I wanted to take a minute to talk about the programming at WCFM. Back in July we started offering two different workouts each day. One titled “Fitness” and One titled “Competition”. Both programs are based off of the CrossFit prescription of “constantly varied functional movement executed at high intensity”. The purpose of this was to better suit the needs of our growing membership base. We have a wide variety of skill levels and everyone has different goals regarding their fitness. I am going to break down the idea behind each program and clarify our expectation of you as an athlete when on each program. Fitness Programming: This programming aligns with the goals of about 90% of our members. General health improvement, performance improvement, fat loss, and muscle gain. This is an excellent program for working on proper movement mechanics and getting a great effective workout while minimizing the risk of injury or over-training. If we were to drop the dual programming this would be the program that would stay. Our expectations as coaches for you on our fitness program are simple. We want you to learn something everyday, work on improving your movement mechanics, feel good at the end of workouts, and have fun! The Fitness programming will be a good place to start even if you are interested in competing. The Rx weights chosen for this program are very similar to most competitions scaled weights.Sticking with this program long term will also help you develop the more skilled movements by just showing up and putting in the consistent work to the best of your ability. Competition Programming: This program aligns with about 10% of our members goals. Competitive performance, and higher skill movement development while maintaining competition movement standards. This program is for experienced athletes who have mastered the basics and are able to maintain proper form while still performing at a high intensity. When on our competition program our expectations as coaches are a bit higher: Proper range of motion and movement mechanics on every rep. The ability to count your reps accurately, the ability to take constructive criticism from coaches, and lastly being able to check your ego and scale down if something on the program is outside your current ability. Since July the feedback on the dual programming has been positive, sometimes you may be a bit torn between what program to follow and I understand that. The type of person that CrossFit attracts is someone who constantly wants to better themselves and pursue skills and movements they haven't yet mastered. That’s awesome! This constant internal competition is what keeps you progressing towards your goals! With that said, our job as coaches is to keep you on track for your specific goals and to do what we think is best to help you achieve those goals in a safe sustainable manner. We will continue to scale and guide you in what we see as the most effective/safe direction, this might include things like choosing lighter weights, alternative movements, less or more reps, or possibly telling you that the workout you have chose for yourself that day might not align with your goals as well as you think it did.One last thing I’d like to clarify. Doing the competition programming doesn’t mean you are getting a better workout. One of the most important aspects of CrossFit is intensity. If you are lacking a skill that is in the comp programming but choose to do it anyway there is a good chance you will not be able to maintain the intensity that was desired for that particular workout. I like to have athletes choose the workout program that aligns with their goals for the class workout and then use time before or after class to work on those specific skills that day. This doesn't mean we will completely avoid higher skill movements on the fitness program but it does mean we will treat them as just that, skills. Skills that need to be practiced and progressed into. It’s usually hard to practice high skill movements during a 7 minute conditioning session when you’re gasping for air and your heart rate is jacked! So to wrap this up, think about how you are approaching your training daily and how that plays into your goals in and out of the gym. Please stop thinking and saying “I JUST did fitness today”. JUST? Chances are that the fitness program you JUST did is something you would of struggled greatly with when first starting CrossFit and most likely something that 95% of the general population would literally die if they were to attempt what you JUST did. Focus on the positive aspects and be proud of yourself and your achievements. Kylekyle@warriorcfm.com
