Someone asked me how I would program an 8-week CrossFit cycle and I had to say, I wouldn’t. Frankly, I prefer 12, 14 or 16-week programming blocks because I think 8-weeks is just too short to create some meaningful impact.

Having said that, I probably have 3 solid 12-week training blocks left before my athletes have to start competing in the CrossFit Open at the end of February, 2022. So, I think it is worth looking at some general planning guidelines.

CrossFit Progressive Training Blocks

When I think about training cycles in CrossFit, I think about a matrix that can get very complicated if you are not familiar with two things:

1. Your audience, the people who are going to be doing your workouts, whether they are members of your gym, or individual clients
2. The measure of the baseline activity across a number of goal-oriented factors

What I am looking for is a cycle that deals with strength, efficiency, endurance, recovery, capacity, and stability. I don’t neglect any one of these goal-oriented factors in designing a training cycle, even if focus is on one in a particular period. For example, we may have a greater emphasis on strength over endurance in one cycle.

In CrossFit, there are so many things we can focus on. But, you can create a progression that can keep you on top of everything. You can start a first cycle that is quite basic, strength and gymnastics.

I like to program strict work, getting athlete’s progressively stronger, building up the lifts in weightlifting, and the endurance work in this cycle is going to be long. Then, the next cycle may be barbell cycling because you have built strength in the first cycle and now you can apply it in a dynamic situation.

Same with gymnastics, you have developed skills and strength to do the movements in the first base cycle, and in the second cycle, I am getting you to do more dynamic gymnastic work. So, instead of strict pull-ups, you are doing kips. And, I am now adding weekend 3-mile zone runs, for example.

We get to cycle three and I am moving into more of everything, essentially prepping athletes for the CrossFit Open. There are higher volumes of barbell cycling, weightlifting, gymnastics cycling and higher reps all around.

So, I may have an EMOM for endurance followed by an AMRAP of two movements from the EMOM to simulate how an Open workout feels. The program is now building on top of itself.

I make sure that everyone at Precision CrossFit can see where we are on the calendar, where we are going, and what the goals are for each cycle. I am doing baseline tests and end of cycle tests to see how we are progressing.

It’s pretty elaborate and if you look at my programming spreadsheets, they are very detailed and specific with tiers of exercise blocks sitting on top of each other, following on from one another within the time allotted.

CrossFit Goal Setting for Everyone in the Gym

CrossFit is a really good supplement for a lot of different sports methodologies. I try not to get too wrapped up with the sport of CrossFit.

I have trained obstacle course racing (OCR) champion Hunter McIntyre, and used CrossFit to help him get better at OCR. So, for this particular athlete, CrossFit is a great way to develop his engine for strength and running.

For a High School cross country team, you can use Murph with push-ups, sit ups, and air squats as a baseline for them. As a coach if you begin to see their times come in under 30 minutes on this workout, they are probably going to do really well in a 5K cross country race. It is a lot easier to do that 5K then it is to do Murph.

A post shared by Michael Tromello (@mtromello)

For any coach or athlete, I say, CrossFit should be a must-have in your training toolbox. It is essentially the evolution of circuit training and the reaction is overwhelmingly positive for athletes because it is challenging and fun.

So, they may be doing CrossFit two or three days a week as a supplemental workout and it will be enough to prepare them for whatever sport they are doing.

On the other hand, a lot of people who are coming to my gym, Precision CrossFit, they’re looking for CrossFit pure and simple, and most everyone wants some element of competition because their goal setting is based on their performance in WODs and their personal improvement. For a select few, that personal improvement is part of their journey into competitive CrossFit as a sport.

The great thing about programming training blocks is that the fundamentals of the workouts, the movements, the sequences, they don’t change, and you may adapt reps, times, and weights, but you are always doing CrossFit.

If you have a gym or are a coach who wants to learn more about programming or needs some help on your own specific needs, feel free to DM me on Instagram, @mtromello.

