In this 2026 YouTube video, fitness coach Eric Roberts argues that the fitness industry has fundamentally shifted from a dichotomy of pure bodybuilding versus pure cardio to a dominant hybrid training model that combines strength and cardiovascular work. He traces the cultural rise of hybrid training to influencers like Nick Bare and the popularity of HYROX races, noting his personal experience competing in multiple HYROX events. Roberts explains why hybrid training is here to stay, emphasizing health benefits such as improved VO2 max, lower resting heart rate, and overall longevity, as well as mental‑health advantages that come from focusing on performance rather than purely aesthetic goals. He critiques the traditional “look‑first” mindset, describing how it can lead to body‑dysmorphia, and proposes a shift toward an athlete‑fuel nutrition philosophy that prioritizes adequate calories and performance‑based eating. The core of the video provides a concrete programming framework for beginners: 2‑4 strength days per week, one easy Zone‑2 cardio session, and one weekly HIIT circuit, with explanations of intensity zones and session length. Roberts then walks through his own weekly schedule, detailing specific strength workouts, cardio modalities, and HYROX‑specific circuits. The video concludes with a promotional call‑to‑action for an 8‑week personalized fat‑loss coaching program and a link to a deeper dive video on combining cardio and weights.
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Should you be focused on lifting weights or doing cardio as your main goal? On one end of the spectrum, you have your hardcore gym bros. This used to be me, only focused on lifting heavy, bodybuilding, would only run if someone was chasing me, but even then. And on the other end, you have your cardio kings and queens, really only like going for a run, don't do much strength training. And for a long time, this is how things have been. But around the start of 2026, things have started to change. There's now a massive spike in what we call hybrid training, I think popularized by people like Nick Bare and HYROX races. Aside from pooping yourself in hell, I've even done 2 HYROX races. I just signed up for my 3rd. I have 9 of my coaches on my team doing their HYROX race. But why is this growing in popularity? Why do I believe we're never going back to just weights or just cardio? And why do I think this is the best thing that can happen to the industry and to you? Well, I'll start with popularity. I'll speak from my own point of view, but I do think this is the case for most people. In the early ages of fitness social media, it was predominantly ran by bodybuilders. They would post their flexing pictures on stage, they'd post their chicken and rice meal prep, workout videos, and that's really all we saw. So that's what we naturally gravitated towards. But as time went on, I think people just got bored, bored of just training like a bodybuilder. And don't get me wrong, I love picking heavy things up and putting them down as much as the next guy. And who doesn't love A good arm pump. I love it so much I've built my entire life around fitness and my business. But even for me, I started to get bored of it. I felt my workouts were stale. I wasn't really challenging myself. And unless I wanted to hop on steroids and get on a bodybuilding stage, there's only so much I could progress. Sure, I can build 0.25 pounds of muscle in a 1 to 2 month period of time, but like, How much are you actually going to see that? And as you keep going, that is only going to slow down. Whereas when you introduce something like cardio and hybrid training, immediately that's a new challenge. Immediately it's something I could start and yeah, it would be difficult. No, I'm not going to be great at it at first, but that's kind of the whole point. I think people are wanting to take on new challenges that are difficult and they haven't really done before versus just doing the Same workouts over and over. And for me personally, that's why I started doing high rocks races, because it gave me a new challenge to be competitive with myself. And unlike stepping on a bodybuilding stage, I think you can be competitive, do runs, do races, do high rocks, and you can put on display your hard work and your performance of how your body performs versus just getting judged by somebody if they they like how you look or not. And so that's why I started hybrid training, and that's why I don't believe it's ever going to go away in my life. But there's another reason why I think this is growing in popularity, and to be transparent, it's way more important, and that is your health. What happens if you only lift weights but don't do cardio? You'll be strong, sure, but you will not be as healthy as you can be. Weightlifting strengthens your heart walls so it can push heavy, but cardio stretches the inside of your heart to be able to pump more blood with less effort. The mistake people make is leaning too heavily on one side versus the other. You need both to live the healthiest, longest life you can. And I think in 2026 and beyond, people are no longer just focused and worried about how they look. They're focused on longevity. They're focused on adding years to their life in a quality way. Things like VO2 max are rising in popularity, which just means the amount of oxygen your body can take in, transport, and use per minute during intense exercise. And this is one of the best indicators of your health but also your longevity. Or lowering your resting heart rate, which has also been shown to directly correlate to how healthy you are and how long you live, both of which are directly impacted By how much cardio you do and the type of cardio you do, which we'll talk about exactly how you can incorporate more cardio and hybrid training at the end of the video. But I want to take a second to acknowledge how great this is for the industry, but more importantly for you. Because let's be real for a second. Of course you want to look good naked. Of course you want to wear a bathing suit and feel confident in how you look. So do I. But while I get you want that, that can get to a point where if that's all you focus on, your body dysmorphia is going to start to become crippling. It's going to seep into every area of your life where all you think about is, how do I look in this bathing suit? How do I look in this dress or this suit that I'm wearing? And no matter how shredded you get, no matter how much weight you do or don't lose, it'll never be good enough. And to a degree, I understand that can be a good thing because it pushes you and it makes you want to do more. But on the flip side of that, your mental health starts to decline, and the same thing that you were using to better your life now becomes a detractor to your life. And I'm not saying how you look isn't important to how you feel, but you know what's more impactful in a positive way for how you feel? How your body performs, what your body is capable of doing. Lifting heavy weights, going for a 5-mile run, doing a brutal HIIT workout, and at the end thinking, oh my God, that was hard. But I got through it. Do you know what that does for your mental health? Do you know what that does