WOD'S

This month's primary focus is no primary focus. We are taking out the PF along with the skill. What are we going to do instead? We will spend extra time on warming up, perfecting the movements included in the WOD, and cool you down after class.
What we want to accomplish with this is:
- Slower and more gradual warm-up to make sure you are extra ready to go hard
- Mobilize specific areas for improved performance and faster recovery
- Spend extra time practicing and perfecting the movements that will be in the WOD
- Higher intensity in the workout for better results
- Build a larger aerobic base utilizing the longer warm-ups & cooldowns
- Improve performance by dialing in the mobility needed for proper form
- Bring you down in a slower manner helping you leave the gym feeling refreshed and the recovery process already started

We will emphasize strength on every 5th day of our program. No skill and PF will definitely not mean less work. We will still sneak plenty of quality practice in throughout the entire session. There will be a general warm-up designed to get you warm, breathing a little harder, and mentally ready to do some hard work. The specific warm-up will include mobility work to prep common problem areas, help activate muscles you want to be firing on all cylinders, and practice the specific movement for the day. The cooldown will help improve flexibility, recovery, and make you feel more energized leaving the gym.

We are starting off the month with the Olympic total. This is our monthly benchmark meaning that if you miss Monday or any other day this is what you will do when you come into the gym. The total consists of your 1 rep max snatch and 1 rep max clean & jerk. Make sure you keep track of these numbers and update the monthly benchmark board. This is a great test of power, strength, flexibility, and coordination.

For those that are competing in the Festivus games make sure you get to class on Monday 10/9 and Thursday 10/12. We will be practicing 2 of the workouts. Have a friend who wants to give us a try? Bring them in on Thursday 10/12 to any of our classes for a fun partner workout.

This will be a great month!

We’ve been hammering the squats pretty heavily lately and now it’s time switch things up. This month we’ll be spending a little extra time on unilateral work. This is just fancy talk for working 1 side of the body at a time. We’ll be lunging our way to stronger glutes, more stable hips, a stronger core, flexible hip flexors, and improved symmetry. You know that one side that’s always a little tougher on pistols? We are going to attack it and make you bulletproof. Bilateral exercises are great (squats) but let’s not forget what running, walking, and sports challenge more frequently which is unilateral movements. Get ready for sandbags, dumbbells, and barbells to go overhead, on your shoulders, back, and start lunging.

We use Beyond the whiteboard statistics to analyze and guide our program to make sure we are well rounded. One thing that’s been missing slightly has been longer workouts. Get ready to go past 20min and enjoy the hard work. We’ll be using “Hero” workouts to make sure we don’t miss the longer durations WODs and to honor those who have fallen.

The message from CrossFit HQ has been pretty clear the last couple of months. Dumbbells are awesome for you and you should use them more often. They require more stability, coordination, and allows for more flexible positioning to find a better movement for your individual structure. We’ll keep embracing Coach Glassman’s advice and we are going to do do a classic benchmark each week but replace the barbell with a dumbbell. Ready for “Nancy” with a dumbbell instead of a barbell? Better start stretching right now.

In preparation for a CrossFit L3 exam, I’ve been sifting through the archives of the CF Journal. There are lot’s of gems in there and many standards that coach Glassman outlines. Two standards that stood out to me was the core strength guideline. Coach says that for an L-sit 2min unbroken is a good goal and that 4min of hollow body rocks should be doable. I don’t think many athletes can achieve this and we’ll use our primary focus to improve our core strength and strict gymnastics movements. We’ll be slowing down the tempo, focusing on 100% control, and getting very familiar with the rings.

This month’s benchmark workouts is the CrossFit Total. The total is your back squat, strict press, and deadlift combined. This is all about testing your strength and power. Keep notes of previous PRs and make sure you measure your progress. The key to a successful total is knowing when to push and when to stop. You need to perform well in all 3 to have a good total. Don’t fall into the trap of using all your energy on the squat and end up smoked once it’s deadlift time. Have a game plan, visualize yourself making the lifts, and high five your friends when you PR.

For the month of August, I’m going to encourage you to re-evaluate how you use your equipment. I’m all for using gear that gives you a little boost in the gym, however, you don’t want to rely on these items all the time. Knee sleeves, wrist wraps, lifting belts, oly shoes, chalk, pre workout supplements, grips, and etc are useful for giving you a small boost when needed. These are not essential to training and should be used sparingly. If you have to have your knee sleeves before knocking out a few air squats then maybe you need to spend more time couch stretching. If you double scoop the C4 supplement before WODing then maybe get to bed at a reasonable time instead. Do you throw the belt on for 50% deadlifts? Slow down a little, challenge your core, and save it for 85+%. Less is more, time spent messing with your equipment means less time for actual training. If you can’t remember the last time you did overhead squats without oly shoes, belt, knee sleeves, wrist wraps, and etc, now is the time to strip some weight off the bar and focus on mechanics.

