Write it Down - Being Prepared

When we workout or we are getting ready to workout, we should be prepared right?  As prepared as we can be. . .


CrossFit has touted itself as being prepared for the unknown and unknowable.  Last year's games were a testament to this.  Wheel barrels, sand bags, huge wall climbs and ring handstand push-ups.  Mix in a year before that and you have a 7km trail run (I think) and a workout that included nailing spikes into the ground.

Not much you can do to be prepared for that, except with the workouts that you do on a daily basis.  For most of the CrossFit Relentless crew, there is no idea what the workout for that day entails until you get to the box, which is part of the fun factor.  However, on days when we know we are doing strength, it is imperative to be prepared for that strength movement.

Many CrossFit gyms mix in a strength workout prior to their met-con (metabolic conditioning workout).  If the gym happens to do that, they more often than not provide their athlete's with a way to calculate their weights for the day.  If it is a strength movement that they have never done before, they are most likely working up to a one rep max.  Things get tricky when we throw in a weight set such as 5,5,5,5,5 or 3-3-3 (two different types of lifting from a CrossFit Football standard). 

To get the most out of your workout, you should be prepared with numbers.  Those numbers are the 1 rep maxes that you have gotten on each of your lifts.  I am not going to list those out, but it is important to note that as we do lift, it is important to spend as much time lifting and as little time as possible calculating.

We take care of warming up, stretching, writing our workouts down after we are done.  Let's be prepared up front to know what we will be lifting that evening. 

Since we do the Wendler (5,3,1) Strength Program, we can automatically calculate what we should be lifting for an entire month and spend time working technique, getting stronger - which in turn should lead to faster times, more efficient movement, and most of all, the chance to put past 1 rep maxes behind us and look to better ourselves.

What we can be prepared, I think we should be prepared for - within reason.

As we have been doing different movements with the Wendler program, don't be surprised to see other lifts start to increase.  It is you getting stronger, getting used to weights that you haven't done in specific movement patterns, and it will happen.

I am super impressed with the Overhead Squat and Power Cleans that we have been working on.  When we retest again, I would love to see the comparison in numbers from when we originally started.

CFR Nightcrew rules!

- Coach Tony

"A winning effort begins with preparation. "
                - Joe Gibbs