This 8 week hybrid hypertrophy program was created for athletes that want it all. It’s designed to increase muscle mass, while working on your conditioning. As you’ll see, there is a balanced mixture of pure lifting, accessory work, and function fitness style WODs. I’ve also included some pure conditioning days to build your aerobic engine. Keep reading for all the details.
I’m not going to lie. I occasionally program a bit more work than I can reasonably accomplish. More than once I’ve finished a session from one of my more difficult programs, and wondered what I was thinking. While it can be a good thing to push yourself, you can’t do so all the time.
I’ve also run into scheduling issues with high volume style programs. If I’ve got 90 minutes of work planned, and only 45 minutes of time, then I find I put the workout off completely. Before you know it, I’ve only been to the gym twice in a week, and the program isn’t working well. I’ve tried to fix this issue with the 8 Week Hybrid Hypertrophy Program.
I’ve been testing this program for 6 weeks, and I’ve settled on a great 4 day workout split, that allows for a lot of flexibility. As you’ll see in the ground rules section below, this method is the best way to flex around a busy schedule. Each session has only the things you need to build muscle size and a solid foundation of conditioning, with no extra fluff. Here’s a quick overview of the hybrid hypertrophy program.
8 Week Hybrid Hypertrophy Program
- Program Goals: increase muscle mass, conditioning, and strength (in order of priority)
- Schedule: written in 4 day cycles to be done with optional rest days between
- Workouts: 3 days of pure lifting + WOD with 1 day of pure cardio per cycle
- Easy to add in extra cardio or lifting between cycles as desired
Now that you have a good overview of this high intensity hypertrophy program, we need to cover some of the details on how to execute this fitness plan. I’ve tried to write this so that intermediate and advanced athletes can all benefit from the program. Let’s get to the details. Before we do that, don’t forget to join the email list below, so you can get more awesome fitness plans sent directly to you.
8 Week Hybrid Hypertrophy Program Instructions
Normally I’m a little more prescriptive with my resistance training programming. I’ll write 4-6 days of workouts per week which need to be closely adhered to in order to get the right stimulus. In this program I’ve tried to allow for more flexibility for your schedule, and for your specific workout goals.
As the title implies, this plan is designed to promote muscle growth, and conditioning secondarily. Because there are several heavy sets each week, this is also likely to improve your overall strength, even if this isn’t one of my hybrid strength programs.
Each cycle is 4 days in length, and I expect that most athletes will do each single session 4 days in a row. This is three days of lifting + WOD, with a final day of cardio. Most of the cardio is Zone 2 cardio, which is designed to improve your aerobic base. I find Zone 2 cardio to be a great way to speed up your recovery as well.
Once you’ve finished this four workout cycle, you have the option of taking a rest day. This is not a mandatory rest day. If you feel good, and want to jump right back in to the next cycle, then you should do so. You have to take a mandatory 1-2 day rest after two cycles. You do need recovery time after all!
Optional Extra Work
The other benefit to writing in shorter 4 workout cycles is that it allows you to throw in any extra work you want to do. If you want to work on your upper body strength training, you can add in some extra heavy weight movements between cycles. If you need more conditioning, then add in one more day of cardio before starting the next cycle. If you like calisthenics workouts, then throw in some more body weight WODs. The sky is the limit.
Don’t stress about what exactly this extra work should be comprised of. Pick something simple like a 5×5 lift, with moderately heavy weights, or a cardio method that you find enjoyable. This is optional, so don’t make it mandatory fun! Now let’s get to the program.
8 Week Hybrid Hypertrophy Program Cycles
As you get started with this program, I recommend that you avoid doing extra work, or stringing two cycles together, at first. It’s always better to start at a more relaxed pace, and then increase the exercise volume and intensity. Keep in mind that I’ve already figured this into the plan. If you start off hot, then you might be regretting it later!
You’ll also see that I’ve rotated exercises more than I usually do with my other programs. I’ve done this because it keeps the program a little more fun, and enjoyable. It also works well for avoiding over-use injuries, while building muscle. If you want to build a lot of skill and strength in one specific movement, then you need a lot of repetition. If you want a good amount of muscle, conditioning, and strength, then you can have a little more fun. Here’s cycle 1.
If you like this style of program, but you want even more emphasis on building muscle mass, then this is your program.
Cycle 1
As with many of my other functional fitness workout programs, the primary goal of the first cycle is to acclimatize to this plan. The rest of this plan will follow a similar schedule for each major muscle group and body part. Workout one is lower body specific, where as workout 2, is upper body pushing, and workout 3 is upper body pulling.
As I mentioned previously, the last day of the program is Zone 2 Cardio. If you read my weight loss program, you’ll recall that I highly recommend using cycling, assault bike, or rowing for cardio. These are low impact and allow you to precisely control your output.
There’s nothing wrong with running. Many athletes will have a hard time staying in their Zone 2, even at a slow jog. Remember, Zone 2 is a lower power output activity, designed to be done at a pace where you could easily hold a conversation, or breath through your nose.
Cycle 2
In Cycle 2 you can see that we’ve swapped many of the exercises, and or rep schemes. Instead of front squat, you have deadlift. Instead of dumbbell row, you have a barbell row, and so on. You’ll find that this exercise rotation can make this workout program a little more enjoyable.
You’ve no doubt noticed that each gym day is roughly the same. You have a main lift, which is a green block, to be followed by the accessory lifts, or blue blocks. I’ve selected the accessory work to help shore up the most common weaknesses I see in athletes.
