get a really strong bench press and squat, you’re thinking, okay, do I need to do endless sets of chest press and endless sets of leg press and no, let me start with my strength day or two days for the week here I’m starting out with some max effort bench. I’m doing a couple of dynamic effort dropdown sets and that’s it for the strength side of things. Maybe I’ll then do some hypertrophy work after that, which is a little bit different. That’s picking more isolation movements or externally brace movements, things like machines of the like, and then doing a couple of sets. I abide by the effective reps model and staying well shy of failure on that.

Brett McKay:

Okay. So basically it sounds like what you’re saying is that we shouldn’t just go into the gym and lift until we’re dead tired. So if your goal as a hybrid athlete is to get stronger on the main barbell lift, for example, you need to treat strength as a specific skill, almost like practicing it as a sport. So for the main lifts you might have one workout where you’re doing max effort on a lift. Let’s say for example the deadlift, you might do a heavy set of three and then the next workout where you deadlift, you’re going to do that dynamic effort stuff where the focus on velocity and the bar speed so you can practice the movement in an efficient way and the weight’s going to be lower so you’re not overly fatiguing yourself so that it interferes with your endurance training.

And even if you’re primary focus of strength, you can always end the strength workout with some hypertrophy, work with some machines and dumbbells if you want. But then you talk about in the book if strength isn’t your primary goal as a hybrid athlete and you just want to be a jacked runner, you don’t have to do the barbell lifts and you can just focus on workouts using machines and dumbbells at higher volume to stimulate hypertrophy. So with that strategy in mind, whenever you are, let’s say programming a hybrid athlete for strength training, what’s the split looking like? Are you doing upper, lower, split full body? What does that look like typically?

Alex Viada:

Yeah, I do typically do upper lower. I think really it comes down to frequency and for both strength and hypertrophy, stimulating a muscle every three days or so is pretty close to ideal. So that’s anywhere between two or three workouts per week. I find with full body it’s a little bit harder to do because with that frequency you have to do way too much in every single session to hit everything kind of optimally. So I find that two upper, two lower, and as a general, I try to make the emphasis of each one of the upper and each one of the lower a little bit different. So they could be the same basic things like your upper could be a push pull, but on one day if this is just a generic athlete who just wants to get better at everything, one day may be more strength focused. So what we’re doing is we’re potentially doing heavier weight, fewer reps, and then we’re doing comparatively lightweight and velocity emphasis, and then the next day might be hypertrophy focused where instead of the bench press, we’re going to do a machine chest press or something similar and rather than heavyweight or lightweight quickly, we’re going to do moderate weight and aim for one to two reps in reserve. Something like that.

Brett McKay:

Gotcha. How do you go about driving progressive overload in a hybrid strength program?

Alex Viada:

My perspective on progressive overload is that, and I’m sure you’re probably heard this a million times already, but it’s that progressive overload is typically misinterpreted by people as thinking you have to add load every week. My contention has always been with progressive overload. That overload refers to the general physical principle that if a stimulus exceeds the body’s current capacity, the body will adapt to that stimulus. That’s the overload principle. And progressive overload principle just means that as the body gets stronger and fitter and better adapted, that stimulus needs to eventually increase in order to remain adequate to trigger that adaptation. My whole thing with progressive overload is let’s just say the limits of my potential are right now I can bench 2 25 for 10 and that to me is kind of the limit of what I could do. So I bench 2 25 for 10 for three sets or whatever this week, next week do I have to change that?

There is almost a 0% chance I am now so strong one week later that 2 25 for 10 for three sets doesn’t still represent a great stimulus. So when I’m talking about progressive overload for strength athletes on a hybrid program, remember how I said before, I kind of predict, go back and predict what their one max would be. Let’s just say I’m an athlete and I predict my max at 300 pounds and I say, okay, and I can do 2 25 for 10, I’m just making up numbers right now. And let’s just say, alright, now I’ve done that for a couple of weeks, this still is feeling easy. Let me set my one rep max to 3 0 5 and recalculate my percentages based on that. And I’m going to say, okay, well this week I’ve got two 30 for 10, let me try that because that’s the same percentage, two 30 for 10 still feels easy, still feels good.

There should be no question. So that’s what I’ll typically do is say as long as you’re increasing that metric that you’re basing your workout percentages on, if you’re increasing it steadily like month to month, you’re making progress. It’s a little bit the same thing with running, and we can talk about that a little bit later, but again, my main thing is as long as those underlying one rep max or underlying peak performance metrics that you’re calculating your percentages go on, as long as that’s improving, you are improving. It doesn’t even have to be at a quick rate. I mean, heck, a lot of lifters would be happy to add 5% to one of their big three over the course of six months. So in doing that, I make sure that every week you might rotate number of repetitions and percentages and all that, but you’re sort of circled around this benchmark that you’re increasing every couple of weeks.

Brett McKay:

Yeah, I thought that was interesting. You mentioned that just now, and you talked about this in the book, but with progressive overload with strength training, it doesn’t necessarily mean you have to increase the weight or the rep every single week

I’ve fallen into that trap where it’s like, okay, I got to get, if I did 225 on the bench this week at five reps, then next week I got to do 230. I had this problem earlier this year for about the past, I would say from September through November, I was on this tear. I was doing 5-3-1 with my strength training and I was making awesome progress. And I remember it got to the point where towards the end of November I was getting pretty high with the weight on the big lifts and I did my max lifts for the one rep thing on of the 5-3-1, and it wasted me. I had a deload for two or three weeks. It just destroyed me every week. I was trying to push further and further and further. I mean, I’ll admit I enjoyed it, it was great, but the aftermath of it, it’s disrupted my training. I’m finally getting back to where, okay, I’m feeling better now. I’m starting to build myself back up again. And I imagine as a hybrid athlete where you’re combining endurance training and all this, you don’t want that to happen. It’ll just not only disrupt your strength training, but it’s going to disrupt your endurance training as well.

Alex Viada:

Exactly. Because one of the things I’ve always maintained is let’s say on any given day, you’re operating at 94% of your peak potential. For example, okay, I’m going in, I’m doing a pretty hard workout. I think, okay, that’s a tough workout. It’s probably not the hardest I could have pushed. It’s hard. It’s hard, don’t get me wrong, but if I was, this was the last workout of my life, I probably could have pushed harder. Now if I’m hell bent on making progress and I’m like, I’m going to add five pounds to everything next week, I probably could. There’s probably enough buffer in there that I could probably push a little bit harder next week even if my fitness didn’t improve. And I see this a lot with newer runners like, all right, every week I’m just going to try to go a little bit faster on this one course that I do.

