Thank you for 20 years. Here’s a look at the past, present and future of Catalyst Athletics.
Twenty years of Catalyst Athletics.
If you’ve spent any meaningful amount of time around Olympic weightlifting, CrossFit, or strength and conditioning over the last two decades, there’s a pretty good chance Catalyst Athletics has influenced you somehow, whether you realized it or not.
Greg Everett founded Catalyst in 2006, and what followed became far more than a weightlifting gym.
Catalyst became a team. A methodology. A library. A publishing platform. A coaching resource. And, ultimately, one of the institutions that helped make quality Olympic weightlifting education accessible to athletes and coaches around the world.
Long before every coach had an Instagram account and every training question returned a thousand competing answers, Greg was doing the decidedly less glamorous work of teaching.
Writing, coaching, filming exercise demos, developing programs, publishing The Performance Menu back in the day, writing Olympic Weightlifting: A Complete Guide for Athletes & Coaches and building an enormous free library of weightlifting education.
And, in 2013, producing American Weightlifting, a film he conceived years earlier and essentially wrote, filmed, directed, edited, produced, and even scored himself because he believed the story of American weightlifting deserved to be told.
Catalyst itself evolved along the way. A commercial gym and a competitive team. From Cali to Oregon. Different athletes, different eras, different challenges. But the underlying commitment to the craft remained remarkably consistent.
And I think craft is the right word.
One of the things I’ve always appreciated about Greg’s work is that it reflects something I believe deeply about coaching: principles matter, but principles still have to be applied to an actual human being.
Technique matters, strength matters, programming matters, assessments matters and experience all matter. And eventually, the coach has to take all of those things and decide what this athlete needs right now.
That’s the art.
It’s one reason Greg and Catalyst have found their way into my own writing on programming and coaching. When discussing the people who helped shape modern thinking about weightlifting and strength and conditioning, Greg belongs in that conversation, not because he invented the snatch or discovered progressive overload, but because he has spent twenty years organizing, refining, teaching, documenting, and sharing the craft.
And that’s a contribution worth recognizing.
Greg has now released a documentary telling the story of Catalyst Athletics, and if you’ve ever learned from one of his articles, watched one of those exercise demos, followed one of his programs, read one of his books, listened to him talk weightlifting, or simply benefited from the broader weightlifting culture Catalyst helped build, it’s worth taking the time to watch.
Twenty years is a hell of a lot of reps.
Congratulations to Greg, Aimee, the athletes, coaches, contributors, and everyone else who has been part of the Catalyst Athletics story.
Here’s to the next chapter. The principles remain constant. The application is the art.
And few people have spent more time documenting and developing that art than Greg. Cheers to another 20 years!
Understanding Maintenance Volume (MV), Minimum Effective Volume (MEV), Maximum Adaptive Volume (MAV), Maximum Recoverable Volume (MRV), and Everything Between
Growth is determined not by how much work you perform, but by how much productive work you can recover from.
Introduction
Walk into almost any Olympic Weightlifting or power lifting gym, CrossFit affiliate, or even the standard Globo gym and you’ll eventually encounter two seemingly opposite philosophies.
One athlete believes progress comes from doing more: more sets, more repetitions, more accessory work, more conditioning, more training days. If some novel amount of work produces results, even more work should produce even better results.
Another takes almost the opposite approach: do as little as necessary to stimulate improvement, then get out and recover.
Curiously, both can point to successful athletes who appear to prove them right.
One can point to the CrossFit athlete training multiple sessions a day, the weightlifter accumulating hundreds of technically demanding repetitions each week, or the bodybuilder thriving on German high volume training. Then another points to an elite powerlifter progressing on surprisingly few max-effort lifts, or an experienced weightlifter whose training becomes more productive after unnecessary volume is removed.
So which approach is correct? Both and neither. Why? Because the question itself is flawed.
The body does not respond to volume in absolute terms. It responds to recoverable stress.
That distinction changes everything.
The objective of training is not to perform the greatest amount of work possible. It is to perform the greatest amount of productive work possible: enough to create the desired adaptation without accumulating so much fatigue that additional work stops contributing meaningfully to it.
There is a difference between training that challenges your capacity and training that simply consumes it.
Understanding where that line exists, and recognizing that it shifts according to the athlete, the adaptation being pursued, the type of training being performed, and where the athlete is in their development, is one of the most valuable skills an athlete or coach can develop.
This is where the Volume Spectrum begins.
More Is Better, Until It Isn’t
One of the oldest assumptions in strength training is beautifully simple: if ten sets build muscle, twenty must build even more. And if twenty works, why not thirty?
The problem is that biological markers rarely, like life, move in straight lines.
The human body is governed by diminishing returns. Initially, increasing training volume can produce greater adaptation. Strength improves, muscle grows, work capacity increases, and technique becomes more refined. But eventually those returns begin to diminish. Progress slows, then plateaus, and if volume continues increasing without sufficient recovery, performance can begin moving backward.
More work has become less productive.
The irony is that many dedicated athletes interpret this decline exactly backward. Feeling stalled, they assume they simply need to work harder, so they add another exercise, another set, another conditioning session, another “finisher.”
Instead of solving the problem, they’ve increased the very stress that caused it.
The Volume Spectrum
Training volume can be understood through four useful landmarks along a continuum. These should not be treated as rigid physiological thresholds or universal numerical prescriptions, but as practical regions that help coaches think about the relationship between training stress and adaptation.
Quick Reference: Training Volume Landmarks
MV (Maintenance Volume): The minimum amount of training needed to maintain current performance and muscle mass. Used during periods of reduced training, deloads, or recovery phases.
MEV (Minimum Effective Volume): The lowest training dose that produces measurable progress or adaptation. Anything below this threshold will not drive improvement.
MAV (Maximum Adaptive Volume): The “sweet spot” where training volume is high enough to maximize gains without causing excess fatigue or risk of overtraining. This is where most productive training occurs.
MRV (Maximum Recoverable Volume): The upper limit of training volume that the body can adapt to and recover from. Exceeding this consistently leads to stagnation, regression, or injury.
In short:
MV: Enough to maintain, not improve.
MEV: The minimum to make progress.
MAV: The most productive range for gains.
MRV: The most you can recover from, not to be exceeded.
Maintenance Volume (MV)
Maintenance Volume is exactly what it sounds like: the minimum amount of work required to preserve a current level of adaptation.
Notice what it is not. Maintenance volume is not intended to produce meaningful improvement. It provides enough stimulus to prevent meaningful loss.
This matters more than many athletes realize because maintenance allows training resources to be reallocated. A competitive CrossFit athlete may temporarily reduce upper-body hypertrophy work while emphasizing Olympic lifting. A tactical professional preparing for selection may maintain maximal strength while substantially increasing endurance. An older adult may temporarily reduce overall workload while attempting to preserve existing strength and muscle mass.
Maintaining an adaptation generally requires less training than developing it in the first place. That principle becomes one of the coach’s most valuable tools because no athlete can emphasize everything simultaneously.
Sometimes maintaining one quality is precisely what allows another to improve.
Minimum Effective Volume (MEV)
MEV represents the lowest amount of training necessary to produce measurable improvement. Think of it as crossing the threshold where training moves beyond maintenance and begins providing enough stimulus for further adaptation.
Importantly, MEV is highly individual.
A novice lifter may stimulate meaningful progress with relatively little training. An experienced athlete may require substantially more work simply to continue improving. Training age changes the equation because the stronger, more conditioned, and more experienced you become, the greater the stimulus may need to be before the body has sufficient reason to adapt further.
Success changes the rules.
Maximum Adaptive Volume (MAV)
Maximum Adaptive Volume describes the region where training produces the greatest return relative to the fatigue it creates.
Not necessarily the most work. The best work you can do, achieving the intended stimulus, and recover from.
Most productive training should occur somewhere in this range. Performance improves, strength or work capacity develops, recovery remains manageable, technique stays relatively sharp, and the athlete remains capable of continuing to perform quality training.
That distinction matters. MAV is not defined by exhaustion, it’s defined by adaptation.
Maximum Recoverable Volume (MRV)
Eventually every athlete reaches a point where additional work creates more fatigue than useful adaptation. That upper boundary is Maximum Recoverable Volume.
MRV should not be treated as a target. It’s the ceiling.
Experienced athletes may intentionally approach that ceiling during concentrated training blocks before reducing workload and allowing accumulated fatigue to dissipate. Used carefully, periods of functional overreaching can have a place within training.
Living near or above MRV is another matter.
When training chronically exceeds the athlete’s ability to recover, familiar warning signs can begin appearing: declining performance, slower bar speed, persistent soreness or joint discomfort, deteriorating sleep, reduced motivation, worsening session quality, and increased susceptibility to minor illness.
The dedicated athlete may again interpret these symptoms as evidence that more work is required. Often the opposite is true.
Why These Landmarks Move
One of the biggest mistakes coaches make is treating volume landmarks as fixed numbers.
They aren’t.
Your MEV this year may not resemble your MEV five years from now. Your MRV during a period of low life stress may differ considerably from your MRV during a demanding work cycle, caloric deficit, competition season, or period of poor sleep. The amount of volume you can recover from for one physical quality may also differ substantially from what you can tolerate for another.
These landmarks move because the athlete moves. As the old saying goes, “You can’t be in fight shape all the time.”
Training Age
Beginners often require surprisingly little work to improve. Advanced athletes generally require a greater stimulus to continue adapting, while simultaneously becoming capable of creating considerably more stress during each hard working set.
Five sets of squats performed by an athlete squatting 135 pounds do not represent the same physiological event as five sets performed by an athlete squatting 500.
The volume may look identical on paper. The affect on the body is not.
Exercise Selection and Recovery Cost
Not all training stress is created equally.
Three sets of leg extensions, three sets of heavy back squats, three rounds of ring muscle-ups, ten minutes of EMOM barbell cycling, and a 5k row for time all qualify as training volume, but they do not impose the same demand.
Heavy compound lifting can create substantial mechanical and systemic fatigue. High-repetition gymnastics challenge local muscular endurance, connective tissue, grip, coordination, and the ability to maintain movement quality as fatigue (neurological and physical) accumulates.
Repeated cleans or snatches performed under metabolic fatigue combine muscular endurance with technical proficiency, strength, power, timing, and repeated force production. Longer aerobic work may create relatively little mechanical damage while still imposing substantial cardiorespiratory and metabolic demand.
This is why simply counting sets, repetitions, minutes, or meters can become misleading.
Programming volume requires understanding what quality the work is developing, how much useful stimulus it provides, and what it costs the athlete to recover from it.
The body doesn’t count reps, it accumulates stress.
Different Qualities Carry Different Costs
One of the greatest misconceptions in training is assuming every physical quality responds to volume in the same way.
