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Since we’ve had several requests from female members for a conditioning program that utilizes no heavy weights due to the belief that they are growing into Ms. Olympias, I’m going to design and implement it. Being that there is a HUGE loss of an entire important (if not the most important) mode and piece of equipment we have to use, I will make liberal use of many bodyweight and other exercises not normally used in everyday CrossFit programming. This program will not be for the faint of heart. It is possible that we will have many drop outs back to the regular program due to the rigorous and progressive nature of this program. That being said this will not be a ‘gut check’ or a torture program. It will be designed to progressively tax all energy systems, build strength using bodyweight exercises and more advanced gymnastics movements. In the beginning there will have to be open communication and a watchful eye on the participants to watch for injury, overtraining, etc. due to the issue of the program being basically designed as we go and not being field tested.

Requirements: The workouts will be posted daily and I will design each week of the program and email them to Marc. I will design the training schedule 4-6 weeks out. Discussion will be kept open between the trainers as to the direction the program is taken in terms of difficulty level, exercises utilized, and quantifiable, measurable, and repeatable results. I will use many already designed daily CrossFit WODs and benchmark WODs. Some I will make up. These made up ones must be watched carefully, if they are deemed ‘worthy’ I will keep them in my programming list so that they can be reused. If a workout is deemed ineffective, it will be trashed. I will design the first 4 weeks and submit them to Marc for open discussion on the probable effectiveness and approach to the program.

The Exercises: I will use a wide range of bodyweight exercises, advanced gymnastics exercises, kettlebells, a very limited amount of barbell work with no more than 45lbs, medicine balls, gymnastics rings, box jumps, and monstructural exercises in the program. PVC will be well utilized as well. Members on this program will be expected to strive for nothing less than perfection on exercises. For example Pushups will be to standard, no half assed reps. They will be expected to make great effort to move from scaled versions of bodyweight exercises. It will be incumbent upon both them and trainers to ensure that these goals are met. More advanced gymnastics exercises will be taught. Front Levers, back levers, floor levers, L-Sits and other advanced gymnastics exercises will not only be a part of the program, but performing them will be the norm, not the exception. Box jumps and other jumping movements will be executed in order to build leg strength and speed without the use of barbells. Cleans will be regularly performed with medicine balls, kettlebells, and 45lb barbells as part of conditioning workouts in order to preserve as much of the basic CrossFit exercises as possible. Snatches will be performed with kettlebells and dumbbells. I will also add in exercises like the Glute-Ham Raise, hanging leg raise, and many plyometric exercises. Variety will not be a problem.

The Program: I will design an approach that will incorporate the fundamental CrossFit movements into a program that utilized no heavy weights. This does not mean that it will be easy. It will be extremely difficult although it will not be a ‘gut check’ or hazing session. I will use a cycled approach where intensity is varied throughout the weeks and months. This means that we will have harder and easier days, some weeks will be very hard, followed by a somewhat easier week. Not unlike we see in the daily CrossFit WOD. However, without the heavier work with the barbell, workouts should be easier to recover from in general due to the taxing nature of heavy lifts, especially when performed in METCON workouts. Also due to the loss of the adjustable barbell as a tool, I will use other means to induce strength gains. Box jumps and variations of them for height, for example, will be used as marker for leg strength. This means that instead of squats or cleans with weight used as a gauge of progress, we can use variations of jumps and record heights jumped. Pistols will also be expected to be worked on and mastered in this program. We will also periodically test vertical and broad jumps. In the upper body we will use mostly standard exercises like pushups, pull-ups, and dips/ring dips. I will also push for one armed pushups, HSPU with the hands placed on boxes to increase range of motion, and ring dips and muscle ups should still be worked on and mastered.

A daily WOD may look something like this:

5×5 Perfect Pushups (recruits: on knees; Junior Varsity: pushup; Varsity: Ring Pushup

10×2 box jumps at 85% of best height jumped.

METCON (10-30 minutes)
2 minute rest
Finisher (2-3 minutes)

L-Sit hold for a total of 1 minute

The day will be well thought out with a notice taken into what is performed in the days before and after each WOD and which exercises are used for Practice as opposed to what is being used in the WOD to prevent over training and over use injuries.

I can keep many of the benchmark WODs as well, Cindy, Jackie, Barbara, FGB, Murph, Filthy fifty and many others will fit into our program. This will still give members a chance to make the board, along with many things that will be on the new skills board. The end state will be better performance on these repeated benchmarks while still keeping the random variety in the daily WODs. I can also build variations of these WODs, especially in a scaled up or lengthened format or slightly different exercises for daily WOD purposes. The desired effect will be stronger, faster, and better conditioned athletes without the use of heavy weights.

