If you’re a functional fitness athlete, chances are you’ve got a problem, and you don’t even know it. You’re really neglecting a huge aspect of your fitness, and it’s impacting your WOD performance more than you know. It’s…..running! Keep reading to see why running matters, and how it can help you on even the heaviest metcons. Plus you get a free 8 week running plan!

Rest assured that I’m not some skinny fat running nerd that’s trying to turn you into an endurance specialist. I’m a huge, hunky, fintess nerd, who many have compared to Rich Froning (unfavorably). I’m also the guy that’s trying to fix your conditioning so you can start kicking Carl’s ass in the 6 o’clock wod.

We athletes, have developed a somewhat myopic idea of what our training should look like. When I started doing functional fitness in 2007 it was much more bodyweight, and endurance based. Gradually over the years we’ve seen a transition to a more lifting centric version of functional fitness.

This is because strong athletes do better at life, but we as a community have taken this a bit far. I can tell you from personal experience that I’m just as guilty as anyone, and I should know better.

From around 2008-2013 I was training for the Marine Corps and I used functional fitness to do that. Due to my job requirements I had to maintain a high level of endurance and could run 3 miles in about 20:30 at that time. I also had a 2:58 Fran time, but I couldn’t squat more than 315 or so.

Fast forward 9 years and I can squat 405, my Fran is about 2:56, but my 3 mile is roughly 24 minutes. What gives? I’m much stronger, and I have a better Fran, but my run sucks!?

In this case I can very confidently point to my detrained aerobic and anaerobic systems, especially in the running domain. Effectively I’m using my stronger muscles to overcome my weak energy systems. This is why I’m actually faster at Fran now, but if you put my conditioning from 10 years ago with the strength I have now, I’d beat Matt Fraser I’m sure of it!

You’re probably saying great Jake, you suck, and we know this, but what does that matter to us? Well I will say in my professional coach and programmer guy opinion, that the whole of the functional fitness community has this problem.

Ask any athlete what kind of wods they least like to do, and the answer is almost always a running workout. And God help the coach who programs a run longer than 800m. There will be endless bitching and moaning.

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Concurrent Endurance and Strength Training

In the academic world training both strength and endurance styles is called concurrent training. This has been much better studied than functional fitness and there are some studies that we can lean on to guide us in our program design.

This study compared Functional Endurance Programming (CFE) vs traditional Polarized training. CFE did 5 days per week of training 2 running, 1 wod and run day, and 2 wod only days. The polarized plan did 5 days per week of running.

There was also a notable style difference. CFE recommends a very high intensity in their running intervals, and rarely programs easy runs. Polarized training is mainly low intensity runs with a smaller percentage of high intensity.

I bet you expect me to tell you CFE won, well they didn’t and that really doesn’t matter. The polarized group improved their 5km run time by 6.20%, and the CFE group improved 5.49%. Statistically this isn’t much of a difference, but the polarized group ran a total of 283 min/week on average vs the 117 min/week for CFE. CFE obtained nearly the same result with 41% of the volume.

This study also compared high intensity interval training HIIT to more traditional cardio for power lifters and strongman athletes. They found that HIIT training yielded the better results.

It’s pretty clear that we need conditioning, and it needs to be intense. Without further ado, here is the 8 week running plan for functional fitness.

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Eight Week Running Plan for Functional Fitness

This plan is designed primarily to increase your overall conditioning through the use of running. Obviously you will get better at running, but I’m not trying to turn you into the terror of the local 5k circuit.

This plan is also designed to be added on to your current program, whether that is Tier Three programming or something else. You should choose the days you want to run on.

I also recommend you separate your functional training from your running by 3 hours or so, but you can perform the running wod at the end of your regular session it’ll just suck the life out of you.

You should perform a 1 mile time trial so you can get an accurate snapshot of where you are with your running. Many of the intervals will be based off of this pace, or your 5k pace. You can use this handy calculator to find the perfect pacing for the workouts.

Here is the PDF of the running plan for functional fitness.

WEEK 1

As you can see, there will be 3 days of running per week, and most of it will be on the higher intensity side, but pay close attention to the instructions as this shouldn’t be max effort all the time.

WEEK 2

This week increases in volume and intensity. If you have the ability to do the tabata day on a treadmill I highly recommend it. This is more effective than just running hills, but if you don’t have a treadmill you can still see great results with a good old fashioned hill.

WEEK 3

This week is as intense as it gets. The speed requirements are probably about as fast as you can manage given the specified volume. This is why you don’t want to treat these intervals as max effort because the first few will be really fast and then 4-8 will be worthless. Stick to the plan!

WEEK 4

This week is more or less a deload. This gives your body time to rest and repair from the running, and is actually where your improvements come from. This doesn’t mean that you don’t have any intensity, just a lower overall workload.

WEEK 5

This is the start of the last cycle, and as you will notice it is intense. This cycle is designed to increase your running speed which will cause your body to improve it’s ability to buffer lactate, as well as other metabolic waste products. By now you should be feeling much better in your wods as well.

WEEK 6

This week should feel very hard but doable, especially since you have been doing some hard running for about a month and a half at this point. You might find that some of your higher volume lifting sessions do impact your runs and vice versa. This is ok, just be smart when you do the runs, and complete it as best you can.

WEEK 7

This is the last, most intense week. I’m not going to lie, this is going to suck. There will be much bending over with hands on hips. Just get through it because the PRs are coming.

WEEK 8

This is the final deload. Take it easy and just follow the plan, because next week you will be doing another time trial. I recommend you wait three days after your last session then repeat your time trial.

You should aim for about a 5% decrease in overall running time.

Final Thoughts

You need to be smart with this running plan and realize that you probably won’t be setting too many lifting PR’s during this time. You should still perform heavy lifts, to maintain your proficiency with them, but running will slow down strength progression slightly. It doesn’t halt or reverse them like many gym bro’s erroneously believe when programmed smartly.

Don’t be afraid to eat more carbs for this program. I recommend you use the nutrition calculator to get a good idea of where you need to be with your nutrition.

Like always, work hard, ask any questions in the comments below, and remember, I never asked your safe word!

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