Monday, April 5, 2021

Starting Monday, April 5th we will begin a new block of programming at BCF and CF Route 7. This programming block will be two months long, going through April and May.

This programming block is where we hit the reset button and start our programming back at the beginning. The work we do in these next two months will lay the foundation for our training between now and the 2022 CrossFit Open. We were super proud to see both gyms have a significant bump up in the worldwide rankings for the CrossFit Open this year and we are excited to see how much more improvement we can make in 2022!!!

The strength goal for this block of programming is to make our bodies as durable as possible. This durability will come from building new muscle and increasing the quality of our existing muscle mass. But, more importantly, it will come from doing strength training that challenges and increases our mobility. We will be stronger and more stable through larger ranges of motion, making us more injury resistant and ready to lift big weights with quality. We will achieve this mostly with the use of “functional bodybuilding” strength work.

You can find a lot of different definitions for what functional bodybuilding is but essentially it is using things that are seen as traditional bodybuilding movements (e.g. isolation exercises) and accessory movements and putting an emphasis on quality over intensity/volume to achieve the goals outlined in the previous paragraph. 

Our conditioning focus for this block of programming will be on building aerobic capacity. A simple definition for aerobic capacity is “your body’s ability to consume oxygen for energy production”. 

The main reason for this shift in focus is that well developed aerobic capacity is necessary for efficient use of your body’s energy systems. The more developed your aerobic capacity is, the longer and more intensely you can exercise without your body fatiguing and the more quickly you will recover during and after workouts. This is the “cardio” equivalent of our durability/bodybuilding focus for our strength. Without a good base of aerobic capacity your other energy systems cannot be maximized or trained to their full potential.

Some overall themes that you will be seeing in regard to the strength training will be:

• More days per week with non-barbell strength work
• Bodybuilding and accessory work multiple times each week
• Higher repetitions (Mostly 10+ rep range)
• More strict gymnastics

Some overall themes that you will be seeing in regard to the conditioning will be:

• More long metcons (20+ minutes)
• More monostructural cardio (Running, Assault bike, Rowing, Ski Erg)
• More interval-based metcons

With these specific goals in mind, you will notice some changes in the programming but, DON’T WORRY, the regular CrossFit-style metcons you all love will still be there. Most of our metcons will stay in the 7-15 minute time domain as usual but, there will be a few extra super long workouts. We will also still be testing benchmarks and Hero WODs 2 – 3 times each month (Murph is coming!!!).

Strength:

E2MOM 20
1: 10 Bench Press @60 – 65%
2: 10 Pendlay Row (As close to bench press weight as possible)

AMRAP final set of both movements.

Conditioning: 

For Time:
42 Reverse Lunge Wall Balls (20/14)
21 Burpees
30 Reverse Lunge Wall Balls (20/14)
15 Burpees
18 Reverse Lunge Wall Balls (20/14)
9 Burpees