Often the question is asked whether or not there is a need to do anything but the standard Crossfit Workout of the day, as written by Crossfit HQ. The answer can be as varied as the membership of the community. Some of the answers are goal driven. Some members will want to focus on aspects such as Olympic Weightlifting, the Power lifts, or gymnastics movements. For these people there will be a need to do more work on these movements to do the best they can at them.

Other members may find that after doing the HQ WOD for several months or years, that they have a glaring weakness in a certain fitness domain, or even a certain exercise or group of exercises. For many, it becomes Olympic weightlifting, or maybe barbell work in general. Others may have a very difficult time with bodyweight exercises. This may cause a need to adjust programming to build up these areas, which in turn, may provide better ability at performing bench mark workouts or just enhance their general fitness levels.

The reason I built the strength program initially was that I enjoy lifting heavy weights. I like being very strong and I believe a fit man should be very strong. When I built it, I was ok with the idea of sacrificing some METCON ability for extra strength. What I found out was that this programming enabled me to have very good METCON along with high strength levels. This continues as I design newer versions of the strength programming based on the 5 basic barbell exercises (squat, deadlift, press, bench press, power clean).

The main site WOD tends to be METCON heavy, which is great for most people’s purposes. The question becomes, how much METCON is necessary as opposed to strength work? It seems to me, at this point, that it isn’t as much as most people think. Another point is that METCON seems to build much more quickly as long as strength level is there along with mastery of movements. On the other hand, strength can take a long time to build, especially if very high levels are wanted. Getting a 500lb deadlift takes a long time, and will have to be specifically worked on for most people. This is what makes a strength based program (probably) necessary at some point in a trainees career, of course, depending on goals.

My next step that I am taking with this program is scaling up bench mark workouts by increasing weight and/or difficulty of the exercises. The question is how is METCON affected by doing heavier weight workouts and specially designed heavy weight METCONs? Right now, I don’t know, but I will definitely be working on this. Some of the best stuff, I think, crossfit has going for it and why it is so effective and transferable to other activities is that strength/strength endurance/ and cardiovascular ability are trained together. There are a lot of strong guys out there, but how strong are you when you are totally gassed? Or how much endurance do you have when you are lifting something that weighs more than you? Mixing these things together using the best (and natural) movements available are what I believe makes crossfit great. So maybe it is wise to enhance these things. Who knows, crossfit is so new in the fitness world that we may see a huge leap in the performance of people everywhere. Already if you take a highly trained crossfit athlete vs a sedentary individual the differences are astounding. If you put a trained athlete against an untrained, sedentary person, the athlete will literally be superhumanly strong in comparison, with uncanny endurance.

Another area I am looking to build is in the realm of gymnastics and bodyweight exercises. You can be very strong with barbells and not be able to basic gymnastics work. How strong would someone be if they could hold a 2 minute front and back lever and also do a 500lb deadlift? Or be able to hold an Iron cross and Maltese cross as well as do a 200lb press? Added in with speed work built with plyometrics, Olympic weightlifting, and power lifting style speed work who knows what the results will be, especially when these abilities are transferred to benchmark workouts or sport.

The conclusion here is that some specialization may become needed or wanted at some point in a trainee’s career. But it all depends on what levels you want to be at.

Because people have trouble remembering them here is a list of a few lifts and variations, and their qualifying terms:

Squat: When just the term ’squat’ is used it refers to the back squat or air squat.

Front Squat: ‘front’ refers to holding the barbell in the rack position.

Overhead Squat: The barbell is held with the arms extended overhead with a snatch grip (wide).

Press: More properly the ‘two hands press’, the bar is pushed straight overhead to full extension.

Push Press: The legs are used to assist the arms pushing the barbell overhead.

Jerk: Jerk generally refers to the split jerk. The bar is pushed overhead as in the push press, but the lock out is assisted by a second drop into a split to extend the arms.

Push Jerk or Power Jerk: Same as the jerk, but signifies that instead of splitting the legs, a quarter squat is used.

Clean: By itself refers to the squat clean

Power clean: The ‘power’ qualifier refers to the lifter only comes to just above parallel when catching the bar. The power snatch is the same way. Instead of dropping to a full squat, the lifter drops to no more than just above parallel.

Hang clean: a clean done from the hang into a full squat clean.

Hang power clean: a clean done from the hang to and caught just above a parallel rather than a full squat.

Hope this helps people remember the terms and qualifiers in the lifts we do!