It doesn’t.
Absolute strength and power require exposure to high levels of force and velocity. A strong baseline in movements such as squats, deadlifts, presses, pulls, and Olympic lifts provide a foundation from which explosive force can be expressed.
Muscular endurance requires something different: the local capacity of muscles and the nervous system controlling them to repeatedly produce useful contractions despite accumulating fatigue. In gymnastics, that may mean sustaining pull-ups, push-ups, toes-to-bar, handstand push-ups, or muscle-ups. With a barbell, it may mean repeatedly cycling cleans, snatches, thrusters, or shoulder-to-overhead movements while maintaining enough technical integrity to continue working efficiently.
Cardiorespiratory endurance and stamina place another demand on the athlete. Aerobic and anaerobic metabolism must continually provide energy across efforts lasting seconds, minutes, or hours, while the athlete develops the capacity to sustain output and recover between repeated demands.
Strength, power, muscular endurance, barbell endurance, cardiorespiratory endurance, and stamina coexist, but they are not interchangeable.
A CrossFit athlete preparing for competition may intentionally increase muscular endurance, barbell cycling, aerobic development, and repeated-effort aerobic power and capacity training while maintaining rather than maximizing absolute strength.
An Olympic weightlifter may do almost the opposite, allocating considerably more training toward strength, power, technical consistency, and the competition lifts. A tactical professional may require substantial strength alongside loaded movement, cardiorespiratory endurance, muscular stamina, and repeated performance under fatigue.
An older adult may prioritize strength, muscle mass, aerobic capacity, mobility, balance, and resilience because the objective is preserving capability and independence rather than maximizing competitive performance.
None of these athletes are training incorrectly, they’re simply solving different problems. Volume only becomes meaningful when viewed through the adaptation being pursued.
Movement Quality Changes the Cost of Volume
There is another variable that sets and repetitions alone cannot explain: movement quality.
Before deciding that an athlete needs more squats, gymnastics, barbell work, or conditioning, the coach must understand whether the athlete can efficiently perform the movements being prescribed.
Can they squat through the required range of motion while maintaining position? Can they establish a stable overhead position and safely receive a clean or snatch? Do they possess the ankle, hip, thoracic, and shoulder mobility required for the task? Can they maintain trunk control and coordination as fatigue accumulates?
Flexibility and mobility are not decorative qualities simply sprinkled in at the beginning or at the end of a training session. Adequate range of motion allows the athlete to access the positions required for the task(s); mobility adds the ability to control those positions. Coordination, agility, and balance allow the athlete to organize movement, redirect force, transition between tasks, and preserve technical integrity under changing conditions.
These qualities are essential and non-negotiable under fatigue.
Walking on your hands while fresh is one skill. Maintaining a handstand walk after heavy cleans and/or several minutes of high-output conditioning is another. The same principle applies to receiving a snatch in a deep overhead squat, transitioning efficiently through ring muscle-ups, or maintaining clean mechanics while breathing heavily and losing grip strength.
Poor movement quality increases the cost of work. Efficient movement reduces it.
Two athletes can therefore complete exactly the same prescribed volume while experiencing meaningfully different training loads.
Sometimes the fastest way to improve work capacity isn’t adding more work.
It’s reducing wasted movement. Or, what we used refer to in CrossFit as seeking Virtuosity in movement.
Volume Exists in Time
Twenty weekly sets performed in one session are not equivalent to twenty sets distributed across four sessions.
The same principle applies outside traditional resistance training. Twenty minutes of high-skill gymnastics performed while fresh is not equivalent to twenty minutes performed after heavy barbell work. Six sprint intervals distributed appropriately across a training week do not necessarily impose the same cost as those same intervals performed immediately after a demanding lower-body session.
Volume therefore cannot be separated from frequency, sequencing, and recovery. Where the work occurs matters, what happens before and after it matters. The body does not simply experience training volume. It experiences stress over time.
The Athlete Changes the Equation
Dynamis
Genetics, sleep, nutrition, age, life stress, occupation, training history, and movement quality all influence the amount and type of training an athlete can productively tolerate.
A firefighter working rotating night shifts may have a very different MRV from a college student sleeping nine hours each night. Two athletes possessing similar strength may tolerate very different amounts of training, and two athletes capable of completing the same workout may require entirely different interventions because their limiting factors are different.
One may lack absolute strength. Another may lack muscular endurance. Another may possess tremendous strength but poor muscular endurance. Another may have excellent local muscular endurance but insufficient aerobic capacity to recover between efforts. Another may simply move inefficiently which can make each training session twice as hard as it needs to be with the most basic of movements like air squats, pushups, pullups or burpees.
That’s why programming that ignores recovery outside the gym ignores half the equation.
And programming that ignores the individual misunderstands the other half.
Autoregulation: Listening Without Guessing
Perhaps the greatest weakness of rigid programming is the assumption that today’s body is identical to yesterday’s.
It isn’t.
Autoregulation recognizes that readiness fluctuates. Instead of blindly completing predetermined workloads regardless of performance, intelligent athletes and coaches adjust training according to relevant objective and subjective information.
Bar speed, repetitions in reserve, perceived exertion, heart-rate recovery, sleep quality, motivation, persistent soreness, session performance, movement quality, and technical deterioration under fatigue can all provide useful information.
No single metric tells the entire story. The purpose is not to replace programming with daily improvisation.
Autoregulation isn’t abandoning structure it’s allowing physiology to inform execution.
Deloads: Adaptation’s Forgotten Partner
One of the greatest misconceptions in training is that progress results from uninterrupted accumulation. It doesn’t. Progress often depends upon strategic reduction.
Deloads intentionally reduce training stress so accumulated fatigue can dissipate while much of the underlying adaptation is preserved. The purpose isn’t simply to rest. It is to restore the athlete’s capacity to perform productive training again.
A deload is not necessarily a step backward. Often it is the point at which accumulated fitness becomes visible beneath accumulated fatigue. We’ll discuss deloading, and its importance in more detail, later in this series
Pacing, Bottlenecks, and Productive Volume
More volume is rarely the solution to poor performance.
Sometimes the athlete needs more strength. Sometimes they need greater muscular endurance, a larger aerobic base, better gymnastic skill, more technical practice, or improved movement economy.
And sometimes they simply need to stop going out too hard. Pacing by itself is a performance skill. Athletes have to learn how much work can be performed now without any degradation in overall performance.
That means learning how quickly your breathing recovers, knowing when to stop just before grip or shoulder failure, or when technically efficient barbell cycling becomes increasingly expensive, and where local muscular fatigue or technical breakdown reliably appears.
Meaning, where is the bottleneck?
An athlete who repeatedly falls apart during the final five minutes of a 20min AMRAP, may not need another conditioning session. They may benefit more from not trying to win the first five minutes.
Likewise, an athlete struggling with high-repetition cleans may assume the problem is conditioning when insufficient absolute strength is making every repetition too expensive. Another athlete may possess enormous strength but lose time because poor economy of motion makes their receiving positions inefficient. Another may possess the engine and strength but lack the coordination required to transition efficiently between gymnastics and other external loading.
The workout reveals the symptom(s) and good assessments identify the cause(s). That distinction matters because training should target the bottleneck, not just accumulate more fatigue around it.
Volume Is a Conversation, Not a Competition
Perhaps the most important lesson from the Volume Spectrum is this: Volume is not something to maximize, it’s something to be optimized.
It’s a training resource to be allocated according to the athlete’s objectives, abilities, limitations, and capacity to recover. The strongest programs are rarely those that demand the most work. They are the ones that consistently produce the greatest useful adaptation relative to their cost.
That balance changes throughout a career. It changes across seasons and according to the physical quality being developed. It changes during periods of occupational stress, poor sleep, illness, caloric restriction, or competition preparation. And it changes as weaknesses become strengths and new bottlenecks emerge.
The best coaches therefore don’t ask: How much volume can this athlete survive?
They ask: How much productive volume can this athlete recover from?
And eventually, they ask an even better question: Where should that volume be spent?
Those are profoundly different questions. One measures work while the other considers adaptation. And that final question brings us to the next principle.
Looking Ahead
By now, we’ve moved far beyond the old argument that strength and conditioning somehow exist in opposition to one another.
We’ve seen that the interference effect is real but contextual. We’ve examined what performance programs actually look like and why athletes with very different objectives still develop many of the same fundamental physical qualities. And now we’ve established that even the amount of training itself exists along a spectrum, from the work required merely to maintain an adaptation to the upper boundary of what the athlete can productively recover from.
But volume alone still cannot tell us what to do.
Knowing that an athlete can recover from twelve hours of training each week tells us nothing about how those twelve hours should be spent.
Should we build absolute strength and power? Develop muscular endurance or barbell cycling skill? Expand cardiorespiratory capacity? Improve flexibility and movement efficiency? Develop coordination, agility, and balance? Improve movement quality or technical skill? Practice pacing? Attack a specific bottleneck?
Or should several of those qualities simply be maintained while training resources are concentrated on the one that matters most right now?
That is where coaching becomes something more than exercise selection.
A bodybuilder, Olympic weightlifter, tactical professional, CrossFit athlete, and older adult may all require some combination of strength, endurance, power, movement competency, and resilience.
But their needs vary in degree and application, not in kind. What changes is the proportion.
What changes is the priority. What also changes is the organization of stress across time.
Good programming does not ask which physical quality is universally best. It asks which quality matters most for this athlete, at this moment, how much of the others must be developed or preserved, where the athlete’s bottlenecks exist, and how those pieces can coexist without obscuring the primary objective.
That is why programming cannot be reduced to exercises written beneath the days of the week, and it certainly isn’t the random accumulation of difficult workouts.
Programming is the deliberate organization of stress in pursuit of adaptation.
It determines what to develop, what to maintain, what to temporarily deprioritize, how much work to perform, when to perform it, when to push, when to pull back, and when the athlete standing in front of you requires something different from what you originally wrote on paper.
In Part V of First Principles of Performance we discover how programming is not the science of writing workouts. It’s the strategic art of organizing adaptation, we bring those pieces together and examine how coaches actually organize adaptation: how strength, power, muscular endurance, cardiorespiratory capacity, movement competency, skill, recovery, and the individual athlete become a coherent training system rather than a collection of disconnected workouts.
Because knowing the physiology is important, knowing the how and why we utilize MGW is foundational, and how and why knowing all of the movements is elemental. But, knowing how to organize them around the needs of the individual is where knowledge becomes art.
Programming is not simply the science of writing workouts. It is the art of organizing adaptation. As always, the principles remain constant.
The application is the art. And that’s what quality coaching is all about.
The same physical qualities. Different priorities. Intelligent application.
