It’s ok to ask questions regarding the programming.  Two of our newest clients, Katie Cookle’s friend Christina and Karine were in one of my classes yesterday.  The WOD was a strength couplet of weighted Pistols and weighted pull-ups.  Christina asked me  what was the theory behind starting light and going heavier as the workout progressed instead of starting heavy and going down.   I told her that when you’re starting a strength set, you want to warm up the movement starting with lighter loads and build up your body’s level of stress tolerance as you go along as well as your ability to demand the execution of a certain task from your body.    Preferably you’re going to max out or maybe even fail around the middle set or so.  If you peak, that doesn’t mean you’re done with the workout, but rather you still want to finish your sets with about as much weight as you can still handle.  Remember, the objective isn’t just to see how much load you can get up to and beat your friends, but rather to work the movements and build strength for the long therm. 

Both Christina and Karine had just finished the foundations series.  It was Christina’s first and Karine’s second CrossFit class ever.  Karine expressed a certain amount of disbelief when she found out that I was going to have her do weighted pull-ups.  She actually ended up taking the boards for the day on the pull-ups with 13lbs.  When I asked her about it she said that no one had every had her do weighted pull-ups before.  The extra weight helps you adapt physiologically and neurologically to generating more power and moving greater loads.  If you only work body weight pull-ups, you will get stronger to a certain extent, after which you basically just get metabolically better at doing more of them.  A great example of this is that there are people who can crank out pull-ups to no end, but have never been able to do a single 1-arm pull-up.  You have to train specifically with the additional loads.  For the pistols, Roger came up with a new scale that put higher demand on the athlete to train the balance of the pistol.  Several athletes, especially Amanda Norton and Karine, were surprised to find out that they could actually do weighted pistols.  I find it very interesting and entertaining when someone fails at a certain load and then they bring out their game face and dominate the same weight/lift on a later set.

Roger puts a lot of thought into the CFM programming every week. Here is a picture of the mad-scientist himself with the CFM boards.

Many of you know that Roger Harrell currently does the vast bulk of the programming on a weekly basis.  Roger only has about 20 years of experience coaching  as well as his own gymnastics training to add to his experience and vast array of knowledge.  Nevertheless, inside the gym we constantly discuss programming, question what can be improved and if there are any flaws.  It’s an evolving body of knowledge that is dynamic and is always exposed to new ideas and insights.  Some of you expressed some frustration when we were doing density training for a week of double-unders.  Some of you improved dramatically at them.  It’s ok to ask questions and give us feedback on the programming.  We want to hear your opinions.  A few of you know that I like to go to CrossFit Oakland every once in a while on Sunday mornings, partly to get out of my own gym and be a trainee instead of a trainer but also because I enjoy mixing it up and the change of pace in the programming.  They often do shorter strength sets followed by short and heavy metcons.  As knowledgeable as we are, we are always looking to learn something new from other affiliates and other coaches.  They do the same.  Some of their athletes and trainers will be picking up some new skills and ideas at the CFM Trainer’s Gymnastics Seminar and Athlete’s Gymnastics Session on March 13th.  That is part of the beauty of the CrossFit community, that we have very knowledgeable people who come together and teach each other what they’re good at.  There are many approaches and angles that can be taken for training and the better the causes and effects of the programming are understood, the more effective the training will be.