Some athletes love doing hard training and rolling around on the ground after a nasty conditioning workout. We will call this “unsustainable training” – meaning that there was attrition in the paces throughout and that the athlete would not have been able to continue to sustain the pace that they were moving at.

Other athletes love being cerebral and paced out with everything they do – nailing their split times, holding an exact rpm on the assault bike, and showing steady progression over time. We will call this “sustainable training” – meaning that the athlete could have kept going at the same pace if their training session were longer.

Which is better?

Like most things, a combination of both sustainable and unsustainable training is necessary for the progression of a CrossFitter.

Sustainable training builds volume and allows you to do more work longer without going to the well every time you need to move fast.

Unsustainable training sharpens the competitive sword and prepares you to suffer and be uncomfortable in a competitive setting.

Smart athletes and coaches blend the two throughout a training season and focus on the areas that need the most improvements at the right time.

Check out the full conversation with Jon, Todd and Luke to learn:

  • How to understand whether the pace you are going is truly sustainable – not just within a specific interval but within the set of total intervals that you’re doing, including theoretical additional intervals that may or may not actually be part of your training session
  • How to build a conditioning based and knowledge in yourself – so that you know when to take a risk and push harder and when to back off and stick to your plan
  • How to build up the self-knowledge so that you intuitively know which paces are sustainable and which aren’t – even on movement combinations you haven’t seen before.

Listen below – or on the podcast player of your choice.

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