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We are in mid November…. Yea I know. Christmas is nearly here and the open is coming. So what have we planned?

 

Muscle ups/pull ups – This week we have a good blend of skill and strength work to help speed up your progression along the pull up-muscle up continuum. We have a double dose of strict pull ups. One as a finisher and the other as extras. Only a day of rest before kipping chest to bars and bar muscle ups to finish the week. Super important things to remember

  1. You need healthy hands to train pull ups and muscle ups so look after them
  2. You need healthy shoulder, elbow and wrist joints so moderate your approach to the large volume this week.
  3. You need to pull those shoulder blades down your back to progress. This gets the lats involved and strengthens them. Ignore them at your own demise.

 

Lifting wise we have some bench pressing on international bench day and some heavy touch and go deadlifts at the 150/100kg that we did for max reps on the 30th of October. Again try to stick the same weight or close to for all sets of the bench. Break the habit of building every set. Learn what point you are really working with good form and not failing. Then grit your teeth and stick it out there. Don’t count those warm up sets.

 

Metcons

Two running WOD’s so take care of your feet and calves. Both are long and geared towards moving non stop. The target with these are pacing and if need be scaling. If you find yourself searching out rest breaks to catch your breath then you need to slow down and drop the weight. They’re long but if you rest they will be even longer. Also one is a hero WOD called Whitten. This is one of my favourites. I’m super pumped to do it and I hope you will be too.

 

Special mention

This week includes plenty of upper body work, on purpose. You will do days in a row that feel like you are working the same muscles as yesterday. This week watch any extra volume you do outside of the program. If something feels tight hit a coach up before class (like in the 10mins you spend rolling and activating before class because you’re a totally organised bad-ass and you got there like really really early). Ask them how to mobilise and warm up that specific movement pattern. Also it’s always better to think in terms of tight/restricted range of motion rather than a tight piece of anatomy. That helps us to get the movement working better.

 

Open gym

  • No running due to the high volume of running in wods, but rowing intervals like last weeks running.
  • Plenty of “butt stuff”
  • Assault bike and pull ups. Yes more pull ups. Leave this one till the end of week so you can decide if the extra pull up volume is for you
  • A body building repeat from a few weeks ago. Involves dumbbell pull overs, dumbbell flys and dumbbell bent over lateral raises but this time for 12 reps instead of 10. Try to match the weight you used last time.

 

My one big tip for the week – Do all your pull up and muscle up work with purpose and virtuosity. That means really really good technique. That will help you handle the volume injury free and also get better.