Part I, we dismantled the myth.
Part II explained the physiology.
Part III shows how to construct the program.
The Central Thesis
Programming is not the indiscriminate accumulation of desirable exercises. It is the deliberate allocation of finite adaptive resources.
Every athlete would benefit from being stronger, more muscular, more powerful, better conditioned, more mobile, and more resilient. The problem is that no one can maximize every quality simultaneously.
A sound program therefore asks:
What must be developed?
What must be maintained?
What may be temporarily deprioritized and for how long?
What forms of training deliver the greatest benefit with the least conflicting fatigue?
That’s where the individual disciplines separate.
The Framework
Before discussing specific populations, let’s discuss a common framework that can apply to anyone.
The Primary Objective
The primary objective determines what receives the athlete’s best energy, highest-quality practice, and largest recovery allocation.
General physical preparedness (GPP): broad competence without narrow specialization
Tactical readiness: resembles GPP but carries a different standard. Failure is not an option
Olympic Weightlifting: technical power, speed, athleticism, superior flexibility + stability at end ranges of motion, and maximal strength
CrossFit: develop broad competitive capacity across the 10 general physical skills and also have “home run” ability in several of those skills
Bodybuilding: hypertrophy, size, and muscular symmetry
Healthy aging and Wellness: preservation of strength, power, muscle, mobility, and cardiorespiratory fitness
Developing Secondary qualities
Secondary qualities support the principal objective but must not compete excessively with it.
For example:
An Olympic weightlifter needs aerobic fitness for recovery and general wellness, but not the capacity to run a marathon.
A bodybuilder needs conditioning, but not enough aerobic volume to take away from building muscle.
A tactical athlete needs strength, but not at the expense of sharpness of movement, the ability to endure, and engage and disarm enemy combatants, i.e. maintain occupational durability.
A more mature adult needs to build and/or maintain muscle mass, but also enough power, balance, coordination, flexibility, and aerobic capacity to remain independent.
Establishing the minimum effective dose
Not every quality requires maximal training volume. Some qualities can be developed with relatively little work. Others can be maintained with substantially less work than was required to build them.
This allows a coach to place most resources toward the current priority while preserving other capacities.
Control competing fatigue
The interference problem is not merely molecular. It is mechanical, neurological, metabolic, and logistical.
Two sessions may theoretically coexist but still conflict because they stress:
The same musculature
The same joints and connective tissues
The same energy systems
The same neurological resources
The athlete’s limited sleep, time, and nutrition
This is why modality, sequence, volume, and timing matter.
Sequence the training week intelligently
The highest-priority, highest-skill, and highest-velocity work should generally occur when the athlete is freshest.
A useful hierarchy is:
Technical and explosive work
Heavy strength work
Hypertrophy or accessory work
Conditioning
Supplemental mobility and tissue restoration
That order can change according to the sport, but it gives us a sound starting point.
How the application changes
CrossFit: developing breadth without creating chaos
opt ccp brain on drugs
CrossFit presents one of the hardest programming problems because nearly every physical quality matters.
Why does CrossFit usually present a problem for most coaches? We begin with the 10 general physical skills. They are cardiovascular/respiratory endurance, stamina, strength, flexibility, power, coordination, agility, balance, and accuracy.
Cardiovascular/respiratory endurance – The ability of the body’s systems to gather, process, and deliver oxygen
Stamina – The ability of body systems to process, deliver, store, and utilize energy
Strength – The ability of a muscular unit, or combination of muscular units, to apply force
Flexibility – the ability to maximize the range of motion at a given joint
Power – The ability of a muscular unit, or combination of muscular units, to apply maximum force in minimum time
Speed – The ability to minimize the cycle time of a repeated movement
Coordination – The ability to combine several distinct movement patterns into a singular distinct movement
Agility – The ability to minimize transition time from one movement pattern to another
Balance – The ability to control the placement of the body’s center of gravity in relation to its support base
Accuracy – The ability to control movement in any given direction or at a given intensity”
So, a competitive CrossFit athlete requires:
Maximal and relative strength
Olympic lifting proficiency
Gymnastics skill
Aerobic capacity
Anaerobic power
Muscular endurance
Movement efficiency
Fatigue resistance
Rapid recovery between efforts, et cetera
The danger is confusing variety with randomness.
A well-designed CrossFit program should not simply expose the athlete to more movements and more suffering. It should develop identifiable qualities in a logical sequence.
Primary considerations
Strength and skill must be developed and then protected. Heavy lifting, technical precision/near perfection in the Olympic lifts, and advanced gymnastic skill should not routinely be performed after unnecessary fatigue.
Conditioning requires structure. The athlete needs distinct exposures to:
Low-intensity aerobic development
Threshold or tempo work
Short glycolytic intervals
Sprint interval training
Mixed-modal competition pieces
Not every metcon should destroy the athlete. Some sessions should develop pace, transitions, breathing control, or movement economy without producing maximal fatigue.
The interference effect is managed through planning. Heavy squats should not be surrounded by repeated high-volume running, jumping, and cycling sessions unless that fatigue is intentional.
CrossFit programming should develop the unknown and unknowable by building deep, transferable capacities, not by making every day unknowable to the coach.
Hypertrophy: condition the athlete without stealing from growth
For hypertrophy, the principal objective is clear:
Accumulate sufficient high-quality resistance-training volume to stimulate muscle growth, then recover from it.
Cardiovascular training should improve health, work capacity, and recovery without degrading lifting performance.
Best applications
Zone 2 bike/row/ski, jogging if you can maintain zone 2, or other similar cardiac demand work
MAP training or what I call “CrossFit aerobics”
Short tempo intervals
Carefully dosed sprint work
Sleds, carries, or machines that reduce eccentric loading
Conditioning performed after lifting or in separate sessions
Primary constraints
The bodybuilder or hypertrophy-focused lifter must manage:
Total lower-body fatigue
Caloric expenditure
Joint stress
Session duration
Interference with progressive overload
The appropriate amount depends on the athlete’s training age, caloric intake, exercise selection, and recovery.
The practical rule is straightforward:
Conditioning should leave the athlete better prepared to train, not chronically less capable of producing force and volume.
Bodybuilding: hypertrophy with greater specialization
Bodybuilding and general hypertrophy training overlap, but bodybuilding adds several constraints:
Muscular symmetry
Proportional development
High local training volume
Fatigue management across many isolation exercises
Contest preparation and caloric restriction
Preservation of muscle during fat loss
Cardio becomes more prominent during contest preparation, but recovery resources simultaneously decline.
That makes modality selection especially important.
Low-impact cardio often becomes preferable because it increases energy expenditure without imposing excessive eccentric loading or soreness. As calories fall, the athlete must also avoid the common mistake of increasing cardio aggressively while maintaining all previous lifting volume.
Bodybuilding programming is therefore an exercise in resource preservation:
Retain muscular tension
Preserve strength where possible
Manage fatigue
Increase energy expenditure gradually
Avoid turning every session into a test of willpower
The same physiology applies. The context changes.
General Physical Preparedness: build the widest useful base
unit
GPP is not preparation for nothing. It is preparation for many possible things.
The objective is broad physical competence:
Reasonable strength
Useful muscle mass
Aerobic fitness
Anaerobic capacity
Mobility
Coordination
Power
Durability
A GPP program should avoid the extremes of narrow specialization.
The athlete does not need:
Powerlifting-level maximal strength
Marathon-level endurance
Bodybuilding-level weekly muscle volume
Elite Olympic lifting technique
But the athlete benefits from meaningful development in all of them.
A balanced GPP week might include:
Two or three strength sessions
One power or sprint exposure
Two aerobic sessions
One higher-intensity conditioning session
Carries, sleds, jumps, throws, crawling, or climbing
Regular movement-quality work
This is where first principles matter most. GPP should create optionality: the ability to enter a more specialized phase without beginning from zero.
Tactical readiness. The real unknown and unknowable.
walk em down
Tactical readiness resembles GPP but carries a different standard. Failure is not an option.
The tactical athlete may need to:
Sprint – short, medium, and long distance, under load, taking and returning fire
Climb – 15 – 30 ft. ropes for multiple reps
Fight – from striking, to grappling, to weapons defense and disarming skill, and all must work under possible extreme fatigue
Drag or carry another person, possibly multiple people
Move large loads, long distance, and quickly
Operate for hours
Recover quickly
Make innumerable decisions under fatigue
Repeat near perfect efforts without warning
That’s the minimum standard and it requires far more than “being strong” or being “in shape” ever can.
The old saying is, the novice practices the movements so they don’t get them wrong. The professional has practiced them so often they can’t get them wrong.
Programming priorities
Relative and absolute strength
Loaded movement capacity
Grip and trunk endurance
Aerobic base
Martial Proficiency
Repeated sprint ability
Anaerobic endurance
Power and rate of force development
Durability under imperfect, and often austere, conditions
Recovery between multiple, unpredictable efforts
The program must also preserve technical and occupational skills. Fitness should support marksmanship, defensive tactics, movement, communication, and decision-making rather than degrading them through constant exhaustion.
The “unknown and unknowable” should be addressed by building robust capacities and occasionally testing their integration.
It should not justify random training. Uncertainty in the mission does not require uncertainty in the program. That should be one of the article’s anchor lines.
Olympic weightlifting: develop strength, speed, power, technical skill, and force production
Greg and Amiee – the early days of Catalyst Athletics
Olympic weightlifting is a highly technical, speed-strength, and power output sport.
Its primary qualities are:
Technical proficiency
Explosive strength
Maximal strength
Speed-strength
Superior positional mobility
Well-developed neuromuscular adaptation
Conditioning is useful, but it must remain subordinate to performance in the snatch and the clean and jerk.
Productive conditioning
Low-intensity aerobic work
Short cyclical intervals
Sled work, carries, et cetera
Limited sprint exposures whether it’s running, rowing, bike erg assault bike, or ski erg
General body weight flow/movement and recovery work
Common programming error
A weightlifter can become so conditioned that the conditioning begins to impair the quality of technical practice, squatting, pulling, and recovery.
Conversely, poor aerobic fitness can reduce training density and the ability to recover between sets and sessions.
The goal is not maximal endurance.
It is sufficient conditioning to support greater quantities of high-quality weightlifting.
Healthy aging: train what age attempts to take away
Healthy aging may be the most important application because nearly every major physical quality declines without deliberate training.
The program should preserve:
Muscle mass
Maximal strength
Power
Bone density
Aerobic capacity
Balance
Coordination
Mobility
Confidence in movement
Power deserves particular emphasis because it often declines faster than maximal strength and is essential for preventing falls, climbing stairs, catching oneself, and moving quickly when necessary.
