We live in the age of the “hybrid athlete”. Rather than focussing on one attribute, many fervent exercise fans now want to be able to run fast, lift heavy and turn their hand to any number of sports.
On the face of it, this sounds like a fun goal – variety is the spice of life, after all. The problem is, training for these pursuits concurrently can often be counterproductive; the body only has a limited capacity for adaptation, and chasing too many contrasting goals can spread it rather thin.
CrossFit athletes are no stronger to this phenomenon, often referred to as the “interference effect”. Despite this, two-time CrossFit Games champion Justin Medeiros has found a way to increase his deadlift by more than 30kg and his squat by almost 20kg, all while developing an enviable set of lungs and maintaining his immaculate trademark mullet.
Fresh from signing a deal with gym shoe specialists R.A.D, and with the 2025 CrossFit Games looming, Medeiros sits down with The Independent to explain how he achieves these impressive feats – minus the hair, which remains a trade secret.
Justin Medeiros’ journey to the CrossFit Games crown
The CrossFit Games is an annual competition designed to find “the fittest man and woman on earth” through a series of physical tests. First held in California in 2007, it attracted athletes from a wide range of sports such as American football, strongman, baseball and gymnastics.
Now, however, the event is welcoming a generation of competitors who have been doing CrossFit since they were young. At 26 years old, Medeiros is part of this movement.
“My mum was the one who found CrossFit,” he says. “I was 13 and doing a bunch of other sports at the time, but then I tried it and I absolutely loved it. It was more game-oriented but still worked on my fitness.”
“I never really viewed CrossFit as a sport – it was just something I did to train for my other sports. I had the dream of going to college and wrestling, and I had a couple of offers to some smaller schools. I chose Boise State in Idaho, but then a week before practice started they cut the programme.”
Around this time, he volunteered at the 2015 CrossFit Games, and was impressed by the top-level athlete’s ability to flit between sprints, heavy snatches, muscle-ups and more. Soon after, he decided to go all in on the sport.
“My family has always been very supportive of me,” says Medeiros. “They said if I took CrossFit as seriously as I took wrestling, they’d support me throughout college, and so I set the goal of qualifying for the CrossFit Games.”
In 2020, he hit this target, finishing third in his inaugural year before winning the competition in both 2021 and 2022. But since then, he has struggled to rediscover the form that took him to the top of the podium.
This year, Medeiros has made significant changes to his training in a bid to return to winning ways. This is how he plans to recapture the title of “fittest man on earth”.
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What a typical training week looks like for Justin Medeiros
“It’s hard when people ask about my CrossFit training because it encompasses so much – we really have to cover all aspects of fitness from strength training to cardio to gymnastics,” Medeiros says.
“But for me, in a broad sense, Mondays and Thursdays are my off-days. Mondays are completely off, and Thursdays are active [recovery days], so this week I swam.
“All the other days are the meat of the training, and every day is a mix. Certain days have more of a strength-bias, and other days are more cardio or gymnastics-focussed. But what I love about CrossFit is that it encompasses so many things, so I get to train for all of these different sports at the same time.”
His training days nearly always comprise two gym sessions, each lasting up to two-and-a-half hours.
“At this time of year it gets pretty hefty,” Medeiros adds. “On Tuesdays and Wednesdays, one session is upper body strength and one is lower body strength, then Saturdays are a mix. I also do three running sessions a week, from zone two to interval track sessions, then CrossFit workouts are sprinkled in throughout [see the video below for a short example].”
However, he adds, the intensity of his workouts undulates to allow him to recover and improve, rather than every session being “balls to the wall”, as many fans of the sport assume.
“That’s not sustainable,” Medeiros explains. “For me, it’s about having some fun with it. As an example, at the end of my session yesterday, my coach just wrote: ‘handstand playtime’.”
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Justin Medeiros: Mindset
“I’m the most excited I’ve been in a really long time [to compete at the CrossFit Games],” Medeiros says. “I definitely haven’t had the success I wanted on the competition floor [since 2022], so I’ve tried to figure out why and made a lot of changes this past year. I’m always trying to level up, make those changes and improve.”
One of the biggest changes he has introduced is “honing in on the mental side of things”, he tells me.
“I have a mental coach I talk to once a week, and that has really helped me process things, focus and look at things from a different perspective.
“I now feel like my head is screwed on real straight, and I’m just excited to get back out on the competition floor and show everybody how hard I’ve been working. I think this is going to be one of the best versions of me that people have seen.”
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Justin Medeiros’ strength training secret for improving his squat and deadlift
In 2020, Medeiros made his debut at the CrossFit Games. During the competition, one of the events challenged him to complete a one-repetition maximum lift on the squat, deadlift and overhead press.
He hit personal bests across the board, with a 537lb (243kg) deadlift, 475lb (215kg) squat and 175lb (79kg) overhead press – impressive numbers by most people’s standards, but only enough for last place in the event.
To iron out this relative weakness, Medeiros started working with CrossFit gym owner and strength coach Jesse Bifano, who introduced him to a training method called the conjugate system. Since implementing this, he has seen his strength numbers skyrocket.
