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.

Nov 12-18

So what’s happening this week with the program??? Well I’m in Bali so I just programmed all the stuff I would never do… Only kidding…. Or am I?

Well the first thing you will notice this week is all the open gym workouts are now posted to Sunday not Monday.

This week’s Metcons

• We have a return to the heavy back squats in for reps like the Linchpin test but this time it’s coupled with toes to bar… a lot of toes to bar, so pick your toe to bar option wisely and don’t toast your hands on day 1.
• We also have two Hero workouts both simple in design but they are long and will make you huff and puff. Check them out they are “Dork” and “Bert” and have a read about the people they are written about and reflect upon their sacrifice.

Skills

• Muscle ups are making a come back as a skill piece in preparation for the open. Make sure you apply deliberate practice with the express purpose of developing the movement. Skill work is the chance to make a real change but it only works if you deliberately control your form.

We have another two strength days on our plate as well.

• One is a squat clean complex breaking the clean up into its constituent parts so we can work on each piece.
• The other is all about pressing overhead. General meat and potatoes grunt work. Try to pick and weight and stick to it across all sets. Don’t let yourself slack off by counting warm up sets as work sets

In the open gym

• we have some more running but this time in intervals to help us train the body how to hold a faster pace on those longer distances.
• The dumbbell WOD is all pulling back muscle work as it’s reflective of all the pushing involved in the program this week.
• The pegboard has made a comeback and it’s tied up with the assault bike (everyone’s two favourite exercises).
• If you’re lacking hammies then get after the sled push modified dumbbell DT WOD. It’s will put hammies on your hammies

My simple most important tip for the week- This week involves a bit more skill and technique. Employ the principle of deliberate practice. If your form suffers, forgo the huff and puff and slow down/lighten the load to make the technique changes necessary to improve. Just remember that going slower and lighter doesn’t automatically fix your technique. You are the key. You have to also adjust your approach.

What’s the go with the program? It was no secret we’ve had a big running bias of late. Why? Well running makes you fit. It gives us a strong foundation of cardiovascular fitness and endurance to build up our metcon (metabolic conditioning) game. This fitness is really helpful coming into the festive season and we definitely want to keep these gains for the open early next year.

What’s happening this week?

1- A bit more of a strength focus with two lifting days. One for back squats with a gnarly hamstring finisher and the other a big snatch session consisting of muscle snatches, power snatches and squat snatches. Just remember the secret sauce of success with these lifts is having a saucy strong posterior chain (glutes and hammies). If they need strengthening then remember to keep the weight manageable so you can lift with a flat lower back, hinging your hips by keeping your weight back on your heels. Break either of these rules and those glutes and hamstrings get robbed of the opportunity to get stronger and also more flexible.

2- A good variance of metcons.

• One longer AMRAP focusing on pull up and presses (getting those beach muscles swole as).
• Another is a chipper with a small volume of rope climbs, box jumps, wall balls, muscle ups etc etc. The challenge here will be holding on and avoiding the rest breaks as the numbers are low enough to not need a break but big enough to want a break.
• My favourite one is a short very intense clean AMRAP building up from light touch and go’s to a medium weight to finish at a really heavy clean. The challenge on this bad boy will be to go hard enough at the start so you can make the final weight but not too hard you don’t even make the end of the AMRAP. The key will be picking weight based on your cardio ability, not your strength level.

3- Saturday super WOD. Coach Benno has come up with a great way to do MOvember justice, with a team rowing and burpee workout. Invite any friends from outside the gym to come along and team up with you and get their row on. This one will not only raise some money and awareness around much needed causes it will also raise your cardio game. Head to the community page and check out his video to get the low down. Better yet here’s the link https://www.facebook.com/mike.benson.710/videos/10156742771289618/

Extras

At the moment the extras revolve around skills we might not be exposed to a lot in WOD’s (triple unders), movement patterns that are difficult to build (pull up/lat strength) and movements that we rarely ever do (lateral/sideways stuff like all those side planks and turkish get ups we’ve been doing). This month won’t be any different. Think of these extras the same way we should approach our warm up movements, they are the glue of a strong resilient body and will help you improve your form.

Open gym program

The obvious standout here is the 5km time trial. Get a friend or three and check out if all that running bias in the program has helped you out.

There’s also the general Glutes and abs of a sled push deadlift and GHD sit up metcon. The essential chest arms and back of a dumbbell and pull up wod. The scariest but best one will be the little metcon of 15/12/9/6/3 assault bike cals and snatches.

Just remember open gym workouts are best done with friends and you can do them anytime as long as you don’t get in the way of classes that a running. If you have the time, hit up a mate that will come in before or after class, or to a second session and crush some extra goodness with you.

Sum up

What’s the one most simple thing you can do to get the most from the program this week? Weight selection. This will determine your ability to squat and snatch well, as well as get the greatest fitness benefit from the clean AMRAP. If you’re unsure of what weight to pick you need to ask. We can give you some guidance but this is were precise beyond the whiteboard records will be more helpful