State of Fitness 23-3

The State of your Fitness

🎃Spooky season👻 is upon us and that can only mean one thing. The end of Macrocycle 23-3! As promised the third quarter of 2023 brought us Block Work, Drop Sets and Sumos. Lifting from the Blocks is usually a love it or hate it type of endeavor. Regardless of how you felt about them I hope by the end of the cycle you experienced some of the improvements that only blocks can provide. The conditioning continued to offer a bit more variety and of course we soaked up the last that summer had to offer with our running centric WODs. Speaking of summer if you found your stride and attendance was high over this past cycle give yourself a pat on the back! It can be challenging to keep showing up for your daily dose of fitness when the weather is beckoning you outside. If the sun’s siren song was just a bit too much and you found your attendance lacking take this opportunity to use the current cycle to set yourself up for success over the holidays and leading into the new year.

The Numbers:

You Weightlifted— Block Snatched, Block Cleaned, Push Jerked, and Drop Set Squatted —1038 reps at an approximate average intensity of 76%. This percentage is not as exact as it looks. The Snatches and Cleans were done based on feel so I guesstimated on what those percentages might look like week to week. This was because of the wide variation of comfort levels that athletes have lifting from the blocks. While one person may find that a moderate from the blocks is 80% of their max lift from the floor another might be at 60%. I wanted you all to work within your comfort level and hit the lifts as technically sound and challenging as you were able for the “feel” prescription that day. The Squat and the Push Jerk on the other hand were listed with a defined percentage. This was chosen because these lifts require a little less technical savvy and I wanted you to stay on a more prescribed challenge.   

You Sumo’d — Prepped and Deadlifted — 478 reps at an average intensity of 80.81%. Part of the cycle was spent prepping your body with Sumo accessories for the heavier Sumo Deadlift work that came later.

You Accessorized — Hand Over Hand Sled Rowed, Ring Dip and Ring Push Upped and Overhead Lunged — approximately 796 reps at an estimated intensity of 78.5%. The approximate and estimated descriptors are due to the fact that the Row was difficult to truly track in terms of reps per shuttle and the percentage was based off an estimate for the RPE of each days work. These movements were all chosen to compliment the lifts completed earlier in the day or earlier in the week. They helped ensure there were no holes in our strength game.

You Metconed an average of 10:28.  In addition, You MAP’d 6 hours and 06 minutes total. While this is a couple hours shy of the previous cycle it was far more demanding on your anaerobic system.

How did we get there?

Weightlifting:

Weightlifting this cycle revolved primarily around work from the Blocks. Block work is great for sharpening our positions and improving our speed under the bar.

Monday: Snatch Pull and Snatch from the Blocks at the high/hips position and Snatch Pull and Snatch from the Blocks at the mid/knee position. The first 6 weeks of this cycle was spent at the hips. The purpose of this position is two fold. The first is to help reinforce the need to violently complete your triple extension (= the extension of your hips/knees/ankles). When there is so little leverage to work with you must drive through the floor into this extension if you expect to get the barbell overhead. The second was to practice the third pull. That is the act of pulling yourself under the barbell. Reminder that the Snatch and the Clean are made up of three pulls. The first from the floor to your knees, the second from your knees to your hips and the third from your hips to overhead. Again with so little extension to work with you must actively pull yourself under the barbell in order to successfully complete a Snatch from the high blocks. If not you will find yourself using your arms way more than you should and rowing the barbell up while never fully extending through your lower body. The second 6 weeks of the cycle saw you move the barbell from the blocks from your knees. This position allowed for a bit more weight while also helping to reinforce the second pull. The second pull is where most of your velocity and vertical movement of the bar comes from. By isolating it after we had a good base of practicing the third pull from the high blocks you should have found yourself being able to move heavier weight with more confidence overhead.

Both of these heights included a pull or two performed before the complete lift. This was done to grease the groove. I wanted you to have to think a little less about the pull and free up some of that brain power to concentrate on the reception and speed under the bar. We spend a lot of time breaking these highly complex lifts into there pieces so that once we get back to the floor we can move through them on autopilot.

The Squat introduced the drop set. This is a method of pushing up the intensity of the lift while continuing to maintain speed through the concentric portion. Speed through the middle of your squat is key to successfully making a lift. In addition because we are starting heavy and dropping weight throughout the set we can push our bodies just a little bit further than we maybe otherwise would have. Sometimes it’s just a mental game and picking up a bar that had some weight shed from it helps trick your brain.

Tuesday: Clean Pull and Clean from the above and below the knee. The same theories from the Snatch work at the blocks apply here as well. Breaking the lift down into it’s parts to allow your brain to concentrate and practice on one specific pull at a time. You may have noticed you could move even more weight here relative to your Clean from the floor. It’s amazing what taking out the first 6” of the movement can do.

The Push Jerk was chosen for a similar reason that the blocks were. Creating a slightly simpler lift to allow you to concentrate on the primary goal. The goal of a Jerk is to produce as much vertical force as possible with your legs and allow your arms to receive the bar in a locked out position. Turning what would normally be an upper body dependent lift into a lower or whole body one. Further by taking the split out we are really forced to be technically sound = vertical dip and drive — in order to hit as heavy of a jerk as possible. Any movement forward or backward in the dip and drive or shorting of your triple extension will lead to a less than maximal Jerk. The first six weeks were spent lifting from behind the neck. This was chosen to take one more piece of complexity out of the lift, that is getting the bar around your face, and help reinforce the vertical dip and drive. The last six weeks we put it all together and performed the lift from the front rack.

