The Best Return on Investment Available: Part 3 Fitness That Makes Your Sport Better

The Best Return on Investment Available: Part 3 FitnessThat Makes Your Sport Better

In Parts 1 and 2, we talked about why an hour of well-designed training is the best return on investment you can make — and how community multiplies that return by keeping you consistent.

Part 3 is for everyone who plays a sport, races, competes or just wants to keep doing the physical things they love for as long as possible.

Because one of the best returns your training delivers isn't just a stronger, healthier body.

It's a better athlete!

What Actually Limits Performance

A lot of adults come to the gym because they want to get better at something outside of it.

Running. Cycling. Golf. Skiing. Motorsports. Weekend leagues.

And one of the most common misconceptions is that training should look exactly like your sport. Runners think they just need more miles. Golfers think they just need more swings. Cyclists think more time in the saddle is the answer.

But here's the thing — those movements are already getting thousands of repetitions.

What often limits performance isn't practice. It's physical capacity.

Strength. Power. Durability. Mobility. Balance.

Sometimes it's a lack of strength that holds you back. Sometimes it's a mobility restriction that limits your range and efficiency. Often it's a combination. The role of training is to identify and address those limiters and build the body that supports the movements your sport demands.

This is actually what CrossFit measures. Progress in CrossFit isn't tracked by how many classes you've attended or how many miles you've logged. It's measured by increases in work capacity — your ability to do more, move better and sustain output across a broad range of physical demands.That's not just fitness for fitness's sake. That's the exact currency thatmakes athletes better at everything outside the gym too.

General Preparedness: The Concept Behind CrossFit

This is exactly what CrossFit was designed to do.

CrossFit is a General Physical Preparedness program — GPP for short. The goal isn't to specialize in one thing. It's to build broad, well-rounded fitness across strength, conditioning, power, coordination, balance and mobility.

The entire methodology was built around this idea: broad physical development makes you more capable everywhere, not just inside the gym.

The philosophy isn't about copying your sport in the gym. It's about building a more capable body so that when you go back to your sport, everything works better.

That's the philosophy behind every workout programed at Chalk Dog.

Endurance Athletes: Stronger Muscles, Better Efficiency

For runners and cyclists, strength training used to be controversial. Would it make them heavier? Slower?

The research has been clear for a while now and it keepsgetting stronger.

A 2024 systematic review and meta-analysis published in Sports Medicine found that strength training can improve running economy — the energy demand at a given pace and that the type of strength work matters,with heavy loading and plyometrics both showing meaningful effects.¹

A 2025 randomized controlled trial added another layer: supplementary strength and plyometrics training not only improved running economy but also substantially increased high-intensity performance at the end of a 90-minute run — the kind of durability that matters in a race wheneveryone else is fading.²

A 2022 narrative review reinforced this, finding thatresistance training improves running economy and performance, with a combination of strength and plyometric work being the recommended approach.³

In plain terms: stronger muscles waste less energy. Stronger hips and posterior chain help runners maintain stride mechanics when fatigue sets in. Cyclists produce more force through the pedals. Athletes hold better positions longer.

That's why most endurance coaches now include some form of strength work in their programs. The miles alone aren't enough.

Golfers: Power Comes From the Ground Up

Golf is another sport where people assume more practice swings are the answer.

But power in a golf swing comes largely from the hips and trunk — and the ability to generate force quickly. Improving rate of force development translates directly into higher club head speed and longer drives.

Explosive movements like cleans, kettlebell swings and medicine ball work train exactly that quality. Instead of grinding out the same swing pattern over and over, you build the physical engine that drives it.

Mobility matters here too. A restricted thoracic spine or limited hip mobility doesn't just reduce power — it forces compensation patterns that show up as inconsistency, and over time, as injury.

Durability: The Part That Keeps You in the Game

This is where training's return on investment gets deeply personal — especially for anyone who races, rides, skis or competes in contactsports.

Durability isn't just about feeling tough. It's structural. Consistent strength training builds stronger bones, denser tendons and moreresilient connective tissue. That matters enormously for what happens when things go wrong.

Research published in Healthcare confirmed that resistance training provides an effective stimulus for bone mineral formation, making it a key tool for maintaining bone health and reducing the rate of loss over time.⁴

A study on well-trained triathletes found that 12 weeks of maximal strength training significantly increased both Achilles and patellar tendon stiffness — structural adaptations that make tendons better able toabsorb and transfer force under load.⁵

For athletes in motorsports, mountain biking, skiing orcontact sports,(heck, running can be a contact sport for me!) this is especially relevant. A crash is going to happen. The question is what you're made of when it does. Stronger bones are less likely to fracture. Denser tendons and ligaments are less likely to tear. And when injuries do occur, a recent meta-analysis found that strength training programs reduced overall sports injury risk by about 30 percent across contact sport athletes.⁶

A well-trained body doesn't just perform better. It bounces back faster.

Train What Your Sport Doesn't

There's another important reason your training shouldn'tlook like your sport.

Sports already load the same tissues, joints and muscles over and over again. When your training only mirrors those patterns, the same structures take even more stress and that's where overuse injuries come from.

A GPP program like CrossFit addresses this by training awide variety of movements, planes of motion and energy systems. You strengthen what your sport neglects. You improve the mobility that your sport restricts.And you reduce the imbalances that lead to breakdown over time.

Your sport gives you repetition. Training should give you balance, strength, mobility and resilience.

The Return That Carries Over Everywhere

The goal of training isn't to recreate your sport in the gym.

The goal is to make your body stronger, more durable and more capable — so that when you go back to your sport, everything feels easier.

Better power. Better mechanics under fatigue. Better mobility through the ranges your sport demands. Lower injury risk. More years doing what you love.

That's the kind of return on investment that goes well beyond the hour you spend training.

And it's exactly what a well-designed GPP program delivers.

If you've been looking for training that makes everything else better — your sport, your work, your everyday life — come see what an hour at Chalk Dog can do.

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Stay tuned for Part 4, where we explore another way yourinvestment in fitness pays off far beyond the gym.

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References

¹ Llanos-Lagos C, Ramirez-Campillo R, Moran J, Sáez deVillarreal E. Effect of Strength Training Programs in Middle- and Long-Distance Runners' Economy at Different Running Speeds: A Systematic Review with Meta-analysis. Sports Medicine. 2024;54(4):895–932. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40279-023-01978-y

² Zanini M, Folland JP, Blagrove RC. Strength Training Improves Running Economy Durability and Fatigued High-Intensity Performance in Well-Trained Male Runners: A Randomized Control Trial. Medicine &Science in Sports & Exercise. 2025. https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Strength-Training-Improves-Running-Economy-and-in-A-Zanini-Folland/b5ea7643d700cec967534862f50565d7db039864

³ Škarabot J, Primorac D, Šarabon N. Resistance Exercise for Improving Running Economy and Running Biomechanics and Decreasing Running-Related Injury Risk: A Narrative Review. Sports (Basel).2022;10(7):98. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9319953/

⁴ Massini DA, Nedog FH, de Oliveira TP, et al. The Effect of Resistance Training on Bone Mineral Density in Older Adults: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. Healthcare (Basel). 2022;10(6):1129. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35742181/

⁵ Straight CR, et al. Maximal Strength Training Improves Muscle-Tendon Properties and Increases Tendon Matrix Remodeling in Well-Trained Triathletes. Scientific Reports. 2025. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-025-12721-0

⁶ Wedder kopp J, et al. Adherence to Strength Training and Lower Rates of Sports Injury in Contact Sports: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis. Frontiers in Sports and Active Living. 2025. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12099121/

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