Jan 25, 2010
Winter strength cycle
“Strength is important” - Unknown
This week starts a 8 week strength cycle that goes until the end of March. This will be a little different than what we’ve done for the last few months, but will fit in the same format for classes. The major differences will be that there will be 2 lifts per day, and a more specific loading in each workout. CrossFit, and all strength and conditioning (S&C) programs are built on strength first, and our goal is to take the cold months to emphasize barbell training. When the weather warms, and the sunlight lasts until later than 5pm, then we will be able to run, skip, throw some stuff and generally enjoy the outdoors and the park across the street.
The weeks will be formatted as below:
Monday – Squat, Press
Tuesday – Power Clean, Pull-up
Weds – No lift
Thursday – Deadlift, Chin-up
Friday – Squat, Press
Saturday – No lift
Info:
We will do metcon daily, so please don’t panic. Individuals will be allowed to opt out of metcons if they desire to focus intensely on strength for all or part of the 8 week period. Weds and Saturday will have normal conditioning workouts.
The idea is to add weight to each lift in each workout for the whole cycle. For the large body lifts, squat and deadlift, 5lbs per workout. For presses and clean we have the option of taking smaller jumps, once 5lb jumps are exhausted. Obviously not everyone will be able to add weight each workout for the entire 10 weeks, however we will easily be able to adjust loading for people who exhaust workout-to-workout progress. Solid attention to sleep, food and recovery will help you get the most out of this focused strengthening period.
We will aim for 3 sets of 5 reptitions for squat and press. With power cleans we will do 5 sets of 3. On the deadlift we will use a single heavy set of 5. For pull-ups and chin-ups we will try to do up to sets of 15, once 15 reps is achieved we will use weights and do sets of 5.
We are absolutely ripping off Mark Rippetoe. But I think he would smile proudly if he was reading this post.
The loading will be ~65-70% of 1RM for the slow lifts and 75-80% for the power clean.
For individuals who have not achieved a pull-up, this will provide 2 days a week (Tues and Friday) of strength focused pulling practice and will hopefully spur significant progress towards getting your chin over the bar!
We will re-test the CrossFit Total at the end of the period, using the recent CFT as baseline. I predict many PRs! If you haven’t done a recent CFT, do not worry, we test often enough!
Nearly any combination of days will work on this cycle. 3,4,5 workouts a week are the optimal amounts to attend.
Please email us or talk to us in person if you have any questions.
Below is an example of a Monday workout.
Workout
Squat 3×5 @65-70% 1RM
Press 3×5 @65-70% 1RM
Then…
10 min AMRAP:
5 Clapping Pushups
5 Ring Dips
