[quote]blackngrey609 wrote:
1000rippedbuff wrote:
It depends, there’s a lot of room for error. When I was building my hybrid program I injured myself, I think I may have torn my quads, from too much high intensity work.
I do a format based on ws4sb mixed with crossfit wods. I like a lot of variation in my conditioning workouts, I think it is very important for real conditioning, ie not being 1 dimensional.
I divide them up into: weight room based, body weight based, running based, and heavy(short, very heavy weight room based conditioning) wods. that is on top of my regular lifting. I also divide them into longer(chipper) and shorter (less than 15 minutes). I’ve found that the shorter ones are the more important for conditioning, which is probably counter intuitive to most people unless you really think about and understand the energy systems. You still need the longer ones, but they don’t need to be frequent, once a week to 2 weeks is fine.
Those are some general rules I use off the top of my head.
see you yourself dont use just the workout of the day. My arguement wast that the WOD isn’t a great conditioning choice but if you are trying to get big and strong crossfit in and of itself is not the way to go. I agree if you are looking fora solid and fun routine to raise your heartrate, burn some calories, and improve your cardio at tehe end of a workout or on your day of lifting its great. as long as you dont hurt yourself.
On that how did you mix WS4SB with the WOD. It does sound interesing?[/quote]
Too many people think that crossfit is just doing the posted WOD. The mainsite WOD is just an example of how it can be done. I have my brand of crossfit, it’s how I do it. I would define doing crossfit as having goals in weight training, gymnastics and bodyweight movements, and having some focus on the named crossfit workouts. Many of my clientel want to do the mainsite WOD, which is fine for most people’s purpose. I’ve seen a lot of people do very well conditioning and strength wise just by doing that. My personal opinion, You do better at everything with a little narrower focus on lifts and gymnastics exercises and a broad spectrum of conditioning work outs.
Now to say getting you’re not going to get big and strong on the mainsite WOD, true, it isn’t the goal of that program. Some people do (they have the right genes). For me, muscle size and aesthetics aren’t something I train or train people for. Not that we don’t have that, but we focus on performance and eating healthy, and those that put a good amount of effort in those things will build a nice physique as a consequence of that. For me, it is much more satisfying (and effective) than when I used to do bodybuilding workouts in college. I’m stronger now, and much leaner, though I weigh less. I would probably allow myself to get bigger, but I compete in MMA and jiu-jitsu and have weight classes I have to make. For me, vanity is not something desireable to train for.
WS4SB is a program I’ve liked since it was first put out by defranco, and I wanted to incorporate his methods (and those of westside barbell) into a more conditioning focused program. I think much of westside’s methods are very useful, but I use things from a lot of coaches to build my programs.
I’ve got several templates, but what’s worked REALLY well is my newest template:
Monday: ME, both upper and lower body. I also do plyometrics between the lifts(complex training) which has worked really well for my athletic endeavors.
On this day I train the squat or variation of the squat (front, back, box, etc) deadlift or variation (deadlift, snatch grip, deficit, rack pull, etc), an upperbody push (press, bench press, dip and variants) and weighted chinups or pullups. I do these for a max set of usually 2-5, but I’ve done up to 8 reps depending on goals and what works for the trainee. I sometimes will do a push and pull assistance exercise for 1-2 sets of 8-12 reps. We always choose exercise variations that focus on weaknesses in our main lifts (Back squat, deadlift, press, bench press, olympic lifts).
Tuesday: conditioning workout (named crossfit wod). This will usually be a shorter crossfit WOD, but it varies depending on the trainee’s recovery ability and the intensity of the work out. Sometimes we follow this with a finisher (car push, tabata squats or pushups, or other finishers I use). This varies with the workout to prevent overtraining or overuse injuries.
Wednesday: Grip work and mini-workout. 2-3 grip exercises focusing on different types of grip strength (pinch, crushing, wrist, etc). Then a mini workout and finisher which are focused on weaknesses in a type of conditioning (EX, if you have a weak area in weight room based workouts or specific exercises you will do a VERY short variation using that mode of training).
Thursday: Dynamic effort lower body and repetition upperbody. Dynamic effort lower body will usually be an olympic lift variant or DE squats sets and reps vary 5x2, 5x3, 10x2, experiment with what works for you. This is followed by repetition effort for the posterior chain (RDL, GHR, etc) we do these for max reps with one minute of rest between sets. On things like the RDL I usually keep them around 10 reps for each set and add weight each week. Upper body repetition is usually kept at 1 push and 1 pull. These can be bodyweight gymnastics exercises (ring pushups/dips, Lpullups, front lever rows, etc) or weight training moves which will be assistance exercises focusing on weak points of the main lifts (closegrip bench, dumbbell presses, bent over row, etc)
Friday: grip work and mini workout/finisher
Saturday: named crossfit workout
It’ll vary a little between trainees, but this is the general template that has been working very well. You’ll see it is still quite different from WS4SB, but the basic stuff is there. It must be condensed and less volume to make room for the amount of conditioning we do. But this has built very well rounded trainees for me. My guys on this program all lift a lot and have great conditioning. I have one girl on this right now and she can deadlift 225 and squat 145 (DEEP!) for reps at a bodyweight of 125 and she smokes most guys in named workouts, She even does the guys RX for a lot of the named crossfit workouts.