Empowering Health, Fitness, and Longevity: The Gift That Keeps on Giving

In the pursuit of a fulfilling life, health, fitness, and longevity stand as cornerstones of true well-being. By gifting our fitness gift cards, you're not just providing access to world-class facilities and expert guidance; you're investing in a lifetime of vitality, empowering your loved ones to unlock their true potential and achieve their long-term health goals.

Unleash the Power of Health

Our fitness gift cards offer a gateway to a healthier lifestyle, fostering a deep connection between mind and body. With our diverse range of classes and personalized training programs, your loved ones will embark on a journey of transformative fitness, enhancing their overall well-being and reducing the risk of chronic diseases.

Embrace Fitness for a Lifetime

Fitness is not just about achieving a certain physique; it's about cultivating a lifelong passion for movement and self-care. Our gift cards provide the foundation for a lasting fitness journey, igniting a spark that will keep your loved ones motivated and engaged for years to come.

Pave the Path to Longevity

By prioritizing health and fitness, we lay the groundwork for a longer, healthier life. Our gift cards empower your loved ones to make informed choices, adopt sustainable habits, and age gracefully, extending their active and fulfilling years.

Gift Goals, Not Just a Gym Membership

Our gift cards are more than just a pass to our facilities; they're a tangible representation of your support for your loved ones' health goals. With every workout, every challenge overcome, and every milestone reached, they'll be reminded of your belief in their potential.

Invest in Their Well-being: A Gift That Matters

By gifting our fitness gift cards, you're sending a powerful message: their health and well-being are a priority to you. This investment in their future will yield dividends in the form of increased energy, improved mood, and a greater sense of self-confidence.

Gift the Gift of a Healthier Future

Give the gift of fitness today, and watch your loved ones embark on a journey of transformation, unlocking a lifetime of health, vitality, and longevity.

November 2023 Newsletter

Congrats to Coaches Alyson and Daphne who competed in the Festivus Games this past month at Black Widow CrossFit in Sterling!

November 2023 Bells & Bars

The Monthly CFTC Newsletter

CFTC Team-

A simple message for November: We'd love for your help to head into 2024 with a full house by choosing at least one of the offers below.

1. Review - Chance for a $30 Gift Card - All those who leave a review between September 1 and December 1 will enter a raffle for a WholeFoods Gift Card.

2. Re-engage - Get 33% Off - If you're on this list and your time at CFTC ended in the past, we'd love to have you back. Use code IMBACK2023 here to receive 33% off any membership for the first month. Limited to the first 10 that use the code for those that have had a gap of 3 months of longer in their membership.

3. Refer a Friend - Get 50% Off - For current members, if you refer a friend, and they sign up for any monthly membership, receive 50% your next month's membership. 

4. Gear-Up - Get snazzy gear - Pre-order some winter apparel

5. Gift-It - Show a loved one you care - a CFTC gift card to give the gift of fitness

-Jon & Marcus
 

Announcements

This month we wanted to pass along a shout-out to one of our members' companies, New Story Lending, led by Juan Rodas. As a thank you to the community, New Story Lending will contribute $500 towards a new or existing members' gym membership cost for CFTC or TysonsBJJ upon their loan closing with New Story Lending.

In addition, they have an additional promotion (you can only be eligible for one or the other) for New Story Heroes. See flyer below for details.

Programming Corner

The current programming phase is a fitness-focused phase. 

• Overview:

  • Dates: Oct. 23 - Jan 31

  • Approach

    • At the core of this phase is the CrossFit method. We will specialize in being as broad and competent as possible across the 10 physical skills and the components that represent them. Since we spent a long time building a strong and capable foundation by separating the components of fitness, we can now transition nicely into the broader focused fitness phase. We will work towards increasing our ability to maintain efforts over broad time and modal domains. Essentially we are improving the sustaining of rep cycle speed and duration.

  • Phase Overview

    • Building volume and intensity

    • Testing via benchmark workouts and previous Open workouts

  Read more >>

New Story Lending New Story Heroes promo details.

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Programming Corner: Fall & Winter 2023 Fitness Phase

FITNESS PHASE

Post courtesy of DekaComp

Duration: 9 Weeks

Includes Prep for the CrossFit Games Open & Quarter Finals

Welcome to the Deka Comp Fitness Training Phase, a phase where we will build off of the training phases that we’ve done all year with a focus on blending together the components of fitness with progressively natured, functional movement, executed at varied intensities.

