Paul B. Weber

Paul B. Weber 1:1 Coach helping advanced athletes see how far they can go
CrossFit, Hybrid, Tactical
400+ athletes coached online
https://www.paulbweber.com/

Body fat is not a binary positive or negative. A certain amount is necessary for preserving athlete health - and therefo...
06/12/2026

Body fat is not a binary positive or negative. A certain amount is necessary for preserving athlete health - and therefore training consistency and performance.

The optimal body composition is a range that allows for genetic variability - rather than a specific number that all athletes must aim for.

The optimal range for body composition is sport-specific. The demands of each sport select for certain body compositions.

For example, swimmers benefit from more body fat than runners. Lifters benefit from more body fat than sprinters.

Most sports include outlier athletes on either side of the optimal range.

For hybrid sport, the optimal range is likely still being discovered. These sports are young relative to others, and it takes decades to refine best practices. We still see plenty of variability at the start line.

We’re also limited by small sample sizes, which is common when profiling elite athletes. There just aren’t very many of them.

Here are some reasons why I think CrossFit is selecting for these ranges (continued in comments).

Warmup and order for individual online semis. In reality this is a small part of what coaches do, but everybody always s...
06/10/2026

Warmup and order for individual online semis.

In reality this is a small part of what coaches do, but everybody always seems to be interested in it.

Weeks like this where everyone is doing the same workouts are always way less work as a coach. I’ve designed so many warmups for things like this that they just flow.

The real work as a coach is after the comp ends. New season, new priorities, new plan. That’s where I really wrestle before making decisions.

Anyways, here are my thoughts for this go. Really the only arguments I think are if you want to combine the first two into one day so you can get a rest day in there. That’s fine. Also if you want to flip the order of the last 2 you can make an argument for that. (That WB+HSW+DU is kind of an insane workload). I put it second to last because it’s a bit higher skill and the limiter is much smaller muscle groups than DL+Row+Burpee, which I’m pretty sure has to go last. Huge muscle groups, big fatigue.

Salute to those throwing down.

06/08/2026

I am a fan of keeping an eye on your HRV and resting heart rate.

While they can be noisy in the context of a day or week, over months and years they can indicate the state of your autonomic nervous system.

Higher HRV and lower RHR indicate more parasympathetic dominance.

Most of the time this is a helpful adaptation to training because it allows you to recover faster.

However, if you start to lose the ability to “go there” - your max heart rate lowers, or your performance in intense workouts is decreasing - then this can indicate parasympathetic overtraining/burnout.

A capable nervous system doesn’t just show parasympathetic dominance (lower resting HR, higher HRV), it shows it along with higher sympathetic drive (max HR) when it’s needed.

This is adapted from Helms’ Muscle and Strength Pyramid with added context for hybrid athletes. Under the title for each...
06/02/2026

This is adapted from Helms’ Muscle and Strength Pyramid with added context for hybrid athletes.

Under the title for each tier is a list of mechanisms, under that is a list of practices.

There was some tension between what to include to keep the appearance clean while keeping its usefulness as a reference for coaches and athletes. If you think something should change let me know in the comments.

Early on as a coach, I lived in the world of optimization. But if optimization interferes with consistency, it isn’t hel...
06/01/2026

Early on as a coach, I lived in the world of optimization.

But if optimization interferes with consistency, it isn’t helping.

Now, I’ve shifted my practice to helping athletes stay consistent.

No spikes in training load, incremental increases.

Not prepping like the comp/race is always next week, taking offseasons.

Monitoring health variables like HRV, resting heart rate, digestion, immunity and sleep.

Not allowing the confusion of setbacks to derail you, making consistency the goal.

05/28/2026

Protein 1.6g/kg minimum
Fat .7g/kg minimum

There’s lots of freedom above the minimums.

Just remember it’s much more difficult (for digestion and motility) to eat 4,000 calories a day on very high fat or very high protein diets.

It’s much easier to fuel high training loads when you’re getting the majority of your calories from carbs.

Carbs
3-4g/kg minimum
4-6g/kg moderate
6-10g/kg daily conditioning/double sessions

These are the first things I look at when I assess whether or not someone’s depleted.

05/27/2026

There will always be some interference when you train for hybrid fitness sports.

The goal isn’t to eliminate it but to minimize it.

One best practice is to take a low day after an intense conditioning session.

The 24-48 hours after is when you’re depleted. While it’s ok to train somewhat depleted, ideally the legs are full before you train them again with intensity (whether it’s a strength session or another intense conditioning session).

This is one of the reasons a high-low model is a best practice in endurance sport.

You can train the upper body in the day or two after intense conditioning with less interference than if you were to train depleted legs.

The 24-48 hour timeline also assumes adequate carbohydrate intake (often 6-10 g/kg in hybrid fitness competitors).

05/26/2026

Performances in fitness sport, like all sports, seem to continually improve due to professionalization and specialization.

The ecosystem of fitness sport has matured. Not only has it attracted international talent, but the class of pros has expanded.

There is still a chasm between the professional class and the challengers, and all the resources get consolidated at the very top, but all professional sports work this way.

More financial resources for the pros means more time, more focus on training, eating and sleeping, freedom from some of the financial and work stress outside of training, and opportunities to hire specialists (coach, nutritionist, body worker, etc.).

Here’s how specialization has improved performance.

The early 2010s felt like a new frontier. CrossFit felt like the cutting edge of fitness and human performance. The Games featured long endurance events and a softball throw.

Since then, the demands of the sport have narrowed. Competition revolves around three disciplines: weightlifting, gymnastics and traditional endurance modalities. The length of the events and the workload found its peak (with the CrossFit Games in 2020) and since then has condensed.

While there’s an occasional curveball, the community has come to more of an agreement on our understanding of the sport.

As our understanding of the sport gets more clear, coaching and training evolves to implement that understanding.

15 years ago, training was local, driven by affiliates. Remote coaching and training camps existed but they were still getting traction.

Now, virtually all competitors work with either a camp or a coach.

Then there’s the young talent. With the introduction of the Teen Games in 2015, athletes start fitness sport younger.

While it has its pros and cons (about 34% of past teen athletes continued to compete in the Open five years later) early specialization can benefit the few who survive.

As far as the future goes, I think performance gains will inevitably slow like they do in all sports, but we certainly haven’t exhausted all possibilities.

05/22/2026

I used to think some athletes could completely eliminate aerobic training in the off-season.

Now I think in most cases that’s a mistake.

If you go full bodybuilding, powerbuilding, strongman, supertotal, etc then your training load is too low.

The gap between that training load and the training load you need to excel at a multiday comp gets too wide.

Multiday comps are a lot of work - now I keep that workload in mind at all times of the year.

Usually for athletes who need to get a lot stronger in the off-season, I’ll encourage them toward a separate session of Zone 2 most days of the week.

This preserves some cardiorespiratory fitness, keeps you in the habit of multiple bouts of work in a day, keeps your meal frequency up, all of which you need in-season.

05/21/2026

10-15% for males
13.5-18% for females

These are adapted from a profiling study “Physical and Physiological Characteristics of Elite CrossFit Athletes” by and colleagues. They also line up with what I see clinically.

Think of these ranges like a landmark. There will be more people in the ranges than outliers.

If you notice persistent hormonal imbalance, slow recovery, frequent injuries or infections, or reduced performance AND you’ve been leaner than this for months with a high training load - look at your energy balance. You probably need more food.

Above these ranges, the gymnastics is tougher than it needs to be.

These ranges allow most people to stay healthy while training a lot. And you’re prepared to perform across the demands of the sport.

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