Upper East Side

Our year and the next cycle
By Coach Brandon Renert

As we’ve now concluded the 2015 Crossfit Open and a short 6-week cycle focused on conditioning and skill work, I’d like to take some time to talk about our training year, the grand schematics of our programming and what’s to come. After all, the better informed the athlete, the more successful.

In CrossFit, our training year begins now — in April — and culminates at the end of the year with the worldwide Open. The year is broken up into stages of training, or macro cycles. We have three macro cycles, the first from April to July. This cycle is heavy on strength, lighter on conditioning, and includes skill and accessory work.

The next macro cycle, August to November, shifts slightly to equal strength and conditioning, plus a bit lighter on skill and accessory work.
The final macro cycle is December to March, where we switch gears to light on strength and heavy on conditioning and skill.

That said, let’s break things down even further. Today starts our first 8-week cycle of the CrossFit year, which we call a meso cycle. We’ll have 5 movements as our strength focus:

• Back squat
• Strict press
• Deadlift
• Snatch
• Clean

We’ll also include one day a week of conditioning with skill/accessory movements and a focus on true quality. Please keep in mind there are four days per week for strength (Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday) and five movements. This means each strength movement will rotate forward by one day every week. For example, with back squat starting on Monday this week, it’ll appear Wednesday next week and Thursday the week after.

I’m truly looking forward to a remarkable year of accomplishments for all our EVF athletes! Let’s get to work and prepare to crush the 2016 Open.

Warm up
3 rounds not for time:
5 strict toes to bar
10 manmakers
15 air squats

Strength
Back squat
Fitness: 3 x 5 across
Performance: 2 @ 60%, 2 @ 65%, 6 x 2 @ 70%

Conditioning
Performance
8-minute ladder:
1-2-3-4-5…
HSPU
Power cleans (155/105)

Fitness
8-minute ladder:
1-2-3-4-5…
Push press (barbell/KB/DB)
Power cleans