Hard to Kill Programming Methodology: Part 13 - Mixed Modal Anaerobic

Mixed Modal Aerobic Training might be one of the most underutilized, yet most effective, training methodologies out there. It combines multiple movement patterns, resistance training, and aerobic conditioning into one seamless workout, allowing you to build strength, endurance, and aerobic capacity—all at the same time.

While many people default to running, biking, or rowing for aerobic training, Mixed Modal Aerobic Training offers a more dynamic, well-rounded approach. And despite the common misconception, it’s not CrossFit.

In this post, we’ll break down what Mixed Modal Aerobic Training is, why you should be doing it, and how to program it effectively for maximum results.

What is Mixed Modal Aerobic Training?

Mixed Modal Aerobic Training is exactly what it sounds like: a blend of different movement patterns performed in an aerobic setting. Instead of just running or rowing, you incorporate strength, gymnastics (bodyweight movements), and monostructural cardio into one session.

This training method allows you to:

• Improve aerobic capacity without only relying on running or biking.
• Increase muscular endurance and strength simultaneously.
• Build a more well-rounded level of fitness that translates to real-world performance.

How is This Different from CrossFit?

While CrossFit workouts do include mixed modalities, they tend to be high-intensity, competition-driven, and prioritize speed over sustainability. Mixed Modal Aerobic Training, as we define it, is more structured, controlled, and geared towards long-term performance and longevity.

For example, in CrossFit, workouts often lack structured work-to-rest ratios and encourage max effort throughout. Mixed Modal Aerobic Training, on the other hand, allows for intentional pacing, heart rate control, and strategic intensity adjustments.

Why You Should Be Doing Mixed Modal Aerobic Training

1. Increases Efficiency
   If you’re short on time and can only train a couple of times a week, this method allows you to hit multiple energy systems at once. Instead of doing separate strength, endurance, and aerobic sessions, you can combine all three into one effective workout.

2. Enhances Longevity & Durability
   Endurance training alone won’t prepare you for real-life strength demands, and pure strength training won’t give you the aerobic engine you need. Mixed Modal Aerobic Training ensures you’re strong, conditioned, and capable across multiple domains.

3. Customizable to Any Fitness Level
   Unlike rigid workout structures, Mixed Modal Aerobic Training can be tailored to any fitness level, goal, or energy system focus. Whether you want a high-intensity threshold session or a long, slow aerobic grind, you have full control over the programming.

How to Program Mixed Modal Aerobic Training

The best way to structure a Mixed Modal Aerobic session is through the WGM Format:

WGM = Weightlifting + Gymnastics + Monostructural Cardio

Each session includes one movement from each category, allowing for a balanced approach to strength and conditioning.

Step 1: Select Your Movements

• Weightlifting (W): Any exercise using an external load (barbell, kettlebell, sandbag, etc.).
• Gymnastics (G): Bodyweight movements (push-ups, pull-ups, lunges, burpees, etc.).
• Monostructural (M): Traditional cardio elements (running, biking, rowing, skierg, etc.).

Step 2: Set Your Work-to-Rest Ratio & Duration

Depending on your goal, you’ll adjust the intensity and length of the workout:

• Zone 2 Focus: 40-60 minutes at a moderate, sustainable pace.
• Aerobic Threshold Focus: 15-20 minutes at a higher intensity, threshold pace.
• Interval-Based Training: Work in structured intervals with built-in rest periods.

Example Workouts

🔥 Short & Intense Aerobic Threshold Workout (20 minutes)

• 12 Weighted Lunges
• 20 Push-Ups
• 200m Row
• Repeat for 20 minutes at a challenging pace

💪 Long & Sustainable Zone 2 Workout (50 minutes)

• 16 Dumbbell Front Squats
• 10 Pull-Ups
• 400m Run
• 15 Kettlebell Swings
• 12 Box Step-Ups
• 500m Row
• Repeat at a steady, conversational pace for 50 minutes

Final Thoughts: The Future of Aerobic Training?

Mixed Modal Aerobic Training is one of the best ways to build real-world fitness. It takes the benefits of endurance training, blends them with strength and muscular endurance, and allows for nearly endless variations to keep workouts fun and effective.

Instead of relying solely on running or biking for your conditioning, try incorporating Weighted Movements, Bodyweight Training, and Monostructural Cardio into your sessions. Not only will you build a stronger aerobic engine, but you’ll also develop power, durability, and efficiency in all areas of fitness.

If you want to follow a structured approach to this style of training, Garage Gym Athlete has you covered.

🔹 Join us today at GarageGymAthlete.com and sign up for a free trial!

And remember…

If you don’t kill comfort, comfort will kill you.

Garage Gym Athlete Workout of the Week

Podcast Transcript

Jerred: Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the garage gym athlete podcast. Jerred Moon here, and we are finally wrapping up this series on programming. We have been going over the hard to kill methodology, the methodology that's going to help you live longer and perform better. It's really the blend of those two things.

And I've been going over what we do in big picture. I'm not going to recap everything, but there are 13 areas that we train. Today is the final area. The 13th area. Just so there's no confusion about how this works, what you do, if you're looking to do this on your own, you don't want me or my team to do it for you.

I get it. You're the DIY guy or gal. What you do is you take these 13 areas and you span them across 30 days of training, okay? So if you want to, uh, get better at something or really just be kind of a generalist, that's what happens. If you don't focus and you do this kind of training, you're gonna make sure you hit all 13 of these areas over a 30 day window.

