20 min of:
3-3-3,4-4-4,5-5-5…
Pull-Ups
Burpees
Ball Slams
EMOTM
Perform the sequence of these 3 exercises increasing 1 Rep EMOTM (Every Minute on The Minute)
When you get to a max number and can't complete a complete series, start over until 20 minutes is up.
Score is your highest rep round and your total reps completed.
FOR THE AVERAGE CROSSFITTER… WHERE DO YOU FIT IN? READ THIS ALL THE WAY THROUGH!!!
Yesterday I spoke about the stresses leading to certain reactions which cause adaptations. You want to lose weight? It's not that hard, eat quality and put down the junk! (Beer Excluded) We all have excuses and we all have reasons why we can't accomplish the our 'desired adaptation'. What is your desired adaptation. Now target your stresses that are going to lead to results.
Crossfit is a generalized fintess program that works best assuming you have no weaknesses in your game. The programs we use in Crossfit are written for the freak athlete who can Rx that particular WOD. Each day assumes you have recovered, don't have any injuries and or weaknesses. Basically they are written for Travis and Justin. They know how their own body handles this type of training volume and or intensity. However, even they scale on occasion and often take time off specific movements to recover.
What about the rest of us? I consider myself part of the "rest of us". Whether you are a type A or completely lazy with excuses, you should identifiy and obtainable desired adaptation. This will dictate what kind and how much stress you can put yourself through. Justin has a desired adaptation here at CFES… To put a team together that can truly compete and win the Crossfit Games. The stess he has chosen is a "Competetive Class". Here he targets the specific goals each individual needs and is customizes their Crossfit programming. The adaptation will net a championship team.
Back to the rest of us… We need to offer you an ADAPTATIONS CLASS. It's easy to identify the weakness, but how are you at identiying the steps necessary for you to succeed? As professional trainers we often take for granted that you all understand how to accomplish this. Example: Your deadlift is hurting your back because your hamstrings are lacking flexibility.
I am offering a class that is going to kick off in December. This class will focus on the AVERAGE MEMBER. You must attend a 2 hour seminar in order to attend this class on a regular basis. We will focus on your journal, desired adaptations, how to pick and choose the correct stresses, how to scale your workouts, when to recover, when to go all out, nutrition and more. I will invite guest speakers, provide specific examples of success and failures to help you figure out what works best for you.
Please sign up on the back white board so that I can begin to get a headcount for this seminar. I am challenging you to step up your game and take your fintess to "Your" next level.
Class in a nutshell:
Seminar will teach each of you how to identify specific goals which will lead to your 'DESIRED ADAPTATION.' I, along with other guest speakers, will help you identify specific weaknesses and or ailments that might be holding you back. We will help you attack and fix those targeted weaknesses. We will provide a general fintess evaluation test that will measure and help you identifiy these weaknesses in a quatifiable value. You will then be enrolled in the 'ADAPTATIONS' class which will be held on the schedule below.
Schedule:
The second week in December kicks off the class with a 1 time Seminar. Dec 10th, 11:30am to 1:30pm
3 months of Classes to be held Tuesday from 6:30pm to 7:30pm and Saturday from 10:00am to 11:00am
EricH
OK, this sounds cool. Couple questions …
1. What if I don’t really have a specific goal that I’ve identified … or more accurately, I have so many goals that none stand out. If you say strength, I say yes. Flexibility … yep. Need more wind, why yes I do. I have 10 goals that all need work … the same 10 that Justin wrote on the white-board when I first walked in the place.
2. This isn’t so much a question as a suggestion. Starting it in the middle of December puts it right in the middle of Christmas/New-Years and it’s just a hectic time of year. Beginning of Jan might be better.
3. Have you figured out whether there’ll be any additional cost, and how do the Tues/Sat classes fit in with the normal foundations/L1 program?
Scott
Well I know what EricH means with respect to wanting to “have it all” right now (not what he said actually, I’m exaggerating), and so we’re all probably in that situation.
So quite a while back I identified a major goal and some secondary and tertiary goals. Their all important, but I prioritized. Mainly on what I thought would be fun and achievable.
First goal is a 3 minute scaled Fran. I set out to Rx the pullups, scale the thrusters. Recently I did a 6 minute Fran with 35# thrusters.
To even get that far I had to manage the pullups. I can 10-15, but not 21. Even if I did 21, doing the next set of 15 would be tough. But I’m working on it.
Keep in mind Fran is a key CF baseline WOD. So if you don’t have any other goal, Fran is a good one to focus on.
Patience and Perseverance! Cheers.
Blake
Chris, I really want to be sexier/tanner. Can this program offer me this? Also, who will be the guest lecturer on tan-ness? I don’t suspect it’s you Travis or Justin (perhaps Aaron?) I of course suspect you already have a sexyness lecture planned out but think tanness—>sexiness but not necessarily vice versa.
Jamie P
Holy crap, Chris, I’m in, sounds right up my alley. I guess the CrossFit Gods were smiling on me – your post yesterday wasn’t a joke that made me look like a fool. Yesss!!
Scott, way to go on your Fran goal. That is thoughtful and effective goal setting at its finest.
Scott
Blake: really dude? really?
Apologies to RS for stealing his 2nd favorite line.
brother mike
Blake if you got any sexier Lene couldn’t keep his hands off you- of course maybe that is what you are after.
