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.

I want to take a moment to express my gratitude to my production partner, KULT Media. 

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So if you want to establish and engage your audience, or are ready to launch your own podcast head to www.kult.media to learn more. 

Thank you to HMN24 – fuelling human potential and optimising everyday human performance and well-being. 

First of all – HMN24 is not a sports supplement company. I’ve seen sport supplements be used as a method to improve performance in the gym and at a certain sport. However, these supplements, like a pre-workout, are often used on top of a lifestyle which does not provide the foundation needed for optimal performance. There’s no point taking pre-workout supplements if your sleep, hydration, and nutrition is an unstructured mess. I’m convinced that a large percentage of injuries are often caused, not because training was poor, but because a poor lifestyle foundation increased the athlete’s susceptibility to injury. Sports supplements are often used to plaster the cracks in poor lifestyle habits, which only causes more future problems. 

And this is where HMN24 is different. The product range at HMN24 not only helps improve your foundation; it optimises it. The HMN24 products are designed to fit around your circadian rhythms, from the moment you wake up, to key moments in the day when you need optimal focus, to getting the best sleep at night, there’s a product to optimise each phase of the day.

I can’t recommend enough the “live on form’ pack, consisting of the products Rise, flow and pre-sleep. Rise is for the morning and is my absolute favourite. It tastes amazing. Rise contains caffeine for increased morning alertness (though not a huge amount of caffeine, which is sooo much better for avoiding gastro-intestinal distress), electrolytes from coconut and watermelon powder to increase hydration after the previous night’s sleep, and B-vitamins, to ensure you ready to win the morning. I’m not a fan of long-winded morning routines. I wake up, have my Rise with ice, and get straight to writing, and I’ve seen such an improvement in getting into deep work.

By the time 2pm comes around the effects of caffeine from Rise has worn off, but I don’t want to take more caffeine because that’s going to interrupt getting to sleep later on. This is where Flow is perfect. It’s a caffeine-free nootropic, perfect for improving alertness and concentration during that mid-afternoon slump. And finally, I take pre-sleep just before bed, which is a comprehensive night-time complex, formulated to help support well-being and fortify the body against the fatigue and stress that come with leading a performance-driven lifestyle. 

I can’t recommend these products enough they are a game changer for human performance. And also, while you’re at their website hmn24.com check out there plant protein, which is incredible for smoothies post-training, and their website includes articles and an awesome podcast for those wanting to learn more about human performance. You can even check out the episode I did with them, I thoroughly enjoyed that chat I had with Phi Learney, Co-founder of HMN24, and it has led to an awesome collaboration with HMN24 supporting The Progress Theory. If you want a 10% discount on all HMN24 products either head to their website via the links in the Instagram bios of @theProgresstheory or my personal Instagram @drphilprice or use the code PHILPRICE at checkout.

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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Mentioned in this episode:

The Science of Hybrid Training

It was originally thought that you could not effectively train for both strength and endurance at the same time because they required different adaptations which were not compatible with each other. It was claimed that ‘an interference effect’, blunted the adaptations for strength if you simultaneously trained for endurance. However, recent developments in sports which require both strength and endurance have really challenged this idea, with hybrid athletes producing impressive performances in both strength and endurance sports together. This had led scientists, coaches, and athletes to rethink what is humanly possible and suggests the interference effect is not as influential as originally thought. But what is a hybrid athlete? What is the ‘interference effect’? And how can we maximize our training to improve at the same time our strength and endurance performance? In this book, Dr Phil Price provides insight into the misconceptions surrounding strength and endurance training by distilling the past 50 years of research and drawing on the conversations he had with great scientists, coaches, and athletes on The Progress Theory podcast. This book is essential reading for hybrid athletes and coaches who are looking to understand the key training variables and their effect on the simultaneous development of strength and endurance performance.

Book