Lukas Högberg is a five-time CrossFit Games athlete and 2018 Games podium finisher. The Swedish athlete is well known for his impressive endurance and love for running; he won the 2019 CrossFit Games Ruck event (6,000-m ruck run with a 20-30-40-50-lb. pack) and came second during the Marathon Row in the 2018 Games.
Learn from this powerhouse and apply these four excellent endurance tips to your training.
Words by Lukas Högberg
Endurance Tip 1: Mix Long and Slow with Fast and Short
To improve you conditioning you need to run long slow distance and also intervals ???
Depending on your lvl of conditioning, the split of long slow distance sessions and interval sessions needs to be different. But both are super important ⚠️
Many people tell me they hate to run ? usually this are the case when you don’t know how to make a plan for it, or how it works to get better in the running!
If you know how to start and make a sustainable plan you will probably like or maybe even love to run ? and to know why & how you should do it will give you the best motivation to continue ??
My 2nd session today was this ??
4 set of:
800m run up.
700 m run down.
100 m walk to starting position
Total incline (altitude meters) 500m
This intervall was all about pacing. Not going all out from the start. Maintain a high HR but not max ?
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Endurance Tip 2: Improve Your Conditioning through Running
I see CrossFit as a conditioning sport and not as a lifting sport. Most of my training I spend on getting a better conditioning. It will make me recover faster, run faster and also be able to PR my workouts times. I train in blocks every year. I never completely stop doing CrossFit, running or lifting. It’s just different times of the year I put more time on different things ?
One of the best ways to improve your conditioning is by running. The more muscle you use at the same time the better conditioning training you will get. To make it even better I usually run in the forest. To run in non lactic tempo (long slow distance) is very important to be able to keep developing your conditioning. As well as the interval training!
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Endurance Tip 3: Never Skip the Long, Slow Runs
Don’t forget the long slow distance training ? WHY? ???
As you may know I love to do all my raw conditioning by running.
- To improve your conditioning it’s important to do the long slow distance. It helps you to gain more veins in your muscle and that makes the muscle able to get more oxygen and the muscle can work hard, longer and gives you a better recovery.
- The more muscle you use during the running/conditioning the better effect of your training session you will get. So that is why running in the forest is very good, and for example better than many of the cardio machines.
- Why running and not CrossFit workout for low heart rate training? Every movement you do will give you lactic acid in different heart rate. For example my running lactic threshold is at HR 171 based on VO2MAX test. If I do a Wall ball or Muscle Up for example it might come at HR 145 or lower/higher. It makes it impossible to get the training I’m looking for if I did CrossFit workouts instead of running.
- Why is it so important to have a good conditioning? It makes you preform better, recover more and faster, you can train more and in a faster speed.
- Around 85% of my running over 1 year are in long slow distance HR. And only 15% high intensity intervals.
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Endurance Tip 4: Mix Up Your Intervals (and Training)
My favourite way to build my conditioning is by running. In the off season I run between 4-7 times a week, during 8-16 weeks depends on how long off season I have. It’s all from 2,5 hour long slow distance to intervals in 80-100% effort.
Mixing up intervals in different speeds/lengths have been good for improving my conditioning. It can be hard to be creative with finding new intervals so here is some of my favourite ones that have given me the best results for a better conditioning! ??♂️?
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Now try one of Lukas Högberg’s interval workouts:
High intensity leg burner workout ?? This is a very good leg burner workout, and you can do it anywhere ??? Try it!
For time, 15 rounds:
15 m Shuttle run
1 Air squats
15 m Shuttle run
Increase the Airsquats with 1 rep each round, so you end at 15 reps.
If you want it to be harder put on a weighted vest! No rest between rounds ?Tag your workout buddy
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Follow Lukas on Instagram for more endurance, nutrition and training tips, as well as some good laughs.
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