With the Open done we are for now leaving the most intense workouts behind us and going straight into a new training block that will focus on strength. While we always mainly train for health we like to have different focus during the year since it is so much easier to maintain a capacity than to develop it. This helps us to keep the progress going even if we have trained for a lot of years. Also for new members this serves us also well since some movements are showing up more often during certain periods which makes it easier to learn them.

Overview of the Year:

This is how the upcoming year will look like:

March 18-April 14: Strength Block 1A

April 15-May 12: Strength Block 1 B

May 13-June 9: Olympic Lifting 1

June 10-June 30: Gymnastics 1

July+August: High Variation

Sep 2-Sep 29: Strength Block 2A

Sep 30-Oct 27: Strength Block 2B

Oct 28-Nov 24: Strength Block 2C

Nov 25-Dec 22: Olympic Lifting 2

 

Strength Block 1A+B

For the next 8 weeks we will be working on getting stronger. This is often very welcomed after the Open where we have had a period of a lot of high intensity and gymnastics. We will of course still do high intensity training during this period since we always care about our Conditioning/Endurance but more time than usual will be spent doing strength training. 

During the training weeks we will typically have 3 days where we focus extra on strength and in addition to this we will also add more strength training in the Pre/Post WOD than usual. This way we still get the variation needed and will still do enough high intensity training. Below you can see the focus for our main strength movements for this block:

Squats: In the first part of this block we will do a lot of high rep squats. The reason for this is that we want to build a strong base and also give the chance to work in a better movement pattern. The reps will gradually decrease and when we get to Strength Block 1B we will do fewer reps and heavier weights.

Deadlift:

Deadlift will show up in the WOD program every other week and in addition you will see it in the Pre WOD the other weeks. We will vary between doing a few reps for max weight to doing a 3*20 repscheme that we during the years have seen yield great results for both Deadlift itself and other lifts like the Power Clean (as long as the back stays straight)

Pull: If we want to get good at hanging gymnastics we need to get strong in our Pull Ups. As long as we have the technique dialed in it is very linear that the stronger you are in Pull Ups, the better you are at Toes to bar, CTB Pull Ups, Bar Muscle Up etc. Because of this we will make sure to have 2 good Pulling sessions a week where we mostly do Strict Pull Ups in different forms

Push:

As for the Pull, our pressing strength is equally important and in this block our press will vary between us pressing once a week vertically and once a week horizontally. The pressing movements will vary between Push Up Variation, Bench Press, Press and Push Press

In the picture below you can see what training day and what strength movements are to make sure you do not miss any session. Should you miss a strength session be okay on moving it to another day and complete it on a day where you can keep the highest quality of the lift

Fitness Level Workouts this Block:

(Make sure you read today’s post about Fitness Levels that we posted here: Fitness Level 

These are the Fitness Level Workouts for the next 4 weeks:
March 20th: Diane
March 22nd 250 m Row (Post WOD)
March 27th: Fight Gone Bad
April 5th: The Chief
April 10th: 13.4