Wednesday: Sumo Prep and Sumo Deadlift. Because the Sumo is not a normal lift for us I spent the first 6 weeks building up some of the movement patterns associated with the Sumo Deadlift so that once we had the opportunity to move some bigger weights from the floor your bodies were ready. Some of you may be wondering why perform the Sumo at all, why not just a regular Deadlift? We have highlighted the Deadlift’s usefulness outside of the gym before. Rarely are we squatting under high load outside of the gym but likely you find yourself lifting something heavy from the floor often. Picture the last thing you lifted from the ground level. Now that you have it in your mind recollect what your technique looked like. Were your hands outside of your legs or in? They were almost certainly in. That my friends is a Sumo Deadlift. Most often we need to get our knees out of the way so that we can establish a grip and lift, think a couch. It could be argued that the Sumo is actually more functional than the Conventional Deadlift. That doesn’t mean we are replacing the Conventional Deadlift it’s just one of the main reasons to work the Sumo in. In order to continue to improve we have to challenge our bodies outside of their normal routines.    

Friday: Back Rack Lunge, Front Rack Lunge and Overhead Lunge. In that order we had our dose of unilateral movement. If you have been with us for any length of time you know that I always try to incorporate some unilateral leg work into the program. It is important to isolate each leg to make sure we aren’t compensating when working with both legs like in the squat. The order was chosen from least demanding to most demanding. I am sure you all felt the difference in demands on your midlines, coordination and mobility when performing the Overhead Lunge the last four weeks of the cycle vs the Back Rack Lunge the first four weeks.

CrossFit

Monday: Rope Climb or Ring Pull Up + Cyclical — The concentration here was on your pulling muscles. Because we didn’t have a dedicated lat dominant lift I wanted to make sure we got one in first thing. Rope Climbs or Ring Pull Up work paired with a cyclical aerobic piece was a simple yet effective dose to start out the week.

Tuesday: Handstand Stuffs (+) — I wanted to capitalize on the warmed up the shoulders from Tuesdays Push Jerks by practicing all things Handstand related. Handstands are to the shoulders what Pull Ups are to the back. An excellent test of strength, endurance and coordination. The (+) portion of this day allowed for variety of movement patterns. Often it allowed us to tackle something else not seen during other days of the week.

Wednesday: Dumbbells — DB work is a very important part of our programming. Like the Lunge discussion from above, DBs allow us to isolate each arm individually to help build up not only the stabilizing musculature but also help highlight any compensations that may be taking place when utilizing a barbell. Plus we are allowed to practice many of the same strength movements we perform but with higher aerobic/anaerobic demand due to a less technically demanding movement. Example DB Snatch vs Snatch.

Thursday: MAP 7 and 6. This was the beginning of our march towards higher intensity MAP days. As a reminder the MAP duration is always a quarter of the race time domain. In other words the pace held during a MAP 6 piece at 5:00 would equate to a 20:00 race pace. This means your pacing should have been very repeatable.

Friday: High Skill. While the high skill portion of Friday was not a change we did implement a big change in allowing time to practice and build upon your scales for these movements each week. It seems that this Skill Practice section of the class paid off with many members hitting some “firsts”. If you still felt like you were spinning your wheels with the various progression talk to a Coach about either some 1 on 1 time or the upcoming Gymnastics seminar led by Coaches Cole and John.

Saturday: Coaches discretion. I take my hands off the wheel and let the Coaches drive. The goal is to compliment the week’s program as well as offer something a little off the beaten path.

What’s next?

We will be finishing out 2023 with as we do most other years with a bias on maximal strength.

The lifts and the rep schemes will return to their conventional forms. That means Snatches and Clean and Jerks from the floor.

Where the lifts are straight ahead your power lifts will offer a bit of variety. The Back Squat taking on the largest change. We will still be Squatting from the rack but as a preview of things to come we will be working on them under some aerobic fatigue and with heavy breathing. One thing that is universal when it comes to the CrossFit Open is hitting heavy lifts under fatigue. The Back Squat is a good place to start practicing for that demand. Because the intent is to do it as safely as possible as well as still get as much strength gain from the lift as we can there will be rest periods built into your WOD. These will be more challenging than your MAP but not quite as intense as a normal Metcon.

The Deadlift will be back but we are spending the first four weeks overloading it by starting at the top and utilizing the stretch reflex cycle. We will also be working the Strict Press and Floor Press for the upper body. And finally a bit of lateral movement in the form of Step Downs and Lateral Lunges.

Outside of the change on Monday with Squats incorporated into the conditioning the rest of the week will have a familiar feel. Each day will have a specific concentration that is meant to compliment the strength work to help create well rounded fitness. In addition you will be progressing in your MAPs from 5 through 4.

Great job everyone, 2023 is almost to an end! One final reminder we are getting close to the time of year where it can be very easy to make excuses to cheat on our health and well being. Set a plan now to keep you on track when the holiday sweets and vacations come knocking. Don’t let yourself be taken off guard. You’ll be thankful that you’re not having to make a New Year’s resolution to get “back in shape” when you just stayed in shape from the start!

Stay Rooted,

Coach_ARK