State of Fitness 23-1

The State of your Fitness

The first cycle of the year is complete. Congratulations on not only wrapping up 23-1, but also another CrossFit Open! Some of you have reached the double digits in Opens completed, while others are just dipping your toes in the world of CrossFit as a sport. Either way, it was exciting to see you all pull together as a community and make this one of the best Opens we’ve hosted yet. In addition to an excellent sense of camaraderie amongst the teams, everyone involved was pouring just as much enthusiasm into fellow gym members as they were their own workouts. On top of that, we saw a few firsts and PRs at the end of some very challenging Open WODs. Ultimately, that’s why we play the game—to push ourselves outside of our comfort zones and see what our dedication to the process has built for us over the off- season.

The Numbers:

You Weightlifted— Power Snatched, Power Clean and Push Jerked, and Squatted (Overhead/Front + Back) —1456 reps at a guesstimated average intensity of 77%. I say “guesstimated” because these lifts were based on feel, or rate of perceived exertion. This was chosen because the lifts and the rep maxes we were working towards were not traditional.  During this cycle, your volume was bumped up and your time domain to complete that work was bumped down. The “why” behind the numbers and lifts chosen above was the Open. As we never truly know what’s coming, we can only program based on what we have seen in the past. Generally, that means lower weight moved for high volume in a short time domain. This is exactly how the weightlifting was structured, starting with touch and go lifts on the 4:00 clock and ending at every 1:00. The magic was the number of PRs we saw when we tested at the end of the cycle. Generally, if you want to build your top-end numbers, rest is your friend. Because we participate in CrossFit, we do quite the opposite in our training. In fact, we added leg burning Goblet Squats between the Power Snatches to really drive the point home. It’s amazing what your body will adapt to.

You Powerlifted — Deadlifted — an additional 534 reps, at average guesstimated intensity of 73%. This cycle’s Deadlift introduced you to a new type of stimulus, and in my humble opinion, a bit more fun version of the lift. That was the Top Down Deadlift. This take allows us to overload the movement by giving you the ability to start perfectly braced from the top, and let gravity help dictate the bar path and our body positions to the floor. In addition, we get a stretch reflex starting at the first rep vs the static start from the floor. I find that starting at the top, much like when we break the Snatch or Clean into its separate parts, helps us find the perfect body positions on the way down. I would imagine that some of you found this version easier. We also utilized the Banded Deadlift. This was done for a couple of reasons, the first being to keep our pull from the floor crisp. We still needed to remember how to set up and drive from the floor. The second was to train ourselves to finish past the knees explosively. There may not be a worse feeling than clearing your knees with a Deadlift and failing to lock it out. The bands add progressively more tension the higher we get on our legs.

You Accessorized —  Goblet Squatted and Bent Over Rowed — 1661 reps. The Goblet Squat was programmed for many of the same reasons I mentioned in the Weightlifting paragraph  above. Open Prep = high volume and lactic burn in the legs. I wanted you all to get used to your legs feeling pumped out while still needing to perform the more complex lift that followed. This is why the notes included “no rest at the top.” We wanted to practice the feeling of pushing beyond. The Bent Over Rows were just a good ole’ fashioned accessory—keeping our posteriors as strong as possible by hitting them with different stimulus.   

You Metconed an average of 13:06. This was pretty darn close to the time domain of the first two Open workouts, which clocked in at 14:00 and 15:00 respectively. In addition, you MAP’d 5 hours and 9 minutes total!

The year-long MAP cycle culminated by taking you through the finish line of :90 on :90 off, and finally :60 on :60 off. By spending the better part of the year building your engine, this was an  opportunity to let your hair down a bit and really attack the intervals with nearly max effort intensity. Notice I said “nearly” because, as always, the intent behind MAPs is to learn how to pace, and there is still a pace in a 4:00 to 6:00 workout or race. 4:00 to 6:00 is not an arbitrary number, either; remember, each round of a MAP is meant to reflect one quarter of a race pace. This means the :90 MAP should be the race pace for a 6:00 event, or the :60 MAP is the pace for a 4:00 event. For some of you, this is your favorite MAP cycle of the year. Others look forward to the grind of MAPs 8 and 9. All I can tell you is that they work if you work them. Don’t sleep on MAP days for both your general fitness and your competitive side.

