MONDAY

Today is a holiday, but classes will be scheduled as usual. If you have been following the widowmaker program, today we will be retesting the back squat 1 RM. Look at your journals or phone apps to see what your 1 RM was 6 weeks ago. If you do not keep track of your strength programs and workouts, you might want to rethink that. You can see your progression and gains made. I do bring back workouts that we’ve done in the past. It’s pretty awesome to see your times get better or modifications change.

Here’s a great article from Box Life magazine. Read it!!

8 reasons why you may not be getting stronger 

There may come a point in your athletic career where you hit a plateau in performance. It is a frustrating time but there may be some things you can change or add to help get to a strength PR.

1.) Your mechanics are broken

In the beginning you may be able to muscle some movements and gain initial strength, however, eventually you can only muscle so much before you need to refine your technique. Constantly working technique will make a huge difference in your numbers and in the safety of your training when working with heavy loads.

2.) You are only doing what’s fun and not what you need.

Many athletes love to work on the things they are already good at… but avoiding the movements or lifts you struggle with will not help you get any better.

3.) You are not performing accessory lifts.

There is an infinite myriad of accessory lifts that you could work into your training to not only help improve your big lifts (squats, jerks, etc.), but also beef up your smaller synergists—your helper muscles—resulting in bigger strength gains overall.

4.)  You are not giving yourself enough recovery.

Not allowing yourself to have recovery days (quality recovery days) will halt your progress faster than anything. taking time to repair is where you make gains!

5.) You are not focusing enough on mobility.

We already know how important good mechanics are to being able to move weight efficiently—the better you can move your body around the bar (or with the bar), the more weight you’ll be able to lift.

6.)  You are not placing enough emphasis on strength.

CrossFit is all about being skilled across multiple areas of fitness (speed, coordination, flexibility, etc). The aim is to be a balanced athlete, but sometimes people will naturally drift towards improving certain skills at the expense of others, either intentionally or unintentionally. A good example is only going to classes that have heavy met cons and avoiding heavy snatch or clean days.

7.) You fear failure.

This can be as simple as not feeling comfortable enough to bail so never really pushing that limit. Or it could be that missing a lift is embarrassing for you and you need find a way to get over that. Every one misses lifts.. no one talks about it or even remembers it after the class is over.

8.) You are not eating properly.

Part of the process of increasing your volume, adding poundage and letting your body recover is adding more fuel into your system. When you have an intense workout session your metabolism is increased for hours after you leave the box, so you need to provide your body with the proteins, carbs and fats it needs in order for your muscles to repair themselves and grow stronger.

STRENGTH:

Back squat

7/5/3/3/1/1/1

Find 1 RM

CrossFit WOD:

21-18-15-12-9-6-3

power cleans 

K2E

RX 115#/85#

RX+ 135#/105#

L1 75#/45#, med ball situps 12#/8#

EXTRA CREDIT:

5 min amrap:

7 box jumps

7 pull ups