with Josh Everett

Theories and theoretical constructs, we would assert, have value only to the extent that they are descriptive of reality and our past experiences and if they provide the van¬tage point from which further investigation may be made. In essence theories should describe where we have been and direct us where to go next. In the “What is Fitness” issue of the CrossFit Journal we are offered a Theoretical Heirarcy of Development:

“A theoretical hierarchy exists for the development of an athlete. It starts with nutrition and moves to met¬abolic conditioning, gymnastics, weightlifting, and finally sport. This hierarchy largely reflects founda¬tional dependence, skill, and to some degree, time ordering of development. The logical flow is from mo¬lecular foundations, cardiovascular sufficiency, body control, external object control, and ultimately mas¬tery and application. This model has greatest utility in analyzing athletes’ shortcomings or difficulties.”

Countless elite athletes have been creat¬ed and indeed, our species found its way through history without overt knowledge of this theoretical template, yet it does in fact model our collective experience. With the knowledge that gymnastics (body control) and weightlifting/throwing (external object control) are natural progressions towards the end of Sport, a potential question is “what if gymnastics, and or weightlifting is your sport”? We have seen this question an¬swered in the likes of Josh Everett and Todd Hockenburry, who have brought phenom¬enal strength bases to their CrossFit experi¬ences and have excelled in truly staggering ways.

Although metabolic conditioning may be foundational to gymnastics and weightlift¬ing according to the above template, it is the ability to generate significant power that ultimately drives higher and higher levels of metabolic conditioning. Indeed it is our strongest athletes who frequently suffer Pukies wrath the most. It appears a relative¬ly high level of strength with a lack of meta¬bolic conditioning, particularly in mixed modal activities, may even elicit a visit from Uncle Rhabdo. It is perhaps unfair but we find it a simple process to take a strength athlete, virtually devoid of metabolic con¬ditioning, and turn them into a monster. We have found greater challenge turning our en¬durance athletes into explosive dynamos.

This month two phenomenal coaches and athletes, Michael Rutherford and Josh Ever¬ett, share with us some approaches for chas¬ing greater strength and power within the context of a Crossfit oriented strength and conditioning program. This is NOT intended to be an exhaustive review but rather some starting points for fine tuning our own expe¬rience. In Coach Rutherford’s piece we see a marriage between CF and it’s cousin, the conjugate method. Usually cousins should not marry cousins, I don’t think this one will end up on Jerry Springer however! UC Riverside Strength and Conditioning Coach, Josh Everett shares with us programs devel¬oped for time crunched collegiate athletes.


M.E. BLACK BOX
By Michael Rutherford, a.k.a. RUTMAN

After practicing and coaching the CrossFit methodology for over two years I am in¬creasingly convinced the most successful athletes are those who come to the dance with the greatest strength and power. Ath¬letes with the best strength base perform the best in this new sport called CrossFit.
Greg Amundson and Josh Everett are two perfect examples of successful, and very powerful, CrossFit athletes. Both Greg and Josh can turn “Fran” in sub 2:40 range. Greg has also been reported to 1RM a front squat/push press (a.k.a. a THRUSTER) with over 275lbs at a bodyweight of around 200lbs. I personally witnessed Josh clean & jerk 155kg while weighing in the 84kg range.

My own BLACK BOX project started last summer when I began thinking of how a tem¬plate like this might go together. The final thoughts evolved during the fall when I was retained by one of the city’s best high school basketball coaches. With this approach the basketball players’ strength improvements continued throughout the season.

With this in mind I would like to present a permutation of the CrossFit theory. Consider this Maximum Effort CrossFit or ME Cross¬Fit if you will. Stay with me here while we sort through this a bit.

Here are some of the components of my ME CrossFit program.

MAXIMUM EFFORT (ME): A cornerstone to the Westside Barbell training program is the Maximum Effort Day. During these sessions the athlete works with a load near his/her maximum (90% +) for that day. Repetitions range from 1-5. In this program we will be using near maximal loads for all the weight¬lifting movements.