Now I’m going to try to shave a couple seconds off this loop around my neighborhood. Chances are the main reason they’re able to do that so consistently is because they’re pushing themselves closer and closer and closer to their limit every single week they’re improving, but they’re probably improving at a slower rate than the numbers seem to be going up. And eventually they hit that limit, they hit that ragged edge, and then they realize they’re either not making progress or they start doing things like on the lifting side, they change their form, they cut depth a little bit, their bench gets a little bit messier so they can maybe make progress another week or two in the numbers, and then they’ve really hit a wall. Every workout is a herculean effort. Everything has gotten worse, but they’re like, alright, alright, well I’ve hit some maxes. I’m not saying that’s what you did, but I’m saying this definitely happens.

Brett McKay:

Alright, Well’s shift more into endurance. Talk about it specifically. You train people who are running, biking, they’re swimming all sorts of different events, but with endurance, there’s different philosophies on how you train for endurance events, a lot of competing theories. One is most of your stuff just be low intensity, then maybe a bit is high intensity or no, that’s not right, it needs to be medium intensity. What’s your approach to endurance training?

Alex Viada:

Do you mind if I ramble a little bit on this one because I think it’s kind of okay.

Brett McKay:

Yeah, because it’s all over the place. I read about it, I’m like, oh man, I don’t know if I want to run because this sounds complicated

Alex Viada:

And that’s honestly one of the most fascinating things is how much of this stuff has been almost misrepresented over the years. So if you look at silo’s, old research in 80/20 and all of that and how elite athletes do 80% easy work and 20% hard work, all of that stuff was coming out of the same time as a lot of these coaches and researchers were still trying to define what these zones meant. How do we define zone two? Is it a percentage of heart rate? Is it a percentage of output? Is it that first ventilatory threshold where your rate of breathing picks up and you can’t breathe through your nose anymore? What is that line? And there are so many different definitions. Same thing with the zone three to zone four, like your lactate threshold onset of blood lactate, accumulation…

There are so many different definitions for all these delineations that you’re kind of like, okay, how do we all even know what we’re talking about here? Because when we analyze elite athlete programs, one of the things that really happened in I would say the two thousands is there was this idea among a lot of American trainers, especially that higher intensity stuff was king, and just going for slow easy jogs was not the way to get your best results. Personally, I found a lot of discussions at the time stem from the fact that if you are a trainer or you are training in a gym, telling somebody to go run for two hours is probably not the best way to control their progress. Being able to sit with them through a 15 minute high intensity interval session is a lot easier. So there’s a certain element of, I would say a little bit of bias from some of these governing bodies, at least in the west on what kind of training we have our athletes do or certainly our gym goers.

The other thing is, if we get away from this idea that I think the most important thing is high intensity stuff has its place and high intensity doesn’t always mean sprinting. High intensity in a lot of these programs means what we would consider like high zone three slash low zone four, all this work around threshold. What it comes down to at the end of the day is I consider high intensity and low intensity work the way I consider protein and carbs in a diet high intensity work. Elite athletes do high intensity work until they reach a limit and then everything else becomes zone two. And that’s because they’re training 14, 15, 16 hours a week and they can probably only handle two to three hours of high intensity work before they start breaking down. So to get in all the work that their body can actually adapt to low intensity work is volume dependent.

You can do lots of it. It still has positive heart benefits. They’re putting in 10 hours of zone two work per week just because they’ve hit the limit on how much high intensity work they can do. It’s like saying, okay, if I’m only going to eat 2000 calories a day, I need to make sure I get at least 150 grams of protein. If I eat 7,000 calories a day, I probably don’t need to eat 500 grams a day of protein. I’m going to make up all the difference in carbs. That’s my approach to high intensity versus low intensity training. If you only have 45, 50, 60 minutes a week to do conditioning work, it can probably all be higher intensity, and that means close to your threshold. That means repeats at your 5K pace, not like spritz, but you can probably do 45 minutes to an hour of that.

If you’re doing two hours, two hours of high intensity work per week is probably a lot for somebody who is not a huge runner. So maybe stick with that hour of high intensity and do an hour of zone two. If you’ve got six hours a week to train and you’re like, Hey, I’m also a lifter, but I really, really want to train for this marathon or whatever else you say, okay, an hour of high intensity work you can do when you get it two hours of high intensity work, your lifting sessions start to suffer as well because that’s just too much high intensity work on top of the lifting. So you as a hybrid athlete may do an hour of high intensity and five hours of zone two. So my thing is that all of these have their place, you get more bang for your buck with the high intensity, but you also hit a limit on what you can do pretty quickly. So think about what you could do in terms of high intensity, what’s the maximum amount you can do and feel good about doing and have all the recipe zone two.

Brett McKay:

So what does sort of a generic typical week look like of endurance training for a generic hybrid athlete?

Alex Viada:

Sure. So let’s just take a generic hybrid athlete who says, look, I’m in the gym three, four days a week, let’s say four days a week, and I’ve got another 150 to 180 minutes, like three hours or less, two to three hours to do some additional cardio. I’ll typically say, alright, you know what, then you’ve got three or four hour days of training, let’s just condense your conditioning into three workouts. You can do, let’s say 45 minute high intensity intervals on Monday. You can maybe do a slightly shorter session on Wednesday. That could be 30 minutes of high intensity with a long zone two cool down, and then on the weekend you just do another hour and a half of zone two. That’s it. I’ll typically say one speed workout if you can handle it, one Perry threshold workout and one easy workout. If you’re not into the speed workout, you do one threshold workout and two zone two or two threshold workouts and one zone two

Brett McKay:

Really simple. That doesn’t seem too bad.

Alex Viada:

Yeah. The thing is, those threshold workouts for people will say, okay, they say, well, what’s a threshold workout? I say, well, what’s your 5K pace? Add 30 seconds to that pace. Consider that your threshold pace. Now just do three by eight minutes at that pace and jog or walk for two minutes in between. Okay, that’s pretty easy. Great. There you go. There’s your threshold workout. That’s all you have to do. That’s 24 minutes of threshold work right there. Boom, done.

Brett McKay:

Yeah, I’ve learned that high intensity doesn’t have to be as hard as you think it is. So I started doing the Norwegian four by four. 

Alex Viada:

Yeah, there you go.

Brett McKay:

After a strength training session on the bike. And when I first started doing it, I was just doing an all out sprint on this thing, just going as hard as I can. And then I was like, oh my gosh, four minutes. I can’t even do this for a minute. This is crazy and I have to do this four more times. This is insane. And then I started reading up on it, I was like, no, you dummy. It’s not an all out sprint on these things. You’re going hard, but it’s like 90% of your heart rate, which is not that hard. I mean, it’s hard, but not as hard as you think it would be. And once I started doing it like that, I thought, okay, I could do this for four minutes.

