Part one ended with a question. Knowing you need to be capable is one thing. Actually being it, the person others look to when things go wrong, is another. This is what that actually takes.

Last week, I stayed on the island of Hvar. My Airbnb host was an ex-commando from the Croatian war, a sniper by all accounts, a big guy. But also a genuinely fit guy, cycled the whole island regularly, still moved like someone half his age. There was an instant mutual respect, even though neither of us spoke the same language. 

I had a 14 mile run scheduled that Sunday, so I ran through the Stari Grad plains to the next town and back. It was 35 degrees. When I told him afterwards, he was properly shocked. When I told him afterwards, he was sort of shocked, thought I was crazy running that far in the summer heat.

That stuck with me, because he’s about as tough as people come, and even he had a ceiling on what he thought was reasonable. It’s not about who’s tougher. It’s about capacity, the amount your body and mind can actually take on and keep working through. That’s what this one’s about.

Capacity Is the Real Currency

Everyone wants to look capable. Fewer people actually build the capacity to back it up. Capacity is the ability to work hard, physically and mentally, for longer than is comfortable, and still function the next day. It’s not a single effort. It’s what’s left in the tank after the effort, and whether you can go again.

I’m writing this at 5am in a hotel lobby. Not a single other person is here. I’ve built the capacity over years to run my business early in the morning while I’m travelling, still train, and still have proper time with my family. None of that happens by accident. It’s the direct result of years of choosing to build capacity instead of just chasing how things look.

Capacity is where most people fall short. Not effort on a good day, capacity on the days that ask more of you than you planned for.

Show Ponies vs the Real Thing

There’s a few young guys strutting round this hotel in decent shape. I’ll give them that, genuinely, it takes some discipline to look like that. But I find myself wondering what their capacity for work actually is. You can build a fairly good looking body on 45 minutes, three times a week, especially when you’re young. That’s not a dig, it’s just true.

The real question is how they’ll age. Can they run. Can they jump. Can they walk for hours without falling apart. Can they lead the pack when it actually matters, not just hold a pose for it. Or are they show ponies, built for how they look standing still, with nothing underneath when they’re asked to move.

That’s the difference between looking capable and being capable. One shows up in photos. The other shows up when you actually need it, on a bad night’s sleep, in the heat, later in life, when nobody’s watching and there’s no one to perform for.

How to Actually Train for It

This is where most training splits fall short. Bodybuilding style training, isolated muscles, low reps, long rests between sets, builds a body that looks strong without necessarily building the engine underneath it. Nothing wrong with wanting to look good. But if capacity is the goal, the training has to look different.

Calisthenics and Compound lifts first. Pull ups, Push ups, Dips, Squats, deadlifts, presses, carries, movements that use your whole body under real load, not machines that isolate one muscle at a time. That’s the base. Then layer in work capacity training on top of it, circuits, complexes, higher rep ranges under time pressure, the kind of training where you’re still moving well after you’re tired rather than stopping the second it gets uncomfortable.

Loaded carries specifically are underused and they build exactly the kind of capacity most people are missing. Farmer’s walks, sandbag carries, rucking with weight on your back for distance. It’s boring, unglamorous training, and it’s exactly why most people skip it in favour of whatever looks better on camera.

Cardio matters more than the aesthetics crowd wants to admit too. Not sprint intervals for a six week transformation, actual aerobic base, zone two work, long steady efforts that build the kind of engine that lets you keep going after everyone else has stopped. That’s what let me run 14 miles in 35 degree heat and still function fine for the day when i got back. Years of aerobic base, not a training block.

And train tired sometimes, deliberately. Not every session, but often enough that your body learns what it’s like to keep working when it doesn’t feel fresh. That’s the actual skill. Anyone can push hard when they’re rested. Capacity is what you’ve got left when you’re not.

Build It Before You Need It

The mistake most people make is waiting for a crisis to test their capacity, rather than building it in the quiet, unremarkable stretches of ordinary life. The early mornings. The run nobody sees. The discipline on a Tuesday when nothing’s at stake and no one would know either way.

By the time something asks more of you, it’s too late to start building the capacity for it. The people who handle it are the ones who were already doing the work long before there was an obvious reason to.

That’s really what staying capable means. Learn to swim properly, so if someone’s in trouble in the water, you’re not just another person watching or worse. Be quick enough to actually move when a second matters. Be strong enough that if you had to carry someone a mile, or ten miles, to get them to safety, you could do it. Not because you expect to need it. Because you’d rather be the person who could, than the person who couldn’t.

That’s the whole thing. Build it quietly, over years, and you won’t need to try and be the most capable person in the room. You just will be.