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The Competitor Lifecycle

1. First workout
2. Classes/free resources
3. Competitor program
4. Initial, fast progress
5. Overtraining
6. Injury/sickness/stagnation
7. Hire a coach
8. Train less, get healthy
9. Focus training, make gains
10. Acceptance, completion, peace

In this episode, I talk about my personal experience going through each of these stages and examples of this I see month after month.

I discuss what collaboration between competitors, gym owners and remote coaches might look like.

If you are a gym owner, or have any influence in an aspiring competitor's life, I'm curious what you think. How do we support these (very few) people who are passionate, dedicated and want to see how far they can go in the sport? What is the best way so that everyone wins?

Comment or text the podcast or DM me @paulbweber with your thoughts.

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Whenever you're ready, there are 4 ways I can help you:

1. ​Book an Intro Consult​: This is the next step for athletes who want to work with me 1:1. My coaching is for fitness, hybrid and tactical athletes. You can use this link to get on my calendar. You'll complete an intake sheet as well prior to the meeting. If you decide to hire me, the fee will get put toward your first month of coaching.
2. Training deep dives: Join hundreds of coaches and athletes who have upgraded their training for ​strength​, ​gymnastics​, ​conditioning​ and ​competitive fitness​.
3. ​Programming Mentor Meeting​: For coaches and athletes who want to get clarity on their training. Know your training priorities, measure meaningful metrics, and make real progress.
4. ​Business Mentor Meeting​: For in-person coaches who want to learn how to get online clients.

Send us a text

Skill-intensive sports vs. Training-intensive sports

Skill-intensive sports (e.g. golf, basketball)

• Competition conditions are less predictable (nearly impossible to replicate perfectly in training)
• Performance is more difficult to quantify
• Performance depends on precise motor control under pressure
• Greater physiological capacity and effort do not always translate into better results
• Performance in training not as predictive of performance in competition

Training-intensive sports (e.g. strength sports, endurance sports, fitness sports)

• Train and compete under consistent conditions
• Performance is quantifiable
• Performance depends highly on effort and trainable characteristics
• "Did you see what he/she just did in training?"
• Performance in competition will closely resemble performance in training

"How do we become trained?"

Biological organisms adapt slowly

The human body is a biological organism, it changes slowly over long periods of time.

When it comes to the body, meaningful change is measured in months and years, not days.

This consistency over long periods of time is what creates noticeable athletic progress.

Whatever keeps us from training consistently is what stunts athletic progress.

Injury and sickness: the killers of consistency

We've all felt the disappointment of lost potential due to injury.

Whether it's a minor setback that forces you to modify training for a week, or a major surgery, we've all felt some degree of that frustration.

The same goes for sickness. We've all had to step back from training at some point whether it's due to a common cold or a chronic disease.

Many of you have probably had a major, 6-12 month setback. At times, the feeling of lost potential has been enough to bring me to tears.

This makes me fascinated by preserving consistency. If we can minimize our risk of injury and sickness, we can maximize our long term athletic progress.

Rules of Consistency

1. Train just beyond your current ability.
2. Only increase training load by ~5-10% per week.
3. Prioritize financial security.
4. Remember you don’t have to do this alone - invest in supportive relationships.
5. Prioritize sleep and circadian rhythm.
6. Ensure adequate nutrition and hydration.
7. Practice food and sleep hygiene.
8. Get sun exposure daily when possible.
9. Downregulate (breath, stretch, read).
10. Focus on what you can control.
11. Accept that you can’t control everything.

Resources

[1] A Biopsychosocial Model for Understanding Training Load, Fatigue, and Musculoskeletal Sport Injury in University Athletes: A Scoping Review

​https://journals.lww.com/nsca-jscr/fulltext/2024/06000/a_biopsychosocial_model_for_understanding_training.24.aspx​

[2] Allostatic Load and Its Impact on Health: A Systematic Review

​https://karger.com/pps/article-abstract/90/1/11/294736/Allostatic-Load-and-Its-Impact-on-Health-A?redirectedFrom=fulltext​

[3] Exercise and gene expression: physiological regulation of the human genome through physical activity

​https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2290514/

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In this episode, I share my experience training with a conditioning bias, training with a strength bias, why I switched to bodybuilding and where I'm going next in my training.

I talk about muscle growth, the importance of cardiorespiratory fitness, gut health, building athletic momentum, and how I apply these lessons learned with my athletes.

Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, and I'll see you in 2026!

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Whenever you're ready, there are 4 ways I can help you:

1. ​Book an Intro Consult​: This is the next step for athletes who want to work with me 1:1. My coaching is for fitness, hybrid and tactical athletes. You can use this link to get on my calendar. You'll complete an intake sheet as well prior to the meeting. If you decide to hire me, the fee will get put toward your first month of coaching.
2. Training deep dives: Join hundreds of coaches and athletes who have upgraded their training for ​strength​, ​gymnastics​, ​conditioning​ and ​competitive fitness​.
3. ​Programming Mentor Meeting​: For coaches and athletes who want to get clarity on their training. Know your training priorities, measure meaningful metrics, and make real progress.
4. ​Business Mentor Meeting​: For in-person coaches who want to learn how to get online clients.