A complete healthy-aging program should therefore include:
Progressive resistance training
Safe explosive intent or power training
Zone 2 aerobic work
Some higher-intensity aerobic exposure
Balance and unilateral movement
Carries and gait work
Mobility sufficient for daily function
Practice getting down to and up from the floor
The objective is not merely extending lifespan.
It is preserving capability across the lifespan.
The 70-year-old and the competitive athlete are not performing identical workouts, but the underlying qualities remain the same. Load, velocity, complexity, volume, and risk are adjusted to the individual.
Again:different in degree, not in kind.
The comparative model
Population
Primary Emphasis
Supporting Conditioning
Main Interference Risk
CrossFit
Broad competitive capacity
Full spectrum
Excessive mixed fatigue and inadequate specialization
Hypertrophy
Muscle growth
Low-impact aerobic and concise intervals
Reduced lifting quality and recovery
Bodybuilding
Muscular size, symmetry, leanness
Progressive low-impact cardio
Energy deficit plus excessive total volume
GPP
Broad competence
Balanced aerobic and anaerobic work
Randomness without measurable progression
Tactical
Durable performance under uncertainty
Aerobic base, loaded work, repeated efforts
Fitness fatigue degrading occupational skill
Olympic weightlifting
Skill, power, maximal strength
Minimal effective conditioning dose
Loss of speed, freshness, and technical quality
Healthy aging
Capability and independence
Aerobic base plus selected intensity
Underloading, excessive caution, and lack of power work
The deeper lesson
This third article should not merely contain seven sample programs. It should teach the reader how to reason.
The reader should finish understanding that programming is a process of adjusting several variables:
Priority
Frequency
Intensity
Volume
Modality
Sequence
Recovery
Specificity
The exercises are not the program. The allocation of stress is the program.
That is how we prevent the article from becoming a collection of templates that readers blindly copy. We can include sample weekly structures, but each one should demonstrate the principle behind the arrangement.
The barbell, a bike, the rower, a sled, the track, or a pull-up bar are not competing philosophies. They are tools. Their value depends on the problem they are being used to solve.
A bodybuilder, Olympic weightlifter, tactical professional, CrossFit athlete, and older adult all require strength, endurance, power, movement competency, and resilience. The needs vary in application, not in kind.
Good programming does not ask which quality is universally best. It asks which quality matters most right now, how much of the others must be developed or preserved, and how they can coexist without obscuring the primary objective.
Programming is not the science of writing workouts. It is the art of organizing adaptation. As always, the principles remain constant. The application is the art and that’s what real coaching is all about
The Interference Effect: Separating Physiology from Fitness Mythology
“Understanding what works is valuable. Understanding why it works changes the way you think forever.”
In the previous article, Cardio Doesn’t Kill Your Gains. Poor Programming Does, we challenged one of the most persistent myths in strength and conditioning.
The conclusion was straightforward.
Cardiovascular training does not inherently prevent muscle growth. Rather, poorly designed training, excessive volume, inadequate recovery, insufficient nutrition, and conflicting priorities, is what most often limits progress.
For the overwhelming majority of lifters, the question isn’t whether they should perform cardiovascular training. The question is how to integrate it intelligently into a well-designed program.
That practical advice is enough for most people.
But for coaches, athletes, and those who simply enjoy understanding why the body behaves the way it does, there is a much deeper story waiting beneath the surface.
That story begins inside a single muscle cell.
The Conversation Inside the Cell
Every training session asks your body a question.
Heavy squats ask:
“Can you produce more force?”
A sprint interval asks:
“Can you generate enormous amounts of energy very quickly?”
A thirty-minute Zone 2 session asks:
“Can you become more efficient?”
Your muscles answer each of these questions by activating different signaling pathways that regulate adaptation.
These pathways are often portrayed as opposing armies locked in constant battle. One builds muscle. The other builds endurance. One must win while the other loses. It’s an appealing narrative. It’s also an oversimplification because biology is rarely that binary.
Meet the Two Most Famous Molecules in Exercise Physiology
If you’ve spent any time reading about muscle growth or endurance training, you’ve almost certainly encountered two acronyms:
AMPK
and
mTOR.
They’re frequently described as rivals. While that’s directionally true, the relationship is considerably more nuanced than the internet often suggests.
AMPK functions as the cell’s energy sensor. Whenever energy availability begins to decline, as happens during prolonged or demanding exercise, AMPK becomes activated.
Its job is straightforward and that’s to restore energy balance.
It encourages the body to become more metabolically efficient, increase glucose uptake, enhance fat oxidation, and promote mitochondrial adaptations that improve endurance over time.
mTOR serves a different purpose.
Rather than conserving energy, mTOR responds to mechanical tension, amino acid availability, particularly leucine, and adequate cellular energy by promoting protein synthesis, tissue repair, and muscle growth.
One pathway asks,
“How do we survive this demand?”
The other asks,
“How do we become stronger for the next one?”
Both are essential an neither is the enemy.
Where the Myth Begins
Here’s where decades of misunderstanding started. Researchers discovered that AMPK can suppress certain components of the mTOR pathway.
That finding quickly evolved into a popular conclusion:
“Cardio turns on AMPK.
AMPK turns off mTOR.
Therefore cardio kills muscle growth.”
Simple but also wrong, or at least incomplete. Because physiology almost never operates like a light switch.
Biology Prefers Dimmers Over Switches
One of the most overlooked aspects of exercise physiology is time. AMPK responds rapidly to energetic stress. During demanding exercise, it rises quickly.
Then, once the exercise ends and energy balance begins to recover, AMPK activity declines just as rapidly, often within minutes to a few hours.
mTOR behaves differently.
Following resistance training, especially when combined with adequate protein intake, mTOR signaling can remain elevated for many hours and, in some cases, more than a day as muscle protein synthesis continues.
These aren’t two permanent states competing for dominance. They’re temporary responses to changing physiological demands. Your body constantly adjusts which pathway receives greater emphasis based on what it needs at that moment.
Location Matters
Another misconception is that these pathways somehow control the entire body equally at all times. They don’t. Many signaling responses are remarkably localized.
The muscle fibers performing repeated contractions experience different metabolic demands than surrounding tissues. The cardiovascular system responds differently than skeletal muscle. The liver behaves differently than adipose tissue.
Even within skeletal muscle, fiber type influences adaptation. The body isn’t issuing a single command. It’s conducting an orchestra. Different sections play different parts. Together they produce adaptation.
The Body Doesn’t Choose Between Building and Improving
Perhaps the most fascinating aspect of this entire discussion is that AMPK and mTOR are not always mutually exclusive. Under certain physiological conditions, aspects of both pathways can be active simultaneously. Cells routinely remove damaged proteins while synthesizing new ones.
Energy availability can improve while structural remodeling occurs. Recovery itself is an ongoing process of destruction and regeneration. Our physiology isn’t designed around choosing one adaptation. It’s designed around balancing competing demands with extraordinary precision.
What the Research Shows
This is where molecular biology meets coaching.
When researchers move beyond isolated signaling pathways and study actual athletes over weeks and months, the dramatic interference many people fear becomes surprisingly difficult to reproduce outside very high volumes of endurance training.
Concurrent training research consistently demonstrates that the magnitude of the interference effect depends on factors such as:
Total endurance volume
Exercise modality
Session timing
Recovery
Nutritional status
Training experience
Overall programming
In other words, the molecular biology doesn’t invalidate the conclusions from the previous article, it explains them.
Recent research confirms that the so-called “interference effect” is real, but its magnitude depends on how training is programmed. For example, a 2016 study by Jones et al. found that, while concurrent training can slightly reduce strength gains compared to strength training alone, the effect is modest and can be minimized with thoughtful sequencing and recovery (Jones et al., 2016).
Why Running Sometimes Differs from Cycling
One particularly interesting finding is that not all endurance training produces the same interference.
High-volume running often creates greater reductions in hypertrophy than cycling or rowing.
Why?
Part of the explanation likely lies in mechanical loading. Running introduces thousands of eccentric foot strikes that generate additional muscular damage and recovery demands.
Cycling and rowing produce far less eccentric stress while still developing robust cardiovascular adaptations. The heart doesn’t particularly care how you elevate its workload.
Your joints and muscles often do. For athletes prioritizing hypertrophy, choosing lower-impact conditioning modalities can preserve more recovery capacity for strength training.
The First Principle
Understanding physiology should never replace good coaching.
It should explain it. The interference effect is real. But it is conditional, contextual, and frequently exaggerated. Most athletes don’t need to fear cardiovascular training. They need to respect recovery.
They need to understand adaptation. And above all, they need to remember that physiology doesn’t reward extremes. It rewards appropriate stress followed by appropriate recovery. That’s how stronger muscles are built. That’s how better cardiovascular systems are developed.
And that’s how thoughtful programming transforms isolated workouts into long-term performance.
Closing Thoughts
Perhaps the greatest lesson from the interference effect has nothing to do with AMPK or mTOR. It is a reminder that biology rarely conforms to the tidy, binary explanations we often prefer.
Strength or endurance. Cardio or muscle. Building or recovering. These are useful categories for conversation, but they are poor descriptions of how the human body actually functions. Our physiology is not governed by absolutes. It is governed by balance, adaptation, and context.
The best coaches understand this instinctively. Science simply helps explain why.
Next time we’ll discuss what performance programs actually look like. They’re the same physical qualities, simply applied with different priorities.
As always, the principles remain the same. The art is in the application of that knowledge.
References Jones, T. W., Howatson, G., Russell, M., French, D. N., & Thomas, K. (2016). Performance and physiological differences between concurrent training and strength training. European Journal of Applied Physiology, 116(3), 665-678.
The Environment Leaders Create Determines the Level of Security Their Organizations Achieve
Ask ten security professionals to name the most important security controls in a modern organization, and the answers will sound familiar. Multi-factor authentication. Endpoint detection and response. Network segmentation. Encryption. Vulnerability management. Security awareness training.
None of those answers is wrong. Each represents a critical layer in a mature security program.
Yet they all share a common characteristic: they are downstream of another control that receives far less attention but influences every one of them..
Leadership.
This may seem like an unusual assertion. Leadership does not appear on a network diagram. It cannot be licensed, deployed, or patched. It generates no alerts and produces no dashboard filled with metrics. Yet every meaningful security decision within an organization is ultimately shaped by leadership. Before a firewall is purchased, before a policy is written, before an employee completes awareness training, someone has already decided that security matters—or that it does not.
That decision is leadership in action.
Every Organization Is Perfectly Designed to Produce Its Security Culture
There is a saying often attributed to systems theorist W. Edwards Deming: “Every system is perfectly designed to get the results it gets.” Whether or not those were his exact words, the principle remains instructive.
Security culture is no exception.