CrossFit programming isn’t about just doing any old set of movements every day and knocking yourself out without some progression. I build programs for my gym and my affiliate gyms based on blocks that improve performance but also emphasize the preparedness that CrossFit demands of athletes.

In other words, you have a plan to train your athletes to be ready for anything. You just don’t do anything to get them to that point.

The post Programming for CrossFit Strength, Endurance, and Preparedness appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

In this video tutorial, filmed at an active and noisy Precision CrossFit, I am going to introduce a series of movements that are based on creating overhead stability. Overhead stability is really lost among many athletes and I have seen that since I started in strength conditioning. I want you to think about the muscles that are required to hold weights over your head or to hold yourself upside down.

Building awareness about these muscles is imperative to my strength training programs. I use it for everybody. The exercises in this video are really going to help you understand the right way to go about getting that solid trunk, reducing your chances of injury, improving your form, and ultimately, leading to bigger gains in both strength and overall performance.

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Developing explosive power for athletes should logically entail pure single-leg exercises. Simply put, when you’re in a sport, any sport, you are usually creating power and taking off from one leg anyhow. In fact, most everything we do is transitioning from a single leg to another. So, if you want to have great leg strength, be able to jump with power, create force and momentum in your movement, you can do so much with single-leg exercises.

10 Explosive Single-Leg Exercises

Here is my top 10 list of single-leg exercises that I have successfully applied to athletes and trainees at all levels. You can see them all from the 3:27 minute mark in the video above, where I explain my approach to doubling leg strength, one leg at a time.

1. Weighted Box Step-Ups: These are simple enough to do as you can see from the video above. Just remember to watch yourself on the way down and maintain control and good form. You’re not looking to put extra strain on the lower joints.
2. Single-Leg Glute Bridge: When you are watching the video on this exercise, pay attention to the toes. They point out. Maintain that tension when you do it and create the clean lines in the bridge.
3. Elevated Single-Leg Glute Bridge: The key thing here is to keep the toes pointed and make sure you get a high enough raise in your glutes. It’s going to be challenging and you’ll definitely feel it in your hamstrings.
4. Stability Ball Leg Curl: Getting into position and maintaining position is going to be awkward so, don’t worry about that. Actually, it’s not as simple as it looks.
5. Single-Leg Stability Ball Leg Curl: Switching to one leg only is going to add a multiplier in terms of awkwardness and difficulty in this movement. Again, don’t worry about that and accept that it requires concentration and focus to maintain form, despite the lack of resistance.
6. Dumbbell Split Squat: CrossFitters will hit that knee to the ground. It is best to have a pad or something soft to cushion that area, for sure. However, you will probably just graze the ground. As long as you have tension and control, you’re good.
7. Walking Lunges for Runners: From the video, it may seem like an exaggerated lunge and it is. You’re trying to show that knee raise. That’s why we call it a lunge for runners. It gives you good depth and muscle memory in the process, too.
8. Bulgarian Split Squats: We try this exercise with the top of the foot flat on the bench and with the back foot on its toes. Either is fine. On the toes will put some extra emphasis on the quads but it is entirely up to you. Just make sure you set yourself up properly and you have the necessary flexibility to perform this movement accurately.
9. Single-Leg Romanian Deadlift (RDL): Even the best of you is going to be put off-balance doing this exercise. It’s not about how far up your back leg goes either. Keep your back solid and straight. Your back leg will go up as much as it does. The key is the position of your torso and the balance you maintain.
10. Weighted Wall Sits with Hurdle Jump: I developed this approach to creating explosive leg power because sometimes when you have to jump in and train a group of athletes, you don’t have time to teach them cleans and Olympic weightlifting movements if you want to create that explosive power in their running and jumping. This exercise combo works, and you can see immediate results without asking the athlete to learn any complicated technical lifting movements.

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People notice that they look different, there’s something about them that looks strong and they can’t quite place it. That’s because I put extra emphasis on developing their thoracic area.