Coach Oscar

We’ve got a lot of fun stuff planned for June. We are starting with a bang! 5K run for time. This is a great test of endurance and I look forward to seeing PRs being crushed from last year. If you miss this workout on Monday you will complete the 5K on the next WOD you come in for. As always we have plenty of scaling options so don’t be too nervous if running isn’t your favorite.

We have seen some great strength, technique, and flexibility gains from the 12 week squatting cycle. We will continue to squat twice a week rotating through back squats and front squats. This will ensure that we keep maintaining and gain leg strength while still dialing back the squatting focus slightly. If you missed the max out last week you’ll have a second opportunity in 2 weeks. Stronger legs will set you up for future PRs in the Olympic lifts and many other movements.

Squats are awesome but we can’t neglect our other favorites bench press and deadlift. We will hit these lifts once a week consistently with added accessory work on a second day. We will be incorporating some isolation movements to help strengthen the hamstrings, glutes, chest, triceps, delts, erectors, and etc to help crush the bench and deadlift. This will also help create a base for the total which will be coming around in 2 months.

Everybody wants to be better at pull-ups. Why? Because they look cool and we can’t get enough of them. This month will be great if you are trying to get your first one or be able to string bigger unbroken sets together. We will be hammering the base level of strength by focusing on strict pull-ups. We will test out the pull-ups at the beginning of the month and re-test at the end. Make sure you hit these days and you’ll be crushing workouts like Fran, Jackie, Murph, and etc in no time. If you have pull-ups but want to get muscle-ups this will help you pull even higher and get that elusive muscle-up.

Aerobic capacity and endurance is a major part of health and fitness. We are going to use some specific aerobic capacity work adapted from Chris Hinshaw. He is the coach of Fraser, Davidsdottir, Froning, Leblanc-Bazinet, Khalipa, Sigmundsdottir, and many more. We will improve endurance by hitting it from three different angles. We will improve the overall endurance base by going longer and using many different modalities. A workout example for this could be
30min AMRAP of
800m run, 1000m row, 1mile Bike
*rest 1min after finishing each station

We will also improve aerobic capacity by increasing our overall speed. This will be done though shorter distance work, higher intensity, and longer rest periods. Expect to see short runs, rows, rides at a very high pace.

The third area of focus to help improve aerobic capacity will be lactate clearance. Once you are working at higher intensities lactate (which is a fuel) starts to accumulate faster than you can recycle it. You’ve passed this threshold once you are hyperventilating and or experience severe muscle burn. This makes you slow down and the more effectively you can clear lactate (produce energy using oxygen) the more work you can do at a higher intensity. This improves with a regular Crossfit WOD or EMOM work as well, however, we are going to target specific muscles. We will be doing this by executing a very high-intensity exercise for 10-30sec in order to go above your threshold (and accumulate as much lactic acid as possible), then follow it up with a slower intensity exercise to direct blood flow to the muscle that is being utilized. This forces the working muscle to learn to buffer the by-products more efficiently. A workout example to help improve lactate clearance in your quads and glutes could look something like this:

20 Plate hops (explosive fast movement above threshold)
:20 AB Sprint (max effort which accumulates significant lactic acid)
20 Recovery Air squats (these air squats will feel absolutely awful which is the whole purpose. The squats does not have to be fast and by staying moving it forces your lower body to more effectively deal with the lactic acid)
rest 2min (ample recovery to ensure fast pace on plate hops and bike sprint)
3 Rounds

Improving aerobic capacity by working on endurance, speed, and lactate clearance will carry over to all other workouts we do on a regular basis.

We will also be having a day focus on accessory work for pre-habilitative work and overall symmetry. It doesn't hurt doing some dumbbell work to stay ready for the pool season as well. Lowering the intensity slightly and going for quality over speed will also allow for a little mental break during all the other workouts we’ll be doing.

We will be rotating through a 6-day rotation focusing on:
Day 1 - Back squats & upper body lactate clearance
Day 2 - Snatching and endurance work
Day 3 - Deadlift, bench press, and pull-up work
Day 4 - Front squats and lower body lactate clearance
Day 5 - Clean and Jerk & speed work
Day 6 - Accessory work for prehab and pull-up work

This will be a great month and I’m excited about the gains we will see. Putting the work in at the gym is important, however, don’t forget that sleep & nutrition is king.

Coach Oscar