Organizations rarely arrive at their security posture by accident. Rather, it emerges from thousands of decisions made over time. These are decisions about priorities, incentives, resources, accountability, and acceptable risk. Employees learn what truly matters not by reading policies, but by observing leadership.
If executives insist on secure practices even when they create inconvenience, employees notice.
If managers routinely ask teams to “just make it work” regardless of established procedures, employees notice that, too. Culture is not built through declarations. It is built through repetition.
Leadership determines what is repeated.
According to the 2024 Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report, over 80% of breaches involved a human element, highlighting that culture, behavior, and leadership are as critical as any technical control.
The Strongest Policies Cannot Overcome Weak Priorities.
Many organizations invest considerable effort in writing comprehensive security policies. These documents establish expectations, define responsibilities, and provide consistency across the enterprise. They are necessary.
They are also insufficient. A policy reflects what an organization says it values. Leadership reveals what it actually values.
Consider two organizations with identical password policies.
In the first, executives follow the same authentication requirements as everyone else, allocate time for security training, and treat security concerns as legitimate business discussions. In the second, executives routinely request exceptions, postpone security projects in favor of short-term operational gains, and regard cybersecurity as primarily the IT department’s responsibility.
On paper, the organizations appear identical. In practice, they are fundamentally different.
Policies establish direction and leadership establish credibility.
Employees are remarkably adept at distinguishing between the two.
Leadership Defines Acceptable Risk
One of the most misunderstood aspects of cybersecurity is the belief that the objective is to eliminate risk. It’s not. Every organization accepts risk. The question is whether those decisions are deliberate or accidental.
Leadership determines where that line is drawn. When a board approves funding for identity modernization rather than postponing the investment for another year, it is making a security decision.
When a superintendent supports temporary operational disruption to remediate a critical vulnerability rather than accepting unnecessary exposure, that is a security decision.
When an executive asks not only, “What will this cost?” but also, “What risk does this reduce?” security has become part of organizational decision-making rather than an afterthought.
Security professionals identify and communicate risk. Leadership determines which risks are acceptable.
These responsibilities are distinct, but inseparable.
Trust Is a Preventive Control
Technical controls prevent malicious activity, and leadership often prevents organizational failure.
Employees who trust their leaders report mistakes sooner. They ask questions before making assumptions. They admit uncertainty before uncertainty becomes an incident.
Conversely, organizations that punish honest mistakes often create an environment where employees hide them. The initial phishing email is rarely what causes the greatest damage.
Silence does.
Trust is therefore more than an abstract leadership quality. It is a practical security control that shortens response times, improves communication, and encourages the reporting behaviors upon which effective incident response depends.
Organizations frequently invest millions of dollars in detection technologies while overlooking one of the simplest ways to improve detection: creating an environment where people feel safe speaking up.
Technology can authenticate identities, encrypt data, detect anomalies, and automate countless security functions. It can’t establish priorities, create accountability, model integrity, or build trust. Only leadership can accomplish those things.
This is why organizations with modest security budgets, but disciplined leadership often outperform organizations possessing sophisticated technologies but inconsistent governance. The difference is not the tools themselves. It is the environment in which those tools operate.
Technology amplifies capability and leadership amplifies behavior. Given enough time, behavior almost always proves to be the more influential force.
Actionable Steps for Leaders
Model security behaviors consistently at every level of the organization.
Integrate risk discussions into executive decision-making, not just technical reviews.
Foster a culture of psychological safety so employees feel comfortable reporting mistakes and asking questions.
Align security policies with actual business practices—avoid policies that are routinely bypassed.
Invest in both technology and leadership development to scale capability and culture in tandem.
Final Thoughts: Leadership as the First Control
It is tempting to think of cybersecurity as something managed by the security department. Firewalls belong to network engineers. Endpoint protection belongs to security analysts. Policies belong to governance teams.
Leadership belongs in every decision.
Every decision about priorities, every allocation of resources, every conversation about acceptable risk, and every example set by those entrusted to lead either strengthens or weakens the organization’s security posture.
For that reason, leadership should not be viewed merely as support for cybersecurity.
It should be recognized for what it is.
The first security control.
Key Takeaways:
The downstream effects of leadership shape every aspect of an organization’s security posture.
While policies and technology matter, leadership determines how they are valued, implemented, and, more importantly, enforced.
Trust and culture are practical security controls that improve incident response and reduce risk.
Consistent, visible prioritization of security by leaders is more influential than any single technical investment.
Security is ultimately a human endeavor, and its success is determined by the actions and environment set by those who lead.
This perspective is echoed by leading frameworks, NIST CSF and ISO 27001, which position governance and leadership at the foundation of resilient security programs.
The technologies organizations deploy may change. The threats they face certainly will. But the principle remains constant: every security program ultimately reflects the leadership that built it.
Leadership, then, is not merely support for security; it’s the foundation.
Cardio Doesn’t Kill Your Gains. Poor Programming Does.
“The first principle isn’t choosing between strength and conditioning. It’s understanding what adaptation you’re trying to create.”
Cardio Doesn’t Kill Your Gains. Poor Programming Does.
For decades, one of the most persistent myths in strength training has been deceptively simple:
“If you want to build muscle, avoid cardio.”
It sounds reasonable. After all, endurance athletes tend to be lean, while bodybuilders are muscular. Somewhere along the way, many people concluded that cardiovascular training and muscle growth must exist at opposite ends of the same spectrum.
Like most fitness myths, there’s a grain of truth buried beneath a mountain of oversimplification.
Can excessive endurance training interfere with maximal hypertrophy? Yes.
Can intelligently programmed cardiovascular training improve your health, enhance your recovery, increase your work capacity, and have little meaningful effect on muscle growth?
Also yes. The difference isn’t cardio. It’s programming
The Wrong Question
People often ask, “How much cardio can I do without losing muscle?” It’s the wrong question. The better question is: What adaptation am I trying to produce?
Every training session asks your body to solve a problem. Heavy squats ask it to produce more force. Tempo intervals ask it to become more efficient at clearing lactate.
Sprints demand explosive power. Long easy efforts improve aerobic efficiency.
These aren’t competing identities. They’re simply different physiological adaptations. Understanding that distinction changes everything.
First, Let’s Define “Cardio”
One reason this discussion becomes so confusing is because we use the word cardio as though it’s a type of exercise.
It isn’t. It’s a physiological demand.
Your cardiovascular system doesn’t know whether you’re running, rowing, cycling, carrying sandbags, or performing twenty-rep squats. It only knows that your muscles require oxygen, nutrients, and energy.
Think about workouts like: – The Standard (Grace – 30 clean and jerks at 135/95, 30 ring muscle ups, Isabel – 30 snatches at 135/95) – Heavy sled pushes – Oly complexes of 5 reps or more – 2k row for time – 5k run – Fran – 20 rep max back squat – Murph
Nobody finishes those wondering whether their cardiovascular system was challenged. Weight training can absolutely become cardiovascular training depending on how it’s programmed.
These variables determine the cardiovascular demand, not whether you’re holding a barbell or running shoes. The conversation isn’t “weights versus cardio.”
It never was.
Where the Myth Came From
The concern isn’t entirely imaginary.
Researchers have long studied what’s known as the interference effect, the observation that combining endurance and resistance training can, under certain conditions, reduce some strength and hypertrophy adaptations compared with resistance training alone.
Notice the language. Can. Under certain conditions.
Not: Always. Those conditions matter.
A competitive marathon runner performing sixty miles each week while trying to maximize leg hypertrophy faces a very different challenge than someone lifting four days a week while adding two thirty-minute conditioning sessions.
Those are not the same training problems. Yet they’re often discussed as though they are.
What Actually Interferes?
For most lifters, muscle isn’t lost because they jogged. It’s lost because recovery becomes the limiting factor.
Poor programming often looks like this: Heavy lower-body lifting followed immediately by long-distance running. High-volume conditioning layered on top of already excessive lifting volume. Poor sleep. Insufficient calories. Inadequate protein intake. Eventually something has to give. Trying to train near maximally, whether it’s loading or intensity, 4-6 days per week.
If training continually exceeds your ability to recover, progress slows—not because cardio is inherently bad, but because the total stress exceeds your adaptive capacity.
The Research Is More Encouraging Than the Internet
Fortunately, the research is considerably more nuanced than the internet. Much of the fear surrounding cardio comes from laboratory discussions about molecular signaling. You’ll often hear that endurance exercise activates one pathway while resistance training activates another, and that these pathways “fight” each other.
There is truth here. But physiology is rarely as binary as social media suggests.
These signals are temporary. They’re influenced by nutrition, training age, exercise selection and most important, recovery.
And they’re often localized to the tissues being trained rather than acting as a simple on-off switch across the entire body.
More importantly, when researchers look beyond the molecular biology and examine actual training outcomes, the picture becomes much less dramatic.
For the overwhelming majority of recreational lifters, and even many competitive athletes, well-designed conditioning has little meaningful effect on muscle growth.
Programming matters far more than the mere presence of cardiovascular exercise.
Numerous studies support the idea that cardio, when programmed intelligently, does not meaningfully hinder muscle growth. For example, a 2015 meta-analysis by Dr. Brad Schoenfeld and colleagues concluded that combining strength and cardio training results in only a negligible impact on muscle and strength gains, provided programming is sound (Schoenfeld, B.J., Ogborn, D., & Krieger, J.W., 2015, Sports Medicine).
Cardio That Supports Muscle Growth
If hypertrophy is your primary objective, conditioning should complement not compete with your lifting.
Generally speaking, it could look like the following:
Shorter, more intense sprint work.
Use interval-based conditioning where appropriate.
Row.
Cycle.
Throw med-balls.
Use the SkiErg.
Carry odd objects.
Push and pull sleds.
Perform tempo intervals.
Carry heavy implements.
Include sprint interval training when recovery allows.
Separate demanding conditioning from heavy lower-body strength sessions whenever practical.
Most importantly, keep the main thing, the main thing.
Conditioning exists to improve health, increase work capacity, and support recovery, not to leave you so fatigued that tomorrow’s strength session suffers.
Keep the Main Thing the Main Thing
The best programs are surprisingly disciplined. They know exactly what they’re trying to improve. Everything else exists to support that objective, not distract from it.
One of the greatest mistakes athletes make is assuming every session must improve every quality simultaneously.
It doesn’t. Training is about emphasis or specificity to the individual and their goals. Some phases prioritize maximal strength. Some emphasize hypertrophy, aerobic capacity gymnastic or Olympic Weightlifting skill. A skill Ive always referred to as barbell gymnastics because of how skill dependent they are.
The art of coaching isn’t teaching every quality simultaneously. It’s knowing which qualities deserve emphasis today, and which can simply be maintained until tomorrow.
That’s programming.
