Strength Day - Tuesday August 15/17
Body Building?? I thought that was "Not CrossFit"
When I started lifting way back in 1992-93 training with the football team, I was doing Body building and a style of circuit training. We did body building work once a week as accessory work and it was amazing to build muscle and stability. So in my opinion its necessary to build and maintain the baseline in order to do dynamic movement.So you may have noticed we went from a gym where curls and tri cep extensions ect were not to be muttered even in the darkest corners of the gym, to a place where it is in your programming monthly and encouraged. Some have asked why? So here's my reasons, some will disagree and say thats not CrossFit and i'll smile and say I thought CrossFit was being good at everything. (ps not getting hurt is a good enough reason to do these things).
Well, here's 4 things CrossFit can learn from Body Building.
In my quest for to program optimal physical fitness with affective time use, I feel it is important to try and incorporate anything that may help us reach our goals. To me that means taking principles from all training domains and incorporating it into our programming. ie Cross Training. I was an olympic Basketball player and University football player, do you think I only trained sport specific? not a chance, I did everything and during off season focus on training so far from the spectrum of my sport I even did things like an hour of darts a day.. yes darts. believe in it or not, but I shot the highest percentage on that team for 8 years.. I say it was the darts :) but I digress.Since the beginning of CrossFit Bodybuilders have been ridiculed within the community by those who think they train harder and more effectively than their cable crossover and concentration curl counterparts. However, as true as this may be there are definitely some things Bodybuilders have right..
1 – Assistance Lifts
I have to admit i’m huge on assistance lifts myself. However, I do mostly upper body work.. These lifts do have their place in a solid strength and conditioning program. The BIG exercises are great but they leave a few holes. The key is to find the right assistance lifts to include in your training to compliment your metcon. As always I’m a huge advocate of training economy. Basically that refers to what exercises will deliver the BEST results for your time invested. If I recommend an exercise, its because I feel it is important.Assistance lifts have a few benefits to a CrossFitter1- Help improve the main lifts beyond what ONLY training the big lifts can provide.2- Injury Prevention3- Build muscle/strength in areas not hit by our main lifts..My Favorite “Assistance” Exercises that are not commonly included in CrossFit WODS
- Barbell/Dumbell Rows – When in doubt do some horizontal rowing. CrossFit does a great job with vertical pulling (pull-ups and muscle ups) but the main site hardly ever do any horizontal rows.
- Good Mornings – Excellent Posterior Chain Exercise that will improve the squat and deadlift.
- Tricep Work – This can include all direct tricep training. Some exercises to think about…skull crushers, overhead dumbell extensions, crush grip presses, even tricep banded pressdowns!
- Bench Press – Although not technically an assistance lift, the bench press is very rarely used in wods. The bench press is a lot more then just a chest exercise. The Bench Press is one of the best exercises for chest, shoulder and tricep strength and will even help improve overhead pressing especially if done with a narrowish grip! We do it Every Sunday so if your around Sunday's try strength class!
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2- Improved Programing / Periodization
I know CrossFit at the core is centered around “constantly varied” routines without any real periodization. Surprisingly I do agree with that to an extent. However, I feel CrossFiters benefit from using periodization within some strength blocks.I feel the best way to get stronger is through progressive overload. It can be very difficult to create a progressive overload without a structured periodization plan. I’m not saying everything you do needs to be based of percentages and RPEs but completely disregarding those training variables is not the best way to improve..How do I would set it up
- Run a strength program. Pick a program…5/3/1, Sheiko, Smolov, an Olympic Lifting Program, a Juggernaut Program, etc and just follow it! don't need to try to invent my own.. its out there and tested.
- Periodize out some assistance/assessory movements to compliment the strength work. We rotate different exercises even strong man, gymnastics into each session as to keep with the constantly varied theme.
- Finish with some random Metcon/Wod that will balance out our program. This is where your true randomness of CrossFit comes out!
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3- Competing NOT Training
This is something I have to be careful with myself. I am so competitive I am always trying to beat myself in the gym, and if you throw a group of training partners in there with me, I basically turn it into the Olympics.It is important to remember that every training session does not need to be a competition. The MAIN goal of training should be to create progress and progression. There will and should be days where you go in and absolutely crush yourself trying to hit a PR or max effort and on other days not so much.The key is knowing when its time to go hard and when its time to just put the work in and get a "good sweat"This is a tricky point because I also think the competition atmosphere is a great part of CrossFit. Competition pushes people to work harder and for most people the problem is not going too hard, its going hard enough! Balance and learning to listen to your body is the way to live and train for life.Bottom Line – Don't kill yourself and get rhabdo or injured just to say you smoked one workout..
4- Hypertrophy Focused Training
If there is one thing Bodybuilders have right its building muscle! I know, I know CrossFit athletes are not interested in aesthetics... right? lol. but muscle size has a lot to do with strength. However, if you look at the lower weight classes in powerlifting, Olympic lifting, and strongman competitions, it’s also clear that size is not the only factor when it comes to strength. That being said the easiest way to get stronger is to get bigger. ( Remember all those weeks of squats? how was your clean and dead lift after that period of training? point made :))Again this is my opinion, but CrossFit athletes who would benefit from adding some muscle/strength would be able to ultimately improve their CrossFit game by going through a hypertrophy focused training cycle at some point in the year. (which is why we do it at indestri)We break up their training year into distinct phases. Block off a phase in the offseason between 6-10 weeks and focus on hypertrophy. Then come back to normal CrossFit strength training with added muscle.This allows us to clean, snatch and do our gymnastic movements better... but usually affects our endurance, but out of all the domains it is the easiest to get back fast..
Conclusion
Can’t we all just get along? The simple fact is Bodybuilders only concern themselves with aesthetics and CrossFitters only worry about performance. Two different goals with two different mindsets.Despite the different mindsets and goals, there are still some things to learn from each discipline respectively.Bruce Lee said it best and I apply this mind set to our programming .“Absorb what is useful, discard what is not, add what is uniquely your own”Have a great week,Stouty.
Tuesday August 15, 2017
Focus:
Complete in any order:DB bench 5 X 10 @ AHAPStrict pull-up 3 X Max RepsBarbell Curls 5 X 10 @ AHAPBarbell or DB Skull Crushers 5 X 10 @ AHAPHS Holds 3x Max RepsStrict Dips 3 X Max Reps.
Cash Out:
Banded shoulder recovery - coach led negatives ( symmetry work).Check back each night at 8pm for the next days WOD.
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