to make you feel about yourself regardless of how you look? Knowing your body can perform in a certain way and do some pretty badass things—that will make you feel better than any bathing suit six-pack photo that really only you care about ever could. And when you focus on how your body performs, funny enough, you usually change how your body looks. For the better as well. And one more thing I want to hit on before I talk about exactly how you can incorporate hybrid training into your weekly routine and give you my exact workout program if you want to see what I'm doing. Let's be honest, where do most people struggle with their fitness journey? It's your nutrition. You struggle with your relationship with food, eating healthy, eating in a calorie deficit. And this usually stems from you're so focused on how you look, weighing less on the scale, being a smaller version of yourself, being more lean. But when you start thinking and training and fueling like an athlete— lifting, running, doing cardio— you have to shift your focus from being the smallest, leanest version of myself to I need to fuel my body properly to perform better. That one mental shift can quite literally save you tens of years of mental dieting and exhaustion because now you're focused on eating enough calories, eating more food, treating your body like a Lamborghini versus a beat-up Honda Civic. And what this can do for your mental health really can't be quantified. We've coached over 25,000 clients in my online coaching program, and when we see people start to shift their mentality To more of this, it's almost like they open up a new world that they've never experienced before. And seeing that transformation happen, not just physically but mentally, there's not much better than that, to be honest with you. And that's why, for all of these reasons combined, I think working out has changed forever and it's never going back. And probably the best thing that can happen. But now, if you're like me and you never did cardio, how do you start to train like a hybrid athlete? Well, I'll tell you what to do as a beginner, And I'll also show you what my weekly workout split looks like. So if you're a beginner, here's what I would recommend. You should still have strength training and lifting weights as the base foundation. This should not go away. You should lift weights anywhere from 2 to 4 days per week. 2 days a week is 2 full body workouts. 3 days a week is lower body, upper body, full body. 4 days a week, lower body, upper body, lower body. Upper body. All of these workout splits allow you to still hit your muscle groups 2 times per week, which is good. And you should still be focusing on lifting heavy, trying to get stronger in the 5 to 12 rep range, but adding in cardio. Here's what I would recommend. You'll add in 1 easy day of cardio. If you're focused on getting better at running for Maybe you just want to get better at running or a HYROX race. I would make this a running day. If you don't care about running or if you have bad knees, this can be any other form of cardio equipment— the elliptical, the stationary bike, the rower, the SkiErg. And when I say easy, this should be zone 2 cardio. So if you're wearing a watch, your watch will tell you when you're in zone 2. If you're not wearing a watch, this should be a level of intensity Where you're still able to breathe through your nose and you're still able to hold a conversation. This is the best form of cardio to build your heart health as the foundational base. You can think of this like if you do squats or a deadlift, you're building a very strong foundational base of strength. This zone 2 cardio is like doing squats and deadlifts for your heart health and your cardiovascular fitness. This should be at least 20 minutes per session, because to get the adaptations that you're looking for, it needs to be at least 20 minutes up to about 60 minutes. This can either be done after a workout or on a rest day, more preferably on a rest day, because in hybrid training there's a concept of when you work out hard, you work out hard on those days. When you don't work out hard, you don't work out hard on those days. Keep the hard days hard, keep the easy days easy. And next, second, you You should do one HIIT, HIIT circuit-style workout per week. This will be higher effort, higher heart rate, because the zone 2 cardio will build your base. This higher intensity cardio will also build your heart health, and it will really improve that VO2 max like we were talking about earlier. And this would look something like a 500-meter run between Zone 3 and Zone 4. So it's going to be a little bit difficult for you at a faster pace. Then you would go into, let's say, 15 wall balls and then go into 10 burpees. And maybe you would repeat that 2 to 4 times. I would start with something like that that'll probably take you 15 to 25 minutes. And if you do 15 to 25 minutes per week of that higher intensity cardio along with your Zone 2 that we spoke about, that is a great base to start from. And then potentially work up. And that's really what I did with my workouts and my training. So I'll run through what my current weekly workout split is. And mind you, this is a lot of exercise I'm doing right now, but I did not start here. So on Sunday I do a longer run that is a mix of 2 miles at zone 2, so a pretty easy pace. And then I do intervals of around 8 to 10 minutes at a 7-minute mile pace, which for me is pretty fast. 8 to 10 minutes there. A 2-minute jog to recover, and I do that for 4 rounds. This past Sunday, that came out to about 7 miles. On Monday, I do upper body workout strength plus a zone 2 stationary bike ride for 30 minutes. On Tuesday, I do legs strength training workout. On Wednesday, I do an easy zone 2 run for 60 minutes. On Thursday, I do an upper body strength workout again. On Friday, I do my HYROX-specific workout where I do a 1,000-meter run, 40 burpees, 40 wall balls, repeat that for 3 rounds. And then I do a 300-meter row, 3 minutes on the assault bike, and walking lunges, 2 to 3 rounds of that as well. And then Saturday is a leg day plus a 30-minute zone 2 row. And again, it's a lot of exercise, but I have worked my way up to that. And in my opinion, this is what has produced not only the strongest, the leanest, but also the healthiest body I've ever had at age 30. And by the way, if you want me And my team to build you a personalized plan for your cardio workouts and nutrition, you can tap the link below in the description of the video to learn more about my 8-week fat loss challenge. We will fully personalize all of your strength training, your cardio, and your nutrition to take out all of the guesswork and help you lose fat, build muscle, improve your heart health, and be there one-on-one throughout the week, hold you accountable, check in on you. Answer any questions, and just make sure week over week you're doing the right things to fully maximize the progress you're making. Again, you can tap the link in the description of the video below to learn more. Or if you would like to watch some more videos on this topic, I actually did an entire video covering how to combine cardio and weights. You can click this video here to watch that coming up next.