This cycle is where you will notice the least amount of distinction between sections. 

At the core of this phase is the CrossFit method. We will specialize in being as broad and competent as possible across the 10 physical skills and the components that represent them. Since we spent a long time building a strong and capable foundation by separating the components of fitness, we can now transition nicely into the broader focused fitness phase. We will work towards increasing our ability to maintain efforts over broad time and modal domains. Essentially we are improving the sustaining of rep cycle speed and duration.

Perform Athlete notes:

This is an intensity progression from a load and metabolic standpoint. So overall you will notice a little bit of progression in the weightlifting reps and percentages week to week but you will also notice that we will ask you to increase your metabolic intensity week to week systematically. To do this we will use 80% of the weekly training session as high volume / 20 % of the sessions as low intensity sessions. You will do this for 3 weeks at a time then enter a 1 week 50/50 volume/intensity focus in order to allow for the maximum supercompensation of the year to occur for you. It’s important to note that all athletes are different and respond to different tapering methods differently. Please reach out if you need a more personalized approach to your training.

Class Progression

We will be adapting the volume and intensity formatting that perform athletes are doing in order to keep classes reasonable. On high volume days, the cues will be to hold back on super high intensity in order to sustain rep quality. On some days we will include a strength or skill piece and on other days we will have a metcon only that will be long and slow.

Overall however, you will not see as clear of a contrast from day to day as the perform athletes but rather more variety than in previous cycles.

Perform Testing

Our testing will be unlike the rest of the year, due to the nature of this phase. We will use actual CrossFit.com+ workouts and competition tests, rather than testing for specific physical skills and they will appear in a different format than we normally use. We generally book end the phase with a week of testing, the fitness phase includes multiple cycles within the phase and we will simply conclude each cycle with one test based on the cycle focus. (see ‘cycle focus’ below)

Class Testing

In this phase we will not be testing but we will use benchmarks and some Open workouts to touch base on fitness levels. RPE is your freidn in this phase. If athletes have been with you for a while, the question they should ask themselves constantly as they progress in this phase is what was my perceived effort for today and how would that have differed from 2-4-6 weeks ago or last year.

Specific Goals and Focus Breakdown

*Keep in mind these are biases and focuses not periodization.

Weightlifting: Increase max output work capacity

Snatch + Clean & Jerk: High percentage lifts under fatigue paired with low percentage cycling

Strength:

Squats: We will include 1 squat session per week at least.

Pressing: We will vary the bench press by using DBs or barbells and some weeks include different versions of pressing

Pulling off the ground: Weightlifting will be very demanding so we will reduce the frequency of heavy loads here but will maintain this integrity via metcons and accessories.

Accessory: Post Chain + Core focus on strength and stability

Gymnastics: This will be more included in the metcons

High skill movements under fatigue paired with low skill, high rep cycling

GOAT days: We will return to our GOAT EMOM in which we will offer movements to chose from so that members may practice or “Pick their Poison”.

All in all, the Fitness phase is the most varied and close to the true CrossFit values of constantly varied, functional movement, perofrmed at high intensity. Some metcons will be about VOLUME which means intensity MUST be lower This will allow athletes to gains endurance in movement cycling and increase their overall work capacity. Higher intensity workouts should be just that, and these session focus on speed of execution. This format of training has been extremely successful for our athletes including Patrick Vellner and we are very excited to have this in action with you and your members!

October 2023 Newsletter

October 2023 Bells & Bars

The Monthly CFTC Newsletter

CFTC Team-

Let's keep the intro short and sweet this month - we're in the heart of Fall, and we're excited to kickoff our revised quarterly progress check-ins which starts with the CFTC Baseline workout this Wednesday. Although it's a simple workout, it's something we will repeat 2x per year to concretely track how we're progressing. 

We'd also love for everyone to join us for some apple picking this coming Saturday. Details below.

For October, the rest of the highlights are:

• Join us for Apple Picking Saturday 10/7 at 11:00AM - Meet at the gym if you're interested. Be sure to send a quick note to the gym to let us know to wait for you. See destination below.

• CrossFit Kids continue through 10/29 - sign up here for individual classes

• Progress check-ins... in progress - The first batch of progress check-in appointments have been sent out. We're going through our member list alphabetically with 4-5 appointments scheduled each week. Be on the lookout!