The First Principle
Cardio doesn’t kill your gains. Poor programming does. If your training reflects clear priorities, if recovery matches workload, if nutrition supports adaptation, if conditioning complements rather than competes with strength, then you can become stronger. You will then become stronger, healthier, and better conditioned.
Not because you avoided cardio, but because you finally stopped asking whether strength and conditioning are enemies.
They never were. They simply need a coach who understands how to make them work together.
The principles remain constant. The application is the art.
If you’re curious why all of this works, not merely what to do, we’ll step out of the weight room and into the physiology laboratory. There we’ll explore the molecular conversation taking place inside skeletal muscle every time you lift, sprint, row, or recover, and discover why the story is far more nuanced than the internet would have you believe.
References
Schoenfeld, B. J., Ogborn, D., & Krieger, J. W. (2015). Effect of concurrent aerobic and strength training on maximal strength, power, and hypertrophy in healthy adults: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Sports Medicine, 45(5), 697–708.
Wilson, J. M., Marin, P. J., Rhea, M. R., Wilson, S. M. C., Loenneke, J. P., & Anderson, J. C. (2012). Concurrent training: A meta-analysis examining interference of aerobic and resistance exercises. Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, 26(8), 2293–2307.
What the Film Accurately Portrays About George Washington and Why That’s More Important Than Historical Precision
I have heard the bullets whistle; and, believe me, there is something charming in the sound.~George Washington, 1754
Historical narratives often introduce extraordinary individuals only after they have already achieved greatness.
We meet George Washington crossing the Delaware on Christmas night, 1776. We remember him accepting the surrender at Yorktown. We picture him presiding over the Constitutional Convention in 1787 with quiet dignity, or possibly voluntarily relinquishing power after two terms as President. These are the images that have become etched into the American imagination.
However, none of these depictions explain the individual behind the achievements. Historical accounts frequently celebrate achievement while overlooking the formative processes. They recall the summit but often neglect the ascent.
The Washington we know, the one who would one day lead the nation, was once just a simple Virginia country boy who surveyed untamed forests, who helped to steer uncertain alliances, and who endured many failures. As Fred Anderson’s Crucible of War illustrates, these foundational years placed a Young Washington not just in the forests of Virginia, but in the midst of a global struggle for empire, where every decision carried consequences far beyond his own ambitions.
While the smoke of the Battle of Culloden had scarcely cleared from the Scottish Highlands, another conflict was already gathering across the forests of North America. The same British Empire that had crushed the Jacobite Rising under the command of the Duke of Cumberland would soon ask a young Virginian to represent its interests on a distant frontier.
The Battle of Culloden (1746) marked the end of the Jacobite Rising and preceded Washington’s emergence on the Virginia frontier by only a few years.
Contemporary audiences may recognize the Duke through historical fiction like Outlander, where the aftermath of Culloden serves as an important backdrop. Yet only a few years later, Britain’s attention had shifted across the Atlantic.
As Scotland slowly recovered from the Jacobite defeat, George Washington was beginning the experiences that would shape his own understanding of leadership, empire, and war. Only eight years separated Culloden from Fort Necessity. While the Highlands mourned the end of the Jacobite cause, another young officer, this time in Virginia, was taking his first uncertain steps into a conflict that would ultimately reshape not only North America, but the British Empire itself. Washington’s story did not unfold on the margins of British history. It unfolded at the center of an expanding imperial contest whose consequences would be felt across Europe, North America, the Caribbean, India, and eventually the world.
Much of Washington’s early opportunity, and the weight of responsibility, came at the behest of Lieutenant Governor Robert Dinwiddie of Virginia. Dinwiddie’s urgent dispatch of Washington as an emissary to the French, and later as an officer, thrust the young Virginian into imperial diplomacy and conflict, well before he had reached his twenty-third year.
For this reason, Young Washington is quite effective.
There was another detail that struck me before the opening scene ever began. Young Washington was released on July 3, 2026, the anniversary of the Battle of Fort Necessity, fought on July 3, 1754. Whether intentional or coincidental, the timing felt remarkably appropriate. It was at Fort Necessity that Washington first confronted the harsh realities of command, responsibility, and failure. These lessons would continue to shape the man history would so fondly remember.
Its success does not stem from perfectly recreating every historical event. Rather, the film demonstrates that greatness is seldom born during moments of triumph. Instead, it is gradually forged through prolonged periods of uncertainty, hardship, discipline, and service. It tells the story of becoming.
History Begins Too Late
Braddock’s defeat at the Battle of the Monongahela and the Road to the American Revolution
One of the greatest challenges in portraying historical figures is that audiences already know the ending. We know Washington survives. We know he becomes commander of the Continental Army. But what did it feel like, in those first years?
We know he becomes America’s first President. Therefore, the narrative tension cannot arise from questioning the outcome.
Instead, it must derive from an examination of how an individual becomes capable of assuming such responsibilities.
Peter Stark captures this beautifully in Young Washington. His Washington is ambitious without arrogance, courageous without recklessness, and deeply shaped by the Virginia frontier. Stark’s research emphasizes that Washington’s formative encounters on the frontier—marked by both overreach and humility were essential lessons, not just for an officer, but for the man he would become.
At this stage, he’s not even close to the man who would become recognized as “the Father of His Country.” He’s just George, a young man from Virginia, keen to prove himself, and not immune to self-doubt. He is simply a young officer learning that leadership often requires decisions made under conditions of uncertainty.
Fred Anderson’s Crucible of War widens that lens even further. It places Washington in the much broader geopolitical struggle between Britain and France for control of North America. Yet Washington’s story unfolds not in isolation, but within the intricate web of Native American diplomacy, imperial rivalry, and transatlantic currents that defined the mid-eighteenth century.
As Anderson notes, it was in these moments of uncertainty and adversity that Washington learned the necessity of adaptation, a lesson that would underpin his later leadership. Against that backdrop, Washington’s early experiences become more than youthful adventures. They become formative encounters with diplomacy, logistics, command, failure, and responsibility.
The film recognizes an aspect that many historical narratives overlook: Washington did not achieve greatness instantaneously; rather, his development was gradual.
The Wilderness Before the Legend
Modern audiences often imagine eighteenth-century Virginia through portraits, plantations, and political assemblies.
The wilderness presented a stark contrast to the trappings of the 18th-century gentleman. The frontier was vast, beautiful, but also unforgiving. His surveying expeditions demanded resilience, observation, patience, and sound judgment. Every mile he traveled had the potential to change his perspective on life or end it. Every river crossed carried risk. Negotiations with Indian nations or colonial authorities demanded diplomacy years ahead of Washington’s experience. He learned the hard way.
The wilderness was not merely a backdrop. More importantly, the frontier served as Washington’s initial instructor. It is particularly appropriate that his career began as a surveyor. Surveyors do not impose order on the land; they first learn to observe it.
Early on, prior to commanding soldiers, a Young Washington learned to navigate the backcountry. Before leading armies, he developed an understanding of the Virginia topography.
Before leading the nation, he became adept at navigating uncertainty. As portrayed in the movie, one night out on the frontier, he really did almost freeze to death. He was unaware at the time, but these lessons would prove invaluable in the years to come.
Failure Can Be an Extraordinary Teacher
Washington’s early military service during the French and Indian War shaped the judgment that later defined his leadership.
Modern biographies often turn Washington’s early failures into short, concise sections. Then the topic quickly shifts to his many later successes. This tendency is regrettable and often sells the story short.
These failures may, in fact, constitute the most significant aspect of his narrative.
Incidents like the Jumonville affair and the events at Fort Necessity involved misjudgments made under considerable pressure, resulting in lessons learned at high personal and political cost. Both Anderson and Stark argue that these setbacks, often glossed over in myth, were in fact the crucibles where Washington’s resilience and judgment were forged.
Washington’s own letters from this period, as well as official colonial correspondence, reveal the anxieties and aspirations of a young officer navigating the uncertainties of frontier command.
Letters from Governor Dinwiddie reveal not only the trust invested in Washington, but also the pressure of representing Virginia’s interests on the frontier. Dinwiddie’s strong advice and high expectations served as both a challenge and a formative influence for the young officer.
These moments exposed Washington to the realities of command long before he possessed complete confidence or experience. If anything, they show just how much he still had to learn.
The film treats these events with appropriate weight.
It’s not because the film sticks to a strict, precise recreation of every conversation or maintains exact timelines. It does so because the film captures an essential historical truth. Leadership is acquired through experience; each lesson is earned rather than inherited.
Washington’s early victories help to build his confidence and resilience. His early defeats helped to refine his judgment. Almost across the board, the historical Interpretations of Washington’s early military competence vary but are rarely kind. Some, like Anderson, highlight his rapid adaptation under fire, while others note the persistence of youthful missteps. There is consensus that these formative trials were indispensable in shaping the leader he became.
If one must choose between the two, historical evidence suggests that judgment proved to be more valuable.
Historical Accuracy and Historical Truth
Young Washington, Angel Studios 2026
No historical film achieves perfect accuracy. Nor should audiences expect it to.
This film serves as a medium for storytelling. However, the real story, the real history, is grounded in scholarship. While these objectives can overlap, they are not synonymous.
Characters are often blended together, timelines are compressed, dialogue is imagined, events are simplified or even exaggerated. These creative choices warrant acknowledgment, but they should be evaluated in proportion to their impact. The central question is not whether every detail occurred exactly as depicted.
The more important question is whether the film remains faithful to the character it seeks to portray.
In my assessment, Young Washington is largely successful. The film portrays Washington’s ambition without reducing his character to that single trait. It depicts his confidence without suggesting arrogance, and his patriotism before it had fully manifested in political terms.
Most importantly, the film depicts a young Virginian with a profound attachment to the land that shaped his identity. This aspect is of genuine significance.
Virginia Was More Than Home
One aspect of the film that resonated deeply with me was its portrayal of the importance of Virginia itself.
George Washington as a young surveyor on Virginia’s frontier.
For Washington, Virginia was not merely a colony; it was his home and his country. The rivers, forests, Blue Ridge Mountains, the frontier, and its people were integral to his identity.
Washington’s identity was inseparable from the landscape of his upbringing. Stark, in particular, highlights how Washington’s attachment to Virginia’s land and people was not just personal, but foundational to his character and later sense of service.
Throughout these formative years, Washington’s interactions with other prominent Virginians, landowners, officers, and statesmen such as George Mason helped shape his understanding of leadership and public service, grounding him in the networks that would sustain Virginia’s future leaders. This connection is often overlooked in discussions that commence with the Revolution. However, long before he became an American icon, he was distinctly a Virginian.
His understanding and internalization of the importance of duty, honor, public service, and responsibility emerged from this environment. The wilderness shaped his character as profoundly as any subsequent battlefield.
