Ive used both [Crossfit dot com] and WODwell but you’ll probably do better with WODwell if just looking for a WOD repository. Both will throw their daily WODs your way, but if you want to pick and choose - WODwell is probably the way to go. You can use their website or their app, I’m normally an app guy but i think I preferred the website in the past(?). It also lets you generate your own if you want.
Anyways, wodwell lets you filter by equipment or movements, but i found just reading through their benchmark WODs to work well enough for me. Ive got a list of i think 16 i can share if you’re interested (these met my criteria of 1: no running for more than 400m 2: not longer than 20mins and 3: i didn’t think would impact my regular training, which is 5/3/1 based). But you’ll get a better picture just using something like WODwell; perhaps @T3hPwnisher or @antiquity could throw some WOD generator/repository recommendations your way if I’ve missed anything here. I’m still extra new to CrossFit, ive just been an interested observer for a while.
EDIT: this is the list I’ve got on hand for WODs - I just run them supplemental and on days I have extra work capacity but no “main work” planned.
The physique and abilities of top CF people is mesmerizing and intriguing. How can we not be tempted to try it?
I think it really comes down to creating curcuits. Unfortunately, most of my own creations have wrecked me, so I’m hoping to find some things average people survive on a daily basis. And to be clear, in CF terms I’m below average.
Alsruhe has some “corona” programs that are all body weight. I do some of the workouts when I’m traveling. Super friendly to your body but terrible to your soul.
Appreciate the nod there. Wodwell is a fantastic resource. I get lost there for hours. I also like Tactical Barbell II for a bunch of wild ideas, and Dan John has some solid conditioning challenges out there too.
Eventually, you settle into what works and doesn’t work for you. From Dan John, I’ve learned the two keys to an effective “in place” workout are
Floor to overhead
Level changes
Floor to overhead: take something off the floor and get it over your head. Doesn’t matter what or how: you’re going to get your heart rate up. Floor to overhead is the longest ROM you can achieve. Snatches, cleans and press/jerk, clusters, thrusters, all the power/muscle versions of the above, viper presses, one motions, etc etc.
Level changes: change from your current position to a new one. Let’s say standing is the default: go from standing to prone, then back to standing. Even without ANYTHING else, just getting on the floor and getting back up again IS a workout. There’s a reason old people can literally just die because they end up on the floor: they don’t have the muscle or energy to get back up again. Throw in a push-up and it’s even more work. Make it a burpee and it’s even more. Do anything that @ChongLordUno does and it’s even more. You can also level change by jumping, or going to kneeling.
Then, you can combine them. I did burpee viper presses on a lark
Or there’s the Kalsu workout, where you’re doing burpees and thrusters. I did it with a log a while back
And that’s just standing in place. You wanna add MOVING to it? You open up a LOT
I have a question @TrainForPain, what’s the best split over 4 days?
It’s kind of a joke but I noticed today (while cruising t-nation in a very boring work meeting about building a station roof) there are loads of different workouts on t-nation but there doesn’t seem as many upper lower 4 day ones compared to others.
Not saying there arnt any but not as many or seems from searching. 3 day ones, 5 day ones etc and other 4 day versions but not as many upper lower ones.
Just noticed.
Now I love being able to do big movements twice a week but it is hard to get the volume and intensity right on an upper lower split.
Obviously not T4P but everyone that loves the 5/3/1 split should look into the Primary Pattern split as well. I adjusted 5/3/1 template to look like this:
(also added in DC stuff, as indicated).
Upper/Lower is pretty popular among the ladies I believe, because they treat their legs like we treat our arms, and they treat their arms like we treat our legs. This being said, I couldn’t imagine trying to hit heavy legs 2x per week including squats and deads. Maybe in my newbie days, but my lower back is busted after deads yesterday, and likely won’t be ready for more suffering by tomorrow lol.
@Frank_C I forgot to mention Wodstar on youtube. Their website is pretty much worthless, but their youtube videos on how to do certain movements are gold.
Example:
I don’t think there’s an easy fix with an upper/lower split. Squats can hit quads, hams, glutes, and adductors. That’s hitting darn near everything. There isn’t an upper body lift that hits pecs, lats, delts, and traps all at once.
The only solution is a push/pull split. You can do a quality upper/lower split but like you said, the volume (number of lifts per session) doesn’t match up.
@Frank_C i tend to find that upper body workouts on a upper/ lower either don’t hit all muscles equally (especially if you are long limbed like me) or just have so many exercises that it’s too long a workout.
@Andrewgen_Receptors i thought about 531 and the various variations, but I guess 531 can really be whatever you want it to be there’s days with the amount of variations but in my mind it’s still more a strength programme than Bb one.
Although if you increased the rep ranges to something like 12/8/6 with the assistance it wouldn’t look too different I guess.
I also enjoyed the PPL over 4 days where you you do PPL P then next week PLP P etc etc although it can end up being confusing and also ends up every now and again with a push on a Monday which isn’t great for gym space.
@rugby_lifting, since I’m extraordinarily pedantic, I think we have to describe what you mean by “like to do big movements twice a week”.
We could mean you just want at least two days with compound movements. Every decent program does that, so that’s unlikely the concern.