• New equipment received - We hope you've enjoyed the new slam balls, medicine balls, additional ab mats and bands. 

• Love CFTC? Remember to leave a review.

-Jon & Marcus
 

Events

• Join us for Apple Picking Saturday 10/7 at 11:00AM - Meet at the gym if you're interested. Be sure to send a quick note to the gym to let us know to wait for you. Destination is Marker-Miller Orchards in Winchester, VA. Sign up via email >>

• Thanks to local fitness dance club Sensazao for joining for a private sample CrossFit class. Member Nathalie offered CFTC's services to introduce like-minded fitness folks to CrossFit! They had a great time and may stop by in the future for a drop-in class. Sensazao meets right up the road in Tysons and offer a great dance/cardio workout (not your average Zumba class). Do you have a local group you'd like to introduce to CrossFit? Let us know >>

Programming Corner

The current programming phase is a gymnastics-focused phase. 

• Overview:

  • Dates: Mon, Sep. 18 - Oct. 22

  • Approach

    • In this short training cycle, athletes will be exposed to a dosage of gymnastics volume based on a mix of maximum repetitions and high intensity.

  • Phase Overview

    • We will focus on base movements that have transferability throughout most other gymnastics movements.

    • Just like when we use basic lifts in a strength cycle. These movements are:

      • pull up/chest to bar pull up

      • handstand push up/ push up

      • ring muscle up

      • toes to bar

      • dips

  Read more >>

Announcements

• CFTC Baseline workout this Wednesday 10/4 All Classes - The baseline workout consists of foundational CrossFit movements with a chance to prove your ability to grind. Be sure to be honest with your movement quality with this one, listen to your coach for tips on great V-ups. Don't have pull-ups yet? Use our current gymnastics cycle to focus on developing this skill and we'll test again in the future!

• CFTC Progress process - As a reminder, we have been gradually revising our onboarding and quarterly check-in process to ensure we're meeting your fitness goals. The first batch of progress check-in appointments have been sent out. Appointments will be 4:30PM in person on Thursdays or 4:30PM via phone call on Fridays. We're going through our member list alphabetically with 4-5 appointments scheduled each week. Be on the lookout! CFTC's approach to fitness can be summarized as follows: Comprehensive and personalized fitness for all levels

  • Free trial session with dedicated coach

  • Group classes, private training, or punch-card options

  • Encouragement to commit to two months of consistent attendance

  • Quarterly benchmarks and progress checks

  • Individual coaching to fine-tune plans and ensure meaningful progress

  • Share the word about CFTC with a referral >>

• CrossFit Kids continues through 10/29 this Fall! - Sign up by 9/6

  • Only a few spots remaining. Sign up for a single class >>

Coach's Eye - ClassPass

Did you know that most of CFTC's classes are open to ClassPass users? We have a few regular attendees - Shakira, Shuying and others. Thank you for finding us! Of course, we'd love for everyone to eventually become a member, but we're glad to keep our classes full and lively. If you already have ClassPass our know someone who does, they can find us here >>
 

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Programming Corner: Fall 2023 Gymnastics Cycle

Post written by Michele Letendre, @DekaComp

CLASS GYMNASTICS PHASE: SEPT 18TH TO OCT 22ND

5 WEEK PHASE

Welcome to our Gymnastics phase! In this short training cycle, athletes will be exposed to a dosage of gymnastics volume based on a mix of maximum repetitions and high intensity. We will focus on base movements that have transferability throughout most other gymnastics movements. Just like when we use basic lifts in a strength cycle. These movements are: the pull up/chest to bar pull up, handstand push up/ push up, ring muscle up, toes to bar and dip.

THE MOVEMENTS WE WILL SPECIFICALLY TEST FOR CLASS ARE: 

• Ring muscle up

• Handstand push up

• Strict pull up

• Pistol

ATHLETES

When it comes to our gymnastics phase, it is important to understand how to categorize athletes. Although athletes fall on a spectrum and no one is EXACTLY beginner or intermediate or advanced, we still need to put our athletes in some form of box in order to help streamline our class management. 

So here are our definitions of the beginner, intermediates and advanced athletes and what we will focus on for their scaling options.

