Complete Human Performance Radio

Meet our new coach, Clayton! Clayton Foster has been a performance and nutrition coach for over a decade. He holds a Bachelor's of Science in Exercise Science, numerous nutrition and training certifications, and is an Air Force veteran. With a foundation in strength sports, he made the pivot to a more hybrid approach to training and coaching after moving to Colorado and falling in love with mounta...

Coach Justin takes over the podcast to talk about the basics of hybrid training: how do you prioritize when there are so many variables to manage? Nail the basics first! How do you avoid majoring in the minors? Topics:  Sleep and Sleep Quality Nutrition Rest Days Structured Programming Justin reviews case studies, discusses specifics, and drives home how important it is to be positive you're inves...

Join Ariana as she chats with athlete Aaron Travers. Aaron is a gym owner, coach, and incredibly talented athlete hailing from Northern Ireland. At 6 foot 6 inches tall and 240 pounds, he's not your average hybrid athlete, but has managed to rack up some seriously impressive performances like a 56:27 HYROX Pro time, ski erg marathon AG world record at 2:29:52 , 1:17 half marathon, and 16:28 5k. Th...

And starting new sports, and how handling these two big changes to your training end up being similar. What do you mean, you can treat injuries like starting a new sport for a bit? Let us tell you in the silliest way possible. Anthony D'Orazio  Ariana Scalfo

Alex Viada and Ariana Scalfo sit down to talk to Ben and Mats from HYBRD. Discussed: How did Alex meet Ben and Mats? What did the team at HYBRD develop the app to solve? Why isn't there a "Training Stress Score" for strength? Implementing the principles and methodology from "The Ultimate Hybrid Athlete" as the rules for all HYBRD training plans Why AI-generated plans aren't useful without the righ...

What Fitness Industry myths bug you the most, and why? Anthony, Raquel, and Sofia discuss and pick apart all the myths that bug them as athletes, humans, and coaches who've been in this space and coaching people for a long time. They discuss: - The myth of "if you're not fit, it's because you don't want it bad enough": the erasure of complex factors that contribute to individuals having more or le...

Ariana Scalfo and Mike Thompson sit down to discuss their personal experiences training with, around, and sometimes despite, their chronic conditions. How do they handle being disabled sometimes , and only in specific ways? How do they (try) to avoid flares, and what do those flares look like? How do these conditions affect their mental health and identity, especially as coaches? When is it approp...

"Life is a Thanksgiving meal. Some things are on boil, some things are simmering on the back burner, and this changes all night long." - Anthony D'Orazio or Gandalf, depending on who you ask Join Anthony D'Orazio, Justin Jones, and Mike Thompson as they discuss what it's like to encounter a busy period in your life. How to quantify "busy," how to select training priorities and use available time a...

Join Director of Coaching Ariana Scalfo as she chats with new CHP coaches Mike Thompson and Justin Jones about men's mental health and how it plays out in lifestyle, health, and ability/motivation to train. Mike and Justin are relatively new fathers, and they discuss with Ariana (a new mother) the loneliness and pressure that comes with fatherhood, and the dangers of depression, and lack of clearl...

 Clay Foster has been a part of Complete Human Performance for years, and has been doing the hybrid thing for even longer. He won The Crucible Pro Men's Division in 2024, he's competed in the Hybricon Games (2023), and is registered for Rally in the Valley 2025 to name a  few things. A coach himself, Clay's training has run the gamut from bodybuilding to CrossFit to 100-milers, and he's excited to...

Pete Nelson is the founder of SISU Lifestyle, a Northeast-Ohio company specializing in handcrafted saunas and contrast bath technology. He joins us on the CHP Podcast as a long-time user of our Strength + 50k and Marathon templates (most notably, winning the inaugural Antarctica 50k) and brings with him boatloads of wisdom.  Too much to summarize, dive in with Pete and learn about what keeps him f...

Ariana, Alex, and Trevor try to work out how they'd rate the relative importance of 20 training priorities, from 1-20 (1=most important, 20=least important). In this hour they manage to discuss roughly 10, so expect a second episode for sure. The theme of today is "It Depends." The 20 "Commonly Discussed Priorities" are as follows (and in no particular order, trust me): Individualised coaching, NE...

Join Ariana as she chats with Matt Stevens, race director of Rally in the Valley, an incredibly fun and exciting hybrid competition held in Hurricane, WV every year since 2023. Matt is also the Head Judge at Hybricon Games, held at the end of October, and brings his rich military experience and experience as an athlete and gym owner (ShotFire Fitness) to the table for each event he's involved in....