There are two rep ranges. The first week on a rotation, the repetitions are 5-5-5-3-3-3. Joe Kenn1 refers to these as introductory reps. The second time through on a move¬ment, the repetitions are 3-3-3-1-1-1. My in¬tuition indicates that experienced athletes could stay with 3-3-3-1-1-1, or you could perform 8 x 2 or 10 x 1. The Prilepin chart may be handy in a case like this. Anything over 90%, 4-10 sets 1-2 reps with an opti¬mal number of 7 sets.

MOVEMENT ROTATION: CrossFit athletes will recognize the following functional movements.

TOTAL BODY (T): Include Olympic Clean variations, Olympic Snatch variations, Push Presses or Jerks.

LOWER BODY (L): I like squats. I like a rotation of weighted back squats and front squats.

UPPER BODY (U): I will select standing press and weighted pull-ups for my up¬per body movements. You could also look at bench press and/or incline press. I find these least productive but I know they are popular and necessary in certain circles.

Again, for this discussion our movement pool includes.

TOTAL: Power Clean from the Deck (PC) and Hang Cleans (HC)
LOWER: Back Squats (BS) and Front Squats (FS)

UPPER BODY: Standing Press (SP) and Weighted Pull-ups (WP) [Editors Note: Weighted dips and muscle ups seem fair game as well.]

What we will do with the movements is ro¬tate them on ME days. On the first ME day we will perform a total body movement (T): power cleans from the Deck (PC); on the second ME day a lower body movement (L): back squats (BS); and finally, on the third ME Day an upper body movement (U): standing press (SP).

CROSSFIT WORKOUTS

These should be familiar to everyone. One needs look no further than www.crossfit.com and the workout of the day. Whenever possible place emphasis on monostructur¬al metabolic efforts—e.g. running, cycling, swimming—on the day following a ME workout. You could also precede ME days with more gymnastics movements. In any case, the varied if not randomized approach with CrossFit will address any weakness¬es in your athletic profile and provide the GPP (General Physical Preparedness) you require to elevate your maximum strength and power.

REST

Rest is of critical importance. I cannot im¬prove the 3 on 1 off micro-cycling design. I think it provides excellent balance between volume, intensity and rest. Now that we have the parts, here is how it goes together.

DAY 1 - CrossFit workout (XF)
DAY 2 - ME (Total Body-PC) (introduc¬tory reps) 5-5-5-3-3-3
DAY 3 - CrossFit workout (XF)
DAY 4 - REST
DAY 5 - CrossFit workout (XF)
DAY 6 - ME (Lower Body-BS) (introduc¬tory reps) 5-5-5-3-3-3
DAY 7 - CrossFit workout (XF)
DAY 8 - REST
DAY 9 - CrossFit workout (XF)
DAY 10 - ME (Upper Body-SP) (introduc¬tory reps) 5-5-5-3-3-3
DAY 11 - CrossFit workout (XF)
DAY 12 - REST
DAY 13 - CrossFit workout (XF)
DAY 14 - ME (Total Body-PC) 3-3-3-1-1-1
DAY 15 - CrossFit workout (XF)
DAY 16 - REST
DAY 17 - CrossFit workout (XF)
DAY 18 - ME (Lower Body-BS) (introduc¬tory reps) 3-3-3-1-1-1
DAY 19 - CrossFit workout (XF)
DAY 20 - REST
DAY 21 - CrossFit workout (XF)
DAY 22 - ME (Upper Body SP) (introduc¬tory reps) 3-3-3-1-1-1
DAY 23 - CrossFit workout (XF)
DAY 24 – REST

We have now rotated through the introduc¬tory reps and the foundation ME reps once. Now we rotate to the secondary foundation movement. In this case it would be hang cleans, front squats and weighted pull-ups.
The athletes I have plugged into this tem¬plate are continuing to improve, although they have only invested six months thus far.