Beginner: The beginner for this phase are those who cannot perform 1 unassisted movement for lack of strength. Their scaling options will be focused on gaining strength therefore they will be given more structured sets and reps for most strength sections. It will be important to look for quality in the eccentric portions of their gymnastics movements. In metcons, we will try to include more gymnastics volume by heavily decreasing the degree of difficulty per rep.

Intermediate L1: The intermediate level 1 are the athletes who are not consistent in performing the movements listed above or can only perform them kipping. These athletes will be mostly given a volume approach with a progression towards the RX movement in order to gain more consistency when they progress towards the intermediate L2. This will especially be the case in the metcon scaling in which we will keep the volume as written or as close to RX as possible but provide them with a lower degree of difficulty movement in order for them to gain more time under tension. 

Intermediate L2 (This is the “Rx” version at CrossFit Tysons): The intermediate level 2 athletes are the athletes that can do RX movements but require scaling in volume in order to be exposed to more volume of the RX movements. In strength portions they will be modified based on the context but the main goal is to get them to perform more RX movements with focus on quality. In metcons, we will be mindful of the format for these athletes since some formats aren’t forgiving enough to risk muscle failure. 

Advanced: The advanced athletes are those who are proficient in the RX movements and can perform them technically well. We are focusing on a volume progression approach for this cycle and they will be able to fully benefit from the cycle as written. This does not mean they cannot improve! The challenge with the advanced athletes may be to fix a bad habit or movement pattern therefore technique should be a huge focus for them. 

PROGRESSION

This is mainly written as a volume progression. So overall you will notice a linear progression in the percentages of reps week to week. Just like percentages in a weightlifting progression, it should start off very doable then progress to become more and more difficult each week. Note: Beginners and sometimes intermediate athletes will not necessarily follow the exact volume progression. 

We will divide each week into 4 Gymnastics focused sessions:

1. Strict hspu volume progression

2. Ring mu volume progression

3. Strict  pull up volume progression

4. Pistol strength progression

Any of your athletes who are looking to really increase their strength and stamina in basic gymnastics should do their best to include the extra and accessories that are included in the Class track. We chose the accessories to complement the strength portion of the day and this can really improve their chances of seeing great results.  

WEEKLY SCHEDULE

Below we’ve placed our gymnastics movements in a 5 week schedule. This schedule is tentative and may be subject to change based on movement interferences or any other logistical decision. Our goal with this schedule is to make sure athletes will be exposed to all the movements in the cycle no matter their workout schedule. 

OTHER TRAINING MODALITIES

Weightlifting

Barbell cycling focus on the olympic lifts + Strength hypertrophy squat cycle where we will prep for the next power endurance phase with controlled eccentrics, through a volume progression (adding reps to this for 3 weeks). Controlled eccentrics are a necessity in preparation for producing any type of force. If you want to produce large concentric force, you must be able to eccentrically absorb the load first.

Metcon

These will be as balanced as possible as far as the time domains and stimulus go. But keep in mind we will need to avoid the shoulders to a degree during this phase. The metcons will be meant to compliment the cycle, not hinder it. 

Gymnastics Accessories

Balanced between:

• Strength endurance

• Overfatigue in common body parts

• Power Endurance

Accessories

• Focused on hypertrophy, strength endurance, power, speed, as well as joint and tendon health in the following areas of the body:

• Midline/Core

• Shoulders- Vertical and horizontal push/pull

• Hips/Knees

• post chain- Lower/Upper.

September 2023 Newsletter

Join us as a group runs the Arlington Police, Fire, Sheriff and ECC 9/11 Memorial 5K on Saturday 9/9 at 6:00PM. Details below.

September 2023 Bells & Bars

The Monthly CFTC Newsletter

CFTC Team-

Can you believe it's September already? We're waking up and feeling a little cripness in the air - for some that's a sad day, for those of us who sweat more than we'd like to admit, it's definitely refreshing. We hope you caught some of the CrossFit Games action in August. There were some inspiring events and we would highlight catching up on the accomplishments of Arielle Loewen, the top American finisher (male or female), a mom and impressive athlete. Her humility and unassuming approach to training are something we can get behind. 

For September, the rest of the highlights are:

• CrossFit Kids classes start back on 9/17 - sign up here by 9/6

• Join us for the  Arlington Police, Fire, Sheriff and ECC 9/11 Memorial 5K on Saturday 9/9 at 6:00PM - After the official sign up and arriving to the event, text or call the gym number to make meet up with our crew: (571) 354-8348 - sign up here

• New equipment on the way - We're in the process of updating some equipment - slam balls, medicine balls, additional ab mats and bands. Thank you for your continued support, we always want to improve so if there's something you'd like to see, let your coach know.