With the safeties off.   Ariana and Alex discuss what he meant by "hybrid" the first time, how it's evolved (for better or for worse), what they think it means and who it refers to (and doesn't), which hybrid athletes they believe embody the spirit of hybrid the most, and why hybrid events are still heavily endurance (but getting better). @completehumanperformance @alex.viada 

Join Ariana Scalfo and Alex Viada as they do their first ever (???!! but first of many) podcasts of them just talking to each other about stuff they're doing, planning, building, and why they're excited about all of it. How did an offhand idea about deep-diving into Space Marines/metahuman supersoldiers train turn into a 100+ page protocol? And why are we turning it into a group training program?...

Coach Trevor Tartaglia takes the reigns of the CHP Podcast to chat with Alex Viada about the utility of TSS Scores (TrainingPeaks) and other "fatigue/stress" tracking algorithms for hybrid athletes. How they work, the pros, the cons, and how coaches can fully utilize these metrics (or similar) all included, as well as coaching insights from them both.  Discussed:  What workouts are Trevor and Alex...

Join Ariana as she chats with Tyler Koch about his time working as a Subject Matter Expert for the United States Air Force, overseeing Human Performance within the F-35 fighter pilot community. He was also integral in founding the first ever Human Performance Initiative within Undergraduate Pilot Training. He has an M.S. in Exercise Science from George Washington University and prior to his role i...

Ariana and Trevor sit down and chat about the V3 template changes, what's next for CHP templates, and why they chose to push hard in this direction (app development aside). Plus, it's a general introduction into who Trevor is and how he ended up a military yoga teacher who also did CrossFit (it's true).  New to CHP: Strength + 5k Strength + 10k Trail + Distance Strength + Half Marathon Follow Trev...

Susan Lopez MS, RDN, CSSD, LD, TSAC*F is a Registered Dietitian working for a Special Operations unit, and boy does she have some fascinating insight for hybrid and tactical athletes. Susan outlines the different strategies she uses for the two most common athlete archetypes she encounters in Special Operations, including approaching protein intake, total calories, supplementation, and working aro...

Meet Jack Driscoll, self-proclaimed "overall fitness enjoyer," firefighter, coach, and phenomenal hybrid athlete. A guy who enjoys launching himself at a wide variety of fitness events, Jack burst into the competitive scene by winning Rally in the Valley, around the same time that he was tackling Hybricon Regionals, followed by a bodybuilding competition, and then an Ironman. Back to back to back....

Vera Stepina is a lifestyle and nutrition coach, a hybrid athlete who was doing hybrid stuff before it was hybrid, a client of Alex Viada's, and a woman with 3 children who is rediscovering her potential after at least a year of considering it "dead in the water." Listen to Vera and Ariana discuss the mindset required for massive lifestyle overhauls and shifts, the common roadblocks people experie...

Kaleb is a tenured Spartan pro athlete, HYROX racer, DEKA athlete, and hybrid competitor - listen to him discuss how he arrived at this competitive level, what appeals to him about hybrid sport, and the pros and cons of being a "larger" competitor (6'3, 210+ lbs). On top of that, Kaleb is an upstanding gent and brilliant sportsman, bringing a ferocity and amicability to the start line that few peo...

Sit down (although I'm pretty sure he stood the whole time) with Phillip Muscarella, the champion of the 2023 Hybricon Games.  Dealing with competition anxiety, and operating from a place of gratitude and joy Coming into "hybrid" from a CrossFit background Differences and improvements from last year at the Hybricon Games Creating a balanced hybrid competition ("you can't call this a strength event...

Meet Dr Sam Spinelli. Doctor of Physical Therapy, gym owner, powerlifter, strongman, Olympic weightlifter, ultrarunner, Spartan obstacle course racer, father, and 2022's Crucible Pro Champ, Sam goes all-in on everything he does with the same kind of self-awareness, mild craziness, and uninhibited zeal found in high-level Hybrids. Listen in as Sam discusses how he found the idea of "hybrid," and wh...

Ariana chats with her friend Matt B Davis, who created and runs Obstacle Racing Media and Hybrid Fitness Media, two of the only forms of media purely covering Obstacle Course Racing and Hybrid Fitness Events. They discuss how they've seen hybrid events develop and grow, the industry and community, and the events that have popped up with increasing regularity year after year. The two "big events" a...