I’ve been doing CrossFit for a few months, and I’m trying to complement it with a strength program. My idea was to do WODs 2-3 times a week while having one day focused on strength where I would do:
Squat 531
Bench 531
Deadlidft 531
Pull-ups
and maybe some core exercises.
I dropped the press since we already train it quite often in the strength part of the WODs in my gym.
Do you think this would be sustainable? I know it’s probably not optimal compared to a 2-day or 3-day split, but I don’t have the time to fit in some additional strength training before the WODs during the week.
Also, I am still hesitating between classic 531, 5s Pro or the 10,5,(5,3,1) described in the 531 book. Which scheme would be more efficient? Could Joker sets also be useful?
I guess you could try it and see but I doubt you’ll see any benefit. If anything you’ll drop your energy in your wods.
If your goal is strength it’s going to take a focused effort with wods being the supplementary activity - if you have the recovery and energy to add them.
I do CF and run strength training as well. The answer depends a bit on your specific CF gym and its programming. For example, my CF gym will often have dedicated strength prior to the WOD. So, we might do 5 x 5 Back squats or other big lift, followed by the WOD which may then have higher rep variations of that movement (so goblets or wall balls). If this is the case, you don’t want to do a 531 squat progression the day before or after.
If your CF gym focuses on WODs without the dedicated strength component, you could more easily program your strength work on the side. Just think of the CF days as your conditioning days and the 531 days as your strength days.
What do I do? Check out my log to get an idea, but I remain pretty flexible each week. I probably do 2-3 CF workouts on a normal week, and ~2 strength training days in (plus a day or two of soccer or mountain biking). I will choose my strength workouts based on what I did that week in CF.
I’ve tried this before and found it worked for me. I suspect it depends a lot on the programming in your Crossfit gym, and your current strength levels.
From my experiences at similar formats, i think a slightly better approach would be to do a 531 program with higher frequency and lower intensity to slowly nudge your lifts up, then use the Crossfit as assistance. When i did it, i used the original Full Body, Full Boring template as 1st edition was the only book i had, but i don’t see Jim recomending anything similar anymore.
This looks good, but I would say the order of your week depends on your CF gym. Do you get to see the week’s workouts ahead of time? I used to be able to, but now they changed it so I have to be more flexible on my strength training days.
That means I would rather do CF the first day, then strength the next. So if the CF workout/WOD is heavy on squats, I can pivot and do strength work the next day with no squats.
I think this is a really important point. When i was doing this, i had a level of control over what the WOD was, and could adjust any “other” work accordingly.
Thanks this makes sense. But the strength part of my WODs are usually volume based (8-10 reps), is this still a problem? I was going to consider them as the “assistance” part of 531.
Thats what i did too. I had a weekly plan of what main and supplemental sets i was going to do on the main lifts, used the WODs as conditioning and assistance and then added in any extra assistance work to fill any gaps if possible.