Notes
1 The Coach’s Strength Training Playbook by Joe Kenn. A must own for any coach or athlete.


Collegiate Programs
by Josh Everett

From late November to early January in the off-season, we have an eight-hour weekly training limit by NCAA rule. Two of these hours can be spent working with the ath¬letes’ sport coaches on skill practice. Dur¬ing winter quarter with our fall sport teams we went two days traditional lifting, one day of CrossFit, and two days of traditional running/track workouts, each session last¬ing an hour. So that makes for five hours of training with me, leaving two hours with their sport coaches and an extra hour for the sport coaches to do additional conditioning, film study, or team time with the sports psy¬chiatrist.

During spring quarter our fall teams have a 4-6 week spring season. I’m currently experimenting with workouts during this time period. With volleyball, we are doing 2-3 days a week of scaled down versions of CrossFit’s storms (e.g. Helen, Fran, An¬gie etc); with women’s soccer, we are doing our traditional in-season routine; and with men’s soccer, we are doing two days of tra¬ditional in-season training and one day of CrossFit.
After their spring seasons, we will spend the rest of the quarter going two days of tradi¬tional lifting with women’s volleyball, and two days of CrossFit and one day traditional with the soccer teams, the reason being the greater need for cardiovascular fitness of soccer as compared to volleyball, and the fact that volleyball at this point will be com¬ing off of six weeks of just the storms. This summer I’m giving all three teams the same workout plan. I’d rather them go three days on and one off, but I feel five on and two off will be easier for them to comply with.
I set the pattern for workouts as follows:

Day 1: rounds for time (how many rounds can you do in 20minutes)

Day 2: how fast can you complete the following...(Fran, Helen, Grace type workouts)

Day 3: Focus day (squat 10x1, 10x40yd dash, etc)

My goals here are to have the athletes be the fittest they have ever been in their lives heading into season. I believe that CrossFit, while specializing in not specializing, is in fact the best program I have found to pre¬pare athletes to specialize.

Continuing with my goals for them, I wanted to be sure to include the things that I have found that best develop & prepare athletes. I made sure to include these in the focus days so they received the proper attention and intensity. These things are the power clean, back squat, hill or bleacher sprints, sprinting full speed with full recovery, and agility work.

Lastly I have been learning much recently from our superb track coach, Irv Ray, and his system of being sure to hit each energy system each week. And while I haven’t per¬fected it yet, I’ve tried to get a good balance of workouts that had an emphasis on pure anaerobic system, MVO2, lactate threshold, and endurance/aerobic. The one thing cur¬rently missing from this program is recov¬ery workouts. I may modify the workouts to include these types of workouts, but to be honest, during the summer when it’s not mandatory, I’m sure most athletes will be missing enough workouts to adequately re¬cover. The ones who are diligent are usually smart enough and know their bodies well enough to adjust.

The rationale behind the post season soc¬cer program is that I want to use the time right after the soccer team’s season (the beginning of the off-season) to lay a good sound foundation of GPP. I find CrossFit to be perfect for this. At the same time, I wanted to prepare them for January, Febru¬ary and March when we do the majority of our heavy strength work. I wanted to get a gradual buildup in intensity on our two big lifts, the power clean and the back squat. Of course I’d like to go more than two days per week, but during their season they only lift two days a week. This reestablished training time fits with their class schedules, and to be honest, with just me, one part-time assis¬tant coach, and 300+ athletes, there is only so much time in the week to train everyone. Also, I’m not too concerned, because after a long season where so much is demanded of the student athlete, the two day requirement is a good mental & physical break for them. Not to mention it gives them more free time to finish the quarter strong academically. Plus the athletes with champions’ attitudes and work ethic are going to continue to train on their own anyway. I love giving them this opportunity to take ownership of their training. Unfortunately not enough of them will do this on their own; therefore the rest of the year there must have more mandatory training in order for the team to do well.