A Practical Guide To Concurrent Training For CrossFit
You train hard, push your limits, and expect to see progress from your training.
But what if the way you structure your training sessions is holding you back?
Over the last 12 years of coaching, I’ve seen many CrossFit athletes unknowingly sabotage their results by ordering their workouts incorrectly,
Leading to stalled strength gains, inefficient aerobic conditioning, and poor lactic tolerance.
CrossFit is a form of concurrent training, blending strength training, endurance exercise, and high-intensity conditioning into a single program.
While this approach builds well-rounded fitness, it also requires careful planning to avoid interference between different training elements.
If your goal is to get stronger, build aerobic capacity, and improve your metabolic conditioning, you need to optimize how you sequence your workouts.
In this article, I’ll break down the principles and benefits of concurrent training and show you how to structure your sessions for maximum performance, recovery, and long-term gains.
What Is Concurrent Training?
Concurrent training combines strength training and endurance training within the same training program or day.
In CrossFit, this means balancing resistance training with aerobic exercise and high-intensity conditioning to develop a broad spectrum of fitness.
Unlike single-modality programs that focus solely on muscle hypertrophy, endurance capacity, or maximum strength, concurrent training challenges multiple energy systems at once.
For you as a CrossFit athlete, this approach offers several advantages.
It allows you to build muscular strength while improving your ability to sustain high-intensity efforts.
It enhances power output, endurance capacity, and metabolic efficiency—essential qualities for thriving in workouts that demand both strength and conditioning.
Concurrent training also improves work capacity, helping you recover faster and handle higher training volumes without burnout.
However, there’s a catch.
When not structured properly, concurrent training can create an interference effect, where endurance training blunts strength adaptations and vice versa.
The wrong exercise order can compromise muscle strength, slow down aerobic adaptations, and reduce your ability to tolerate lactic fatigue.
Understanding how to manage this interference is key to unlocking your full potential in CrossFit.
Poor Training Order in CrossFit and Why it Matters
How you order your training sessions directly impacts your strength gains, endurance capacity, and overall performance.
Strength training, aerobic training, and lactic tolerance each rely on different energy systems and place unique demands on your nervous system.
When exercises are performed in the wrong order, you risk reduced strength gains, compromised aerobic performance, and excessive fatigue that limits adaptation.
Many CrossFit athletes make the mistake of performing lactic conditioning before strength work, combining high-intensity anaerobic efforts with aerobic sessions, or training without considering fatigue and recovery.
These mistakes create interference, making it harder for your body to adapt properly.
Think how you would feel if you did “Fran” and then attempted to do heavy back squats or row a 2k chances are it would significantly hinder your performance.
The Correct Training Orders
To structure your CrossFit sessions effectively, follow these training hierarchies:
- Strength → Aerobic → Lactic
- Aerobic → Strength → Lactic
- Strength → Lactic
- Aerobic → Lactic
Examples:
Strength: 3 x 5 Back Squat
Aerobic: 3 sets @ sustained pacing; 10 min AMRAP; 10 Cal Row, 10 Box Jumps 24/20″, 10 Deadlift 135/95#
Lactic: “Fran” @ 100% effort 21-15-9 Thrusters, Pull Ups
Strength and aerobic training can generally be swapped without major consequences, but lactic work should always be performed last.
This is because lactic conditioning creates excessive fatigue, negatively impacting both strength and aerobic adaptations if done earlier in your session.
The only exception is when preparing for competition.
If an event requires lactic conditioning before strength or endurance work, you’ll need to train that way to prepare your body for the demands of competition.
But, for general training, sticking to this order will ensure optimal progress in strength, endurance, and overall performance.
Why Lactic Training Should Always Be Last
High-intensity anaerobic training, often referred to as lactic work, generates extreme muscular and neural fatigue.
This type of training depletes energy stores rapidly, compromises movement quality, and negatively affects force production.
If you perform lactic conditioning before strength training, your ability to lift heavy and maintain proper technique will suffer, reducing long-term strength gains.
Additionally, lactic work interferes with aerobic efficiency by shifting how your body utilizes energy substrates, making endurance training less effective if performed afterward.
By placing lactic work at the end of your training session, you prevent unnecessary fatigue from limiting your strength output and technical execution.