So, yes, I develop their posterior chain, which is something most coaches always think about, but I tend to spend a lot of time on the thoracic region with accessory work trying to hit as many parts of the region as I can. That’s the upper part of your back, scapula, rhomboids, traps or, lack of a better word, the wings.

In this video, I explain some of the exercises I regularly program for my athletes and trainees. It’s not heavy lifting. It’s grinding. It’s annoying. It takes time and it can be a monotonous process.

But I want people to really focus on doing these exercises and while they may not feel that it adds to their strength to be working these small muscle ribbons around the thorax they’ll see the results show up in a big way when they do bigger, heavier movements.

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CrossFit Open 2020 Changes

There is only one Open and one season this year; it’s starting October 10, five weeks. If you are doing the Open to have fun, just do the workouts, do them one time and enjoy them. Relax. If you are looking to qualify for the CrossFit Games, the top 20 from the Open will go through, as before, with the backflow from the sanctioned events.

Sanctioned events have longstanding histories, in some cases, and have their own criteria for participation so, you need to look at each one separately. Athletes from sanctioned events will also go to the CrossFit Games.

Masters should see the Open as training because mature athletes will have their own qualifier, the top 200 athletes in each age group from the Open having to go through an Age Group Online Qualifier (AGOQ) in 2020.

Teams can only qualify through sanctionals. The santionals start in November, 2019 and go through to June, 2020.

But, let’s get into the video below. It should help make things clearer.

The post Everything You Need to Know to Compete in the New CrossFit Open appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

Shoulder Work Instructional

In the video below, Wade Maselich and I go through a three-step process: we start with an assessment first and some discussion of the fundamental structure of the anatomy of the shoulder, we follow that up with some mobility work and finally we get into stability work. Stability is often neglected because people become so focussed on mobility. That shouldn’t happen.

Keep an eye out for more of my instructionals here on Breaking Muscle or just click on the word tag Tromello Instructionals to pull them all up.

The post Shoulder Work: Self-Assessment and Development appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

So far we have covered ankle mobility, hip mobility, and thoracic stability in this series of video instructionals. This time, we are going to review the rack position. The rack position is neither intuitive nor is it a natural position for many people. However, with the right emphasis on developing a strong rack position with the appropriate flexibility in the elbows, wrists, and shoulder, you learn to appreciate how naturally effective a strong rack position in your lifting practice.

In this video, we are going to start off with some self-testing so you can assess where you stand in your own practice, then we will pursue some exercises and holds that are designed to improve your rack position over the long term. Enjoy this instructional video with Coach Mike Tromello and PT Wade Maselich of Precision CrossFit in Agoura Hills, California. Look for more in this series in our Mobility Selt-Test and Improvement playlist on this channel.

As we have seen previously, most strength athletes seem to have limitations with mobility of the thoracic spine. Howvever, most coaches will tell you to get the elbows high in the racking of the barbell in the clean position.

The higher the elbows can go, the further back on the deltoids the bar can rest and therefore, be more stable. And, as a rule, if your elbows are not high you might touch your thighs which would be considered a no lift in weightlifting competition.

Check out the instructional video above, test your own limits, and do the exercises, working your way towards the right level of flexibility for a solid rack position. It makes a huge difference in your lifting, and it should be an essential part of your practice to make sure that you have optimal positioning and form.

Keep an eye out for more upcoming instructionals in the coming weeks or just click on the word tag Tromello Instructionals to pull them all up.

The post The Rack Position Deserves Your Time appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

So far we have covered ankle mobility and hip mobility in this series of video instructionals. This time, we are going to review thoracic mobility. Funnily enough, it isn’t about mobility so much as it is about stability. In the ankle mobility instructional, we were really griding it out and trying to address a lot of issues through working those joints. In the hip mobility segment, we showed a lot of stretches and sustained stretches, really talking about opening up the hip.