How did we get there?

Weightlifting:

Our Weightlifting this cycle was Power, and it was touch and go. As mentioned above, Opens in the past have included high volume, low intensity, touch and go weightlifting. This is what we trained for.

Monday: Power Snatch. We spent the first four weeks working to a 5RM High Hang Power Snatch. The High Hang helps us really nail the third pull of the Snatch. We have no choice other than to finish explosively and pull under quickly if we want to find success in this lift. The 5RM was chosen to keep the weights relatively light, again in an effort to mimic what we might see in the Open. The next four weeks were spent working towards 3RM from the Hang. The Hang position allowed us to really hone in our second pull, perfecting how we transition from our posteriors being leveraged to the bar ending up at our hip crease prior to our final extension. The 3RM gave us a shot to push the weights a bit higher leading into the Open. The final four weeks were our opportunity to put all of the previous positions together into one big effort, culminating in Power Snatch 1RM from the floor.

The Goblet Squat followed a different pattern. The first four weeks were spent at 20 reps per set, the next at 15, and the last at 10. The goal was to finish slightly heavier each subsequent week. Again, the intent was to add volume and anaerobic burn to help prepare your legs and your mind for the Open.

Tuesday: Power Clean and Push Jerk. This, too, was broken down into three, 4 week mesocycles. The first was spent on a 5+5 split, the next on a 3+3 and the last on a 1+1 maximal effort push. Because the Clean and Jerk takes a little more out of us, I opted not to superset this with anything else. We did, however cut your working time frame down each week to keep the intensity in line with our Open prep. This also finished with a 1RM attempt to finish out the cycle.

The Strict Ring Pull Up was our accessory for Tuesday. This was an educated guess on my part. I thought that we may see either the strict or kipping version of this movement in the Open this year. I was wrong; instead, our new movement was a jumping pull up from the burpee. The good news is that strict Pull Up work of any kind is never a bad choice. The more of them we can do, the better off not only our strength will be, but also our shoulder health.

Wednesday: Deadlift. I already described the “why” behind the chosen versions of the Deadlift.  The volume and intensity were inverse of one another from week to week depending on which lift we were completing. The Banded were higher volume, lower intensity vs the lower volume, higher intensity of the Top Down. In addition to working on our lockout, the Banded version also allowed us to add some volume to our Deadlift pulls in preparation of potentially high volume Deadlift workouts in the Open. The Top Down variant kept our CNS primed for heavy weight while also making it just a little easier on us given the stretch reflex benefit.

Wednesdays were also for Wall Walks! (And Strict Handstand Push Ups). Where I missed the boat with the Ring Pull Ups, I think I nailed it here. The dreaded (if you’re built like me 🥲) Strict Hand Stand Push Up made a re-appearance during the Open this year. If you were coming on Wednesdays, you were as prepared as you could be. We spent the first six weeks working only on building up our sHSPU. The last six were devoted to a more playful, but no less effective, Wall Walk + Wall Facing sHSPU Negative + Forward Roll Off (summersault). The only movement that wasn’t a part of the Open or Quarters was the summersault, but much like jumping or climbing a rope, this was likely the first time you’ve done one of those since grade school.

Friday: Overhead Squat/Front Squat + Back Squat. This cycle’s Saturdays were crafted to keep our legs and CNS primed for heavier Squats while still maintaining the higher volume lactic push we may have needed for the Open. This is where the superset of Overhead Squats and/or Front Squats and Back Squats came into play. We started with the Overhead Squat (+) because this is the type of lift that can lead to injuries if we are not prepared for it at a maximal effort. The first six weeks counted down from 18 total reps per set at 6+12, to 6 total reps at 1+5. As with all lifts, as the volume goes down, the intensity goes up. After the Open, we finished with three weeks of Front Squat (+) starting again at 6+12 and finishing at 1+5. These are nasty combinations, so kudos to those who continued to put in the work on Saturday.

Bent over Dumb Bell and Barbell Rows: These were pretty straightforward. The first six weeks were spent counting down in volume from 60 reps per arm to 30. The last three weeks, post- Open, we utilized the Barbell instead for a slightly different stimulus from 20 reps to 12. Each week, we attempted to add a bit more weight as the reps decreased.