Alex Viada:

And that’s exactly it. I always kind of liken it to lifting where, yeah, if you go all out for four minutes, you can do it, but you’re probably not going to be able to do another quality interval like that. On the other hand, if you do it the way you approach lifting, if you go to failure on your first set of lifting, you’re going to get one set done and the next couple sets are going to be garbage. So I consider hard intervals to be one rep in reserve to two reps in reserve. Tough, challenging, you’re pushing yourself, but you’re leaving a little bit in the tank. So that’s why I say that’s the exact same philosophy between the two is you should be running and lifting with one to two reps in reserve on each set.

Brett McKay:

So if you’re just a generic hybrid athlete, you want to strength train and do some endurance training at the same time so that maybe you could do a 5K anytime you want. It’s going to be, what did you say, an hour of low intensity zone two cardio. That could be just a slow jog or maybe a ruck or an incline treadmill. And then you say 30 to 45 minutes of high intensity work.

Alex Viada:

And the way that can here comes the other debate. Does that mean 30 or 40 minutes at high intensity or does that mean a 30 to 40 minute long high intensity workout? If you’re doing three by eight minutes intervals, that’s 24 minutes, but you’ve got a 10 minute warmup, you’ve got two minutes in between, you’ve got a five minute cool down that’s a 45 minute workout. I typically mean 30 to 45 minutes total high intensity. So that could be two workouts. So Monday, do your three by eight minute intervals, Tuesday, mix it up and go crazy. Do four by six minutes at that same pace, both are 24 minutes and have a warm up and a cool down. And then later in the week do your hour and a half of zone two. You could do an incline walk, you could do a ruck, you could do an easy run, whatever that’s going to get you probably 95% of the results you could possibly ask for.

Brett McKay:

And then you mentioned this earlier when we were talking about how do you drive progress with strength training, but what does that look like for endurance training?

Alex Viada:

So my favorite thing to do is just adjust that threshold. My thing is say, okay, if I am predicting that my threshold is let’s say an eight 30 pace and I’m going to be doing three by eight minutes at an eight 30 pace every couple of weeks, I can just drop that by a second or two. That’s all it takes,

Just a second or two. And I can even give myself a range. Usually I give myself a range just to allow, and I say, okay, I’m doing my thresholds between eight 20 and eight 40 and two weeks later I’m going to be doing it between eight 18 and 8 38. And that way I let myself, I give myself a little bit flexibility week to week, but after two months, my slowest allowable pace is going to be the same as my fastest allowable pace was back then. So I’m still going to get that steady improvement. I’m going to give myself room to kind of fluctuate if I find myself continuously really struggling to hit the slowest end, I know something is wrong, but that’s really all it is. And you’re just setting those kind of guardrails on your performance, and that is more than enough to continue to make progress.

Brett McKay:

Alright, so that doesn’t sound that complicated.

Alex Viada:

No, no. And it could get really technical. If I’m doing a complicated program with somebody, I’m adjusting their threshold. I’m looking at all their percentages across 14 different types of workouts and all of that. But fundamentally, you can make it really, really simple.

Brett McKay:

Alright, so let’s talk about combining the two – strength and endurance training. And one of the challenges of hybrid training is that you have to be a bit more thoughtful about managing fatigue. Exactly. If you’re training hard with weights, well, you might not have that oomph you need for your endurance work. Or the same goes for endurance. If you’re training hard, you’re running hard and then the weight room and you’re like, oh man, I can’t get this squat. I loved your section on fatigue because you really get into the weeds of it. We don’t have to do that here. But what I thought was interesting is a lot of people when they think about fatigue, they think there’s just one kind of fatigue. But you described there are two main types of fatigue you have to think about as a hybrid athlete. What are those two types of fatigue?

Alex Viada:

I think we’re talking about peripheral versus kind of central

Brett McKay:

Yeah that whole thing.

Alex Viada:

Yeah, so this is really, really interesting. So peripheral fatigue is the fatigue that we all really know about. Sore muscles, you just train legs, you pretty much can’t sit down on the toilet going down the stairs sucks. Like all of that peripheral fatigue we’re pretty familiar with, and we’re pretty familiar I think with how peripheral fatigue is going to affect us work out to work out. I just go hammer legs, my sprint workout or my speed workout is going to be garbage, and if I work legs really hard on Friday and trash them, even my incline ruck on the treadmill is going to feel awful. So we know that’s peripheral fatigue and that’s actually the slightly easier one to manage because you go, all right, all I need to do to manage peripheral fatigue is think if I do this workout today, is this going to hurt my ability not to do the workout tomorrow, but to hit the target objective tomorrow to trigger the appropriate stress?

That’s the big thing. So am I going to be able to do tomorrow’s workout to a level that’s going to still force my body to adapt? And that’s a pretty low bar actually, because if you’re like, okay, yeah, this leg workout’s going to hit me so hard that I’m probably not going to be able to do all my intervals tomorrow, well then probably I should consider rearranging things. If you’re like, yeah, I’m going to do all my intervals, they’re just going to be really tough. That’s fine, leave ’em there. So that’s peripheral fatigue. The harder one to manage is central fatigue. And central fatigue is so much more about understanding the impact that long-term recovery and the adaptation process has on your actual body’s ability to do work.

Brett McKay:

Tell us more about central fatigue. So what is it exactly?

Alex Viada:

Sure. Yeah. So central fatigue is actually much more neurological. So the body has a lot of feedback mechanisms. The body has a lot of protective mechanisms. I dunno if anyone’s ever heard of notes as central governor who’s listening here, I’m sure you have. But that was nos, this whole idea that there’s a portion of the brain that limits performance to keep the body safe. And that’s if you run too hard, if you’re running at your limit, what your brain is doing is telling your muscles, okay, let’s turn down the power a little bit. We’re running out of energy stores. The muscles are accruing too much damage. We can’t sustain this. We’re actually going to turn down the maximum throttle, we’re going to put a brick under the gas pedal here and stop the body from injuring itself. So what’s interesting is there’s actually a good amount of merit to that, even if there’s no central governor, but the nerves, a lot of the sensory nerves and muscles, if they’re overly stimulated, they actually can reduce the amount of force and contractility that the brain can apply to the muscles.

