Are Hybrid Workouts Your Key To Faster Fitness?
It was 2015, and my coworker invited me to come workout with her at a new gym she had started going to. When I asked her more about the gym, she told me how much fun it was, that the workouts were heart rate based, a combination or hybrid of strength training and cardio, and how the goal was to spend at least 12 minutes in the “orange zone” of high intensity every workout. Intrigued and never one to turn down the promise of a good workout, I joined her. And now 10 years later, I still squeeze in a workout at Orange Theory Fitness (OTF) about once a week to mix things up.
The OTF workout is a high intensity interval training workout where participants move between the weight floor for resistance training and the treadmill and rower sections of the gym for cardio interval training. Each participant wears a heart rate monitor to monitor how much time they are spending in the different target heart rate zones (gray, blue, green, orange, and red). The goal is to spend a minimum amount of time each workout in the orange and red high intensity zones. This is to make sure you optimize the “after burn” effect where you burn calories long after the workout is over. In the exercise physiology or sports medicine space, the after burn is known as post-exercise oxygen consumption or excess post-exercise oxygen consumption (EPOC).
Does doing weights AND cardio really matter?
The workout at Orange Theory isn’t just about HIIT training. They also put to use another fitness strategy that several other popular gyms and boutique studios use; combining cardio and strength training in the same workout. Though both hybrid and combined training integrate cardio and strength training moves into a single workout, there are differences between the two. In one study hybrid training was defined as exercise that worked the cardiovascular and musculoskeletal system at the same time at different intensities in the same workout session; think body weight HIIT workouts or total body dumbbell workouts that get your heart rate up while getting your muscles stronger. In that same study, combined training was defined as cardio and resistance training being performed during the same exercise session; think 30 minutes of lifting followed by 30 minutes of cardio or vice versa.
The major fitness guidelines recommend doing both aerobic exercise and resistance (strength) training for decreasing risk of disease and maintaining health and fitness. Many people split up their workouts and do cardio on certain days and strength training on other days. This helps them get in the required amounts of exercise but can be time consuming. The time required to see gains from exercise led to the popularity of high intensity interval training (HIIT). For years we’ve known that HIIT is a time efficient way to change body compositions, improve fitness, and impact markers like blood glucose and cholesterol in as much as 40% less time as steady state cardio (snag the free guide to designing your own HIIT workout here).
What if you are trying to get healthy or lose weight and not just stay healthy?
If trying to lose weight or change your current health status, the exercise requirements are often more. The 2022 study mentioned above published in one of the American Heart Association journals was focused on finding the best method of exercise to help improve cardiometabolic health and fitness outcomes in people with overweight and obesity. The researchers looked specifically at factors and labs including body mass and BMI, blood pressure, fat free mass, blood glucose, hemoglobin A1c, cholesterol panel, insulin levels, waist circumference, waist to hip ratio, upper and lower body strength, and cardiorespiratory fitness(VO2 max). They found that in people with overweight or obesity, combined training and hybrid training had the best effects on more of the health measures studied compared to continuous endurance training (aka long form cardio), resistance training, or interval training. Because this study looked at a specific population, the findings are best applied to that population, but there is still wisdom to be gained here even if you don’t fit into the definitions of overweight or obese.
Key Take Aways
First, all major guidelines recommend aerobic training and resistance exercise for all.
Second, for those with overweight or obesity, combining aerobic and resistance training in the same exercise session makes the biggest difference on multiple markers of health and fitness.
Third, those on a time crunch would do well to consider interval training or hybrid training to help reach their fitness goals in a time efficient way.
Ultimately the best exercise is the one you actually do and stick with. Whether you are a cardio queen or weight room warrior, I recommend getting in at least some of the other type of exercise in a couple days a week. How you combine them is up to you based on your fitness goals.