His sense of civic responsibility was also reinforced by the example of the Virginia House of Burgesses, the colony’s elected assembly, which would later honor Washington for his service. The political traditions and debates of the Burgesses provided a living model of self-government that would influence Washington throughout his career. The film deserves considerable recognition for highlighting this aspect.
Becoming Before Greatness
Modern society tends to admire accomplishments while neglecting the formative process as a whole. Achievements such as promotions, victories, championships, and public recognition are frequently celebrated.
Seldom do we acknowledge, or even consider, the years devoted to becoming the individual capable of achieving such accomplishments. Both Crucible of War and Young Washington remind us that the process of becoming through error, endurance, and persistent effort is often the most overlooked part of any life that shapes history.
Washington’s life illustrates the consequence of these formative years. None of his contemporaries in the Ohio Valley could have anticipated the losses of 1776, the turning point of the early war when he crossed the Delaware, or the eventual surrender of the British Empire at Yorktown in 1781.
Not a single one of his surveying companions could have, in their wildest dreams, envisioned the eventual Constitutional Convention. No young officer anticipated becoming the indispensable figure of the American founding. History later recognized the character that had been quietly developing for decades. This lesson extends well beyond the eighteenth century. The lesson is that leadership develops long before it’s ever publicly acknowledged.
Character has to be formed long before it is tested.
Why The Story Still Matters
It may be tempting to dismiss Young Washington as merely another historical drama. It certainly was in parts. However, such a perspective would overlook its most significant contribution. The film demonstrates that remarkable lives are seldom defined solely by extraordinary moments.
Such lives are constructed through thousands of ordinary decisions made consistently over time. As someone who has studied Washington’s life extensively, I observed certain historical liberties, including the compression of some events.
Certain conversations were imagined. Some events were even embellished, glorified, or simplified. However, these choices did not detract from the filmmakers’ ultimate objective. Their aim was to portray more than just the future President, and they accomplished that objective in spades.
What they intended to do was to depict a young man as he was slowly becoming a singular focal point and historical figure. For this reason, and this reason alone, the film merits considerable praise.
If I were to evaluate it solely as a historian, I might deduct points for occasional deviations from clear timelines. If, however, I were to assess it as a storyteller aiming to illuminate the formative years of America’s most prominent leader, I would readily award it 4½ out of 5 stars.
This rating is not due to perfection, but rather because the film demonstrates an understanding of what were the most important parts of the story to tell.
Final Reflections
Arguably, the greatest contribution of Young Washington is its reminder that history records outcomes, whereas life is experienced chronologically and as an ongoing process.
We recall Washington crossing the Delaware, the hero who led his troops from the front, who had his coat shot through with bullets multiple times, and even had his hat shot away, and yet was never wounded in battle. History remembers the British surrendering at Yorktown. They remember the man who resigned his commission in 1783 after he defeated the most powerful empire the world had ever known. They remember him as the statue of a man who became the nation’s first President and could have just as easily become King. It also remembers his Farewell Address and his return home to live out his last few years at his beloved Mount Vernon. Yet none of these moments fully explain the individual.
I can truly say I had rather be at Mount Vernon with a friend or two about me, than to be attended at the seat of government by the officers of state and the representatives of every power in Europe. ~Letter to Dr. James Anderson, December 7, 1795
It is his years as a surveyor, his travails, his triumphs, and, most notably, the wilderness of Virginia and the long track of the Blue Ridge that explain the man history would later remember.
Long before George Washington became known as the indispensable man, he was a young Virginian learning, often imperfectly, how to bear responsibility with integrity.
The vicissitudes of war and the various scenes I have been called to act in, have worn me out, and it is time for me, in the shades of retirement, to seek that tranquility which I have not found elsewhere. ~Letter to David Humphreys, July 25, 1785
And perhaps this is the real story worth remembering. Was Washington always destined for greatness? Hardly. The enduring myth of Washington as an almost preordained hero obscures the reality of a young man shaped by error, ambition, and contingency. Only by embracing this complexity, the messiness, the doubts, and the years of becoming can we truly appreciate the origins of his greatness. While many admire greatness, far fewer appreciate the process of becoming.
Yet it’s in this process that greatness consistently originates.
Why Intelligent People Circumvent Security, and What Mature Organizations Do About It
Walk into almost any classroom in the country at the beginning of a new school year, and you’ll witness controlled chaos.
Teachers are preparing lesson plans, organizing classrooms, responding to parents, configuring technology, attending meetings, and welcoming a new group of students, all before the first bell ever rings. The pace is relentless, and every minute matters.
Now imagine walking past a cart of student Chromebooks and noticing something unexpected.
A small adhesive label with a student’s name, username, and password affixed directly to the device.
At first glance, it’s easy to criticize the practice. After all, writing credentials on the very device they’re intended to protect undermines one of the most fundamental principles of information security.
But if that’s where the conversation ends, we’ve learned very little. The more interesting question isn’t why someone ignored security.
The better question is: Why did this feel like the best solution in the first place?
That distinction matters because mature cybersecurity is not built by identifying mistakes. It is built through understanding the conditions that make those mistakes seem reasonable.
Intelligent People Rarely Choose Insecurity
One of the most persistent misconceptions in cybersecurity is the belief that policy violations emanate primarily from ignorance, carelessness, or indifference.
In reality, most people are trying to do exactly what they’ve been hired to do. Teachers are trying to teach. Nurses are trying to care for patients. Engineers are trying to deliver systems. Executives are trying to lead organizations. Their objective is not to violate policy.
Their objective is to accomplish meaningful work. When security introduces unnecessary friction into that work, people naturally begin searching for ways to reduce it. Not because they oppose security. Because they are optimizing for progress. The sticky note wasn’t malicious. It was an optimization.
Unfortunately, it optimized the wrong variable.
The Path of Least Resistance
Human beings are remarkably consistent. When presented with multiple ways to accomplish the same objective, we tend to choose the one that requires the least effort. Behavioral psychologists have studied this phenomenon for decades. Economists describe it through concepts like bounded rationality and mental effort. Engineers simply recognize it as good design.
Cybersecurity often forgets it entirely.
Organizations frequently assume that if policies are written clearly enough, people will simply follow them. Experience suggests otherwise. People generally follow the path that requires the fewest decisions, the least interruption, and the least additional effort. That’s not laziness, it’s human nature.
Every unnecessary step added to a security process becomes another opportunity for someone to find a shortcut. And shortcuts have a way of becoming habits.
The Difference Between Immature and Mature Security Programs
Immature organizations respond to incidents by writing another policy. Mature organizations ask a different question.
Why did this make sense to someone?
That question shifts the conversation from blame to design. Consider the classroom example.
Should passwords remain private? Absolutely.
Should credentials ever be attached directly to a device? Of course not. But stopping there ignores the larger lesson. Why did an experienced educator, someone strongly dedicated to their students, conclude that this was the most practical solution?
Perhaps student onboarding was cumbersome. Perhaps the process required frequent password retrieval.
Perhaps the system created more friction than necessary during one of the busiest weeks of the year. Those possibilities deserve just as much attention as the policy itself. Because good security doesn’t merely tell people what not to do. It makes the secure choice the wise choice.
Security Culture Is a Design Problem
Culture is often described as shared values or shared beliefs. In cybersecurity, culture is better measured using shared behaviors. Those behaviors are influenced less by slogans than by systems.
When secure behavior is intuitive, people adopt it naturally. When secure behavior consistently slows people down, even well-intentioned professionals begin inventing workarounds.
The problem isn’t that people prefer convenience. The problem is when convenience and security are placed in opposition to one another. Strong organizations refuse to accept that tradeoff.
Instead, they ask: “How can we design systems where the secure path is also the easiest path?”
That question signifies a profound shift in thinking. Rather than expecting people to overcome human nature, mature organizations design with human nature in mind.
Leadership Beyond Technology: Setting Security Culture by Example
This principle extends far beyond passwords. In practice, organizations sometimes hard-code credentials because rotating them seems cumbersome. Employees reuse passwords because managing dozens of unique ones is impractical without support. Executives may bypass established processes they perceive as slow, sometimes even advocating for policies they themselves neglect. These behaviors highlight how security actions, good or bad, are shaped by leadership priorities and organizational culture.
Frameworks like Zero Trust (ZT) and NIST’s Cybersecurity Framework (CSF) both emphasize the importance of aligning policies and controls with real-world workflows. For example, Zero Trust encourages the principle of ‘never trust, always verify’, but it also emphasizes minimizing user friction by making secure access seamless. Similarly, NIST CSF calls for continuous improvement and adaptation to actual business context, including user experience, as a critical part of protecting information.
A 2024 Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report found that over 80% of breaches involved a human element, whether through error, misuse, or social engineering. This underscores the need to design security with people, not just technology, in mind.
Consider the widely publicized 2023 MGM Resorts breach: attackers gained access not through a technical exploit, but by manipulating an employee via social engineering. The aftermath highlighted both the human cost of poor security design and the value of resilient, well-communicated processes. Mature organizations study such incidents to inform better system and workflow design, not just to enforce stricter rules.
None of these behaviors are unique to education. They are remarkably consistent across industries. Whether it’s healthcare, finance, manufacturing, government, or cloud engineering, it’s the same.
Technology changes, human behavior does not. This is why effective cybersecurity leaders spend as much time understanding organizational behavior, workflow design, and communication as they do learning about technology. Firewalls protect networks, encryption protects data, identity platforms protect access, and leadership shapes behavior.
And behavior, modeled first by leadership, ultimately determines whether those technologies succeed.
Designing for Reality
There is an old saying in engineering: “Don’t design for perfect conditions. Design for the conditions that are the reality.”
Cybersecurity deserves the same mindset. People work under the pressure of deadlines. And many humans are easily distracted.
They make mistakes. They focus on competing responsibilities. Expecting otherwise isn’t leadership. It’s wishful thinking. The strongest security programs acknowledge these realities and build systems that accommodate them.
Not by lowering standards. By lowering unnecessary friction. Good security accounts for human behavior. Great security aligns human behavior with enterprise intent. That is where security culture begins.
Actionable Steps for Leaders:
Review critical workflows for unnecessary security friction; streamline processes where possible. Invest in user-friendly identity and access management platforms that support secure, seamless authentication (e.g., password managers, SSO).
Regularly communicate the ‘why’ behind security policies and invite feedback from end users.
Model secure behaviors at the leadership level; visible adherence by executives sets cultural expectations.
Align technology investments with both security best practices (ZT, NIST) and the realities of day-to-day business operations.
Final Thoughts: Designing for Humans
Key Takeaways:
Security workarounds are rarely due to ignorance; they’re often rational responses to unnecessary friction.