• Thanks for those that voted on the CrossFit Games workouts to try - We are trying a few Rogue Qualifier events this week, but when we get an additional SkiErg in October, we will be trying the Ski-Bag workout shortly thereafter

• Highest summer attendance award update

• Love CFTC? Remember to leave a review.

-Jon & Marcus
 

Events

• Thanks to RxWellness for coming out on Saturday Aug. 12 - RxWellness is a chiropractic care and wellness provider that are our neighbors across the street. We may have them back in the future for some additional free consults and getting to know their team.

• Join us for the  Arlington Police, Fire, Sheriff and ECC 9/11 Memorial 5K on Saturday 9/9 at 6:00PM - We've participated in this race since ~2015 and would love to have a strong showing. For a bonus challenge, run it with a weight vest. After the official sign up and arriving to the event, text or call the gym number to make meet up with our crew: (571) 354-8348 - Sign up >>

Programming Corner

The current programming phase is an olympic-lifting focused phase. The Weightlifting phase, follows the previous Base Strength Phase with a focus on the Snatch and Clean & Jerk. 

• Overview:

  • Dates: Mon, Jul 17 - Sun, Sep 10

  • Approach

    • We will make sure our classes include a linear progression of clean and jerk and snatch every week but this may be on different days of the week.

  • Phase Overview

    • This upcoming week is Week 8, test week! This is your chance to put all of those lifting drills to the test. We've also increased our capacity on deadlifts and wall balls.

• Read more >>

Announcements

• CrossFit Kids Returns this Fall! - Sign up by 9/6

  • Our goal with CrossFit Kids is to leave every class on a high point for the kids and coaches. Each progressive session aims to learn CrossFit basics while increasing strength, balance and body control. This means that we end each session with a fun game.

  • Whether your kids are going to play a different sport in the future, or continue with CrossFit, the CFTC Kids program will give a great basis for fitness and movement. 

  • Only a few spots remaining. Sign up here by Wednesday 9/6 >>

• Summer Attendance Awards - For those who can make it in regularly, we're giving away a piece of CFTC merchandise for the highest non-coach attendance in each weekday class time. Congrats to the winners below! If your name is listed, click on the apparel picture below, choose t-shirt or tank design you want, size and color and send that info to crossfittysonscorner@gmail.com

  • Final Results

    • 6:30AM - Isha!

    • Noon - Allen

    • 5:30PM - Jeanna

    • 6:30PM - Magdi

  • Honorable Mention - 2nd place attendance or top for a coach

    • Crossfit Results - Tyler

    • 6:30AM - Julieta

    • Noon - Abby R

    • 5:30PM - Jon T., Daphne, Kevin

    • 6:30PM - Jane

  • Link to apparel options >>

Coach's Eye - Isha

Isha has made a commitment to attending the morning class more regularly, and we love to see it! Way to make this commitment Isha, and the progress is evident. The attendance aware is just a glimpse of this commitment, we know 6:30AM is a tough time to make consistently. Keep up the hard work :)

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August 2023 Newsletter

We had a coaches meeting in July to plan for the upcoming year and review how we can make the CFTC experience better for everyone.

August 2023 Bells & Bars

The Monthly CFTC Newsletter

CFTC Team-

Where has this summer gone? We know on our side, things are flying by and hope you've gotten to have some down time. We're happy to see members returning after some time off and are excited for a new class offering starting in September. 

Thanks to everyone who came out to our social event at a winery in July. We'd love for people to join in for the 9/111 Memorial 5K in Arlington in September

Keep reading for some other news and notes.

For August, the rest of the highlights are:

• Vote for your favorite CrossFit Games event to try at CFTC! - Vote here

• Highest summer attendance award update

• Hyrox classes to launch at CFTC soon

• Coaches meeting summary

• Love CFTC? Remember to leave a review.

