What day is it?

Swim Night at 730pm and Beach Ultimate Frisbee at 6pm – Sign up for either NOW! 

For the Ultimate Frisbee, meet up with McCoy at the Venice gym by 6pm and head out to the beach for an ALL LEVELS (trust me on that) fun experience and great workout! This is a great recovery day for the “Diane” testing day tomorrow!! 

Thursday, October 3, 2013

Mobility/Prehab

Wrist Mobility
2 Rounds of:
10 Scapula Pushups
10 Walking Lunges
10 Standing German Stretch with PVC – DEMO

Strength

EMOTM for 5 minutes perform the following:

5 Ring Dips + 10 sec Ring Support – DEMO

Notes: Use bands or scale the reps and time as needed to achieve full range of motion and perfect form. If this is easy for you feel free to add weight. For the ring support, you should be in hollow position with your rings/hands turned out.

Conditioning

For 20 minutes, perform the following sequence for quality:
10 Hollow Rocks
10 seconds Free Standing Handstand or Frog Stand – DEMO
10 Bar Taps – DEMO
10 Overhead Pistols with PVC

 Notes: If you break form during the Hollow rocks, just hold a hollow position static for 30 seconds. For the Handstand/Frogstand you can accumulate time or if you struggle with either of these, perform a wall facing handstand hold for 15 seconds. Bar taps, keep your feet together and focus on keeping your whole body engaged and firing through your lats to pop your hands off the bar. For the pistols, we primarily want to focus on developing strength through the full range of motion, that might mean using a high step up or standing on a box, etc. Remember for all of these skills don’t worry so much about your rounds and reps as much as how well you are performing the movements.

Cool Down

Straddle Stretch, 60 sec
Pike Stretch, 60 sec
Pigeon, 60 sec each side

Barry showing “Sexy Grandma” who’s boss at Joshua Tree  (that’s the official name of this climb by the way:)

Something has changed over the past 12 weeks, and like so many things at our gym, it was a bit of a happy accident.  That particular thing has been a regular squat cycle.  We started with the Smolov cycle in the first week of July, which I like to refer to as the kick starter program.  We did this for one reason:  squatting makes you stronger and getting stronger makes you better at everything.  This included squatting 4 days a week for 3 weeks, and we promised everyone that they would be much stronger in just one month if they stuck with the program.  It sounded great, but the reality was much harder than some anticipated and when the enthusiasm and novelty faded, so did many of the participants.  This was a real deal strength protocol and people had to learn to deal with the loading on their central nervous system, joints and muscles.  People had to learn to take their training seriously by developing proper warmups and focusing on technique.  On the 4th week we re-tested our 1Rm and almost everyone smashed their previous records.  (a few did not, but that was mostly poor planning for the 1RM attempts and pr’d a few weeks later).  So then everyone asked, what are we going to do next?  We want to keep getting stronger!  Well, along came the Hatch cycle, which was only twice per week!  The volume on these two days was nothing to laugh at, but it was still manageable compared to the 4 times a week Smolov…and so it went.  Now 3 months later, I am receiving more and more unsolicited comments from those committed individuals that have stuck with the program.  The common theme:  thank you!  Those that have stuck with this program and made these lifting days their priority and foundation for their training have begun to reap the rewards.  Wall balls…ha!   Thrusters…nothing!  Squat cleans in the middle of a 20 minute workout…I know my legs aren’t going to be the problem!  This was the happy accident.  The squat program forced consistency within our program and consistency is where strength and success occurs!  

Currently we are squatting every Tuesday and Friday, performing Gymnastics every Thursday, mostly Olympic Lifts (or accessory lifts) on Monday and Wednesday and a blend of these elements on Saturday and Sunday.  This is not set in stone except for the squatting, but for the most part this is how the strength portion has been working out and we believe for the better of the entire gym.  Big congrats, not just to everyone that has stuck with the squat program, but that have stuck to a training plan in general!  This goes for attending track or swim class regularly, committing to the VBC or the Thursday gymnastics class.  Remember, life is long and CrossFit is about being good at everything.  Don’t get overwhelmed.  Give yourself a regular training schedule and trust the program.

Holler in comments if you have gotten stronger since July!