If you’re anything like me then you’re constantly looking for the best strength and conditioning programs to improve your fitness. A casual Google search will reveal thousands of resistance training programs for athletic performance. Unfortunately many of them are a complete waste of time, either written by a machine, or someone who’s brand new to writing quality programs. In this article I’ll list the my top 5 best strength and conditioning programs that actually work. Keep reading for more.
As the title implies, these programs will cover both strength, and conditioning training sessions. You’ll find that the majority of my programs involve a great deal of heavy weight and barbell movements, as well as some functional fitness bodybuilding work.
Over the last decade or so, I’ve found that this combo does a great job of increasing maximum strength, while promoting muscle growth. It also has the added benefit of building your cardiovascular conditioning, particularly your anaerobic energy system. Check out the 5 best strength and conditioning programs below.
5 Best Strength and Conditioning Programs
- 8 Week Functional Bodybuilding Hybrid Program
- Free 12 Week Beginner Athlete Hybrid Program
- 6 Week Strength and Endurance Workout Plan
- 8 Week Hybrid Hypertrophy Program
- 12 Week Apex Hybrid Program for Advanced Athletes
Each of these programs has specific fitness goals, and are designed to actually accomplish those goals. That means that the the lifting volume, cardio, and accessory work are built to work congruently. This is one of the most overlooked elements that separates a bad program from a proper strength and conditioning program.
You must get the workout order, lifting progression, and balance between the strength program and conditioning right, otherwise your risk of injury increases. I’ve taken care of these issues for you. All you have to do is follow the program, and put in the hard work. Soon enough you’ll be seeing significant improvements.
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Now let’s get to the first of our 5 best strength and conditioning programs that actually work.
5 Best Strength and Conditioning Programs That Actually Work
In this section I’ll list each of the programs, with a sample week. I’ll also discuss the over-arching programming goals, so you can determine if it’s right for you. I highly recommend checking out the program’s home page.
There you’ll find a lot more details, and explanation on the specifics of each workout. Without further ado, let’s get to the programs.
8 Week Functional Bodybuilding Hybrid Program
The 8 Week Functional Bodybuilding Hybrid Program is by far my most popular functional fitness program. This is because it is designed to fix the most vexing strength and conditioning problems that athletes face. It is squarely aimed at building muscle as well as increasing muscular endurance, through functional training.
For well trained athletes it will maintain cardiovascular fitness. For beginner and intermediates, it can build a significant amount of conditioning. This program is 4 days per week, and can be accomplished in about an hour long gym session. Here’s a sample week below.
This program is done from top to bottom with each day having a clear upper body and lower body focus. You can see that each session ends with a quick functional fitness style WOD that is designed to build work capacity, and add volume to each muscle group. This is a great way to build fitness and lean muscle mass in a short, sharp workout.
If you like this program, but want even more detail, including coaches notes on percentages, rest times, as well as specific warm ups, then you should check out the premium version below.
Free 12 Week Beginner Athlete Hybrid Program
The Free 12 Week Beginner Athlete Hybrid Program is the program I most often recommend to strength athletes that want to start building a lot of cardiovascular fitness. It’s a relatively even mix of heavy lifts, and smartly programmed cardiovascular training.
If you’re new to hybrid style training, then this is where you should start your journey. I’ve constructed this fitness training plan so that you can build both fitness, and muscular strength gains. It’s also easy to scale for individual needs. Here’s a sample week.
I should specify that this isn’t a true beginner program like this one. If you’re brand new to fitness or working out you should check out some of my other programs before starting this one.
It’s 4 training days per week, with a good deal of lifting, and specific cardio work. There are also some explosive movements in the form of power exercises. You must understand proper technique to do this program effectively.
Of note, I don’t mandate which form of cardio you do with this program. I often recommend the Assault Bike, or cycling in general, as they pair very well with lifting. They’re also easier to recover from. Now let’s get to the next program.