And so this is actually something that is actually really notable When you’re doing things like recovering from injury, if something feels painful, if you feel pain in a muscle or around a joint or anything else, that pain signal itself actually turns down the output from your motor cortex, from your brain. When you’ve just done a hard workout, when you’re recovering and when your body is sending out all those pro-inflammatory compounds to break down old tissue, rebuild new tissue and everything else, those pro-inflammatory coms, even if you don’t feel the discomfort because your brain may not even be registering the discomfort, those nerves are still picking up on the damage on the inflammation. They’re still sending that signal to your brain to reduce its power. And what’s interesting is that, again, you may not even feel it. So you may go for, let’s just say you go for a really long run over the weekend, but it’s all zone two.

And you’re going, yeah, you know what? My legs are a little bit tight, but I’ve eaten plenty. I feel great. What you’re not feeling is the massive amount of inflammation in your legs at that point and the potent signal that’s sending to your brain for the next 48 hours to not produce maximum force in almost any muscle group. So if you’ve got a large amount of center fatigue from either a very long endurance workout, a very high repetition lifting workouts, a lifting workout with a lot of eccentrics, a running workout with a lot of eccentrics, even like hard sprints or downhill sprints or anything else, you may find that for the next 48 hours, your peak strength is limited. What that can mean is if you’re doing anything on those days that requires a lot of perfect coordination, you’re doing Olympic lifts, you’re doing velocity based work, you’re doing anything like that, you are probably going to suffer and your max effort work is going to suffer too.

So it’s important to consider when you’re looking at central fatigue, you’re thinking, okay, if I have a workout that is just, I know this is just causing a lot of wear and tear for the next 48 hours, make sure that you’re not scheduling anything that requires maximum force output. Like, Hey, okay, cool. If I run long on the weekends, then I’m not going to start out my week with my quote strength training. I’m just going to do a couple of hypertrophy days because hypertrophy days is not as important. I build coordination. No, I’m just doing repetitions. I’m going to do all of my explosive strength skill proficiency work later in the week when I have less central fatigue.

Brett McKay:

And if you did a one rep max a heavy lift session, you wouldn’t want to do sprint work for your cardio the next day possibly.

Alex Viada:

Yeah, exactly. Because there’s also a huge amount of neurological psychological fatigue from that kind of stuff as well. You do a heavy one rep max that is a lot of trauma, that is a lot of resources. Your brain and body are expending at that moment. So it is, it’s very much saying, okay, even if mentally and physically I don’t feel that bad, I have to take into account that there are probably other factors there that are reducing my performance that I can’t see.

Brett McKay:

And this goes back to that idea that you said fatigue masks fitness, right? Absolutely. Yeah. People have experienced that whenever I’ve had this happen to me. In fact, this happened to me about a month ago. So I did a really heavy deadlift, I think it was 585, 575 for a single rep. And then the next week I was scheduled to do five reps at some other weight. I think it was like 475, 485, I can’t remember what it was, but I couldn’t even get the bar off the ground because what had happened is not only had I done a single rep max on that deadlift, but I’d done a bench press and then a shoulder press. And so I imagine I just kind of fried my CNS and my CNS is like, no, you’re not doing this. You need to take a break.

Alex Viada:

And it’s fascinating because one of the things that can happen is when you do a one rep max, I guarantee nobody’s form is perfect, and that doesn’t mean that they’re injuring themselves, but there could be so many microscopic areas where certain muscle groups have just been overtaxed, certain joints have been overtaxed. Your body at that point is probably dealing with a thousand tiny micro injuries at that point, and you may not even feel it. But then the next time you go to lift, as soon as you pick up the bar, all of those little micro injuries and everything else are sending these pain signals to your brain. And what’s happening is that initial spike of power that you’re used to get that bar moving. It’s just not there. 

Brett McKay:

I was going to say, that’s what was crazy. So when I did that, when I went in to do that five rep on the deadlift, I was like, I’m feeling good. I’m awesome. I get the bar, I’m like, and I just bent the bar and I’m like, no, it’s not happening.

Alex Viada:

Yeah, it’s crazy how that happens too. And that’s why central fatigue can be so interesting because it’s not peripheral fatigue. You’re like, oh, my legs feel fine, my back feels fine. You go in, you’re hyped up, you’re like, all right, I’m ready to go. And then you start pulling and you go, wow. It’s just like you’re checking for an extra plate. You’re like, is this thing stapled to the floor? You just don’t have that pop, that aggression, that drive. And sometimes you’ll even know subconsciously you’re like, wow, I was actually babying that initial pull a little bit. I wasn’t exploding as fast as I know I could, and it’s all just kind of subconscious and it’s just that lack of central drive and it’s killer and it could be so discouraging and that’s why I’m, the more aware you are of central fatigue, the less likely you are to make really bad training decisions if you have a single bad session.

Brett McKay:

Alright, so knowing this idea of central fatigue and peripheral fatigue tell, I mean we kind of talked about it a little bit. Let’s get more into detail and kind of lay it out clearly for people. How do you program strengthen endurance work so they don’t interfere with the training of the other?

Alex Viada:

Yeah, so the main thing is, like I said, there’s a little bit of this consolidation of stresses approach that I talk about in the book. Consolidation of stressors is basically saying, the way I think about it is a little bit of what I just talked about. If I do this workout today, what training stimuli can I still trigger if I’m still recovering from this workout? So if I do a really long run today, if I’m looking at my program, I go really long run on Sunday, what lifting sessions can I still do on Monday and Tuesday that I know I can benefit from? That’s probably going to be hypertrophy work. And so I’m going, okay, so weekends I have my long run, Monday and Tuesday are my upper and lower body hypertrophy days. Okay, cool. Well, if I do a lower body hypertrophy session, I’m probably not going to be able to do some explosive, explosive running afterwards.

So do I long run Sunday? Do I want to do upper body on Monday and then lower body and run on Tuesday? No, no, no. How about I do run on Sunday. I could even say, Hey, maybe I’ll lift lower body on Monday. Sounds crazy, right? Well, no, my legs are still probably going to be a little bit sore, but I can probably still do three sets of eight to 10 on leg press with sore legs, just that I am not relying on my legs feeling fresh to be able to trigger the target adaptation. Then Tuesday I do my upper body hypertrophy work and maybe even then maybe I could do a little bit of tempo work or even an easy run. Then I do my speed work, my speed session on Wednesday. Then I do now on Thursday like, Hey, you know what? My legs were covered. Central fatigue is nearly gone. I’m going to do my leg strengthen explosive power workout on Thursday. There’s not a lot of central fatigue from that. So Friday I could do upper body strengthen explosive work, and maybe my tempo run take Saturday off Sunday back to the long run. There you go. It seems almost kind of counterintuitive because you’re like, I’m doing legs on the, but that’s the way you think about it.