We could mean I want to do the specific power lifts (or Olympic lifts or whatever) at least twice a week. I think programs like 6 weeks to superhero or 915 strength do this well, where you have an upper/ lower day and you switch which lift is primary each day. I agree you’re not going to get bodybuilding volume for everything in these splits, but that’s not how we defined our goal.
We could mean we want to hit movement patterns twice a week. I think conjugate is a fantastic example of being able to do this intelligently and with a lot of volume. The downside is it takes some intelligence, but you only have a lift or two a day that “matters,” and then you can go ham on bodybuilding work without causing issues. I like this one as a middle ground.
What I’m pretty sure you mean, however, (because we’re so aligned!) is you want to hit muscles twice a week. So I’ll lay out some further ramblings on that:
John’s go-to is legs, chest/ delts, back, arms. We could say it’s hitting everything twice. Legs always includes RDL, so there’s some back. Chest/ delts obviously includes triceps. Back may have some rack pulls, which we could stretch and say is legs, and certainly stimulates our biceps. If we have dips on our arm day, we just got our second chest/ delt stimulation. So we can get a little silly and say we’re doubling our frequency, but this is not my favorite split to do so.
You then have the slightly more classic bodypart split of legs, chest and tris, back and bis, shoulders and whatever you feel like. If we go off our map above, this actually reduces our frequency a little. In either case, I don’t think it matters.
My favorite is probably chest and biceps, legs, shoulders and triceps, back. I like putting biceps with chest because they don’t compete, so I can superset or go hard on both without affecting the other. It also puts a less hard part with a tougher one (I think chest/ delts together is a rough day). Then legs is legs and always sucks. Next you have shoulders and triceps. Triceps are a little heavier than biceps, and shoulders a little lighter than chest, so I like pairing these to keep my days a little more “even”. This also gives you your second “push” stimulation. After shoulder press, you can still pair your accessory shoulder movements with triceps without issue. Finally you’ve got back, which also touches your biceps; it can handle a ton of volume, so it’s a good day to end the week with and just go all out. As an aside, it’s important to me I can do any two days back to back, because who knows what life brings; this split does that.
Now, we look above and back just got touched once as did legs. For back, I would say put rear delts on shoulder day and keep RDL on leg day - you’ve touched it three times. If that’s not enough, do some pull-ups in between your heavy chest presses on that day - it double works because you’ve got biceps coming up anyway.
For legs, they suck and nobody wants to do them twice! For us, though, if it’s not something we specifically want to bring up, let’s not forget about hard conditioning! Throw some carries, sprints, sled, etc. in our week and we’ll be leaner and more beautiful, and our legs get hit. My legs always looked gorgeous in my short track shorts in-season.
So… TfP-approved twice weekly becomes:
Chest and biceps. Pull-ups optional if your back needs work. Conditioning is sled because you have legs tomorrow and it doesn’t make me sore.
Legs. See if you can’t puke. Conditioning is optional and would be 15-20 minutes on a bike to flush them out.
Shoulders and triceps. Rear delts get included here. Try giant sets and other disgusting things. Let’s do some 200-400s for our conditioning here.
Back. Focus on your goal here, but, when in doubt, lat work makes you wide and is relatively non-competing with the heavy stuff. Finish off with farmer’s carries and let this be the workout that precedes Friday night beers!
This is true, but I think BBing and PLing have some important crossovers - we’ve seen quite a few accomplished powerlifters lean out and become even more accomplished body builders. This is probably in part due to genetics, but also because your body knows it needs more muscle to lift heavier weights - so strength training is, to an extent, building muscle. I don’t think this path to gainz should be ignored =)
Also, you do want to improve 1RMs for squats and bench, right? Both are okay at best for hypertrophy, so why not actually just train them for strength purposes? Food for thought.
(You can slap base 5/3/1 onto anything, assistance work is not prescribed)
This is literally the split I used for over 5 years back in the day. I would add calves to the back day and did some abs every day. This would be my go to split if I ever decided to train like a bodybuilder again.
This is the issue I have. I’m only two sessions in, but this Tier style training seems to be pretty good for my needs and it’s only three days per week.
Either great minds think alike or you’re stealing my thunder… As I consider myself to be Thor, I’ll choose to believe the former!
But, yeah, it’s hard to mess up.
I really appreciate the discussion in here, gents - it’s awesome and thought-provoking!
I ended up getting some cortisone in my shoulder yesterday, which helped tremendously. It actually helped so much, I ended up too late on everything today - it was limiting me a little more than I realized.
ME Legs
Lying Leg Curl
Speed warm-up:
40/20
50/4
60/4
70/4
80/4
90/4
130/8 x 4
Front Squats
45/8
135/5
225/3
275/1
315/3 → sunk these deeper than the bottom of @ChongLordUno’s dark soul. Probably should have gone up another 20 lbs, but I didn’t
265/5 x 2
Speed DL
225/1
255/1 x 5 w/ 10s between
275/1 x 5 w/10s between
Farmer Carry
No idea what the implements weigh, so they’re 45#
135/40m x 4
What do you rest on the speed hammy warm up? I used the Meadows speed WU like that with 6 reps per set (i couldn’t remember how many he actually said).