6 Week Strength and Endurance Workout Plan
The 6 Week Strength and Endurance Workout Plan is a great program for strength athletes who need to work on their endurance for a short period of time. I also like this program for those that need a quick program to really sharpen up their fitness rapidly. Take a look at these full body workouts below.
You can see that this plan is 4 days per week, with an optional 5th day of cardio. It also comes with a free PDF download which allows you to see the entirety of the program at once.
This program requires that you have a good idea of your one rep maxes on the primary lifts like bench press, squat, and deadlift. If you don’t have one you can always do a rep max attempt and drop it into a calculator to get your current maxes. Short of setting a true one rep max, it’s the best way to get an accurate idea of your 1RM.
This specificity is required so that you can lift a heavier weight each week. This is basic progressive overload training. Small improvements week in and week out can add to real improvements in fitness in the coming months.
This strength training program also features a dedicated sprint training day, making it ideal for athletes that need to run for their sport or job. Now let’s get to one of my favorite hybrid programs for lean body mass.
8 Week Hybrid Hypertrophy Program
The 8 Week Hybrid Hypertrophy Program is my favorite program for busy athletes, with irregular schedules. This fitness plan is designed in 4 day cycles. You do 3 days of lifts, plus a WOD (circuit training), with a fourth day of pure cardio. It’s the athletes choice how much, if any rest, they take between the next 4 day cycle. Here’s the first cycle.
When I did this program I found that I would often do 8 days in a row, with 2-3 days off. This happened to work well for me, as I like to get into routines. However, you can fit this plan into your schedule anyway you like. Now let’s get to our final program.
12 Week Apex Hybrid Program for Advanced Athletes
The 12 Week Apex Hybrid Program for Advanced Athletes is a very demanding program, written for a competitive athlete with a primary focus of breaking through training plateaus to build overall strength and fitness.
It’s 6 days per week with a lot of lifting and cardio volume. This is about the absolute limit I would recommend for advanced athletes. I only recommend working this hard a few months out of the year. Training with this much volume year round is counterproductive. Here’s the first week.
This program has a great deal of cardio, and lifting. You can see that the cardio is Zone based training, with a lot of Zone 2 work. If you really want to build a lot of cardiovascular fitness, you must do Zone 2 training.
There’s a reason that Olympic marathoners, and Tour de France athletes spend 70-80% of their total training time doing Zone 2 training. It works!
If you’re like most athletes you might find those long cardio sessions boring. I recommend reading this article, which covers how to turn cardio into a video game, making it much more entertaining. Now let’ finish up this article.
If you like awesome hybrid programs, and want to try my most popular premium hybrid fitness plan. Check it out below.
Final Thoughts
Many of you reading this article are probably the type that thinks a more challenging fitness plan is better. No pain no gain, after all. While that might be true to some extent, that doesn’t really mean you should be going after the hardest workout programs all the time.
Keep in mind that your job in the weight room is to tax your body, in specific ways, so that it responds by increasing fitness. As long as your particular program prompts your body for that response, it doesn’t matter how strong the prompting is.
There’s a reason that many of these programs are 4 days per week. Over the years I’ve found that that is the ideal volume for almost all athletes. It almost always generates the best results. Sure, you can go above that, but for every extra hour you spend working out you’re receiving diminishing returns.
Take a look at these programs, and give the most appealing one a shot. I bet you’ll be surprised just how effective they are. Don’t forget to join the email list below, so you don’t miss any future articles.
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I’d like to read some info geared toward the aging population…I’m 73, BMI excellent range, workout 3 times weekly to include cardio, anaerobic, and swimming laps during each session. It took 18 months of this regimen to add 5 lbs of muscle mass…after 70, it’s a bitch just to keep up— let alone build any mass
Hey Donn. You may like this program, and some of the research mentioned there. https://www.tierthreetactical.com/12-week-masters-athlete-functional-fitness-program-part-1/