Friday Strength Programming

Hey all.  So, Wally has graciously given me a username and permissions to write up blog entries for the Friday strength classes.  So even if you can’t make it in on Friday evenings, consider this your source of schadenfreude from the poor saps who did.

So, why a strength class?  For the most part, Crossfit is allergic to specialization.  We want to develop at an equal rate across as broad a spectrum of fitness as possible, right?  Yeah, sure.  But you do that by targeting your weaknesses.  And I hate to nitpick, but what is weakness if not an absence of strength?  Certainly there is always a trade-off.  But the benefits of being even a little bit stronger will be quickly apparent.

When I first started doing Crossfit, I was perusing the benchmark WODs, and became a little discouraged just reading them.  They didn’t just look difficult… Some of them looked impossible.  But they’re benchmarks – designed as a metric to test how far you’ve come.  Three years ago, I could not do Diane.  Now I’m stronger, and I can.  And doing something that had been physically impossible just a few months earlier is a pretty good feeling.  (Next up:  Isabel and Linda)

Blood Meridian
Skill Development:
Snatch Progression/Drills

Complete 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2 and 1 repetitions of:
Snatch Pull (aka Snatch-grip Deadlift)
Hang Snatch
Strict Pull-ups
Plyo Push-ups (hands leave the ground at the top of the push)

Weight = 70% of Snatch 1RM – C; 60% – B; 50% – A
Score = time.  No whiteboard picture, but everyone took about 20 minutes.
It didn’t cross my mind to actually take a picture of the whiteboard, but here’s a couple of the references I told folks I’d post.  A lot of the work-outs and exercises we’ll do on Fridays are borrowed from these guys:

http://www.militaryathlete.com/
http://www.mtnathlete.com/
http://www.crossfitfootball.com/