Send us a text

Link to the full movement analysis: https://www.instagram.com/p/DSF-hQpEd2H/?hl=en&img_index=1

Most frequent Open movements (2021-2025):

• Burpees
• Double Unders
• Thrusters
• Chest to Bar
• Bar Muscle Ups
• Wall Walks
• Deadlifts

Most frequent Individual Quarterfinals movements (2021-2024):

• Row
• Burpee Box Jump Overs
• Rope Climbs
• Cleans
• Snatches
• Wall Balls
• Kipping HSPU
• Strict HSPU
• Ring Muscle Ups
• GHD Situps
• (Honorable mention) Wall-Facing HSPU - the more recent precedent

Most frequent AGOQ movements (2021-2024):

• Row
• Cleans
• Rope Climbs
• Kipping HSPU
• Toes to Bar
• Burpee Box Jump Overs
• Ring Muscle Ups
• GHD Situps
• Wall-Facing HSPU
• Walking Lunges
• Pistols
• Overhead Squats
• Shuttle Runs
• Double Unders

---

Whenever you're ready, there are 4 ways I can help you:

1. ​Book an Intro Consult​: This is the next step for athletes who want to work with me 1:1. My coaching is for fitness, hybrid and tactical athletes.
2. Training deep dives: Join hundreds of coaches and athletes who have upgraded their training for ​strength​, ​gymnastics​, ​conditioning​ and ​competitive fitness​.
3. ​Programming Mentor Meeting​: For coaches and athletes who want to get clarity on their training. Know your training priorities, measure meaningful metrics, and make real progress.
4. ​Business Mentor Meeting​: For in-person coaches who want to learn how to get online clients.

Send us a text

To excel at a multiday fitness competition, you need to be prepared for an immense workload.

Athletes who may perform incredibly on Event 1 are gassed by Event 8.

While every athlete must be powerful, having so many events over multiple days gives an advantage to the athletes who recover the fastest.

By the final day, it may be less about who can perform the best fresh, and more about who is the least tired.

The greater your cardiorespiratory fitness, the faster you recover from all types of exercise.

High CRF is associated with improved autonomic nervous system function, which has been linked to humans' ability to control inflammation, preserve immunity, and even recover our ability to produce maximum voluntary force.[1,2,3,4]

The fitter you are, the faster you can recover, and the closer you can stay to your peak performance through a multiday fitness comp.

The game of fitness can be summarized as:

Chronically increase training load.

This requires that we:

• have an idea what our training load is
• avoid big fluctuations
• increase it incrementally over months and years

For athletes who want to join a long term approach to fitness sport, I'm designing the first in a series of programs: Offseason Level 1.

• Offseason training for beginner and intermediate fitness athletes
• Foundational strength training, conditioning and skill acquisition
• Training Priorities
  • Basic Strength and Functional Hypertrophy
  • Olympic Weightlifting Skill
  • Gymnastic Strength
  • Essential Mobility
  • Aerobic Endurance and Pacing

Tap here to join the waitlist: ​https://paul-b-weber.kit.com/105c01429d

References

[1] The Relation between High Cardiorespiratory Fitness and Low Inflammation is Mediated by Autonomic Nervous System Function

​https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/10.1161/circ.118.suppl_18.S_1158-c?doi=10.1161/circ.118.suppl_18.S_1158-c​

[2] Parasympathetic Nervous Activity Mirrors Recovery Status in Weightlifting Performance After Training

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/49791584_Parasympathetic_Nervous_Activity_Mirrors_Recovery_Status_in_Weightlifting_Performance_After_Training​

[3] Recovery of central and peripheral neuromuscular fatigue after exercise

​https://journals.physiology.org/doi/full/10.1152/japplphysiol.00775.2016​

[4] Effects of Exercise Training on the Autonomic Nervous System with a Focus on Anti-Inflammatory and Antioxidants Effects

​https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8868289/

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Gymnastics in Fitness Sport

When you do gymnastics, you are exercising in what exercise physiologists call the extreme intensity domain, with very few exceptions.

The most notable exceptions are the burpee and box jump over, which I train with a conditioning perspective, rather than the approach I'll describe below.

For almost every other gymnastics movement, the time to exhaustion is less than two minutes.

Exercise that exhausts you this fast is very intense.

At these intensities, performance seems to be limited by:

1. Neuromuscular factors
2. Perception of effort
3. Metabolic fitness

In light of this, worthy training goals are to:

1. Increase top end neuromuscular ability (get stronger)
2. Move more efficiently (make the movement feel easier)
3. Improve fitness

Common practice vs. a complete approach to gymnastics development

Most athletes work hard on their fitness, and do way less work on getting gymnastically stronger and moving better.

In gymnastics-heavy workouts, fitness helps you recover faster when you break, but it isn't the reason you break in the first place.

