The Paul Weber Podcast

Send us Fan Mail I use a five step process to guide my athletes to better scores in gymnastics-heavy workouts: Strength - are you strong enough to make this movement easy? Movement Economy - could you use less energy per rep? Volume - can you handle the number of reps? Density - can you handle the set sizes? Intensity - can you handle the set sizes while breathing hard? In this process, each step...

Send us Fan Mail Key Takeaways The mechanical loading of burpees and box jump overs limits the number of reps we can safely do - about 150 reps per session. Because we are limited in volume, we want to do all of our burpees and box jump overs at race relevant paces - 15 reps per minute or faster . Use as short of a working interval as you need to achieve this race relevant pace, then gradually ext...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, we cover every CrossFit gymnastics movement, to what degree each movement depends on strength or movement economy, and how to train each movement. Hey guys, letting you know that I have 1:1 coaching spots available. With the Open over, this is the start of the offseason for most athletes. This is the time for doing an assessment, knowing your training priorities,...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, we cover these concepts for CrossFit gymnastics: Volume – the common number of reps per workout for each gymnastics movement Intensity – the intensity of the workout in which the gymnastics reps occur Density – the direct muscle fatigue of the workout in which the gymnastics reps occur

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, I cover: What is gymnastic strength? Why gymnastic strength is specific for CrossFit athletes My personal experience with training gymnastic strength My clinical experience training gymnastic strength with CrossFit athletes How to train gymnastic strength (frequency, sets, reps, exercise selection, cycle length and deloads) How to progress from training gymnastic...

Send us Fan Mail Live Training Thursday, February 27th, 1pm MT Save your spot: https://www.paulbweber.com/building-advanced-strength-for-fitness-athletes In this episode, I cover an overview of the demand of fitness sport, concurrent training and strength training.

Send us Fan Mail This episode covers: why not all muscle growth is created equal which type of hypertrophy matters for strength and how to train for it the strength-endurance continuum blood flow restriction and "pump work" which training strategies make sense for CrossFit athletes and which ones don't Resources The Role of Fiber Types in Muscle Hypertrophy: Implications for Loading...

Send us Fan Mail Lack of week to week control Lack of fatigue management Too much variety Too frequent severe and extreme intensity conditioning Lack of offseason, lack of periodization leads to lack of peaking, lack of availability

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, I cover: My personal experience in the sport and how important it was to me to figure out how to get stronger and build muscle as a fitness athlete How fitness sport values strength over gymnastics and conditioning My experience coaching athletes on strength-biased programs The problem with most competitor programs and why most people can't get stronger on th...

Send us Fan Mail CrossFitters have to do anaerobic training You have to do every movement every week Do as little movement prep as you can Always progress aerobic work from long to short CrossFitters shouldn't train explosively Scientific evidence always trumps experience Supplements don't work Eating more will always result in more lean body mass gain The effectiveness of crosstraining

Send us Fan Mail CrossFit, Inc. appears to be taking a major step away from being an events company. The product that CrossFit, Inc. is offering athletes in 2025 is poor. And leaves a big opportunity for other events companies to provide better experiences. Hyrox is just one of them. Here’s what I’m telling my clients who are competitive fitness athletes – look for other experiences outside of the...

Send us Fan Mail Effort isn't the only thing that matters. Release the outcome. Trust your coach.

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, I talk about: the feelings that led me to start a business the very first thing I did exactly what I did every week to go from 5 clients to a successful business

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, I talk to gym owners about the concept of a Pro Gym and how this would benefit CrossFit competitors.  Key features of a Pro Gym: Presence of a pro or semi-pro level competitor 24 hour access to all necessary equipment Individualized coaching offerings (individual design, personal training, small group training)

Send us Fan Mail We know that CrossFit consists of Monostructural (M), Weightlifting (W) and Gymnastics (G) movements. For Monostructural Movements, the tension in the muscle is relatively low. Maybe 20% of 1RM. Because the % 1RM is so low, these tasks are more sustainable, and I can slow down or speed up as needed. Here it helps to see the relationship between pace and time. The shorter the worko...

Send us Fan Mail A question I got in the last webinar was, “If most competitor programs don’t follow these principles, how come there are athletes who follow them who are successful?” This question really is a bigger question of, “What can we learn from the training of elite athletes?” The short answer is: a lot. Of course. Here is a frame that I use to understand why elite athletes are successful...

Send us Fan Mail Strength gains occur through neural adaptations and through muscle growth. Neural adaptations seem to be stimulated by muscle activity and force production. We ensure these by training explosively or by training heavy.  Muscle growth, on the other hand, is stimulated primarily by mechanical tension. We ensure this by training close to failure.  In this episode, we discuss: Trainin...

Send us Fan Mail Concurrent Training is defined as training strength and conditioning in the same week.  When you do Concurrent Training, you introduce the Interference Effect (also known as the Concurrent Training Effect).  Above a certain volume of conditioning, you will slow down your strength gains. You can even make yourself weaker if you do enough conditioning.  There are a few mechanisms th...

Send us Fan Mail Many studies have induced mental fatigue to see if it affects physical performance.  They have everybody perform the test under normal conditions.  Then they wait a couple days.  Then they take one group, and have them perform 30-60 minutes of mentally fatiguing tasks right before the retest.  The other group watches a documentary.  Here are the tests that mental fatigue is likely...

Send us Fan Mail https://www.paulbweber.com/complete-athlete-process I see a problem with how evidence is valued in the CrossFit community.  It seems like personal experience and understanding of "the methodology" are all that matter in the eyes of many CrossFitters.  This belief is difficult to defend.  First, you must believe that personal experience is more valuable than any other sou...

Send us Fan Mail https://www.paulbweber.com/complete-athlete-process *Sunday last day to get early bird price Principle #1: The Strength-Muscle Endurance Relationship Principle #2: Muscle Growth is Highly Correlated with Long Term Strength Gains Principle #3: The Concurrent Training Effect

Send us Fan Mail https://www.paulbweber.com/complete-athlete-process

Send us Fan Mail We discuss: What is training intensity? Common mistakes CrossFitters make in their conditioning Insights from elite, Norwegian endurance coaches and athletes Sport-specific insights for each endurance modality We'll review the common mistakes: Training high intensity too frequently Finishing conditioning sessions at RPE 10 Training with too much variety Assuming crosstraining...

Send us Fan Mail "The International Functional Fitness Federation (iF3) is a non-profit organization that serves as the international governing body for competitive functional fitness. Our goal is to increase safety and fairness in functional fitness competitions through implementation of a standardized rulebook, clear movement standards, written safety guidelines for event organizers, traini...

Send us Fan Mail In the wake of the CrossFit Games, many people have found themselves disenchanted with CrossFit. For some, they feel that an organization they used to align with has betrayed their trust. 1. it’s important to recognize what makes CrossFit attractive 2. once we understand those characteristics, we can know what we want to preserve while CrossFit goes through something of a reformat...