One of the most common complaints that we hear from athletes is that they need to improve their “engine.”

There’s been a sea change over the last few years and – despite the fact that heavy lifting is infinitely more Instagrammable than rowing intervals – more and more people are recognizing that improving their conditioning is one of the most important things that they can do to improve their performance.

But, it can be confusing as to what aspects of conditioning really matter, and it’s not always clear why some athletes do great on certain types of workouts (things like a 2k row time trial, a long workout with a heavy barbell, and something with squat snatches and muscle-ups) but can’t seem to put it together when the workout is more simple grunt work (like wall balls, rowing and burpee box jump overs).

There are many different characteristics that go into performing well on conditioning workouts, and understanding how to think about training to improve your conditioning is full of nuance and complexity – especially if you’re not someone who is freakishly talented and can just get better at everything all at once by doing a constantly changing and chaotic training program.

In this episode of the podcast, we attempt to break down the different types of workouts that people think of as “engine-based” and give some thoughts as to how to approach training and how to understand the different fatigue mechanisms at play.

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

  • Why some athletes excel at all types of conditioning workouts – and why others are great when it comes to biking, rowing and running but struggle with things like double-unders, thrusters and box jumps
  • How training the aerobic system carries over to performance in mixed modal sport – and why just doing 30s on/30s off on the assault bike isn’t enough to make you better at “CrossFit”
  • Why fatigue signals from your body can be confusing – and why feeling like you’re out of breath during conditioning workouts isn’t always an indicator that you need to improve your aerobic system

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

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