Looking Back and Moving Foward || Coach Wes Kimball
Ahhhh yesss it’s that time of the year. Summer is starting to slowly fade into our memories and the thought of fall is creeping into our minds. Football, cooler weather, turning leaves, and a new 10 week training cycle at CFA. Before we jump right into what to expect in the coming cycle, I’d like to take a peek back at our summer cycle and the changes and improvements we’ve made.
We started the summer with a new format to the competitor training program. Gone are the days of two totally separate programs, and in its place is one fully integrated program for both those that want to compete in the sport of fitness, and those that are here to compete at the game of life. As we mentioned back in July, the competitor programming is being adapted from our good friends CrossFit Invictus, and elements of the Invictus program have seen their way into our normal group programming as well. Organizing things in this way allows our competitive athletes and coaches to be a bigger part of the overall CFA community. It’s also given folks who previously were intimidated by “The Competitors” courage to challenge themselves in new ways, while empowering our competitive athletes to once again be leaders in the gym and positive examples to all.
That said I’d like to thank everyone in the community for supporting and embracing the changes we made this summer, as well as CJ and the Invictus team for allowing us to dip into their vast base of knowledge. I’ve never in my career had so many gym members comment to me about how strong and united our community is, and nothing makes me prouder.
Now that we’ve looked back, what’s on the horizon?
Once again a quick review on how we run our training cycles:
Week 1: Test Week
Week 2-7: Training Block (3 week base + 3 week peak)
Week 8: Retest Week
Weeks 9 & 10: Transition weeks
The training block breaks out into two phases, a 3 week Base Phase followed by a 3 week Peak Phase which.
My overarching goals for this training block are:
- Improve upper body pulling strength
- Improve overhead and torso stability
- Improve short aerobic interval / extended lactic endurance conditioning efforts (3-6 minute time frame) via traditional CrossFit “Metcons”, “track style” conditioning work, and mixed modal intervals
- Improve Speed Power via the Power Clean and Split jerk
Some specifics you can expect in the base phase:
- Strict Pull-up work 3 times a week
- Overhead Squat work once a week
- Front Squat, Power Clean, and Jerk work once a week
- Extra Credit Run work once a week
- Mix Modal intervals 2 times a week
- We’ll play around with some of the SuperFit Team Workouts on Saturdays
I’ll break down the peak phase once we get a bit closer in about 3 weeks.
Final news and notes:
Throughout this 6 week training block we’ll also a be holding an Olympic Weightlifting 101 clinic on Tuesdays and Saturdays. Anyone who is in their first 6 months of training, or if you just struggle with the snatch and clean and jerk this is an incredibly helpful course and will only add to your progress in the gym. We’ll teach you the positions that are absolutely critical for success in the lifts, and work on your movement, mobility, and coordination to improve those position. Get more info here.
Thats it for now folks! As always feel free to hit me up at wes@crossfitaustin.com with additional questions!
-Coach Wes