Hey Old Cityzens!

Spring is coming, right? Oh man, it’s teasing us! But you KNOW that once it starts getting warm/hot, conversation is going to shift from “it’s SO COLD when will it start to warm up?” to “it’s SO HOT, when will we get any reprieve??” *facepalm*. But it will be nice when it starts to warm up and we can open the garage door to get some fresh air in to replace the smell of funk that hangs in there throughout the day. You know what I’m talking about, too.


For those who don’t like to read these or think they are too long, here’s the short version..
– what did you think of the last 3 weeks of programming?
– I’m not doing my race next month. I mentioned it in last week’s blog post. Link below if you’d like to catch up.
– Sean C is running a relay race April 28th, I’m doing a power lifting meet April 28th, other members are doing a CF comp May 5th
– New strength programming starts this week, and for the next 10 weeks the focus is on deadlifting. Show up every deadlifting day, it will be on our double strength day, which will always be M-F. Make it a point to show up those days.

So quite a few things to mention this week.. First, we’d love to hear your feedback on the strength programming from the past three weeks. This was our ‘fun’ transition week between the Oly lift focus and powerlifting. We did the glute bridges, heavy carries – dball, OH, suitcase – split snatch, Z-press, box and Zercher squats. What was your favorite? What was your least favorite? Which one would you liked to see programmed more regularly? Which one surprised you as to how challenging it was?

We’re transitioning from the ‘fun lift’s to more traditional lifts – back squat, bench press, push press, and deadlift. The focus for these next 3 months will be on the deadlift. Let me repeat that, put it in bold and all caps – THE FOCUS FOR THE NEXT THREE MONTHS WILL BE ON THE DEADLIFT. Did I get my point across? Good. The reason being is that we’re following a 10-week program to improve your deadlift, and then we’ll test your deadlift at the end of the cycle. So if you have a 1RM to go off of, that’s great! Use it! If you don’t, use your best guess to find your %, and then we’ll test it at the end of the cycle. We will always deadlift on our 2x strength day. We urge you, as your coaches, for these next 10 weeks, to know when we’ll be deadlifting and show up on those days. It will always be Monday through Friday, it will be listed in these weekly posts as they have been since January 1st, and we will announce it the day we lift “hey, show up next Wednesday for our next double strength day to do more deadlifts.”

“Why are we doing this?” So you can improve your deadlift.
“But what about ‘unknown and unknowable?'” That’s for the other 6 days of the week.
“But.. ” Just show up and deadlift.

I’m not sure how much more I can stress this. I think I’ve been pretty passionate in my love of recycling, hanging up the jump ropes correctly, and putting the plates away correctly (I’d like “three things Old City members are still learning to do” for $200, Alex), but this is a big deal to us. Does this put priority over the other days? Yeah, a little. However, still show up! If you’re a little sore from deadlifting, come in and warm up and see how you feel. You can always scale the workout, dial back the strength and work on technique, or just use the hour to mobilize. What’s the shame in that?? Answer – there. is. no. shame.

I hope you all are as excited about the next cycle as I am.

Now, going back to our last cycle for a second, I thought I’d posted some information about the heavy carries – why we’re doing them and what they’re good for – as I had with other movements such as the Zercher and box squats, and split snatch. So here’s why we do overhead carries.

Synopsis
– Good for scapular health
– Core strength + anti-rotation
– Overhead stability
– Trap and shoulder hypertrophy from TUT (time under tension)

Just a *brief* overview of the benefits, but I highly recommend you read the link.

Speaking of reading links, thank you to those few people who have reached out to me regarding my last JDS post. From that feedback, I have a good idea of who reads the posts 😉 and it’s “not many”. Here’s the tl;dr version for everyone else – I dropped out of my 100 mile race May 19th. No need to rehash my reasons other than to say I’m not mentally (or physically) ready for the challenge. So if you’ve asked ‘how’s running coming along?’ and my answer is ‘it’s not’ – this is why. I don’t enjoy running right now so I’m taking a break from it.

But I’m keeping busy lifting as I have my first powerlifting meet this Saturday at CrossFit Balance in Thomas Circle. All I know right now is that I lift sometime in the morning between 9am and 1pm. And parking in the area is crappy. So if you want to attend – arrive sometime between then, and good luck parking.

“Getting there: Balance is right in downtown DC, but it might be a little hard to find because it is in an alley. From 14th st., walk down the alley between the Balance Gym personal training studio and the Arepa Zone restaurant. From L st., walk down the alley next to the Co-Star Group and turn left at the dead end. The gym is a big, brightly painted building, you can’t miss it. The address is 1339 Green Ct NW. If you are coming from the Metro, the McPherson Square stop is just a few blocks away. If you are driving, do not attempt to park in the alley! There is some street parking available in the surrounding neighborhood, but if you don’t feel like hunting for it, the ParkAmerica at 1018 13th St. NW is a block away and charges $13/day.”

Admission is also FREE.

Sean Chua is also running the American Odyseey Relay this coming weekend. AOR is a two-day, two hundred mile relay race from Gettysburg, PA to the new Wharf in SW DC. So while I’m setting aside running to lift, he’s setting aside lifting for a bit to run. Looking forward to hearing about his experience!

Full Moon Hike for April 28th is SOLD OUT! I hope those folks have a GREAT time.

May 5th we’ve got *I think* 3 teams participating in Girls Gone RX at CrossFit Kingstowne. I’ll get more information from them to share so we can get a strong contingent to show up and support them!

If you’ve got something coming up, let me know so I can include it in one of these weekly posts or share it on the Facebook Community group.

Let’s talk about the STRENGTH and workouts for this week..

Monday – No strength, long workout day – 4 movements, KB for 3 of them – to start off the week.

Tuesday – Starting of strength with bench press – high reps, low weight (50-60%) and a little burner with burpees and thrusters.

Wednesday – RDLs (romanian deadlifts) and putting to use the heavy carries we did the last few weeks. You’ll need your jump rope today, too.

Thursday – DOUBLE THE STRENGTH, DOUBLE THE DEADLIFT. More to follow about this day, so please read the daily post.

Friday – Chipper day, deadlift recovery day. LOL, nah. But there is no strength, so we’ve got a fun workout for you to wrap up the work week.

Saturday – Back squats, similar to Tuesday’s bench session – high reps, low %.

Sunday – Open gym + Gainz club + Hero WOD + yoga

Let’s have another great week!