We love going overhead! You can look forward to more shoulder warm up material in our daily WODs.
Hey guys,
We’ve been experimenting with some new looks on programming for our WOD’s in main classes. I know some of you just show up and hit it, but I think it would be beneficial for you to have some more awareness about where your workouts come from, and what we are trying to accomplish. So, please take a few minutes to read. Thanks!
1. WE ARE FOLLOWING .COM WORKOUTS
We’ve done a lot of different programs at MBS over the past 8 years. Personally, I just love the heck out of plain, basic ol’ CrossFit. The www.crossfit.com workouts are what I fell in love with over 10 years ago. CrossFit.com programming has had it’s up, down’s, and turns, or whatever you’d like to call it as well. But more recently, I’m just loving what they are putting out. It is constantly varied. It is functional movement. And, they are fun workouts that you just WANT to be challenged with. So, over the past couple of months, I have been experimenting with going back to following .com workouts on a 2-3 week delay. The .com workouts follow a 3-on, 1-off pattern. So, on the days with no workout programmed, I insert other workouts that I think would be useful to the programming. Long story short, you are going to get the full spectrum here in the WOD classes. There will be heavy and light weights. There will be long and short. There will be higher skill and lower skill. You will see a little bit of everything here!
2. WE ARE CHANGING OUR L1-L3 SCALING NAMES TO “FITNESS”, “PERFORMANCE”, AND “COMPETITION”
Next, the difficulty that I’ve had in the past with .com workouts is getting the scaling and modifications down. For the past couple of years, we’ve done a L1 – L3 set up. Where L3 is the workout as Rx’d, and L1 and L2 would be modified versions of the workout. I think this system has proved useful in many cases. But, the two parts that have remained difficult are 1) getting the scaling correct for athletes on certain workouts, and 2) athletes not using the correct levels for different workouts. For example, sometimes the scaling is a bit of a guessing game and I don’t have enough time to get a workout tested beforehand. So, sometimes I’ll notice that the L1 or L2 recommendation wasn’t scaled enough, or scaled too much. Then, the athletes lose confidence in the provided scaling, and it doesn’t provide the intended value. Also, this case is a bit more rare, but happens sometimes, athletes get a little stuck in the rut – either not stepping up to try a higher level, or having too much ego and not scaling a workout down to an appropriate level and letting their form get sacrificed.
So, this is a bit of an experiment, but I’m going to try using some different terms that you will see written on the WODs:
Fitness– The “Fitness” workout is the scaled version of the .com workout. But, please don’t let that deter you from using it if you’re an experienced CF athlete. Many times the load is reduced, reps are reduced, and/or movements are modified to more fundamental movements, but this could prove very useful for an athlete that has a sticking point on a particular movement. For example, if your HSPU’s have been “stuck” at sets of 3’s for the past year, there is likely a movement pattern issue that is keeping you from getting more reps. So, doing pike pushups in a workout could actually HELP you focus on form and get past your sticking point. The main idea here that we ALL need to understand is that the BEST CrossFitters, AND people that ultimately get the most out of our program, are the BEST MOVERS. We need to understand how to move better…have better form…become more efficient. So, sometimes it is better to scale the weight/reps back, or modify a movement to learn to do it BETTER! Oh, and you’ll definitely be less prone to injury by keeping your form good too!
Probably somewhat obvious, the “Fitness” workout is where our beginners and many intermediate level athletes will fall. There is still a tremendous amount of fitness that will be gained by doing jumping pullups, single unders, and lighter weights!
Performance – So, this is usually how the .com workout is written. This is for folks that have graduated many of the common CF movements – pullups, double unders, 95/65 OHS and snatches, etc. There will likely be muscle ups and hspu’s on this track as well. The idea here is that you have those movement mechanics down well enough with those weights that you aren’t going to be breaking form too awfully in the workout. But, you are wanting a more challenging workout and fitness level here. So, the intensity is ratcheted up from the “Fitness” level. I would like to think that our athletes would want to progress to this level in our gym. We are not interested in being mediocre, and that is why you showed up at MBS CrossFit in the first place. But, you also have a deep down urge to continue improving, so your goal is to continue pushing forward to reach your full potential in the WOD classes, which will hopefully bring you to doing this “Performance” track in the future.
Competition – On occasion, there will be workouts that call for EVEN MORE. For those experienced athletes that love CF so much and potentially want to compete in CF, there is the “Competition” level, which will add more weight/reps and higher complexity movements. This is definitely recommended for those that understand their bodies well enough to recover and stretch properly as well. Additionally, they understand the “risks” associated with doing these more intense workouts. For example, many of our higher complexity movements (ie HSPU’s, muscle ups, or squat snatches) require the athletes to be in potentially more compromising body positions,and in the “Competitor” workouts, we will be asking for more reps and/or more intensity in those situations. This might sit well for someone that knows they are likely to see this situation in a local competition that they want to do well at. But, for someone that is coming to MBS to retain a high-level of fitness for personal and health reasons, the risk may not be worth the reward!
Finally, I like to post “Cash out” material when I can think of something that will compliment the recovery and long-term health of the athlete. Note, the idea is that you hit the CrossFit workout with your best focus and intensity possible. Then, recover and do it again the next day.
Well, I really wanted to keep this short. But, I think I blew past that. If you read all this, congratulations, you are likely to be getting more out of today’s workout than someone that is now scrolling their FB feed for new stories on who knows what.
There’s probably 100 different things I’d like to add to this post…So many discussion points here on how to attack the workout. But, I don’t want to get hung up on it…you shouldn’t either. At the end of the day, we are working out with our friends and having fun! We will fail and get frustrated times. But, we will learn. That’s all I expect…learning and improvement!
Love you guys. Keep up the great work and stay fit!
PB