Mature organizations design security systems that align with natural human behaviors and incentives.
Leadership sets the tone—when executives model secure, user-friendly practices, security culture flourishes.
Frameworks like Zero Trust and NIST CSF emphasize the importance of user experience and continuous improvement.
The most resilient organizations prioritize systems that help people succeed, not just avoid failure.
The sticky note attached to the Chromebook was never really about the sticky note. It’s an example that every decision in a security environment reflects a larger system of incentives, constraints, priorities, and, mostly, habits.
More often than not, systems fail because they ask ordinary people to behave in extraordinary ways. Technology rarely fails first. People rarely fail first. The most resilient organizations understand this. They don’t build security around an idealized version of human behavior. They build it around reality.
Because in the end, cybersecurity isn’t simply about protecting systems. It is the discipline of building systems that help people succeed. And perhaps that is the deeper lesson.
Convenience isn’t the enemy of security. Poor design is.
Or, said another way, Strong security cultures are not built by asking people to overcome human nature. They are built by knowing human nature well enough to design systems that coordinate convenience with security.
Nutrition for female athletes is about fueling strength, performance, and long-term vitality, not restriction or “losing weight.”
Performance Over Perception
Most nutrition advice aimed at women is still built around restriction, aesthetics, or outdated assumptions about metabolism and training. Training for ladies varies in degree, not kind.
That’s a problem.
If you are training 3–5 days per week, lifting with intent, and layering in conditioning, your body is not asking for less. It is asking for structure, consistency, and sufficient nutritional intake to support your output.
This is not about eating less. It’s about eating appropriately for what you demand of your body.
Myth vs. Reality
Myth: Eating more carbs or fats for performance will automatically lead to fat gain.
Reality: Adequate carbs and fats are essential for training intensity, hormonal health, and recovery. Under-fueling is far riskier for female athletes.
What Changes for Female Athletes?
Physiologically, women:
Oxidize slightly more fat at rest and during lower intensity work
May rely more heavily on carbohydrate during higher intensity training
Are more sensitive to low energy availability, which can disrupt:
Hormonal health
Bone density
Recovery and performance
This makes under-fueling a much bigger issue than over-fueling.
Key concept: Performance nutrition for women is not scaled-down male nutrition. It requires adequate intake and consistency, not chronic restriction.
Caloric Baseline – Your Starting Point
For most beginner to intermediate female athletes:
Women often under-consume protein, especially earlier in the day.
Distribution
Aim for:
25–40g per meal
3–4 meals per day
This supports repeated stimulation of muscle protein synthesis (MPS).
Scientific Support
Morton et al., 2018 (Br J Sports Med) → ~1.6 g/kg (~0.7 g/lb) minimum, with higher intakes beneficial for active individuals
Areta et al., 2013 (J Physiol) → Even protein distribution improves MPS vs skewed intake
Carbohydrates: The Performance Driver
Recommendation
1.5 – 2.5 g per lb bodyweight per day
Adjust based on:
Conditioning volume
Training intensity
Recovery demands
Why Carbs Matter
Carbohydrates:
Fuel resistance training and conditioning
Support glycogen replenishment
Improve performance output and training quality
Help regulate cortisol post-training
For Hybrid Training (Lifting + Conditioning)
With 2 days of added metabolic work:
Bias carbs around training windows
Slightly higher intake on those days
Scientific Support
Kerksick et al., 2017 (JISSN Position Stand) Carbs critical for performance and recovery in high-intensity training
Burke et al., 2011 (J Sports Sci) Glycogen availability directly impacts training capacity
Fats: Essential, Not Optional
Recommendation
0.3 – 0.5 g per lb bodyweight per day
Why It Matters
Fats support:
Hormone production (including estrogen)
Brain function
Nutrient absorption
Long-term health
Chronically low fat intake in women is linked to:
Hormonal disruption
Menstrual irregularities
Reduced recovery capacity
Scientific Support
De Souza et al., 2014 (Br J Sports Med) Low energy and fat intake linked to endocrine disruption
Nutrient Timing: Useful, Not Obsessive
Pre-Training
Protein + carbohydrates
Example: Greek yogurt + fruit, or protein + oats
Post-Training
Protein + carbohydrates
Example: whey + fruit, or whole meal
Evening Eating
Avoid large meals too close to sleep.
If needed:
Smaller protein + carb option
Example: 1 serving of fat-free Greek yogurt, 1 serving of your favorite protein powder + 1 serving of fruit
Hydration & Electrolytes
Especially important for:
Conditioning sessions
Longer training days
Baseline
~0.5–0.7 oz water per lb bodyweight daily
Add electrolytes if:
Sweating heavily
Training in heat
Doing longer sessions
Common Mistakes That Limit Progress
1. Under-eating protein 2. Avoiding carbohydrates 3. Skipping meals and “catching up” later 4. Relying on snacks instead of structured meals 5. Treating food as a reward or a punishment
Practical Daily Structure
Example Day
Meal 1
Eggs + oats + fruit
Meal 2
Chicken + white rice + vegetables + olive oil
Meal 3 (Pre/Post Training)
Protein shake + banana
Meal 4
Salmon + potatoes + vegetables
Action Challenge
For the next 3 days:
Hit your protein target
Add carbohydrates to support training
Eat 3–4 structured meals
No tracking perfection required. Just consistency.
Coach’s Notes
You don’t need a perfect plan. You need a repeatable one.
Consistency builds performance.
Intensity in training requires support from nutrition
If you feel constantly fatigued, flat, or under-recovered, you are likely under-fueling
Suggested Reading
“Roar” by Stacy Sims — Focuses on female-specific physiology and performance nutrition.
One athlete I worked with spent years fearing carbs and eating as little fat as possible. When she finally fueled for her training, hitting just her protein and carb targets, she broke her plateau, gained strength, and recovered faster than ever. Performance nutrition changed her body and her confidence.
Key Takeaways
Lifting and conditioning place real demands on your body.
If you want:
Strength
Performance
Longevity
Then your nutrition must reflect that and not focus on eating less to “lose weight” or simply “be skinnier.”
Ever take a look in the mirror after your first week of serious lifting and thought, “Wait, am I getting bigger?” Here’s what’s really happening…
The Real Problem Isn’t Lifting, It’s Perception
Most women don’t avoid lifting because they’re lazy. They avoid it because they’ve been given the wrong framework. Somewhere along the way, strength training got tied to a single fear:
“If I lift weights, I’ll get bulky.”
That belief isn’t based on physiology. It’s based on misunderstanding. And if the foundation is wrong, every decision built on top of it will be, too.
Think: Understand What Actually Drives Muscle Growth
Muscle doesn’t appear by accident.
It requires:
Progressive overload
Sufficient calorie intake
Adequate protein
Consistency over months and years
Even under ideal conditions, muscle growth is slow.
Now layer in reality:
Women have significantly lower testosterone levels
Most people are not eating in a surplus
Most training programs are not optimized for maximal hypertrophy
The result?
Most women don’t accidentally get bulky. They struggle to build muscle at all.
Lift: Train for Strength, Not Fear
If your goal is to be healthier, stronger, and more capable, your training should reflect that.
That means:
Lifting with intent
Progressively increasing load over time
Training consistently across weeks, months, and years
Not:
Avoiding moderate to heavy weightlifting
Staying in low-intensity comfort zones
Making decisions based on appearance fears
Because here’s the reality: Strength training builds overall capacity, not excess.
Quick Facts: Muscle vs. Bulk
– Muscle gain is slow and is achieved intentionally, not accidentally.
– Most women gain strength, improved muscle tone, and confidence, not size.
– Temporary changes (pump or water retention) fade within hours to days.
What most women experience when they lift properly:
Improved muscle tone
Better posture
Increased strength
Reduced body fat
Higher confidence in movement
That’s not bulk. That’s functional strength.
Live: Strength Is a Long-Term Investment
This is where the conversation shifts. Not aesthetics. Not trends. Outcomes.
If you don’t build strength over time:
Muscle mass declines with age (sarcopenia)
Bone density decreases
Injury risk increases
Daily tasks become harder
Metabolic health worsens
This isn’t hypothetical. It’s guaranteed to happen to everyone.
Now flip that and you’ll find that strength training supports:
Longevity and independence
Bone density and joint health
Metabolic resilience
Cognitive and emotional stability
The ability to live life without unnecessary limitation
Strength training isn’t just about today’s confidence, it’s your ticket to stronger bones, better balance, and staying independent for decades. That’s why a change in mindset is important.
Thinkingbefore: Avoided weights, worried about getting ‘big.’
Thinkingafter: Trained with intention, gained strength, energy, and self-assurance, no bulk in sight.
What “Bulky” Actually Means and Why It’s Misunderstood
Most people don’t define “bulky” clearly.
In practice, what they’re reacting to is:
Seeing muscle definition for the first time
Temporary muscle fullness (“pump”): This can cause a temporary feeling of ‘swelling’ or looking puffier, don’t panic. It’s just increased blood flow and water retention in the muscle, and it fades quickly.
A change in body composition they’re not used to
Actual muscular size:
Takes years to build
Requires intention
Requires nutrition to support it
You don’t drift aimlessly into it, and you couldn’t even if you tried.
The Reality Most People Don’t Say Out Loud
Many women would benefit from more muscle, not less.
In fact:
Many struggle to gain even a few pounds of lean mass
Many under-eat relative to their activity
Many never train with enough load to stimulate growth
The result isn’t “too bulky.”
It’s:
Underdeveloped strength
Lower resilience
Missed potential
Action: Train Systematically, Not Emotionally
Scientific Insight:
A 2022 study in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research found that women who strength trained 2–4x per week improved bone density, confidence, and body composition, without significant increases in body size.
The World Health Organization and American College of Sports Medicine both recommend women include strength training at least two days per week for optimal health, resilience, and longevity.
If your decisions are driven by fear, your results will be limited.
Instead:
Train 2–4x per week with resistance
Focus on progression, not perfection
Eat enough protein to support recovery
Give it time
Let outcomes guide adjustments, not assumptions.
Coach’s Notes
Muscle is difficult to build and easy to lose. Act accordingly.
Strength is protective. It supports everything else you do.
If you ever reach a point where you feel “too muscular,” you can adjust. But, fear not, 99% of the population never even get close to that point.
Final Thought
I doubt Olympic Weightlifters like Olivia Reeves or Mattie Rogers ever think twice about “getting too bulky,” and you shouldn’t either. Strong women aren’t bulky; they’re confident, capable, and resilient.
The goal is to become stronger and more capable. That means more strength, more tenacity, more control over your body, and your overall well-being.
So always remember, lifting weights won’t make you bulky. It will make you unbreakable.
Matt Shannon, Security Pro 