Brett McKay:

Yeah. That’s interesting. With hybrid training, do you have your athletes, do deloads take breaks from the training or are you just kind of No, as long as things are cruising and you’re feeling good, you can keep going.

Alex Viada:

Yeah, usually if I do a deload, it’s because there’s a burning need to do a deload if something is actually really overreached. So one of the things I use to test for central fatigue is I’ll just do a basic broad jump test. So Monday or whatever day starts the week, starts the cycle, have ’em do either five or seven broad jumps, drop the highest and lowest average the rest. That’s a pretty good description of how well their muscular strength and maximum force production is going. Also check their resting heart rate, things like that. All of that seems good, I think. Okay, great. They’re still recovering well if they get pretty poor performance the rest of the week, I tend to reduce everything, reduce the intensity of everything by about 10%. It’s not a full deload, but it’s a little bit of this. If your program is well constructed, you should never be pushing and blowing past the thresholds.

You should be just pushing on it and creating a little bit of pressure on their thresholds on what they can recover from. So if you back off 10%, you relieve that pressure, you give ’em a week of a little bit easier and they should be ready again to push the next week. One of the things I try to do, especially by saying be aware of central fatigue and things like that, is so you don’t immediately have to think, oh wow, I’ve smoked. Let me do a deload. If I have a day, and I’ve had those same things where a deadlift session, I come in and I’m warming up and I’m like, alright, still a hundred pounds off my max and I pull this thing and it feels like it’s barely moving, and I’m like, wow, I’m supposed to do a hundred pounds more than this and this thing is 10 out of 10 effort. I know, okay, you know what? I’m not going to quit. I’m not going to give myself a deload. I’m just going to reduce the intensity of my accessories by about 10%. Have the next two or three lifting sessions be about 10% easier. Maybe take one round off my interval, run tomorrow and see how I’m feeling by the weekend and retest, wait for next week. That’s really all you need to do most of the time.

Brett McKay:

Well, going back to that idea of you can’t really rely on your feelings how you feel. I’ve had instances where I felt like complete garbage, I was just tired, didn’t sleep well. I was like, oh man, this gym session is going to suck. And I go down there and I’m like, man, the bar’s fast. I could pull this easily and I hit a PR. But then you have those moments, like I said earlier, it’s like, oh man, I’m feeling good. I’m going to go down there. Bar doesn’t come off the floor. And I think maybe those instances where I was feeling not great, I’m feeling tired. I didn’t have any central nervous fatigue even though it felt like I did, and so I was able to perform well. Yeah, the human body’s weird.

Alex Viada:

It is really weird, man. Like you said, you could do all the tests and be like, wow, physically I’m performing great. I feel like absolute garbage, but physically I’m performing great. And I always say, well, okay, you should probably still consider taking it easy eventually. But it is true that understanding all these things and they do, they stop you from making bad decisions. They stop you from saying, oh, maybe I just need a whole week off. 

In reality, yeah, your sleep’s probably not great. Yeah, you’re probably tired. Yeah, getting more sleep is a priority, but you know that already. It’s not the training that’s wearing you down, it’s everything else. And the training is such a small part of everything that’s stressing you out. Don’t throw the baby out with the bath water, keep the training, maybe reduce it by five or 10% and work on everything else, and by the next week you’ll be right back to it.

Brett McKay:

What does recovery look like for a hybrid athlete? Any special considerations there?

Alex Viada:

Honestly, the main thing, see for hybrid athlete, you’re talking so many different potential stressors that you really want to avoid. A lot of the more aggressive types of recovery, and I talk a lot about how things like ice baths and all that could be potentially maladaptive just because if you’re a hybrid athlete, you’re relying so much on really rapid adaptation and adaptation could be a little bit more subtle. So anything like ice baths or heavy use of NSAIDs or anything like that that could diminish the inflammation response, the pro-inflammatory response is going to make you adapt more slowly. For a lot of individuals who do hybrid programs, I say really the most important thing in recovery is, first of all, compression devices are great. Focus on things like your circulation. Focus on things like not letting your muscles get too tight. I always say the best thing for recovery, if you work a desk job, get up every hour and walk for two to three minutes.

Whatever you’re doing, keep moving a little bit, keep steady. Caloric intakes, I very, very much about if you’re a hybrid athlete, never train starved. And there are a lot of people who are things like advocates of fasted training and so on and so forth. I think you could do that a little bit. I think there’s some positive research, positive adaptations on that. But if you’re training multiple modalities and you’re always dealing with background level of fatigue, avoiding a relative energy deficit is really important. So yeah, little things. Stay moving, keep moving, stay mobile and honestly feed to fuel your workouts. And since you generally have less recovery time between sessions, feeding to fuel your workouts becomes really important.

Brett McKay:

So what’s the general time commitment for hybrid training just for a general athlete? Is it possible for a busy dad to do this?

Alex Viada:

Oh yeah, absolutely. If you’re doing a conventional hybrid program, let’s just say you’re a busy dad. You’re like, you know what, man, I’ve got 45 minutes a day to devote to myself maybe five days a week and weekends. Maybe if I get up early, I could get in a 30 minute run before the family gets going. That’s plenty. You do one upper body workout, you could do an upper body hypertrophy, a lower body hypertrophy, and a full body strength workout that’s going to get you a lot of good results. And then you say, I have three cardio sessions. One day I’m going to do a 40 minute interval session. The next day I’m going to do a 30 minute interval session, and then I’m going to try to do 40 minutes of zone two when I first wake up early on a Saturday, or I’m going to do something like take the family for a walk and I’m going to put 55 pounds on my back and whichever kid wants to be carried at that time. And boom, there we go. That is enough. Because right there, as long as you’re training with intent, as long as you’re like, man, I’m not just doing curls for the sake of doing curls, I’m doing deliberate exercises here. I’m deliberately training to get stronger. I’m focusing on quality of movement. I’ve got this conditioning so I can do more density workouts in my training. You can get it done because that minimum effective dose, as long as it’s targeted, is probably less than you think.

Brett McKay:

And then after that, once you get that going, sign up for a 5K.

Alex Viada:

Yeah, exactly, exactly. Challenge the family to want too. It’s even better.

Brett McKay:

Well, Alex, this has been a great conversation. Where can people go to learn more about the book in your work?

Alex Viada:

Yeah, so my Instagram account’s usually the best place to find me, it’s just Alex.Viada. The complete human performance is my website and the book, The Ultimate Hybrid Athlete is, I think it’s pretty much everywhere. It’s on Amazon, it’s on Barnes and Noble, there’s a Kindle version. You should be able to find it. So those are probably the best resources.