This ensures that your most skill-dependent and strength-focused work remains high-quality while still allowing you to develop the lactic tolerance needed for CrossFit performance.
Making Concurrent Training More Effective
If your schedule allows, separating strength and endurance training by at least three hours can significantly reduce the interference effect.
Strength work performed in the morning followed by endurance training in the evening or vice versa allows your nervous system and muscle fibers to recover, leading to better adaptations in both areas.
Improper training order can also lead to excessive fatigue and diminished performance.
If you notice a drop in strength numbers or endurance capacity, your session structure may need adjusting.
Tools like heart rate variability (HRV) tracking or rate of perceived exertion (RPE) can help you assess recovery and ensure you’re not overloading your system.
The Role of Nutrition in Concurrent Training
When you’re training hard in CrossFit, your nutrition plays a crucial role in supporting your strength and endurance goals.
Whether you’re focusing on increasing muscle mass or improving your aerobic capacity, the right nutrition strategy can help you maximize the benefits of your training program, reduce fatigue, and enhance recovery.
This is especially important when you’re engaging in concurrent training, which blends both resistance and endurance exercise into a single session.
With proper macronutrient balance and timing, you can optimize performance and recovery, giving you the edge to see better results from your hard work.
Macronutrient Breakdown
The balance between protein, carbohydrates, and fats is vital when you’re alternating between strength and endurance work.
Each of these macronutrients serves a unique purpose in supporting your physical performance.
Protein
Protein is essential for muscle recovery and growth.
After your resistance exercise or strength training sessions, your muscles experience microtears, and protein is needed for muscle protein synthesis to repair and build muscle mass.
Aim to include lean protein sources such as chicken, fish, eggs, or plant-based proteins in your meals to support muscle strength and hypertrophy.
Carbohydrates
Carbohydrates are your primary energy source during aerobic exercise and high-intensity interval training.
Carbs help replenish glycogen stores in your skeletal muscle, which is depleted during endurance and high-intensity training.
Consuming complex carbs such as whole grains, fruits, and vegetables will provide a steady release of energy to fuel your workouts, especially when you’re alternating between strength and endurance training.
Fats
Fats are important for long-term energy, especially when you’re engaging in lower-intensity aerobic training or on rest days.
Healthy fats, like those found in avocados, nuts, and olive oil, also support hormonal health and the body’s ability to recover from intense training sessions.
The key is finding the right balance that supports both strength gains and endurance capacity.
A well-rounded approach ensures that you’re giving your body the right fuel for each type of training without overloading it with any one macronutrient.
Timing: Pre- and Post-Workout Nutrition
The timing of your meals and snacks plays an important role in maximizing your performance and recovery.
This is especially true when you’re engaging in concurrent training.
When you structure your meals around your training sessions, you’ll have the necessary energy to power through both strength and aerobic exercises while reducing muscle fatigue and soreness afterward.
Pre-Workout
Aim to eat a balanced meal 1-2 hours before your workout.
This meal should include a combination of carbohydrates and protein.
Carbs will provide you with sustained energy during your session, while protein will begin the process of muscle repair even before you start lifting or doing aerobic work.
A simple example would be a whole grain toast with peanut butter and a banana.
Post-Workout
After training, your muscles are in a recovery state and need fuel to repair and grow.
Within 30-60 minutes of finishing your workout, consume a meal or snack that contains both protein and carbohydrates.
The protein will help stimulate muscle protein synthesis, while the carbs will help replenish depleted glycogen stores in your muscles.
A good post-workout option could be a protein shake with a piece of fruit or a lean protein source with a serving of quinoa or sweet potato.
Hydration
Hydration is often overlooked but plays a crucial role in optimizing both strength and endurance training.
When you’re working at high intensity, whether you’re lifting heavy weights or performing aerobic exercise, your body loses fluids through sweat, which can lead to dehydration if not replenished.
Dehydration can hinder your performance, making it harder to hit your targets, recover between sets, and maintain focus.
Make sure you drink water consistently throughout the day, especially leading up to your training session.
For longer training periods, or if you’re engaging in high-intensity interval training, you may benefit from an electrolyte drink to replace lost sodium, potassium, and magnesium.