And that's it. That's the big picture here. So if you go back and you reverse engineer this, you start listening to it, uh, and you want to do this, that's exactly what you're going to do. Now. You're going to be like, well, I have some training sessions leftover. Absolutely. And that's because that's where some specialization can be added in.

And that's why we have different tracks at garage gym athlete, like the endure track for endurance training or shred for more body composition, hard to kill for being a complete generalist. And so if you are like, Hey. Well, you know, we have the strength track as well. So this would be a good example. You take those 13 areas, you put them across every 30 days and then you're like, but I ultimately want to get stronger while having that really good base.

That is the hard to kill programming methodology. You would do the 13 training sessions to make sure that you're really well rounded. And then the remainder sessions that you would train in the 30 days would be strength oriented, following some of the strength principles we've already talked about in this series, and then you would.

Have a very well rounded 30 day program that is very, um, you know, diverse in the levels and areas that it's hitting. Now the hard to kill track doesn't do that. What it'll do is it'll take these 13 areas and span them across 30 days. And then it will add more of those areas to balance everything out.

And so, uh, and we do this over a 12 week cycle. So every month is kind of building up in a 12 week cycle. So anyway, if you're looking to do this on your own, that's how you're going to do it. If you don't want to do this on your own, head over to garagegymathlete. com sign up for a free trial. Today, we're going to be talking about the final one, and that is mixed modal anaerobic training.

Now I'm not going to dive in super deep here because in the previous one, the 12th episode in the series, I talked about, I talked about mixed modal aerobic training and mixed modal aerobic training. I talked about how you have a weightlifting movement, a gymnastics movement, a monostructural movement, and how you can span the time and intensity based off of what your goals are.

It's no different for mixed modal and aerobic training. So the only difference here. Is anaerobic is we're trying to get very short duration, high burst, high intensity activities planned and something we will, you know, work on. So this can be anywhere from 1 minute, 2 minute, 3 minute, 4 minute, 5 minute bouts.

Something around those lines, okay? And so what you would do, give, give the same example I, I kind of did in the podcast on mixed modal aerobic training. Is if you're doing a mixed modal anaerobic workout and say we wanted to incorporate W G M, which is weightlifting, gymnastics, monostructural. So say, uh, for the weightlifting, we wanted to do back squat gymnastics.

We want to do pushups and monostructurals. We want to do running. Well, I'm going to be looking for something that can fit all of that within, let's say 30 seconds to two minutes. And so I might have, let's just call it a minute right in the middle there. So I have to take that into account with everything.

So I'm only going to be doing three reps on the back squat and I want it to be explosive in nature, right? So I'll do explosive back squats, meaning, you know. And we've talked about all these things and like how you can program speed, but like maybe I'm doing 60 percent of my winner at max for three reps.

I'm trying to be incredibly explosive. And then I go to the pushup. I'm just going to knock out whatever I can do quickly. So let's say that's 10 to 15 reps fast as I can. And then running. I'm going to sprint 50 to 100 meters, you know, and this is all dependent on your fitness level, but let's say I'm done in a minute.

And what I did there was I go incredibly hard. Everything's explosive. And I'm just, the intensity is high, right? But the heart rate has to catch up, right? It's anaerobic, it's without oxygen. So it's not the same as mixed motor aerobic where the, it can get really tiring and everything. This should be really explosive.

You shouldn't feel that tired because then you're going to go into a rest period and you'll rest until recovered. And you can follow all of the work to rest ratios I talked about in the, um, energy system parts of this podcast series, but ultimately. If I hit one minute really hard, I'm going to be resting three to five minutes till I'm fully recovered.

Then I'm going to do it again. And you would probably do three to five rounds of this, depending on what you programmed. And that is mixed modal anaerobic training. So it's short duration, uh, you know, high burst, high intensity stuff, long rest periods to get the full recovery. And then you're going to keep doing that.

Three to five, maybe seven times in a session, depending on how long the work was. It could be three if it's, if you're going up to four minutes of these, these bouts. And then if you're doing really short, uh, bouts and you, you, you know, you obviously have a different approach there, but that's mixed motor aerobic and aerobic.

And it's, and it's all the same that we talked about with energy system training. Like the way you, the reason you'd want to do this is because it targets glycolytic, glycolytic, glycolytic and phosphagen systems. It improves short duration, high power output. It's going to, again, help with the enhanced lactate clearance.

So it teaches the body to recover and buffer fatigue during intense efforts. So again, that stair step strategy approach we talked about where you step down your rest time over time to see if your body can recover and still hit the same power output. Something you'd want to program if you're doing this long term.

You're going to have increased work capacity across modalities, increased power endurance. You're even going to be training your mental toughness. So mixed modal anaerobic training, very similar, similar to aerobic and how it's programmed. The execution is just a little bit different, but that rounds out the series on programming short episode today.

So if you are interested in the hard to kill programming methodology, go to garagegymathlete. com. Sign up for a free trial for all of our athletes who are already doing it. We really appreciate you. Next in the series, we'll be talking about not really in the series, but next we'll be talking about project Delta, kind of the announcement of what we're going to be doing for the next cycle.

Like a Rozgym athlete, I'll talk about what it is, what it looks like, how you can be a part of it, but that's it for this one. Remember, if you don't kill comfort, comfort will kill you.