CrossFit Citadel

Bill Starr says a logbook and a calculator can help you avoid strength plateaus and keep your numbers marching upward.

When my strength gains hit the wall, my first thought was that I was doing too much, so I cut back on the number of exercises I was doing in a workout. That made matters worse, so I reversed the procedure and added in yet more work. That didn’t work either.

I stumbled on the solution accidentally. For a strength athlete to be able to move from beginner to intermediate and from intermediate to advanced, he must utilize the concept of workload; that is, how much total tonnage has been moved in a session and in a week and month. No one taught me this; it just made sense. If I wanted to improve leg strength, I had to work them harder. Same for all the other muscle groups.

When I was at York Barbell, I kept a record of all my workouts and used those to plan my future routines. Yet it wasn’t done systematically. I went by how I felt more than just the raw numbers. Tony Garcy helped me clarify how to use workload. Tony used what was then referred to as “the European method,” which consisted of figuring out to the pound how much weight was moved in a workout. These numbers were then used in conjunction with the heavy, light and medium concept to keep from falling into the trap of chronic overtraining.

WOD

Overhead squat 1-1-1-1-1 reps,
Front squat 1-1-1-1-1 reps,
Back squat 1-1-1-1-1 reps.

Try to increase the load on each of the fifteen sets.

Coach Burgener's skill transfer warm-up is a part of this month's daily warm-up. This will help all of our athletes to become more acquainted with the snatch. Learning to CREATE ELEVATION AND MOMENTUM ON THE BARBELL THROUGH A RANGE ON MOTION is key to understanding the snatch.

_ WOD
Five rounds for time of:
135 pound Deadlift, 9 reps
135 pound Hang power snatch, 6 reps
135 pound Overhead squat, 3 reps

Post total time.