Brett McKay:

Fantastic. Well, Alex Viada, thanks for your time, it’s been a pleasure.

Alex Viada:

Excellent, man. Thank you very much.

Brett McKay:

My guest today was Alex Viada. He’s the author of the book, The Ultimate Hybrid Athlete. It’s available on amazon.com. You can learn more information about his work at his website, completehumanperformance.com. Also, check out our show notes at AoM.is/hybridathlete, where you’ll find links to resources where you can delve deeper into this topic. 

Well, that wraps up another edition of the AoM podcast. If you haven’t done so already, I’d appreciate it if you take one minute to give us a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. It helps out a lot. And if you’ve done that already, thank you. Please consider sharing the show with your friends or a family member who you think will get something out of it. As always, thank you for the continued support. 

Until next time, this is Brett McKay reminding you to not only listen to the podcast, but put what you’ve heard into action.

This article was originally published on The Art of Manliness.

About 10 years ago, I impinged my right shoulder pretty badly, which prevented me from doing regular low-bar barbell squats. I didn’t want to stop squatting completely while I healed up, so I bought this funny-looking contraption with a padded yoke and forward-pointing handles: the safety squat bar, or SSB.

The SSB worked as intended. It allowed me to keep squatting without straining my shoulder. The gains train in my legs continued while my shoulder recovered.

Once my shoulder healed up, I tossed the SSB into the corner of my garage gym and went back to my trusty straight bar.

Yet as my forties ticked on, my shoulders, while not in acute pain, started feeling less spry than they used to despite all the mobility work I put in. Squats with a straight barbell became increasingly more painful, so much so that I dreaded the exercise instead of looking forward to it like I once did. So last year I decided to ditch my regular barbell altogether and just use the SSB for my squats. I haven’t looked back. Life’s too short to contort yourself under a barbell.

Since then, the SSB has become one of my favorite pieces of gym equipment. Not only is it a great workaround for cranky joints when doing the squat, but it’s also a versatile, muscle-building tool that allows you to do a bunch of lower-body exercises safely and comfortably.

Here’s why every middle-aged dude should consider adding an SSB to their strength-training line-up and seven exercises you can do with it.

What Is a Safety Squat Bar?

The safety squat bar is a specialty barbell with a padded center yoke and two forward-extending handles. Instead of holding it as you do a straight bar, by cranking your arms back like you’re being arrested, you hold the SSB with two handles in front of your chest. This spares your shoulders, elbows, and wrists from the usual stress of back squatting. Because of the yoke, you can even squat without holding the front handles — without using your hands at all.

The SSB is also cambered — its weight sleeves dip below the level of the bar that rests on your traps. This shifts the load slightly forward, which changes the mechanics of the lift. Compared to a traditional back squat, the SSB encourages a more upright torso and increases activation in your upper back and core. This more upright position also allows you to hit your quads more during a squat.

Why Older Lifters Love the SSB

Shoulder relief. This one’s obvious. As we age, shoulder mobility tends to go downhill, and injuries pile up. The SSB removes the biggest barrier to squatting for many older lifters: the pain of getting your arms into position. With the handles in front, you can train your lower body without aggravating your upper body.

Joint-friendly mechanics. The forward camber of the bar and upright posture reduce shear stress on the lower back and distribute the load more evenly across the hips and knees. Many lifters with back or knee issues find they can squat deeper and more comfortably with the SSB. I’ve had some knee issues for the past few years, and I’ve noticed that when I squat with an SSB, I have no knee pain.

7 Exercises You Can Do With a Safety Squat Bar

In addition to being easier on the joints, the SSB is also versatile. You can squat with it, of course. But there’s more you can do with it than that.

Here are 7 tried-and-true exercises you can do with a safety squat bar:

1. SSB Squat

Set up like you would for a regular squat, but keep your grip on the handles in front of your chest. Focus on staying tall and letting the bar rest securely on your shoulders. You’ll feel more upright and more engaged through your midsection.

You can do all the squat variations you do with a straight bar with an SSB, like pin squats, box squats, and banded squats.

2. Hatfield Squat

This is my favorite squat variation with the SSB. It’s the only squat movement I do these days. Perform a squat with the SSB while holding onto the rack or pegs placed in front of you for stability. This allows you to go heavier, maintain perfect form, and reduce balance demands.

3. Front Squat

Regular front squats are great for building big, beefy quads, but that front rack position can be awfully uncomfortable. SSB front squats are a great way to get quad-dominant training without the usual discomfort in your wrists.

To do the front squat with an SSB, you’ll want to rack the bar backwards so that the handles are facing towards you. Lift the handles and place them on your shoulders so the yoke pad is under your chin, resting on the top of your shoulders. Once the bar is in this position, the SSB will naturally stay in place. You can do the lift without using your hands. Then squat like a regular front squat.

4. Bulgarian Split Squat

The exercise I love to hate. Bulgarian split squats are a great isolation movement for your quads. Usually, you do them while holding dumbbells in each hand. But doing them that way comes with two limiting factors: 1) weight, and 2) grip strength. Dumbbells only get so heavy, and even if you have very heavy ones, grip strength can restrict how much weight you can add to the movement. It’s hard to hold 120-pound dumbbells in each hand while you’re doing a Bulgarian split squat. With an SSB, you can add a lot more weight as you get stronger, and it completely removes the grip factor from the equation.

Just load up your SSB, get underneath it, and walk it out on your shoulders. Place your rear leg on a bench and then perform the usual Bulgarian split squat. If you want added stability, you can hold on to some pegs placed in your rack. That’s how I do them.

5. Lunges

With the SSB on your back, lunges become far easier to control than when you’re trying to keep your grip on dumbbells or crank your shoulders under a straight bar. The padding and camber keep the load stable, and the handles let you make micro-adjustments to your balance. Forward, reverse, or walking lunges all work — each variation hammers the quads and glutes while being surprisingly joint-friendly.

6. Good Mornings

This is a great hinge movement to hit your hammies and glutes (or gyatt as your middle-schooler might say). I’ve been doing this movement a lot lately. The SSB makes good mornings more comfortable and safer since the bar stays in place and you’re not worried about your grip.

It’s easy to do: with a slight knee bend, hinge at the hips while keeping your back flat. Once you feel that big stretch in your hammies, raise yourself back up.

8. Calf Raises

The SSB makes calf raises easy and comfortable. Place the SSB on your shoulders and raise yourself up on the balls of your feet. For extra range of motion, stand on a bumper plate and let your heels drop below it in the low position.