When it comes to thoracic mobility, it’s mostly about actively trying to keep that chest up. Basically, can you keep your chest up while you are at the bottom of the squat. In the video below, we are going to start off with some self-testing so you can assess where you stand in your own practice, then we will dig into some mobility, and finally, go big on stability. That’s going to include ways to strengthen the thorax so that you can better stabilize it.

Keep an eye out for more upcoming instructionals in the coming weeks or just click on the word tag Tromello Instructionals to pull them all up.

The post Thoracic Mobility: Chest Up When You Squat appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

Our previous video dealt with Ankle Mobility. This time, I want to review your hip flexibility, specifically abductors and adductors, and hip flexors, predominantly how tightness in those areas hinders your mobility.

Basic Hip Mechanics

Let’s take a look at the fundamental structure of the hips. There’s a group of six muscles and you can fairly compare the structure to the rotator cuff muscles of the shoulder. You can read a lot more about the mechanics of the hips here: The Balance of Power in the Hips. I am going to just get into the actual work in the video below. But, here’s a nice quote from the article to put it all in perspective.

These muscles, along with the ligaments, provide the hip with a balanced sense of stability. From there, layers of muscles allow the femur (thigh bone) to move in all directions. Many of the hip muscles do several things, like bring the hip forward and rotate it inwards, or move it backward and into external rotation. Instead of focusing on what each individual muscle does, you can create a sense of balanced strength and mobility throughout the hip’s range of motion. Once you do, everything tends to work (and feel) a whole lot better.

Jennifer Pilotti

Poor hip extension is associated with tight hip flexor muscles, which are the muscles in the front of your leg that stretch when you try to move your leg back behind you. To add to this tightness, some of your hip flexor muscles are short and broad, and these types of muscles tend to be hard to stretch.

The hip flexor muscles are also hard for most people to isolate for stretching or active movements that require flexibility. Then, there’s the adductors and abductors which perform differently in men and women but also play a role in your hip mobility.

I am working with Wade Maselich, again, over at my gym Precision CrossFit in Agoura Hills, California, as part of this series. We start this video with some tests that you can do on yourself to see how mobile our hips are. It follows with some massage techniques leading into stretches and movements that will help create more flexibility.

Finally, how you can strengthen your hips as part of your mobility practice for this pivotal segment of your body. Michael Tromello and Wade Maselich of Precision CrossFit in Agoura Hills, California, are your hosts. This is part of a series of videos so check for them in our Mobility Work Playlist on this channel.

Keep an eye out for more upcoming instructionals in the coming weeks or just click on the word tag Tromello Instructionals to pull them all up.

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It’s been a while since I posted but to get back into the swing things in 2019, I am going to kick it off big with a series of instructional articles and videos starting with an often overlooked topic – ankle mobility. The videos below were created with Wade Maselich, our PT at Precision CrossFit, my gym in Agoura Hills, California.

The first thing I want to touch on is the notion of training from the inside out rather than from the outside in. As a coach, in my personal programming, I focus a ton on stability muscles. I focus a ton on thoracic strength, and I focus a ton on the posterior chain.

If those muscles are strong, the athlete’s going to be a better, stronger athlete. Most athletes focus too much on the primary muscles meaning legs, quads, hamstrings, big muscle groups and not on the smaller muscle groupings. That tends to be an issue.

The Protocols of Being Better

For example, in my training programs, I spend a lot of time during the time allocated for workouts going through skill-building and mobility work. Basically, I work on things like rotator cuff muscles and what is now trendily known as crossover symmetry. I work with athletes on stability, something that Wade and I have talked about a lot.

I pride myself on having emphasized stability work for many years but you can’t blame the gym or other coaches if this is a relatively new thing for most people. People come into a gym, particularly a CrossFit gym, and they want to get stronger and lift heavier as soon as possible. There’s a sense of urgency.

In the video below, Wade and I are going to talk about these issues and provide some background on how athletes need to approach inside out training, starting with ankle mobility and why it is so important. Take a few minutes to listen or watch the discussion before jumping into the instructional video that follows.