If anyone needs a goal to work on how about this one- a body weight overhead squat.
Chris Lene
All good suggestions/questions and even statements for that matter. There will be a fitness test that will happen and everyone will have to take this test. It will identify your specific areas of weakness. This will dictate which direction your workouts go. As for cost… relax, it is included in your membership. As for goals… relax, if you are so messed up and need help in all areas, perhaps the general classes are exactly what you need. This class is designed for the athlete who is starting to plateau, yet certain workouts come along and absolutely kick your ass each and every time. We will identify a specific area of weakness in the seminar we will begin to break you down in to groups. STRENGTH, MOVEMENT, CARDIOVASCULAR. This will dictate your routines and your focus when you are in this facility.
Stay tuned and I will fill you in on all the rest in the coming weeks. The reason we are tarting this on the 2nd week of December; becasue I want to kick this off in January. I am not concerned if you make every Tues/Sat class… I am concerned that you guys learn how to answer these very questions posed on your own.
This class is designed to educate you guys on how your own body should be trained using the CROSSFIT MODEL!
Matt P
Chris- that’s really cool that you are running this class.
T everyone on the bubble about this, I say do it! It’s amazing what working with the coaches on a specific skill or goal will do for you. They have the ability to teach you the progressions toward any skill.
Speaking of skills…. Congrats to Eileen this morning on the double under work. And thanks for the encouragement on my handstand “walks”. We never runout of things to work on.
Scott
Mike: that’s what I would call a long, long term goal.
Scott
Jamie: thanks.
The trick to taking Fran apart is to time each set of PU and thrusters. Since I’m scaling the thurster to meet the time goal, I don’t need to worry about those. I can use a PVC if I have to.
To put a fine point on it, I can do 25 pullups in 90 seconds. The other 25 pullups takes me 210 seconds. A huge degradation in performance (total is 5 mins).
So my challenge is to break that barrier, get to a point where I can do 50 pullups in 2 minutes. Fran calls for 45 so I’m over training a bit.
To get there, my theory is do sets of 10 as fast as possible. Even if it’s only two sets, go all out. Eventually do 15, then 21. Then 21 and 15 and 9 as fast as possible. Get that down to 2 minutes and a 3 minute Fran is possible.
Once I have that, I raise the thruster weight until performances suffers, and that’s the new goal: master thrusters until I get to 95#.
Cheers.
John Michelmore
Chris, this may be what I’ve been needing. I’m in for openers anyway.
Hollis
I volunteer to lecture on tan-ness. More specifically, on how to avoid becoming tan. I will bring in samples of an awesome new-wave cancer fighting cream.
Chris Lene
Scott, I love the dedication and ambition to scientifically break down Fran… Consider this however, if you are going to scale the thruster to a weight that allows you to accomplish the goal… then why don’t you simply scale the reps too. BAM, you are there today and mission accomplished. Scaling is to be set to a level that is taxing you personally, the only way your Fran time should be sub 3 min is when you are doing Rx weight and reps perfectly. If you do the weight you are capable of, then your time will increase. I think you should set your specific goal to 50 pull-ups in a certain amount of time and rethink you FRAN goal with a respectable weight that you can complete thrusters with.
brother mike
Scott, a 3 minute Fran requires you to do 90 movements (45 thrusters and 45 pull ups). So you have 2 seconds per rep. What you see in a lot of Frans is people starting thrusters under that 2 second per rep pace and not able to sustain it- just a thought.
Scott
Mike: exactly so. That’s what makes it a hard goal to achieve. Not much wiggle room.
Chris: the 50 pullup goal would be about 100 seconds @2 seconds per. If I read your comment correctly, you are saying use a heavier weight with less reps. Well, 35# was pretty heavy by the time I was done. Very heavy.
Secondly, I want to be able to measure what I’m doing against what you’re doing (which is what I thought the whole Fran thing was about). Scaling the reps would seem to make that comp. a bit harder to figure out.
Cheers.
Brooke
I want to be good at everything. is there a class for that?
Steller
Brooke, you’re already in it. In fact, you teach it. I wish you would bottle it and sell it.
Lauren Manning
I’m in.
Brooke
haha no way sabrina! there are sooo many things that i suck at! but i think thats why we all love it so much. it really never gets easy
chris
Brooke, will you handle Scott for me? Scott, if your goal is to finish the exact time that most RX people finish then you should set your goal against the NORM. This would be about 6-8 minutes. If you wanted to compare your workout to Justin’s, Travis or say… me at 4:20, then you need to pick a weight/reps that will allow you to finish at that time. But the real measurement and final tally will be in WORK CAPACITY. In order to use a “GOLF HANDICAP” system that you seem to be looking for… Justin and Travis would need to do a weighted pull-up and increase their thruster to 155 Lbs. This might give you what you are looking for, however the real measurement is WORK CAPACITY. Hence the Rx version is the baseline. The fact that an athlete can finish the Rx version under 4 minutes is a bonus… it isn’t a very realistic goal to shoot for a specific time unless you have proper baseline to start from. Don’t compare benchmark workouts with people who Rx, unless you are able to Rx them yourself. Shoot for the same average time of an Rx individual. If you need to lighten the load in order to match an elite crossfitter, then you will more than likely miss the purpose of the benchmark workout all together. Sorry for rambling… but I want to help you better understand how to pick a beneficial goal.
North Face
Great job guys!