Tuesday 12/17/13
Strength
Back Squat
5 sets of 3 reps @ 80%
WOD
4 rounds of:
Sprint Row 500m
Rest as needed between rounds
Basics
Row 500m
Then
3 rounds of:
10 Box Jumps
10 Kettlebell Swings
10 Sit-Ups
Choose an Area
When thinking of your fitness and health goals, first think of a broad area you’d like to improve in for each goal you create. Limit your goals to only a handful until you see if you can manage more. The selection process can be very difficult because there may be multiple areas you’d like to see improvement. This, however, is where a lot of people trip up. They want to fix everything right away but without specifically choosing one area for each goal and defining it, you run the risk of not focusing therefore missing out on practice and improvement. We all say things like, “I’d like to be better at __________.” I’d rather hear from people, “I will do __________, and ___________ to achieve __________.”
If you have goals related to body weight movements such as pull-ups, double-unders, rope climbs, etc… then your area of focus is gymnastics. The chart above shows a basic starting point when thinking of areas you’d like to improve. In gymnastics, movements build off of other, more foundational movements. If you get proficient at the basics, the more complex movements develop because you’ve established a strong foundation to build upon.
Strength is a popular focus for many athletes. I’ve heard plenty of you say, “I want to squat more,” or “I’d like my dead lift to go up”. If moving heavier weight is a high priority in your fitness, use the chart above (also posted in the gym) to give you an idea for areas of weakness and which goals to set. It can be humbling, but it’s an honest reflection of basic strength standards and at times there may be a glaring difference between the lifts.
If you’ve trained in our Group WODs at CrossFit Frontier for a week you’d know that we hold the Olympic lifts in a high regards. So, it doesn’t surprise us that many of you have goals related to Olympic lifting. When thinking of your Olympic lifting goals, take a few points into perspective: 1. How developed is your squat? 2. How proficient are you in the muscle and power snatches/ cleans? 3. Does flexibility factor in to your inability to do what you’d like? Many people want to squat snatch or squat clean right off the bat but they fail to realize how complex these movements are. We say, “Oly movements take years to perfect” and even then there’s obvious weaknesses in everyone’s movements. Since the clean and jerk and the snatch are among the most complex movements we teach, try to create intermittent goals related to the prerequisite movements so that you can track your progress in a more realistic way.
There are many other categories to “house” your goals in such as nutrition, sleep, stress, relationships, etc… but today we were just focusing on a few of the foundational fitness related ones. The important thing is, to look at yourself in the mirror, ask yourself what you want to get better at, and make it a point to revisit that goal daily to keep yourself honest with the time put into improving and making progress. If you are noticing you dread the practice time or don’t even find time to put it in, then maybe you really don’t want to improve in that area after all. If it’s a big enough deal to write a goal for it, you should be waking up with it on your mind and laying your head down dreaming about it as well. When setting goals, remember to go easy on yourself. In a few days we’ll discuss writing SMART goals but for now, think of some areas you’d like to improve on, those broad categories that can “house” your goals. As a CrossFitter we work all functional modalities so it’s good to have at least one goal for each area.
Written by:
Just Paleo