Final Thoughts

If squats have been giving you more grimaces than gains lately, don’t give up on them just yet. Get yourself a safety squat bar and keep doing your heavy leg work.

But don’t just stop at the squat. The safety squat bar isn’t just a niche tool for injured lifters. It’s a joint-friendly, strength-building tool that lets you perform a variety of lower-body exercises. For the middle-aged man who wants to stay strong, it’s definitely a worthwhile investment.

This article was originally published on The Art of Manliness.

Long before the advent of barbells, dumbbells, and hi-tech fitness gadgets, there was the medicine ball.

This simple piece of exercise equipment has been around for over 2,000 years. Ancient Greek physicians used weighted animal bladders to rehabilitate injured warriors. Hippocrates — the father of medicine himself — was said to have his patients toss stuffed skins for therapeutic benefit. The term “medicine ball” dates back to the late 19th century, where it gained popularity in American physical culture circles and old-time gymnasiums. Teddy Roosevelt reportedly trained with one. So did turn-of-the-century prizefighters, soldiers, and circus strongmen.

Today, the medicine ball is often an underrated and underutilized implement. If you’re like a lot of gym-goers, you probably see the rack of medicine balls but aren’t entirely sure what to do with them — beyond maybe throwing them against the wall and slamming them on the floor.

But there’s much more you can do with medicine balls than that, and their variety of uses parallels their variety of benefits: medicine balls add resistance without the rigidity of weights and train not just strength, but speed, coordination, balance, and rotational power. They’re an ideal tool for developing explosive strength — a vital yet often overlooked dimension of fitness that not only supports overall health but helps stave off powerpenia, the age-related decline in muscular power that’s key to aging well.

Below, we’ll break down some of the best medicine ball exercises to build power, athleticism, and all-around old-school vigor.

Basic Guidelines

• Choose the right weight. For power and speed-based movements, lighter is better (6–10 lbs). For slams or strength exercises, you can go heavier (12–20+ lbs). The ball should challenge you without slowing you down.
• Choose the right kind of ball for the exercise. Use a softer ball for slams or partner work (a.k.a. wall balls or “D-balls”), and a hard rubber one for bounces and floor drills.
• Maintain form. The goal is explosive, controlled movement — not flailing or jerking.

1. Chest Pass

• Targets: Chest, triceps, shoulders
• How: Stand 3–5 feet from a wall or partner. Hold the ball at chest level and forcefully pass it straight out, like a basketball chest pass.
• Why: Builds upper-body power and coordination. Great warm-up for pressing days.

2. Rotational Throw

• Targets: Core, obliques, hips
• How: Stand sideways to a wall, holding the ball at your hip. Rotate through your torso and throw the ball into the wall as hard as possible. Catch on the rebound or retrieve and repeat.
• Why: Mimics the rotational power used in punching, swinging, or throwing. Builds athleticism.

3. Overhead Slam

• Targets: Lats, core, arms, legs
• How: Raise the ball overhead with arms extended, then slam it down into the ground with everything you’ve got. Squat to retrieve and repeat.
• Why: A total-body power movement that builds explosiveness. A great workout finisher — and stress reliever.

4. Front Squat

• Targets: Quads, glutes, core
• How: Hold the medicine ball at chest height. Squat down, keeping your chest upright and elbows tucked in. Drive back up through the heels.
• Why: Adds load to a bodyweight squat and forces you to brace the core.

5. Russian Twist

• Targets: Obliques, abs
• How: Sit on the floor with knees bent, feet hovering or planted. Hold the ball with both hands and rotate side to side, tapping it to the ground each time.
• Why: Builds rotational core strength and stability. Can be scaled up by adding speed or weight.

6. Wall Ball Shot

• Targets: Quads, glutes, shoulders, cardio
• How: Stand facing a wall with the ball held at chest level. Squat down, then explode up and throw the ball at a target on the wall 8–10 feet high. Catch and repeat.
• Why: Blends strength, power, and cardio. A brutal conditioning tool.

7. Medicine Ball Push-Up

• Targets: Chest, triceps, core
• How: Place one hand on the ball and the other on the ground. Perform a push-up. Switch hands each rep or after a set.
• Why: Increases instability and range of motion, hitting smaller stabilizer muscles.

8. Medicine Ball V-Up

• Targets: Abs, hip flexors
• How: Lie flat, holding the ball overhead. Simultaneously raise your legs and upper body, touching the ball to your feet at the top. Lower under control.
• Why: Demands coordination, flexibility, and core control.

9. Lunge With Twist

• Targets: Legs, core
• How: Holding the ball, step forward into a lunge. At the bottom, rotate your torso (and the ball) away from your front leg. Return to center and step back. Alternate legs.
• Why: Adds balance and core engagement to a classic leg movement.

10. Scoop Toss

• Targets: Glutes, hamstrings, back
• How: Face a wall or partner, hold the ball low, then explode upward and forward, tossing the ball with a scooping motion.
• Why: Mimics the hinge-and-extend pattern of jumping or Olympic lifting. Builds lower-body power.

Incorporating Medicine Ball Exercises Into Your Workout Routine

Medicine ball work makes a great supplement to calisthenics, sprinting, or kettlebell workouts. Or you can do them at the end of a weightlifting workout to build conditioning. If you’re going to use medicine ball work for that purpose, combine movements that supplement your strength workout. For example, if you hit your upper body that day with the weights, select medicine ball exercises that emphasize the upper body, like chest passes and overhead slams. On lower body days, do front squats and lunges with a twist.

You can even do a workout that consists entirely of medicine ball exercises. Here’s one short, intense circuit workout that hits every part of your body in just 20 minutes.

Medicine Ball Circuit Workout

Do 3–5 rounds of the following, resting 1 minute between rounds:

1. Overhead Slams – 10 reps
2. Front Squats – 10 reps
3. Rotational Throws — 10 reps (5 each side)
4. Russian Twists – 20 reps (10 per side)
5. Wall Ball Shots – 15 reps

For an added challenge, finish with a 2-minute max-rep slam test.

The medicine ball is an old-school fitness tool that still carries currency today. Once used by warriors, boxers, and strongmen, it remains a valuable, and honestly fun, training implement for developing explosive strength and vital conditioning.

Illustrations by Ted Slampyak

This article was originally published on The Art of Manliness.

If you’ve been following AoM for a while, you know that strength training is a central part of my daily life — the thing, other than my faith and family, that brings me the most joy and satisfaction.