We are going to talk about how athletes in competitive situations face ankle mobility issues. We will relate that to the average gym goer and then really try on zero in on ways to reduce the risk of injury.

Testing for Mobility and Fixing Your Weaknesses

There’s no easy way to talk about mobility, the things you should look for, and how you go about addressing your own personal issues. It’s much easier to demonstrate. So, just dive into the instructional video below.

I think Wade and I have managed to cover your ankle mobility from every angle and we’ve kept it simple, and safe. It’s really important to realize that a lot of this kind of inside out training is not only designed to help you move better but to avoid taking on injuries as you invariably push yourself to try and get stronger and better.

Taking the weightlifting snatch as a guidepost, ankle mobility plays a crucial role in determining how far you progress in your practice of this unique strength movement. Your ankles play a key part in determining whether the rest of your bother will align right in order to be able to get you into the deep catch positions that a snatch demands.

Keep an eye out for more upcoming instructionals in the coming weeks or just click on the word tag Tromello Instructionals to pull them all up.

The post Ankle Mobility – Training Inside Out appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

Although I think there is definite credibility in the article, How Greg Glassman is Reshaping the CrossFit Games by Justin Lofranco, I reserve judgment because there are too many unknowns. Essentially, according to this article, Glassman is signaling his intent to get rid of the Regionals and Invitationals for the CrossFit Games.

In addition, he is expanding the athlete field to include hundreds of new athletes from every country that has at least one CrossFit affiliate. And, CrossFit will partner with 16 CrossFit-sanctioned competitions to find more Games athletes. Having recently laid off a group of its media staff, the organization is also going to outsource media broadcasting to an external partner.

First, we really need to hear from . The CrossFit Games are his baby. Has he been blindsided by this news? Is he in agreement with Glassman? The sources that broke the story are credible. Don’t get me wrong. However, logistically this idea doesn’t seem feasible for the 2019 season.

The Granite Games are next month, Wodapalooza already opened up registration. If a major partnership with these events and CrossFit HQ was happening we would probably know about it by now. In addition, the Games season just ended. So athletes are already gearing up to compete and make it back to the Games next year.

This is a complete business restructuring if it were to happen, and it would impact affiliates and athletes across the board. And, typically, CrossFit restructures the Games format every 2 years. So while I can see this change happening, more thought would need to go into the logistical implications. Much more thought.

When it comes to the CrossFit Open, who makes it? One athlete per country? So, one man, one woman, and one team from the USA? That hardly seems likely. It also means a significant uptick in submissions so, how are they going to police all that video with so much at stake? It’s a nightmare in the current format.

Moreover, what about live competition versus online? Many athletes that crush the Open do not make it to the Games once they make it to the live format of Regionals. This seems to be particularly true of the Team format. My Precision CrossFit team is a great example of this; we were top 7 in our region, technically two spots from a Games qualification but we finished 16th at Regionals. There’s a lot to be said about competing in a live environment.

Which takes us to the 12 or so outsourced competitions that Glassman suggests in his conversation. Ok, so the idea is rad. However, how do you make standardize those competitions? The winners go to the Games, sure, but what if the same person wins twice?

What if one event is two days with seven scored workouts and what if another is three days with twelve? Which is a better competitive test? Is the test adequate enough to find a Games athlete?

In addition, what about the Team categories? WODapalooza is same-sex teams of three. There really isn’t too many four-person competitions out there. I would love to nominate the Ventura Battle of the Boxes if they decide to do this but who is making these decisions, on what basis, and how far along are they in planning? The restructuring seems good in theory but a ton more thought has to happen. That’s why I don’t think 2019 makes a lot of sense. Maybe 2020 would be a more likely timeframe.

Like I said, we really need to hear from Dave Castro. What if CrossFit owned by Glassman and the Games, technically belonging to Castro, split? Folks, you could be looking at a CrossFit Games season not called the CrossFit Games. Think of what happens if Castro splits from Glassman.

