Hey Old Cityzens!
Happy New Year! Welcome to 2018!
You know that calories/macronutrients from 2017 don’t carry over to 2018, right? Clean slate, y’all!
First off, I want to say ‘thank you’ to everyone who read the weekly and daily posts. And to the new members and readers.. WELCOME. To say I put a lot of thought into these would be an understatement, however, I do try to provide some insider knowledge about workouts – how long they should take, how to scale/if you should scale, etc – and links to helpful videos or article. This is usually served with a side of wit/sass/sarcasm, and the occasional curse word. And about 90% of the time, I give zero fucks.. Sooooo!! On that note, let’s continue.
As a refresher, this Sunday post includes hints about workouts for the week, schedule reminders (back to normal this week, and no 8AM weekday classes), and is normally posted by 8PM (I’m a touch behind today). The weekly blog posts are posted the day before the workout at 7:56PM. Those include more information about how to tackle the workout – where you should push to get in the extra rep (all the time), where you should rest (rarely), how to scale, and more about the workout such as if the reps listed are total or per arm (if not already specified), etc.
If you would like to receive them via RSS feed instead of waiting with bated breath, there is an RSS feed link that I’ll get posted here shortly.
In my humble opinion, I think these posts are insanely important to read – weekly and daily – as you get insider information about not only about the workouts, but changes to the programming. And if you read the post on December 28th, you’ll see that I included a very small blurb in the first paragraph about programming changing.
This is what’s happening – for strength we’re getting away from using percentages and going based on time for a ‘heavy 3’ or a ‘heavy 5’. This doesn’t mean max out. How often have we maxed out last year? From what I can remember, 2 times – CrossFit total in April and September. That means, use the full time allotted and work to something heavy for the number of reps listed. If that is 3 (three) and you accomplish that in 10 of 20 minutes, then you either strip the bar and work at a lighter weight and move it with even MORE precision and spotless technique, or you stay at that same weight, taking a little bit more rest between sets, and do it 3-4 more times – WITH GOOD TECHNIQUE. Remember ‘heavy’ is realize. Right now, a 45# snatch is heavy. I could probably hit 65#, but my form would be shit, so I’m going to stay in that training bar to 35# bar range and practice, practice, practice until I feel confident enough to do more.
There will also be 1 pure strength day/week that includes 2 strength movements and a short ‘cash out’ afterwards. Our focus has always been strength with the metcons secondary or to complement what you did for strength that day.
These will programmed with the Sunday gainz club class in mind too. So no more heavy squats Sunday followed up by squats on Monday.
And the strength movements will be listed in these weekly posts.
We will still have 1-2 longer workouts each week for those who love the ‘sexy metcon’.
The focus for January and February will be on the Olympic lifts – clean and jerk and the snatch.
This might seem all new and confusing, but we’re working to get a podcast up soon. Until then, check out the FIRST PODCAST!
Before I shut my pie hole as I’m sure few of you have made it this far, I encourage everyone to get some sort of recording device – be it an app on their phone, Google spreadsheet, or just a memo pad and pencil – and keep track of your workouts. What you do for strength, at minimum, or even the weights you used when you build up to your heavy 3 of whatever movement. But doing so helps take the guess work out of what weight you should use. Even for the workouts, you can record not only your time, but what weight kettlbell you used if you did jumping pull ups or ring rows, and the height of the box you jumped on whether you scaled it or went higher. Make it through 21 workouts. Why 21? If you made it this far, you can ask me.
So let’s see what’s in store for this week..
Tuesday – Hang power snatch; couplet following includes a variation of the snatch and a bodyweight movement.
Wednesday – Girl WOD! Annie! Doing that first, then back squats. Bring your jump ropes
Thursday – Here’s our long, ‘sexy metcon’ day. 30 minutes of pure aweso.. I mean misery.
Friday – Twofer today with strength – halting snatch deadlift and push press. BOOOOM!
Saturday – Moar deadlifts for strength. I lied and said no percentages, but these are percentages, and different from Friday’s deadlifts. Also some bonus NFT (not for time) strength/explosive power work post-wod.
Sunday – Here WOD. Remember, these are posted the night before and can be done at the 5:15PM class or at open gym from 9-11AM. It is not recommended to do both the Hero WOD and participate in gainz club. However, the 5:15 Hero WOD class followed by the 6:30pm yoga class, is highly encouraged.
I’ve yammered on WAAAY longer than necessary. So let me wrap this up by being positive and saying let’s kick this week in the nuts and start the new year on a high note.
