Many athletes want to improve at the types of conditioning workouts that make up things like the Open or the various online qualifiers for Sanctionals like Wodapalooza and The Granite Games.

These athletes don’t need to just improve their “engine,” though.

The limiting factor for most folks in these types of workouts isn’t necessarily that they run out of breath – it’s the muscle endurance required to do repeated contractions on movements like wall balls, toes-to-bar and burpees.

Improving muscle endurance in conditioning environments isn’t just as simple as doing a some band pull-aparts and dumbbell presses as a finisher at the end of a training day.

Instead, we need to understand what work an athlete can do in a sustainable environment, then learn how to progress that to more chaotic scenarios with more movement interference, more repetitions and more intensity.

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

  • How to figure out how many repetitions of a given movement you should be shooting to include in your training – and how to think about progressing toward that number over the course of different training cycles
  • Why athletes must build a base of support in muscle endurance first – even athletes who need to improve their absolute strength to be able to do heavy squat cleans and muscle-ups in conditioning workouts often need to build up enough muscle endurance in order to do the training required to get strong enough to compete in their sport
  • The role of mindset in training weaknesses – and why going into training with a negative attitude about movements that you struggle with can impact your ability to progress long term

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

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