Here at The Lifetime Athlete, we celebrate athletes of every type. Our platform is based around the concept that everyone has an athlete residing within them, and our goal is to help them discover, develop, and embrace that entity.
But not every athlete is the same. Some are single-sport specialists, and others go for all-around capabilities. The beauty of the lifelong athletic journey is that you can focus on anything you want, and change it up from time to time. For infinite reasons.
A term that has become popular over the last decade is hybrid athlete. There are a number of interpretations of this approach, but for our purposes we can say that a common version of hybrid athlete mixes running and resistance training. Theirs is a quest to blend aerobic fitness with strength and power at relatively high levels. This type of conditioning produces a highly capable human who is competent in a variety of sport and life applications.
I’m in the business of promoting health and fitness, so I endorse physical activity for everyone. I don’t cast shade on the sports and training methods people choose. Instead, I encourage and salute them. I work to help them find ways of succeeding at their chosen pursuits. But, honestly, a hybrid athlete is nothing new. You can look at the training methods of athletes in many sports over the past century and see that they have always combined locomotion, weight training, mobility, and skill practice into their routines. Certainly, you can highlight the modern pentathlon, the heptathlon, and decathlon as examples.
But most single-sport specialists, especially those who are paid to do what they do, utilize a hybrid approach to at least some of their training. This will vary from sport to sport and will typically be emphasized more during the off-season. That’s because most sports, as well as lifelong basic function, benefit or draw from multiple capacities. In varying amounts, based on specific sport demands and personal genetics, each athlete will do a mashup of workouts that get results. For some, the training is very hybridized, and for others…just a little.
Today, we also appreciate the concept of fitness as sport. In and of itself. Credit goes to CrossFit for revolutionizing awareness in this arena. Using terms like work capacity, and “fittest on earth” created a sea change in the public view of training. More recently, HYROX has become a popular competition that explores hybrid athleticism.
When I think of longevity, as well as peak performance, I like the way our TLA model looks. First, we identify the 5 Capacities of Athleticism. Then, we use the Athletic Capacity Rating System (ACRS) to assess the individual’s status in these areas, as well as their chosen sport’s requirements. From there, we’re able to adjust, ie. hybridize, training to optimally match up the individual’s abilities with their goals. That works great for performance. But this process works equally well for elucidating basic physical needs as it relates to quality of life and functional independence in the later aspects of the lifespan.
The 5 Capacities of Athleticism are strength (and hypertrophy), speed, power (aerobic and anaerobic), agility (which includes mobility, stability, reactivity, and fluidity), and endurance (cardiorespiratory fitness and muscular fatigue resistance). These are equally important for the all-around athlete and fitness enthusiast. And for the human who wants to kick ass in later life.
The ACRS allows us to rank those 5 capacities on a 4-point scale which runs 0-1-2-3 and represents suboptimal-adequate-moderate-maximum in that order.
The need to hybridize training becomes more important with aging. With youth, genetic attributes can be emphasized and deficiencies are often minimal. But as the decades pile up, our bodies need to shore up weaknesses so that no capacity becomes suboptimal (and stays at least adequate in presence). Thus, we adjust our hybridized training accordingly.
The beauty in all of this is that our Training Tribe (T2) system automatically addresses the blending and balancing of training for longevity. Because we use an Annual Training Plan which is block-periodized around the 5 capacities, Lifetime Athletes are able to cyclically address all areas and adjust training for the best personal outcomes. It’s intentionally a dynamic process. Like life itself.
Hybrid athlete. All-around athlete. Lifetime Athlete. That’s what we’re all about.