This will help maintain fluid balance and ensure your muscles and nervous system continue functioning at their best.
Managing Recovery Between Training Sessions
As you push your body in training sessions that combine both strength and endurance work, proper recovery is essential for your long-term success.
Without adequate recovery, you risk overtraining, which can lead to a decrease in muscle strength, endurance capacity, and even an increase in body fat.
Whether you’re following a high-frequency training schedule or working on different muscle groups on separate days, managing recovery is key to maximizing your gains and avoiding detrimental effects on your performance.
Active Recovery
Recovery doesn’t always mean complete rest.
In fact, incorporating active recovery into your training cycle can help reduce muscle soreness, increase blood flow, and aid in the repair of muscle fibers after intense training.
Activities like yoga, light jogging, swimming, or low-intensity aerobic exercise help to keep your body moving without overloading it with additional high-intensity efforts.
On days when you’re not lifting heavy or doing endurance work, consider a light walk or a stretching routine that targets key muscle groups you’ve worked during the week.
This helps to improve circulation, promote flexibility, and reduce the buildup of lactic acid, allowing your muscles to recover more efficiently for the next training period.
Sleep
Quality sleep is one of the most important factors in recovery, and it’s often the most overlooked. During sleep, your body repairs muscle tissue, consolidates energy, and restores hormone levels that are crucial for muscle strength and endurance adaptations.
If you’re training at a high intensity and incorporating both resistance and endurance exercise into your sessions, your body will need more time to recover between workouts.
Aim for at least 7-9 hours of sleep each night, especially on days following intense workouts.
If you’re not getting enough sleep, it can result in a negative effect on your performance, leading to decreased strength, endurance capacity, and muscle mass.
Remember, the goal isn’t just to work hard in your training sessions but also to ensure that your body gets the rest it needs to adapt and improve.
Supplementation
While nutrition and sleep are the cornerstones of recovery, supplements can also provide additional support in optimizing your recovery process.
When combined with a well-balanced diet and proper rest, certain supplements may help reduce muscle soreness, enhance recovery, and improve muscle strength.
Whey Protein SupplementsThese can support muscle protein synthesis, especially after high-intensity endurance or resistance training.
Creatine: Known for improving muscle strength and power output, creatine can also aid in faster recovery during high-intensity training periods.
Omega-3s: These fatty acids have been shown to reduce inflammation, which can be especially helpful after long endurance sessions or high-volume resistance training.
Adapting Concurrent Training to Your Specific Goals
When you’re incorporating both strength and endurance work into your CrossFit training program, it’s crucial to tailor the sequencing and focus of your workouts to meet your specific goals.
Whether you’re looking to improve your strength, endurance, or overall metabolic conditioning, your training sessions should be structured in a way that maximizes the benefits of both resistance training and aerobic exercise.
Strength-Focused Training
If your primary goal is to build strength and muscle mass, your concurrent training program should place a greater emphasis on heavy lifting.
In this case, you should allocate a larger portion of your training session to resistance exercises that target key muscle groups, particularly the compound lifts like squats, deadlifts, and the bench press.
These exercises are essential for developing maximal strength and muscle hypertrophy, and they should form the foundation of your workout.
To prioritize strength, start with your heavy lifting first, when your energy is highest, and follow up with aerobic or metabolic conditioning work at the end of your session.
This ensures that your performance in strength exercises isn’t impaired by fatigue from endurance work.
As you progress in your training, focus on progressively overloading the muscles to induce strength gains while managing fatigue carefully so it doesn’t negatively affect your ability to lift heavy.
Endurance-Focused Training
For athletes whose main goal is to improve aerobic capacity and endurance, it’s important to structure your concurrent training to ensure you’re getting enough aerobic training while still maintaining strength.
Endurance athletes can benefit from higher-volume aerobic training, including longer sessions of running, rowing, or cycling, but they should still integrate resistance exercises to maintain muscular strength and prevent overuse injuries.
When you’re focusing on endurance, it’s helpful to dedicate more time to aerobic sessions while reserving 1-2 days per week for resistance training.
It’s also vital to manage your energy systems to ensure that your body can recover adequately between aerobic training sessions.
