Published Jul 1, 2026, 12:25 AM EDT
It’s the ultimate tactical fitness training paradox. Losing strength to gain cardio capacity or losing speed of running time to add mass and strength.
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Published Jul 1, 2026, 12:25 AM EDT
When you tell a former athlete who is now a recruit preparing for various military training opportunities that they need to do both heavy weightlifting and more cardio, it hits hard for many. Typically, depending on the recruit's athletic history, one (strength or cardio) is very likely a weakness and the other a strength. For instance, strength athletes may be weak in muscle stamina and cardio endurance. Endurance athletes may be weak in strength and power. Here is a question commonly asked by athletes seeking to join the military: Stew, I’m trying to get my ruck times down for selection, but every time I increase my mileage, my squat and deadlift numbers plummet. Am I doomed to lose my strength? Thanks, Rob. It’s the ultimate tactical fitness training paradox. Losing strength to gain cardio capacity or losing speed of running time to add mass and strength. However, you just need to be good at both strength and endurance. You do not need to push the 1RM (1-rep max) numbers and running times of a specialized athlete. Being “good at everything” is the basic definition of becoming a tactical athlete. Still, the answer isn’t to drop one for the other. It’s learning to budget your training, so your cardio complements your strength rather than hindering it. We call this periodization training. Think of it as the difference between in-season and off-season training when you were competing as an athlete. These are just different cycles that you need to add to turn a weakness into less of a weakness and maybe even a newfound strength. This is where the “interference effect” matters. Concurrent training — building strength and endurance in the same cycle — can cause a lack of progress in both when sessions are poorly placed, especially when long or hard endurance work is stacked too close to heavy lower-body lifting. Often, those who do this get frustrated as neither improves significantly. However, maintaining one while progressing with the other is completely doable, but you must be willing to drop your 1RM for a cycle if you are a strength athlete and reduce your total miles per week if you are a long-distance runner. Creating a block periodization cycle is helpful when needing to improve over a cycle or two.
