Any football fans, especially Iowa or Colts faithful, remember the name Bob Sanders. Unbelievable, game changing talent…when he was not injured. If you don’t know who he is, just imagine having all the strength and skill you wanted but you aren’t allowed to put it to use. Frustrating right?
All the speed, power, strength and endurance in the world doesn’t matter if you are not consistently healthy enough to use it. Similarly, programming training correctly should progress athletes to consistently breaking personal records without breaking their bodies.
Here are 10 things to consider when programming:
Push to Pull Ratio
Overhead Volume
Day to Day Volume on parts of the body
Accumulative affect of previous days
Planes of movement
Rep volume control
Time domains
Movement library
Effort levels
Can people show up every day
Push to Pull Ratio
The overwhelming majority of movements in a typical MetCon or WOD are very push dominant. A lot of times the only true pull done in this section is a pull-up, but when the kipping or butterfly technique is used this also changes that to a certain extent. In other sections of class how often are pulling movements programmed? The first section of class is a great time to add DB and KB Rows, DB reverse flys, Inverted Rows, Ring Rows, Barbell Rows, etc. In the WOD, pay attention to how many push movements you are using and balance them out with rowing, rope climbs, pull-ups (strict sometimes), Ring Rows, Cleans, Barbell or KB Sumo Deadlift High Pull, etc. Finding better balance will not only help keep your shoulders healthy, but also improve your pulling strength as well.
Overhead Volume
Are you taking into consideration the total volume overhead each week? Remember, this doesn’t just include typical pressing movements, it also includes overhead squats, snatch, handstand walks, DB Snatch, wall balls, thrusters and others. Make sure to also balance this out with the movements mentioned above in push to pull ratio. This once again will help keep your shoulders healthy as you train.
Day to Day Volume
When you look at your training week as a whole, what does the accumulated stress look like for the upper body, lower body, grip, squatting movements, hip hinge movements and core? If you want athletes to be able to come to class five days each week you can’t overload one area too much in a short window. There should be a healthy balance between all of these as well as time in between stress on them. Of course there will be soreness from training, but this will spread the stress over the week to allow the prescribed stimulus to be reached without destroying their bodies.
Accumulation from Previous Days
Paying attention to where people will be sore or beat up from the day or days before can help prevent a lot of nagging injuries. Programming heavy deadlifts after a day with a lot of core and hip hinge movements can set them up to tweak their back. Pull-ups the day after high volume toes to bar can tear hands up quickly. Box jumps the day after heavy or high volume squats can eat up a lot of shins on boxes. You should be doing your own programming, but at the very least you need to picture yourself doing the workouts and how your body would feel day to day. if you would struggle because of the accumulated affect, then don’t program it for others.
Planes of Movement
Training the body as a whole with good balance requires movements on all planes. How often are rotational or lateral movements programmed? Things like Russian twists, KB windmills, T-spine rotations, lateral lunges, lateral step-ups, lateral jumps and others. Single arm or single leg movements are also a great way to work other planes. Single arm DB bench press, single arm single leg RDLs, Plank rows, etc. can challenge your body to stabilize differently. The first section of class is a good time to add these, but they can also be done in the WOD. More on that later.
Rep Volume Control
A lot of times people only think about this in the sense of controlling how many high rep, chipper style workouts you program. Low rep movements can be a trap.
Let’s look at an example for an advanced athlete: Cindy compared to Angie
Cindy: AMRAP 20
5 x Pull-ups
10 x Push-ups
15 x Air Squat
Angie: For Time
100 x Pull-ups
100 x Push-ups
100 x Sit-ups
100 x Air Squats
Advanced athletes are typically getting 20+ rounds on Cindy. That is at least 100 pull-ups, 200 x push-ups and 300 x Air Squats. While the pull-up number is similar to Angie, the push-up number is doubled and the squat number is tripled. Make sure you always walk through the programmed workout in your mind to see what kind of volume you would reach.
Time Domains
The longer the time frame, the higher the volume can go…thank you captain obvious. But seriously, a lot of programming has entirely too many 15+ minute workouts. If you have this time to fill in your class, interval based WODs are a great way to use more time but control the amount of work. Instead of a 15-minute AMRAP, program three, 4-minute AMRAPs with one minute rest in between. This not only controls volume, but challenges athletes to increase their effort level within the shorter time frame.
Movement Library
Although CrossFit is said to be constantly varied, if you look at some programming you will see the same 20ish movements over and over again. As previously mentioned when we discussed planes of movement, there are different variations and unique exercises that can be implemented in the WOD as well as the first section of class. There is nothing wrong with programming sprawls instead of burpees, lateral hops over the barbell instead of double unders or single arm KB suitcase deadlift in place of barbell deadlift. The stimulus is similar, but challenges the body differently. How many movements do you have in your library?
Effort Levels
I worked with a group of runners years back. They usually ran 10k (6.2 miles) races with a race pace of around 9:40/mile. After a few weeks of training I noticed that their effort level seemed the same no matter how long or short the workout was. I had them run a mile time trial and told them to empty it out. Their time…9:25. You will see this pretty frequently at the majority of CrossFit gyms, athletes moving at the same pace no matter what the duration of work time is. Programming shorter or interval based WODs can not only help athletes understand what different effort levels should look like, but can also cut down on the total volume.
Keep Showing Up
As mentioned when we discussed day to day volume, are the majority of your athletes able to physically come to class four to five days each week or are their bodies too beat up? The mental side also needs to be taken into consideration. If every day is programmed to be as brutal as possible this wears your mind down and can eventually lead to loss of motivation. Consistency is the key to continued progress. Is your programming set up to allow this?
Go Beyond
I have always said, “Programming CrossFit is easy…if you don’t give a $h!t.” Some people use the “unknown and unknowable” as an excuse to be lazy. Drawing random workouts out of thin air is not programming. Programming is an art and a science. It takes a lot of time and effort to dial it in.
Anyone can make someone sweat, but not everyone can consistently make someone better…and keep them healthy.
Program smarter harder.