He can’t use the CrossFit name. He has no problem finding money and sponsors. He drops CrossFit from the name and you have the Reebok Games or Nike Games. This is all speculation of course. I really don’t know what’s happening but what is happening seems very fishy to me. What it really comes down to is this: We need wait for an official announcement from CrossFit HQ but we need it soon. Until that happens, everything we are hearing is meaningless.

Now let’s say Glassman’s on point, the Regionals disappear, the Open is a bigger deal, and the Games are a multi-national extravaganza. It’s not a bad thing. Sure, you lose the Regionals but in theory, you gain multiple other Regional-type events. You wouldn’t have to worry about qualifying in a saturated region. You could fly to any region you wanted, I assume. In addition, like weightlifting meets, you could plan around which events you’d be doing and train for them specifically.

All images courtesy of Precision CrossFit and CrossFit

However, if you’re only taking one man, one woman, and one Team from each national Open, why actually do it anymore if you are a US-based athlete? Here, if your name isn’t Matthew Fraser, Kari Pierce, or CrossFit Mayhem then you’re pretty much screwed. This plan really makes no sense competitively and historically in so far as the Open is concerned.

It would be best to save yourself for the Granite Games, Wodapalooza, and the multitude of other online qualifications, and maybe that is the intent. I guess it puts the emphasis on bigger, maybe more lucrative, live events, and still allows all affiliates the chance to test their members in an Open competition.

If CrossFit is doing this to focus more on affiliates and the general membership, does it plan to give us, the affiliate owners, more than just a brand name to put in our title? There is virtually no help from HQ in running our businesses. Can they provide us insurance? Help us more with branding and logos? Even the basic affiliate support is non-existent. So I would like to see what a re-focus on affiliates really means.

Ironically, one of the only perks of being an affiliate is the existing Open, where you can register judges and run the competition out of your box without having to worry about video for 90% of your athletes. But if you have no compelling reason to run the Open anymore then why be an affiliate? This is important for the competitive side of CrossFit and those affiliates that have put time and effort into it, as was the expected norm and guidance coming from CrossFit HQ.

Owners are going to say unless CrossFit HQ is going to give more support to affiliates and actually advertise us more then why pay the $3,000 a year to be one? Some of the best advertising we had came during the Games through online and television exposure. With that gone CrossFit HQ better pick up the slack elsewhere.

So much speculation, so many logistical questions. Who really knows what’s truly happening right now. We’re just going to have to wait and see. Either way, the sport of CrossFit is not going anywhere. It actually may be growing. Just in a manner we did not expect.

The post Greg Glassman Wants to Shake Up CrossFit’s Competitive Nature appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

Photo of Coach Tromello with CrossFit Games Bound Team Torrance Training Labs at West Regional 2018

Watching the CrossFit Regionals you might be sitting at home wondering, “Hey, I didn’t get there or I really want to make it to that level next year, I want to do better on the Open.” If you want to do better next year then it’s time to get started now. Being better at the Open means different things to different people.

For example, I worked with obstacle course racing (OCR) champion Hunter McIntire. Sure, he was trying to go to the Regionals but he also uses the Open as a gauge to see where he stands in terms of his fitness—and then he still goes and wins a bunch of OCR races. He can be a champion athlete in one sport, and still possibly be a champion athlete in CrossFit. Another trainee I work with just wants to do the Open just to see if she’s better than last year—her goal may just be to do her first pull up. For most of us, it’s complete opposite sides of the same spectrum.

Ultimately, what’s cool about the Open is that it does measure overall fitness. If you can’t do the workouts as recommended, you can do the scaled division to measure yourself against people like yourself around the world. If you’re going to be doing any personal training or any type of fitness work, you should be able to do basic functional fitness challenges—it’s picking up something off the ground and putting it up on the counter. Or maybe it’s doing farmer’s carries with your groceries in the door. What I’m trying to emphasize is that the Open is a great fitness benchmark and something that you can set as a goal for year round motivation.