-Jon & Marcus
 

Events

• Vote for your favorite CrossFit Games workout to do at CFTC! - The CrossFit Games are this week from 8/1 - 8/6. Many of the events have been announced, and we would love to try our own version of one or more workouts in an August class. Be sure to vote, or Coach Marcus will choose the 5K workout :). Cast your vote >>

• Speaking of 5Ks... the Arlington 9/11 Memorial 5K is coming - Join CFTC members for a 5K for a good cause. Race is 9/12/23 at 6PM. CFTC isn't affiliated with this race, but with our history of supporting firefighters and first responders, we heartily endorse it. If a normal 5K just isn't spicy enough, make it spicy with a weight vest. Sign up >>

Programming Corner

The current programming phase is an olympic-lifting focused phase. The Weightlifting phase, follows the previous Base Strength Phase with a focus on the Snatch and Clean & Jerk. 

• Overview:

  • Dates: Mon, Jul 17 - Sun, Sep 10

  • Approach

    • We will make sure our classes include a linear progression of clean and jerk and snatch every week but this may be on different days of the week.

  • Phase Overview

    • Weeks 2 - 7: Rotate through one of the following each day so that they occur on a different day on different weeks:

      • Squat, Gymnastics, Clean and Jerk, Snatch, Pull

    • Week 8: Test week!

• Read more >>

Announcements

Whay is Hyrox? The above image explains the fitness competition.

• Hyrox Classes at CFTC - Beginning this fall we will have some additional class times focused on preparing for a Hyrox event.

  • What is Hyrox? 

    • Hyrox combines both running & functional workout stations, where participants run 1km, followed by 1 functional workout station, repeated eight times. Accommodating both professional athletes, and everyday fitness enthusiasts looking to take their training to the next level, Hyrox is the sport for everybody.

  • Why do we like it?

    • We want to expand the reach of CFTC to those who may be intimidated by barbell movements but still want to work hard.

    • The team and partner option for the event also make this a great goal to train for for our current CrossFit members. 

  • What are the details at CFTC? We are finalizing our planning and will share a detailed announcement soon with more information. These classes would be an additional price to normal CFTC memberships but with trial classes provided to members. Let us know you're interested >>

• Summer Attendance Awards - For those who can make it in regularly, we're giving away a piece of CFTC merchandise for the highest non-coach attendance in each class time. over June, July and August. The September newsletter will announce the final winners.

  • Current results for June and July:

    • Weekday 6:30AM: Julieta (with Mollie right behind)

    • Weekday Noon: Allen (with Abby right behind)

    • Weekday 5:30PM: Kevin (with Jeanna right behind)

    • Weekday 6:30PM: Magdi

  • Honorable mention:

    • Friday 4:30PM: Denis 

    • CrossFit Results: Tyler

• July Coaches Meeting - Periodically, CFTC coaches meet to improve what we do for our members. In our most recent meeting, we walked through:

  • Reminders of how to address fundamentals

  • Approaches for more advanced movements

  • Opportunities to further CFTC

  • Suggestions for further credentials

Coach's Eye - Magdi

Magdi has been a CFTC member for more than four years, and continues to work to improve his strength and technique. You wouldn't know it by his fine head of hair, but Magdi is in the Masters 55-59 age group and is a model for what continuous movement and exercise can bring.

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Programming Corner: Olympic Weightlifting Phase

• Post courtesy of Deka Comp

• Phase duration: Mon, Jul 17, 20234:30 PM Sun, Sep 10, 20235:30 PM

WEIGHTLIFTING PHASE: 8 WEEKS, JULY 17TH TO SEPT 10TH

Become one with the barbell!

Welcome to the Deka Comp Weightlifting phase, where we will follow our Base Strength Phase with a focus on the Snatch and Clean & Jerk.  The Base strength phase was very polarizing with the 10 general physical skills, we worked a lot on all of them individually. You should notice the focus here is stepping towards blending these components together, with our macro goal at the end of the year during the fitness phase, to blend them together almost completely.

Our main goal will be to increase capacity for intensity in the two lifts. We have lined up our phases this way for two reasons:

1. Sharpen the “strength blade”

After building strength with a focus on application of force there are no two better lifts that can display it and transfer it like the snatch and Clean & jerk. Therefore, this weightlifting phase is not only meant to focus on the two lifts but have the two lifts facilitate more explosive force that your body is capable of translating from the base strength phase.

2. Specificity

If we are going to be specific in our sport about anything, getting better at these two lifts is crucial because they are extremely common and routinely included in workouts and translate to overall better power output.

Note: this training phase will be largely focused on weightlifting, but this is a focus and a bias. This means our goal to stay varied will have our classes touching base on more lifting without neglecting other modalities and components.

