CrossFit Portland Programming Philosophy
I get many questions about how I plan the workouts for the gym. It is a complex process, taking many factors into account. Rather than writing a book detailing everything that needs to be taken into account, I thought I’d share some of the basic principles I use to program the WODs.
1) Strength priority: High levels of strength are needed if one is to progress to optimal fitness. Strength is the foundation that your fitness will be built upon. Endurance without strength will lead to lack of progress and even eventual injury. It will also be the limiting factor if you expect to perform well at many of the benchmark WODs. If you are a guy, you will never have a good “Diane” time until 225 lbs has become a light deadlift for you. Many days will have strength work, reflecting this priority.
2) Mobility and flexibility priority: This is an area often neglected by many programs. We prioritize it. Once you have improved this ability, your recovery will be quicker. You’ll get thru your daily life more pain-free, and your workout times will improve as you no longer have to fight against your own body while training. I select warmups and cooldowns that will serve to both release tensions from the workout just performed, and to improve typical problem areas. Recently, regular attendees of my mobility class have made impressive improvements once we began 6 week focus blocks. Based on this success, I have begun targeting one area in the CrossFit class cooldowns for 6 week blocks.
3) Emphasize shorter WODs with a higher peak power output: There are many reasons to emphasize shorter metcons, or to perform them in more of an interval style with prescribed rest between rounds. Long workouts necessitate pacing yourself, just as one wouldn’t take off in an all out sprint to start a marathon. Shorter workouts allow a trainee to attack and leave it all on the table, leading to a higher intensity workout. Many of the metabolic changes we are looking for come primarily from the intensity, not the overall volume. If one trains like this to improve peak power, then when necessary, they will perform well at longer WODs or real life efforts. The reverse is not necessarily true.
Also, we can limit some of the negative hormonal responses from exercise by training this way. You will get a overall lower release of stress hormones (that will break the body down) and a larger release of anabolic hormones (that will accelerate repair and regrowth).
4) Spend blocks of time concentrating of bringing up physical qualities: Progress is made more quickly when there is greater exposure to a stimulus. We spend blocks of time, often 3 month periods, with a greater focus in some areas. For example, if you feel like we do more strength work in the winter, you might be right!
5) Tailor the workouts to what a majority of the people need: I try to program workouts for where a majority of our clients are. The excessive volume of some programs is simply too much for the average trainee. More is not necessarily better when it comes to athletic conditioning. Connective tissue takes much longer to adapt to new workloads than muscles. I’d rather see the few people who are ready for more scale up or do our advanced WODs. This is a much better option than giving a majority of people joint inflammation from more work than their connective tissue was ready for.
6) Build in recovery periods, alternate intensity and overall volume: Adaptation is faster when the main training stimulus varies from time to time. I program periods where the overall workload is higher, then this will alternate with periods where the workload is lower, but the work being done is more intense.
7) Use benchmark WODs for exactly that: benchmarks! A question I get frequently is why don’t we do the benchmarks more often? I like to save them for their intended purpose: occasional tests to see where you are. I don’t program them as simply a training day. I leave the training work to unique workouts. When the benchmarks do come up, you should be pumped to tear into them!
8.) Equipment needs and other variables: There are some workouts that are difficult to do in a class setting. I must take into account class size, and also any other classes that might be running simultaneously. (If you are really itching to try “Linda”, a workout that is very difficult to do in a class, let us know, and we can arrange a special time.)
9) Most of the time, varying the muscles stressed or energy systems worked: One gray area in programming the WODs is not knowing everyone’s training schedule. I plan as if everyone will come all six days of the week. In reality, with the exception of a very few, no one comes every day. However, many will come on back to back days, so I usually plan workouts that won’t torch the same movements on two consecutive days. There will be some exceptions to this, as life doesn’t take into account that your legs are sore and today you need to lift something.
10) Randomness!: Yes, there are many reasons to keep workouts randomized. Our workouts have a structure behind them as described in the prior points, but within this structure is plenty of variation. This keeps things from getting stale or boring!
Hopefully, this gives you a clearer picture of how things are planned here, and what some of our priorities are. If you have any additional questions, I am always glad to answer them. Good training!
Warmup this week:
1) 4 min jump rope skills
2) Walking lunges w/twists 2 trips
15 PVC OH squats hold bottom 3 sec.
10/10 T-pushups
WOD:
1) Hang power clean 5-4-3-2-1
2) Teams of 3: Row 3000m, switch rowers every 250m.
Cooldown:
3 x down dog to cobra
Lying hip flexor stretch
Lying active hamstring stretch
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Scott doesn’t just live it. He thinks it! All to our benefit. I feel privileged to be a recipient.
Thank you for this post! I am new to crossfit and this is very helpful to understand this part of the training. I only wish I could come 6 days a week!
I knew there was some method of the madness that we put ourselves thru. Thank you for sharing Scott. In reference to #8, I think we should ban/disown/forget “Linda” all together, similar to the ban of the curl exercise, and never mention that WOD again….ever.
This post is so awesome, Scott!! It’s so informative!
Quick question:
What is considered “excessive volume”?
Thanks!
Hi Jessica-
Excessive volume is a very individual thing. The longer one has been doing this type of training, the higher their work capacity will be. Also, all recovery factors must be considered. An athlete who eats clean, gets plenty of sleep, and has a low stress life will handle more volume than one who eats and rests poorly and has a very stressful job.
I’ll try to write more on this in the future.
Good write up Scott. Glad I checked the site and read it. Thank you.
Well written and laid out Scott. I like it.
The only person i can think of that comes everyday is Nick G!
Anton
Thanks for that great post..and thanks for being so purposeful and thoughtful in planning the daily WODs!
Good post, thanks. Why more strength work in the winter? Is it because of the weather and not being able to do as much outside? Just curious as I obviously like the heavy lifting and shorter metcons.
Eric-
Partly what you mentioned, but also winter is a time of historically limited carbohydrates. If one is eating seasonally, you’ll have less carbs in your diet to fuel glycogen intensive WODs. I know everyone doesn’t eat this way. It’s really just partly tradition, too!
Scott, you have good example about that.