Not Doing Things You Normally Do

The workout of the day at my gym recently was a 25 minute AMRAP:

A guy doing it comes up to me and says he can go to a 24 Hour Fitness and walk in the door, put on his headphones, do bench presses and all that usual stuff. He tells me he comes to do CrossFit with me because I am going to make him do things he would never ever do on his own.

If you’re going to go to a CrossFit gym that has well-rounded programming, you’re going to do things that you wouldn’t normally do. There are people who can make it through to Regionals but right next to them are people who are just pushing themselves out of their comfort zone and trying to better themselves.

Training Is Year Round

Now is the time to start training for next year’s Open. For my gym, I have everyone on 48 weeks of 12-week cycles, already getting ready for next year. And next year’s Open will be very different than what we have come to expect

I have been looking at the programming of events this year and I think there are a lot of challenges waiting for athletes next year, challenges that require preparation over the course of the coming year because you won’t be able to just gut your way through those future workouts.

You have to build skills that are new to you and you are going to have to be stronger than this year demanded and have more endurance. Expect the unexpected but be prepared for the inevitable.

It’s All in the Hands

Gymnastics-like movement is going to become more of a factor in future Opens. The organizers definitely want to see you be proficient on your hands, so start working on handstand walks now. Being able to do those 25-foot increments, or at least 5-foot increments, is important.

Rope climbs were introduced in the online qualifiers this year so, you’re probably going to have to go climbing in next year’s Open. Rope climb efficiency, especially being able to get down that rope fast, is something you are going to have to work on. I’m going to start teaching my gym how to do a handstand walk with various progressions over the next 12 to 36 weeks.

Strength Routines Are Key

Strength has become a component, however, it hasn’t become a component where it’s going to make or break you. If they come out with a max lift, again, you need to be strong enough to do well enough in the lift segment. My gym is weak in the upper thoracic area, so I’m going to spend more time building up their max lifts in that area

From there, I’m also going to start building more of my trainees’ core stability because I suspect that there is going to be a lot more overhead work in general this next year. I am going to also program for shoulder endurance and that means that I’m going to start having my athletes do overhead squats and variations.

We saw in this year’s Open that a competitive enough lift was right around 320 pounds for the men and for the women it was about 215 to 220 pounds. These aren’t trivial numbers. Your max lifts should be solid and at levels that can safely keep you in these ranges for competition.

And remember that all of your lifting is done under fatigue. In Open WOD 18.3 and in the online qualifiers, double unders and wall balls were on the menu followed by those overhead squats. So, it’s literally a line in the sand—you have to be strong under stress and fatigue situations.

Jump Rope and Jump Rope Often

From what I can see, you now will be asked to do somewhere between 400 and 800 double unders in a workout. That means that I have to increase my athletes’ capacity for doing double unders—and if my athletes are doing it then, you should be, too.

CrossFit does an amazing job of evolving every single year and if you’re not evolving with it, you’re going to fall behind. When they introduced handstand walks over obstacles, the organizers took it to another level and that means that they want to make sure that you do, too.

Create Energy Efficiency & Fix Glitches

You need to be working your energy systems efficiently. So many CrossFitters are just staying in that 10 to 15 minute WOD range and they’re not expanding their overall fitness. They’re not going out there and running, swimming, biking, and doing triathlons and playing sports. They’re just doing 15 minute CrossFit workouts because they’re fun. Well, sometimes the stuff you need to do isn’t fun.

Fix the small things. Fix any technical glitches in your handstand push ups, your handstand walk, and make sure you can get down the rope climb with a speed descent. You should see next year’s Open as a challenge to your training program. If you failed to meet your goals this year, you’re going to be outside looking in again next year if you don’t take things to another level.

Now is the time to set your mindset and prepare. With five training cycles left until next year’s Open, you may think you have a lot of time, but in reality you’re going to be working across a range of movements while increasing your strength and endurance. It’s not really that much time at all.

The post Getting Your Success in 2019 Means Starting Today appeared first on Breaking Muscle.