More savvy readers, or those that have read “Programming Your Fitness,” will notice that the WOD is designed to compliment the lifting. I’ve selected movements that raise your heart rate, and provide a potent stimulus to similar muscle groups as the primary and secondary lifts.
The WOD is actually where much of the muscle building stimulus comes from. If you recall from my other articles on hypertrophy, the cellular metabolic stress created in a WOD is one of the 3 primary drivers of building muscle. Not only are you working on anaerobic conditioning during these metcons, you are increasing your muscle mass!
Cycle 3
In cycle three we return to many of the same movements as cycle 1. Again, I’ve taken the liberty of changing the details of each portion of the workout. This isn’t a boring powerlifting program, where you add a set next week, and only perform low reps. To take your athletic performance to the next level, you need a well thought out progressive overload plan, that isn’t boring.
I’ve also tried to make a concerted effort to provide a lot of power movements. Research on hybrid training confirms that power production can be inhibited when doing cardio and weight training together. Personally, I think this isn’t likely to be the case with some reasonable plyometric and jump training, but there’s no research on that, as of yet.
Cycle 4
This is the last cycle for these specific compound lifts. As such, I expect that you’ll find many of these sets to be quite challenging. Remember that you should not be going AHAP on all sets, only on the specified sets. Moreover, you should pay attention to the reps in reserve instructions (RIR). These are the two methods I use to control intensity, and you don’t want to plateau too early.
I know some of you that aren’t used to doing a lot of cardio may be cursing my name now, but I think you just haven’t found something you enjoy. I personally love virtual bicycle racing on Zwift. You can find out more about that here, but it’s totally awesome.
I’ve recently found out that you can use an Assault Bike Pro, or Assault Bike Elite to race on Zwift (Amazon Affiliate Links). It provides power data via bluetooth, which is what Zwift uses to calculate your riders speed in the game. I’ve been using that for some awesome conditioning sessions, and I consider it my secret conditioning weapon.
Cycle 5
In Cycle 5 we continue with the same overall programming split, but I’ve changed a lot of the movements. I’ve found through my owning training and coaching, that rotating movements more often helps athletes improve quicker. Most functional fitness athletes and hybrid athletes aren’t specializing in specific barbell movements. They want to be generally fit and strong. You don’t need to train like a powerlifter to do that!
It’s ok if you have to scale some of these movements. I write these training programs, and I still scale them due to nagging injuries, or my specific goals. The important thing to keep in mind is to choose a scaling option that meets the intent of the original program. You can read more about scaling WODs and metcons here.
Cycle 6
This cycle also features new movements. You should expect that each workout will still feel broadly similar to the first half of the program. It’s the finer details that have changed. When I was testing this I was somewhat worried that I wouldn’t improve my strength by switching so much, but I think that was unfounded. I’ve set a few small rep max PRs in the last few weeks, and I expect that will be the same for many athletes.
If you haven’t been adding in extra work, and you want to start doing so, now is a good time to start. My new years resolution is to increase my cardiovascular fitness so I’ve been adding in an extra day of conditioning after the 3rd gym day. I then finish with the programmed cardio session, as that makes an easier transition to the new cycle.
Cycle 7
You can see in Cycle 7 that we are building to some very challenging weights. You can expect a few max effort sets every day. I want to caution you to be smart on the percentage based movements. If you’re feeling off, and nothing is moving well, then don’t crush yourself with 95% because it says so. Daily strength fluctuations are normal.
The flip side to that coin is that you can certainly push yourself harder if you’re having a very good day. In this program there’s enough wiggle room to take a movement to the limit, every so often, without over training. Just make sure you’re using proper form!
Cycle 8
You’ve made it! This is the last cycle of the program. After this cycle is a great time to test your new strength with some new PR attempts on your squat, bench press, deadlift, or Oly lifts. I also think you might try a few bench mark WODs like Fight Gone Bad. Make sure you check this article out if you do try FGB. It’ll help you post your best score.
At this point I imagine you’re starting to notice that your WODs are feeling much faster, and your performance has increased. Naturally, you’ll want to keep these gains going. I recommend you take 3-4 days off after workout 32. You can then start on your next program. In the upcoming section I’ll review several good options if you liked this style of training. However, if you like hybrid training methods then this is your go to program.
Finding Your Next Program
Here are some of my most popular programs to help you continue to make progress after you finish the hybrid hypertrophy program. Some of these programs will be aimed at functional fitness athletes, and others will be more strength, or endurance oriented. I recommend following the links to a few programs so you can determine which one meets your specific goal.
Your Next Workout Program
- 8 Week Functional Bodybuilding Hybrid Program (Muscle Mass + WODs)
- 8 Week Hybrid Strength and Endurance Training Plan (Strength + Conditioning)
- 12 Week Advanced Functional Bodybuilding Program (Advanced BB Program)
- 6 Week Muscular Growth Program (Traditional Lift + WOD)
If none of those work then you might continue checking around the website. I’ve got years of programs available, with the vast majority of them being completely free. If you’re the type of athlete that likes to maximize their performance then you’ll want to check out my premium programs, where I have all the details you need. Let’s finish this article up.
Final Thoughts
We’ve talked a lot about this the specifics of this hybrid training program, but let us not forget that your recovery and nutrition matter even more. I highly recommend you check out this article on recovery, and this one on nutrition. Whatever you do, don’t jump in an ice bath after any of these workouts!
If you have any questions or comments about the hybrid hypertrophy program then put those below, and I’ll get you an answer. Don’t forget to join the email list below. Now get out there and start training!
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