The Week in Hybrid

A quick scan of what happened.

• Controversy at the Women’s USATF Half Marathon Championships - The lead pack of women was led off course by a lead vehicle at the 12-mile mark of the race on Sunday. The detour added roughly a quarter of a mile and resulted in leader Jess McClain going from first place all the way to ninth. Unfortunately, it was ruled that while the course was not marked properly, there is no recourse to alter the results after a finish.

• “The Decathlon of Fitness” - XENOM hopes to bridge the gap between CrossFit and HYROX, launching a new stadium-scale competition series that features 10 fixed events over two days of competition. A license as a CrossFit Partner Event, foundational Partnership with Rogue Fitness, and $15M in funding have created high expectations for the new event series. XENOM will debut on June 27-28 at the Ford Center in Frisco, Texas, with plans for 11 competitions throughout the US and Europe in it’s inaugural year.

• The 2026 CrossFit Open Begins - Week 1 of the 2026 Open has begun, with workout 26.1 announced as a Wall Ball and Box Jump Over pyramid. Full details of the workout can be found here.

Upcoming Events:

HYROX Americas Regional Championships takes place March 7-8
Ironman New Zealand kicks off the 2026 season on March 7th

Need to Know

How To Find Your Optimal Hybrid Split

Finding your optimal training split is not a one-size-fits-all model. How many days of lifting? How many days of cardio? The answer is individualized based on your training background and goals.

The Most Common Hybrid Splits

Most hybrid athletes gravitate toward one of these weekly structures:

3 strength / 3 endurance — The classic 50/50 split for athletes trying to develop both qualities simultaneously.
4 strength / 2 endurance — Strength-dominant, with conditioning maintained through two focused sessions.
2 strength / 4 endurance — Endurance-dominant, with lifting kept to a supporting role.

All of these can work. The problem is that choosing one based on what sounds balanced — rather than what your body actually needs — is where most athletes go wrong.

Your Goals Dictate Your Focus

Rather than choosing a split based on what sounds right, start with your primary goal. Most hybrid athletes fall into one of three categories:

Add muscle, maintain endurance. You want to build strength and size while keeping your cardiovascular fitness intact. Prioritize: 4 days strength, 2-3 days endurance. Strength sessions are your anchors. Conditioning sessions should be moderate intensity — enough to maintain fitness, not so much that they compromise recovery for lifting.
Improve endurance, maintain muscle. You're chasing a race goal, a time, or a new distance — and you want to keep the muscle you've built. Prioritize: 2 days strength, 4-5 days endurance. Full-body lifting sessions focused on compound movements twice a week are enough to maintain muscle mass. Your hard running, cycling, or swim sessions come first in your schedule.
True hybrid balance. You want to genuinely develop both qualities at once and aren't willing to sacrifice either. Prioritize: 3-4 days strength, 3-4 days endurance. This is the most demanding split to execute well because neither side can be treated as an afterthought. Intensity management and recovery become critical — you can't go hard on everything, every week.

Your priority should also influence the order of your training on days when you need to hit both strength and endurance. Ideally, you’d split the sessions up, but if you have to combine them (as I do), then pick the most important session to hit first. If you’re not prioritizing strength or endurance, then generally it’s safest to hit your strength workout first.

Your Background Matters

Now that you’ve identified the right split for your goals, this is where we circle back to your training background. Someone who's spent five years in the gym but rarely runs is not the same athlete as someone who's run three marathons but never touched a barbell. The same split will produce very different results for each of them.

Generally speaking, the more trained you are in a particular area, the more difficult it is to see improvement. If you’ve been running or lifting for 20 years, you know that PRs are few and far between. It may take higher volume and a more dedicated split to achieve a new goal.

The Bottom Line

There's no optimal hybrid split that works for everyone — only the one that's right for where you are right now. Start with your goal, factor in your training background, and choose the split that reflects both. Run it for six to eight weeks, track your performance in both domains, and adjust based on what the data tells you.

The best hybrid athletes aren't the ones who found the perfect program. They're the ones who got good at adjusting it.

Workouts of the Week

Two sessions you can actually use:

Strength

Warmup - 3 Sets
1. 20 lateral band pull-aparts
2. 10 Push Ups
5 Sets
1. 8-10 DB Bench
2. 10 Supported SA DB Rows
5 Sets
1. 8 seated DB Arnold Press
2. 10 single-leg DB RDLs
Core
1. 3 Sets
  1. 20 Hollow Rocks
  2. 50 Flutter Kicks

Endurance - Threshold Run

Warmup:
1. 10 minutes easy run
Main Set - 8 Rounds
1. 1:30 hard
2. 1:30 rest
  1. Keep each set as consistent as possible
Cool-down
1. 10 minutes easy run