Programming: Part III strength

Charlene's daughter, Katie (left), practices to be just like mommy one day

When I started CrossFit a few years ago, I was drawn in by the allure of completing some crazy workout with hundreds of reps that would leave me gasping for air. Who cared if I had to modify most of the movements and my form was terrible? I was doing CrossFit and it was badass, so by proxy I was badass. I was more of a dumbass. At least I was half right.

Why dedicate time to strength and skill? Don’t we get stronger just by doing CrossFit?

First of all, CrossFit is strength, but it also is other attributes. We like to focus on strength because it is our foundation. Increasing strength allows us to do more work faster which translates to a higher power output (intensity). The higher intensity is the cause and effect of becoming more fit. For most of you just starting CrossFit, you are realizing that it takes an average of about 4 – 6 months just to build up enough strength to do the majority of the workouts. Once you have the base strength, the intensity of the workouts shoot way up because you are finally able to keep form and not let certain strength deficiencies or weakness in your kinetic chain dictate your biomechanics. True, you could get stronger just by doing the met-con portion of the workouts, but it would take a lot longer and you would plateau pretty quickly. Post to follow on why picking up heavy stuff is good for you.

Lynell training to choke out Sergio one more time. Not that she needs to.

A little history on our strength training.

Back in the old days we used to designate Wednesdays to be our strength day to work on a lift. We would dedicate an entire class to an Olympic or power lift. The benefit to this was that coaches had more time to work through the nuances of each lift and athletes had plenty of time to work on technique and plenty of rest to build up to their maximum lift or go for a PR. The downside to this style of programming was that athletes were only getting to work on each different lift once a week in an untimed environment. This meant you could go over a month without ever working on an overhead squat or power clean, but would have to do them in a timed workout. This was not optimal for our athletes’ form, technique or strength.

Kevin just making ring dips look easy.

The evolution.

We adapted to the current style of programming where we break the WOD up into a strength portion and conditioning portion. This allows our athletes to get the touches on all the different lifts in an untimed environment while also getting them to lift heavier weights than they would normally use in a met-con. We have noticed the learning curve of our athletes shortened by over half the time as it took before to become proficient in the Olympic and power lifts. We have also noticed a dramatic improvement in the met-con weights and times while seeing a reduction in injuries.

Oh Ashley, if your sorority sisters could see you now. "YEA-AH Kappa!"

Strength philosophy

We adopted our philosophy on the strength portion from a few different sources. I have to give some credit to Dutch Lowy and CJ Martin of CrossFit Invictus in San Diego. The bulk of our style of programming originated from their philosophy and has been modified for the athletes in our gym. I also have to mention Greg Everett of Catalyst Athletics for putting out the Performance Menu, which is a wealth of knowledge on pure strength training. Our strength training is organized with the following goals in mind:

• Efficiently and effectively build the strength of our athletes
• Compliment the met-con
• Keep intensity high
• Create PRs

That's right Libby, you hold that big heavy bar down. Good girl.

Our athletes could get stronger just by doing any random Oly or power lift every day, but we try to make it as efficient as possible. The rep schemes are also meant to systematically build strength over different time periods. The lifts can be classified as hip or knee dominant or as a vertical press and also power (slow) or dynamic (fast). The rep schemes stay relatively low and the weights high because we generally see the opposite in our met-cons. The week’s strength programming will have the variety of all different lifts meaning you will see some slow, some fast, some knee dominant and some hip dominant. The programming is designed like this so you won’t burn out one specific type of movement and should be fresh to give max effort in the lift of the day.

I could go into way more detail about strength training and how to effectively build strength in athletes, but we have to save some material for later blog posts right? Post questions and thoughts to comments.

Workout of the Day 8/31/2010

A. Max Double Unders in 3 minutes

B. Untimed Strength WOD

Back Squat
1-10-1-20-1-30

Perform your sets of 1 at about 85% of your 1 rep max. Choose a weight for your back squat that you will be able to perform the higher rep sets unbroken. If you break the round, rerack and finish out the set.

Jerk or Split Jerk
5-5-5-3-3-3-2-2-1-1

Rest approximately 1 minute between sets. Go for max loads on each lift.

You will have 30-40 minutes to complete both of these lifts. Make sure you move quickly through the sets.