CrossFit

Monday: Low Body “Heavy” + Upper Body High Volume. Because Monday’s strength work skipped the heavier squats we are all accustomed to, I took that opportunity to add some heavier, or more challenging, lower body work within the WOD. With Monday’s strength work being lower body dominate, I wanted to make sure that your upper bodies didn’t get left out. The note of “High Volume” here was in an effort to make that a reality. Of course, the Open generally asks this of our upper bodies as well, so it paired nicely.

Tuesday: Row “+”. The rowing machine is the only piece of cyclical cardio equipment (outside of the jump rope) that is required of us in the Open. The “+” was an opportunity to slide in various movements that either complimented or doubled up on the musculature utilized on the rower. Never say never, but it is unlikely the Open will include a completely mono-structural workout like Row X distance for time. This is why we paired it with some other movement almost every workout over the cycle.    

Wednesday: Dumbbell + Unilateral. Sticking with our Open prep mode, Dumbbells were a priority this cycle. History has shown that, since their introduction to the Open, the DB makes an appearance almost every year. The unilateral work is always important in our strength continuum. Ensuring we are building uniform strength and endurance is of the upmost importance, so I always try to get it in at some point during the cycle. This year, if you made Quarters, this would have been the day for you!

Friday: High skill Chipper. Fridays were your opportunity to put it all together— Attempting, or practicing, higher-skilled movements along with the volume and intensity that only a Chipper can offer. Not sure what a Chipper is? It means only completing each movement one time through, and generally those movements are completed at high volumes. The first Open workout of the year, 23.1, was a Chipper. If the movements just weren’t clicking or you need some more defined practice at the higher skill sets, I encourage you to talk to a Coach about what they can do to help.

Saturday: Coaches again reigned supreme on Saturday. Saturday serves as an opportunity not only for the Coaches to get in some programming of their own, but also for you all to experience a little variety to your conditioning. The WODs on Saturday range from Heroes (workouts that honor the fallen) to partner WODs.

What’s next?

Our second cycle of 2023 has been crafted with hypertrophy in mind; that is, muscle building by way of increased volume or time under tension. We will accomplish this with positional lifts, tempo, and high repetitions.

The largest change you will see, outside of the lifts themselves, is the timeframe listed for each movement. Many of the lifts will be completed within a set total time vs the Every X on the X approach we have been using. For the veteran members, this was something we used to use often and widely. The benefits are that it allows you, the members, to lift when you feel ready, and for the coaches to get more one-on-one time watching each of your lifts. The challenges here are that it does require a bit more thought and planning from you all to finish the prescribed work within the time frame allotted, while also not rushing through and fatiguing. Or, misjudging and taking longer than the allotted time and setting the class behind schedule. The Coaches requested this change in a bid to have more opportunities to see each of you lift, so don’t be afraid to ask them for help managing it if you are feeling unsure. If all else fails, just divide the time frame by the number of sets and you will have your own Every X on the X. The “Every” works great for Open prep, as it forces us to move at a more cardiovascular pace so we won’t completely abandon it. But, given we are in the first cycle of the off season, this seemed like the perfect time to revisit a time frame approach.    

The Olympic lifts will consist of multiple stop pulls and pauses at various positions. These are meant to reinforce and build strength in the proper positions, while also increasing the time under tension for the musculature involved. The Squat will be performed at tempo, both while descending and ascending. Speaking from experience, timing the ascent is one of the most brutal ways to to perform a squat. It is also a great way to create hypertrophy and perfect your concentric.

The accessories will include Yoke Strap Strict Presses as well as a modified Strict Pull Up, where one hand is on a rope and the other is on the pull up bar. This is a great way to build up not only our pulling strength, but also the grip required for Rope Climbs.

This cycle will also see the return of the Bench! With summer right around the corner, it’s time to get those beach bods ready. The first six weeks we will introduce a new movement meant to help really build up the muscles required for the lockout position of your Bench. We’ll see how it pays off during the last six weeks, when we perform the traditional Bench Press.

The Metcons each have a theme behind them, all with the intent of complimenting the work we’ve done prior. In addition, they are meant to mix it up a bit, bringing in implements and movements we haven’t seen in a few.

As always, please log your results on Zenplanner! This is how the cycles are audited and a spot you can go to for former results.

Thank you for another great cycle.

Stay Rooted,

Coach_ARK