For endurance-focused athletes, placing resistance training on separate days from high-intensity aerobic work allows for better recovery, while still maintaining sufficient strength to support the demands of aerobic performance.
Competition vs. General Fitness
Athletes preparing for competition may need to adjust their concurrent training approach differently than those aiming for general fitness.
Competition training often requires a more specialized program design, as the athlete will need to focus on specific events or movements that are required for their sport.
This might mean prioritizing strength training, power output, or metabolic conditioning based on the demands of the competition.
For general fitness, the focus is broader and can include a more balanced approach to strength, endurance, and metabolic conditioning, with an emphasis on overall health and athletic performance.
Athletes aiming for general fitness might find that alternating between different training modalities each week or focusing on a well-rounded training cycle that targets both aerobic capacity and strength will yield the best results.
Depending on your goal, structuring your concurrent training to either specialize in competition-specific demands or balance all aspects of fitness can help you achieve the best results.
Common Mistakes in Concurrent Training
Even though concurrent training offers great benefits, there are several common mistakes CrossFit athletes make when structuring their workouts.
Avoiding these pitfalls is crucial for ensuring that you maximize your results and don’t hinder progress in one area due to another.
Mistake 1: Ignoring Fatigue Management
One of the biggest challenges in concurrent training is managing fatigue across both strength and endurance work.
When you’re alternating between resistance training and aerobic exercise, the fatigue from one modality can significantly impact the performance of the other.
For example, if you’ve already done an intense endurance session, your muscle fibers may not be fully recovered, making it harder to lift heavy weights or maintain proper form during strength exercises.
To avoid this mistake, it’s essential to structure your workouts so that you allow enough time for recovery between the different modalities.
If you’re training both strength and endurance in the same session, prioritize your strength work first when you’re freshest, and follow up with aerobic exercises afterward.
Additionally, be mindful of your weekly schedule—don’t schedule back-to-back high-intensity strength or endurance sessions without giving your body adequate recovery time.
Mistake 2: Overemphasizing Lactic Training
Another common mistake in concurrent training is overemphasizing high-intensity interval training (HIIT) or lactic acid training.
While HIIT can improve metabolic conditioning and cardiovascular health, it may not always be the best choice for athletes who also want to build muscle mass or increase strength.
Too much focus on lactic training can lead to overtraining, particularly in the aerobic capacity and endurance systems, which can ultimately undermine your ability to achieve strength gains.
To avoid this, balance your training by limiting the volume of high-intensity conditioning.
Incorporate steady-state aerobic exercise and prioritize strength training in your program.
When you alternate between the two, the result is a more sustainable and effective approach to concurrent training, which allows you to build muscle strength while also improving endurance.
Mistake 3: Neglecting Recovery Time
Recovery time is often undervalued, especially when athletes are pushing themselves hard in both strength and endurance training.
Not giving yourself adequate recovery between high-intensity sessions can lead to significant decrements in performance and, over time, contribute to overtraining syndrome.
Without proper recovery, you risk experiencing fatigue, injury, and diminished returns on both your strength and aerobic work.
To avoid neglecting recovery, ensure that you’re incorporating rest days into your schedule, with a focus on quality sleep and active recovery strategies.
If you’re training multiple times a week with both strength and endurance exercises, be intentional about spacing out your high-intensity sessions and allow your muscles adequate time to repair and grow.
Using supplements like Whey Protein and omega-3s can help, but nothing beats the importance of rest for long-term performance.
Wrapping Up On Concurrent Training
To recap, to get the best results from your CrossFit training, start by identifying your primary goal—whether it’s building strength, improving aerobic capacity, or increasing lactic endurance.
Once you have it, structure your sessions to minimize the interference effect.
Strength and aerobic work can be done interchangeably, but lactic training should always come last to prevent excessive fatigue from limiting performance.
Pay attention to how your body responds, making adjustments based on recovery, energy levels, and competition demands.
If your performance starts to decline, reassess your session order and overall workload.
Tracking key metrics like strength numbers, endurance capacity, and fatigue levels will make a significant difference in our training and keep you progressing long-term.
While competition prep may require breaking these rules, for general training, keeping these sequences will maximize adaptations and keep you progressing without unnecessary setbacks.
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