Back in my 30s, I trained to hoist as much weight as possible. I did some amateur lifting competitions, so my goal was to maximize my one rep max on the main barbell lifts. My workout sessions would often last an hour and a half. I really enjoyed that season of my life, but the intensity of the training started to take its toll on me physically and psychologically as I entered my 40s.

I’ll be turning 43 here in a few months. I’m not the man I was a decade back. Life’s busier, and I have a body that’s not quite as forgiving as it once was. Long sessions leave me rundown instead of built-up. Training at this stage of life requires a different approach.

My longtime coach, Matt Reynolds, has helped transition my training for midlife. Since I know many of you reading AoM have grown up with me and are entering your 40s too, I thought it would be helpful to share what my training has looked like lately. Maybe it will give you some inspiration for your own programming.

The Program Framework

I do a strength-training workout 4X a week, using an upper/lower split, with each workout capped at 60 minutes. And I do a cardio workout 2X a week. Sundays I rest, except for taking low-key walks.

Here are the components of my routine:

Strength workouts:

1. Heavy main lift. Every session starts with a big compound movement: squat, deadlift, bench press, or shoulder press. I go heavy — something in the 3-5 rep range. I’ll occasionally do a heavy single. It scratches the itch to keep strength as a central part of training without beating me up with endless sets.
2. Backoff volume. After the heavy top set, I do 1-2 backoff sets at a lighter weight. This allows me to accumulate volume while staying within a recoverable zone.
3. Supplemental Lift. I’ll then do a supplemental lift. If it’s squat day, I’ll do a hamstring-focused supplemental lift like Romanian deadlifts or good mornings. If it’s bench day, I’ll do a shoulder-focused supplemental lift like dumbbell shoulder presses. Enough load to matter, not enough to wreck me.
4. Circuit. Each session finishes with a circuit — upper or lower, depending on the day. A mix of dips, chins, curls, rows, split squats, leg extensions, or whatever I have equipment for. The goal is simple: get the heart rate up, build some muscle, and walk out with a sweat.

Cardio

As I’ve gotten into midlife, I’ve put more emphasis on heart health. Three mainstays: Zone 2 cardio two times a week for long-term conditioning, rucks for a blend of endurance and load-bearing strength, and one weekly HIIT session to keep the higher gears sharp and to improve my V02 Max (I’ve got an article about VO2 in the works).

Adding Weight and Reps for Progressive Overload

On the heavy lifts, I add about five pounds a week. When I stall out, Matt will lower the weight, and then I start working my way back up.

For the supplemental lifts and circuit work, my goal is to be able to do three sets of 10-12 reps. Once I reach that goal, I’ll add weight to the lift and then do as many reps as possible until I get three sets of 10-12 reps again, and then I add weight again, and the cycle repeats.

Here’s what programming looks like specifically right now for me:

Monday (Lower Day)

Deadlift

• 1 set × 3 reps @ 500 lbs
• Backoff set: 1×5 @ 455 lbs

Box Squat

• 4×3 @ 365 lbs

Lower Circuit

On all circuits, I do the 3 exercises back-to-back, then take a 2.5-minute break, then perform the next circuit, repeating the circuit 3X

• Leg Press: 3×12 @ 285 lbs
• Leg Curl: 3 x AMRAP (as many reps as possible) @ 140 lbs
• Kettlebell swings: 3×20 @ 70 lbs

Tuesday (Upper Day)

Shoulder Press

• 1×3 @ 195 lbs
• Backoff sets: 2 x AMRAP @ 180 lbs

Machine Incline Bench Press

I use iso arms on my squat rack for this

• 3 x AMRAP @ 170 lbs

Pendlay Row

• 3 x AMRAP @ 260 lbs

Upper Circuit

• Cable Fly: 3×12 @ 250 lbs
• Overhead Cable Tricep Extension: 3 x AMRAP @ 150 lbs
• Dumbbell Curls: 3×12 @ 100 lbs

Wednesday

Zone 2 Cardio

• One hour walking on an incline treadmill

Thursday (Lower Day)

Hatfield Squat

• 1×6 @ 350 lbs
• Backoff sets: 2 x AMRAP @ 325 lbs

Good Morning

• 3×5 @ 95 lbs

Lower Circuit

• Leg Press: 3×12 @ 290 lbs
• Seated Leg Extension: 3 x AMRAP @ 160 lbs
• Hanging Knee Raise: 3×12 @ bodyweight (195 lbs)

Friday (Upper Day)

Bench Press

• 1×3 @ 270 lbs
• 2 x AMRAP @ 235 lbs

Dumbbell Press

• 3 x AMRAP @ 145 lbs

Upper Circuit

• Lat Pulldown: 3×12 @ 285 lbs
• Lateral Raise: 3×12 @ 35 lbs
• Incline Dumbbell Curl: 3 x AMRAP @ 70 lbs

Saturday

Cardio

• 30 minutes of Zone 2 cardio

HIIT Workout

• 4×4: 4 minutes hard, 3 minutes rest (repeated four times)

I sometimes substitute a one-hour ruck for this Zone 2 + HIIT routine. Just depends on what I’m feeling.

Daily Morning Routine

• 1-mile morning walk every day to take care of heart health

Lessons From Midlife Training

A few takeaways I’ve learned as I’ve adjusted my training for midlife:

• Strength still matters. I like keeping a heavy barbell movement at the center of each session.
• Adjust the main lifts as needed. Barbells can be hard on a middle-aged body. Feel free to adjust your technique for the barbell lifts as needed. For example, I no longer do traditional barbell squats and instead use a Hatfield squat due to issues with my shoulders and knee. If you can’t do a conventional barbell deadlift, swap it with a trap bar deadlift. Can’t barbell bench? Do dumbbell bench presses instead.
• Efficiency is king. I don’t need marathon sessions. Short and focused beats long and meandering.
• Make time for cardio. Adding consistent cardio has been a game-changer for my overall health and energy levels. It’s helped lower my resting heart rate, and it’s given me more work capacity. I don’t gas out anymore. Walk a lot for that cardio base and include one session of HIIT a week.
• Don’t be afraid to take time off. I’m still really religious about my training, but I’ve learned not to be afraid to take time off. If I’m feeling beat up or tired due to increased stress, I’ll swap out my usual training session for a walk or a ruck. If I’m on vacation, I don’t train; I just enjoy myself.

This isn’t the strongest I’ve ever been. But that’s alright with me. My thirties were about building a base of strength. My forties are about maintaining it while making sure I can still hike with my family, play pickup ultimate frisbee without wheezing, and avoid slipping into soft suburban dad syndrome. I train to stay healthy and because I enjoy it an awful damn much.

This article was originally published on The Art of Manliness.