The Training Of A Hybrid Athlete - Fergus Crawley

Hello and welcome to The Progress Theory where we discuss how to implement scientific principles to optimise human performance. I’m Dr Phil Price and on today’s episode, we have Hybrid athlete and coach at Omnia Performance, Fergus Crawley.

I’ve been watching Fergus’ youtube channel over the past year and have really enjoyed how he has pushed the boundaries of human performance. Despite previous misconceptions around training for strength and endurance simultaneously, he has shown you can hit impressive numbers in the weight room while still being able to run ultramarathons. Enjoy this episode as Fergus discusses his accomplishments, how performing huge physical challenges has allowed him to redefine what is hard, and how he organizes his hybrid training. And If you’re interested in performing in multiple sports, then this is the episode for you.

But before we get to the show I want to thank our sponsors, who the show would not be possible without.

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As always, follow The Progress Theory on Instagram and Youtube, head to our website theprogresstheory.com, and check out all of our other episodes. So here is, Fergus Crawley.

In this episode, we discuss:

1:07 - Catch-up, Introduction and Fergus’ accomplishments.
09:14 - Is Hybrid training its own specific sport?
11:35 - The hardest Challenge Fergus has done.
15:00 - The most psychologically hard challenges so far….
22:37 - Using past challenges to influence the next challenge
28:20 - Feelings during the 60km in 6-hour challenge
30:40 - Authenticity, and the aim of the youtube channel
38:45 - Breaking down the demands of hybrid programming
42:33 - Hybrid training weekly planning
46:00 - The role of Pre-fatigue
56:36 - Hybrid programming and recovery
1:00:33 - Hybrid programming for gradual, linear increases in performance.
1:04:13 - Training when you have a high work capacity
1:06:10 - Where to find Fergus online

Final Thoughts

Thank you to Fergus for coming onto The Progress Theory and talking about his amazing hybrid achievements and his ideas around hybrid programming, which you can find more about at Omnia Performance, so check out their website and Instagram, it is all in the show notes. Because of Fergus, Hybrid training is growing in popularity, especially hybrid training for a strength sport such as powerlifting, and an endurance sport like triathlon, and I honestly think it could develop into a recognised sport. You’ve heard it here first.

I just wanted to provide some final thoughts on key areas which really stood out to me.

Firstly, I completely agree that the best recovery is a well-organised training programme. This is particularly essential for hybrid training as you’re having to consolidate two sports into one programme; you’re not adding two training programmes together. How Fergus described the progression of high-intensity and interval work, into threshold work, into long, low-intensity work, over the training week, really fascinated me as it made sense. You're working on physical qualities, and each section gives the body stress to adapt to while providing physiological processes which help recover from the previous training.

Secondly, I like the aim of developing work capacity slowly, so the progression is quite linear. The idea around developing efficiency by increasing tolerance to stress by building volume up slowly makes sense to me. You need to give your body time to adapt to these stresses, so programming a very slow and linear progression not only gives your body that time to adapt but also reduces any unnecessary spikes in volume which could lead to injury.

Anyways I hope you enjoyed this episode and it has sparked some ideas on what physical challenges you can take on. If you could train for a huge challenge, what would it be? Use the principles Fergus outlined in this episode to find the best way to train for it. I’d definitely recommend heading to his youtube channel for some inspiration.

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