You don't break because of your "breathing" or "heart rate" as much as you break because of neuromuscular factors.

Fitness is still important because you want to recover fast when you break. And the fitter you are, the faster you recover.

But, if you want to win gymnastics workouts, instead of working solely on how fast you recover when you break, it also makes sense to train to...well, not break.

To not break, you need to build gymnastic strength and learn to move more efficiently.

Long Term Gymnastics Development

In light of these performance limitations, here's how I train my athletes, both in the context of the season and the career:

1. Gymnastic Strength
2. Movement Efficiency
3. Volume
4. Density
5. Intensity

For athletes who want to join this long term approach, I'm designing the first in a series of programs: Offseason Level 1.

• Offseason training for beginner and intermediate fitness athletes
• Foundational strength training, conditioning and skill acquisition
• Training Priorities
  • Basic Strength and Functional Hypertrophy
  • Olympic Weightlifting Skill
  • Gymnastic Strength
  • Essential Mobility
  • Aerobic Endurance and Pacing

Tap here to join the waitlist: https://paul-b-weber.kit.com/105c01429d

Send us a text

Strength adaptations come from morphological effects and neural effects.

Morphological effects (mainly muscle growth) are why strength sports have weight classes. Assuming similar training styles, the more muscular athlete usually lifts more.

However, neural effects are why world class female lifters are stronger than most men, despite having way less muscle.

Neural effects are also why powerlifters aren't good at snatching, and weightlifters aren't good at jiu-jitsu. Neural effects make strength context-specific.

Training for Muscle Growth

When training for muscle growth, the key ingredient is enough mechanical tension. For most fitness athletes, this means training with:

• Proximity to failure (0-2 RIR)
• 3-8RM
• Exercise selection specific-enough to primary lifts (supertotal)

More sets = more mechanical tension = more muscle growth

Training for Neural Effects

When training for neural effects, the key ingredients are high muscle activity and force production. For most fitness athletes, this means training with:

• Maximal intent to potentiate the nervous system
• Enough specificity in the program to master the primary lifts
• Low enough volume-load to keep neural fatigue low

Fewer sets = less neural fatigue = higher muscle activity and force production

Which should you train for?

Effective long term strength development will involve training for both morphological and neural effects.

Most athletes should avoid extremes - going all in on one and neglecting the other. Take an approach that addresses both.

Elite fitness athletes are really jacked. For most people, being a fitness athlete is going to mean trying to get as muscular as possible without neglecting the other aspects of your training.

Very gifted athletes (top 5% in muscle mass) may be able to just train for neural adaptations and keep their muscle mass without dedicated hypertrophy training.

Long Term Strength Development

For beginners, I suggest the following approach to long term strength development:

1. Functional Hypertrophy
2. Basic Strength
3. Olympic Weightlifting Skill
4. Strength and Power
5. Battery

This approach front loads:

• extensive training
• attributes with late peak biological ages and long residuals
• honoring pre-requisites

For athletes who want to join this long term approach, I'm designing the first in a series of programs: Offseason Level 1.

• Offseason training for beginner and intermediate fitness athletes
• Foundational strength training, conditioning and skill acquisition
• Training Priorities
  • Basic Strength and Functional Hypertrophy
  • Olympic Weightlifting Skill
  • Gymnastic Strength
  • Essential Mobility
  • Aerobic Endurance and Pacing

Tap here to join the waitlist: https://paul-b-weber.kit.com/105c01429d

Notes

Morphological Effects

• Muscle hypertrophy
• Fast-twitch fiber adaptation - shift to Type IIA
• Increased bone density
• Increased tendon strength and stiffness

Neural Effects

• Increased motor unit recruitment
• Increased firing rate (rate coding)
• Improved motor unit synchronization
• Reduced antagonist muscle activation
• Enhanced intermuscular coordination
• Disinhibition of inhibitory mechanisms

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In this episode, I describe a Long Term Athletic Development (LTAD) model for fitness competitors.

The model depends on three concepts:

• Extensive to intensive training
• Long to short residual training effects
• Pre-requisites to expression

With these in mind, I created a phased approach to each of the three disciplines in fitness sport.

Strength

1. Functional Hypertrophy
2. Basic Strength
3. Olympic Weightlifting Skill
4. Strength and Power
5. Battery

Gymnastics

1. Gymnastic Strength
2. Movement Efficiency
3. Volume
4. Density
5. Intensity

Conditioning

1. Pacing
2. Aerobic Endurance
3. Practice Race-Relevant Paces - Single Modality
4. Practice Race-Relevant Paces - Mixed Modalities
5. Acute Cardiorespiratory Demand

Introducing the program: Offseason Level 1.

Tap here to join the waitlist: https://paul-b-weber.kit.com/105c01429d

• Offseason training for beginner and intermediate fitness athletes
• Foundational strength training, conditioning and skill acquisition
• Training Priorities
  • Basic Strength and Functional Hypertrophy
  • Olympic Weightlifting Skill
  • Gymnastic Strength
  • Essential Mobility
  • Aerobic Endurance and Pacing