“When I did a powerlifting meet in 2023, I deadlifted 605lb (274kg) and back squatted 512lb (232kg),” he says. “It’s nice to have those metrics from before we started working together, and to drastically improve on them, but it’s still years of hard work while balancing strength work with so much cardio and gymnastics.”
The conjugate method – a system adapted from Bulgarian and Soviet lifting techniques by coaches at strength facility Westside Barbell – historically involves four essential sessions per week; maximal effort lower, maximal effort upper, dynamic effort lower, dynamic effort upper.
As the names suggest, the maximal effort days involve building up to a single heavy repetition on a specified compound exercise, while the dynamic effort days involve lifting a sub-maximal load for several reps at the highest possible speed.
The terms “upper” and “lower” refer to the area of the body the exercises target – think squats and deadlifts for lower days, and bench presses, overhead presses, pull-ups and rows for upper days.
The crux is that, unlike traditional strength training, these exercises are constantly changing from week to week. The change could be small, like swapping a barbell squat for a barbell box squat, but the variance is ever-present.
“What’s really cool about the conjugate system is it embodies that constantly varied aspect of things which translates so well to CrossFit [a sport where events are often announced just days before the competition],” says Medeiros. “People get surprised when I say I’m maxing something out every single week, and I think some people get a little bit scared about that, but in a given year I might only max out the same exact lift two times.”
To help maintain this constantly varied approach, Medeiros’ home gym (read: fully kitted out warehouse) is stocked with more than 40 different types of barbell.
In the conjugate system, the main lifts of the day are subsidised by more consistent, progressive “accessory” exercises during the remainder of the session to work on weaknesses. For example, to strengthen your chest and improve your bench press, you might perform several sets of dips to failure.
“[Strength sessions] normally involve 90 minutes to two hours of moving through seven or eight different movements, with a bunch of different sets and reps to hit,” Medeiros explains.
He followed this system for four years with impressive results, before dropping to three two-hour strength sessions per week this year so he could better balance it with his wider CrossFit training.
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Justin Medeiros: Sample training days
- Sumo deadlift from 1.5in blocks 1×1 (build to a heavy)
- Box squat (box at 12in) 5×5
- Wide stance belt squat to 16in box 3×10
- Glute ham raises 4×12
- Reverse hyper 3×20
- Plank shoulder taps (kettlebells hanging from hips via resistance bands) 3×45 seconds
This is an example of a max-effort lower day. The sumo deadlift is the maximal-effort exercise, then the subsequent movements are accessory exercises designed to improve strength, muscle and muscular endurance across the lower body muscles and core. Many of the exercises may be unfamiliar – demonstrations of each one can be found in the video above.
- Bench press 8×8
- Strict press 5×4
- Upright row 5×12
- Cable rear delt flye 3×20
- Triceps pushdowns with a light band xAMRAP
This is an example of a dynamic upper day. The bench press is the main exercise, followed by a series of accessory exercises.
“We’ve found, balancing [the conjugate system] with CrossFit, higher rep stuff has been more of a priority on dynamic days,” Medeiros says. “I need to be able to move a higher percentage of my max lifts for more reps, so we’ve found that gives more bang for our buck since we’ve cut down to three strength sessions per week.”
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Justin Medeiros: recovery
Medeiros describes recovery as “an endless rabbit hole”, adding that “there’s always something you could be doing”.
“That’s the thing I battle, doing this for a living,” he says. “I wake up in the morning, I make my cup of coffee and I sit down to relax, but then you think, ‘Oh, but I could be stretching or walking’.
“It’s about trying to find that balance of what’s best for me both physically and mentally, because you need time to step back mentally and do other things.”
To find this balance and improve his recovery, he focuses on doing activities that make an immediate difference to how he feels and performs.
“Sleep is number one – if I mess that up one day, I immediately notice it the next,” Medeiros says. “I also do stretching routines daily with [stretching app] GoWod, and sauna and cold plunges. For me, it feels nice and it relaxes my body.”
Nutrition is another central pillar for supporting his performance, and he aims to eat cleanly 90 per cent of the time – “If you’re at the grocery store and you can do almost all of your shopping on the outside without going down any of the aisles, you’ll probably be in a very good place.”
However, pizza and cereal remain among Medeiros’ favourites, and still make semi-regular appearances in his diet.
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What’s next for Justin Medeiros?
This year, Medeiros is competing in the World Fitness Project – a fitness competition comprising a series of events across an eight-month season. But next on his agenda is the 2025 CrossFit Games, taking place between August 1 and August 3.
“This year I’m more excited to compete than I’ve been in a long time,” he reiterates. “The goal for me is to get back on top of the podium. Once you’ve been there, that’s the expectation.
“But for me, that isn’t the be-all and end-all. I know I compete at my best when I’m having fun and I’m working hard. Once the clock starts, it’s a given that I’ll give it everything I have, so [preparing for this year’s Games has been] all about making sure my body’s healthy and I’m able to go out there with the right mindset to allow my body to do what I know it can do.
“This year, I think I’m finally at that point again, and I’m just ready to go out there and get after it. I don’t think I’m on too many people’s radar, and that gets me pretty excited.”
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