Perform Progression

This is an intensity progression. So overall you will notice a linear progression in the percentages week to week. 

You will notice two waves of progression, where we focus on linear intensity progression for the first wave, then a volume progression where we cycle back on the intensity and build it back up again using complexes. We will divide the week into 3 sessions: A snatch day, a clean and jerk day, and a combination day; where the combination day is always focused on intensity and the others are focused on driving up intensity through higher volume. 

You will notice A LOT of weightlifting accessory. These are drills and will mainly be positional pulling and overhead strength/mobility drills that become progressively more athletic, and therefore challenging, as the weeks go on.

Class Progression

We will make sure our classes include the linear progression every week but this may be on different days of the week. This means we can have athletes who are on set schedule touch base on the key elements of this phase but i also means some athlete may not be able to follow the progression so linearly, depending on their schedule.

What will be different this year is that the PERFORM programming schedule WILL NOT ALIGN with the class schedule. We will do our best to stay true to the metcons of the day but this will sometimes not be possible. We made this decision to help class members with set training schedules touch base on different movements. Below we’ve outlined the Perform schedule for the next 8 weeks as well as the class schedule for the next 8 weeks.

Weekly Schedule (Perform)

• Monday: Volume Snatch OR Clean & Jerk session + Metcon (Strength endurance stamina- triplet/couplet) + Accessories

• Tuesday: Gymnastics Pulling OR Pushing focused session + Metcon (Anaerobic Threshold- high intensity) + Accessory + Power Conditioning

• Wednesday: Volume Snatch OR Clean & Jerk session + Metcon (Aerobic Threshold- Longer intervals) + Accessory

• Thursday: Active Recovery Day

• Friday: Intensity Snatch + Clean & Jerk + Squat + Metcon (Speed intervals) + Accessories + Power Conditioning

• Saturday: Gymnastics Conditioning + Gymnastics accessory + Metcon (Long endurance focused) + Odd Object/Conditioning (Power focused) + Accessories

• Sunday: Rest Day

Weekly Schedule (Class)

This schedule is an outline of what the strength focuses will be (part A)

• Week 1, Test week: Monday Snatch, Tuesday Gymnastics, Wednesday Clean and Jerk, Thursday Pull, Friday Squat

• Week 2: Monday Gymnastics, Tuesday Clean and Jerk, Wednesday Squat, Thursday Snatch, Friday Gymnastics,

• Week 3: Monday Squat, Tuesday Gymnastics, Wednesday Clean and jerk, Thursday Gymnastics, Friday Snatch

• Week 4: Monday Clean and Jerk, Tuesday Squat, Wednesday Snatch, Thursday Hang clean, Friday Squat

• Week 5: Monday Snatch, Tuesday gymnastics, Wednesday clean and Jerk, Thursday pull, Friday gymnastics

• Week 6: Monday Gymnastics, Tuesday Clean and Jerk, Wednesday Squat, Thursday Snatch, Friday clean and jerk

• Week 7: Monday Squat, Tuesday Gymnastics, Wednesday Clean and jerk, Thursday Gymnastics, Friday Snatch

• Week 8: Test week

OTHER TRAINING MODALITIES

Gymnastics

We will focus on gymnastics capacity within the weightlifting focus because this is a CrossFit program and we need to be balanced. Gymnastics will be present 1-2 times/week as a part A section for strength & power. There will also be gymnastics in our metcons but we will reduce some volume on certain movements to avoid overuse on the shoulders since the snatch and clean and jerk are both present every week and have a big demand on the shoulders.

Metcon

Our metcons will need to be dialed back on heavy percentage intensity for the CNS, especially on the weightlifting days. Metcons will vary in time but we will make sure to keep the time frame under control to allow for proper teaching of the weightlifting movements.

Extra/ Accessories

The classes will remain a two part class schedule. The extra/accessories will vary between normal accessories designed to target specific muscle groups and weightlifting pieces from the perform programming for those who want to get more weightlifting specific training in.

Accessories will focus on hypertrophy, strength endurance, power, speed, as well as joint and tendon health in the following areas of the body:

• Midline/Core

• Shoulders- Vertical and horizontal push/pull

• Hips/Knees

• post chain- Lower/Upper.

June 2023 Newsletter

A few shots from our Murph event on Monday, 5/29. Nice work to everyone who came out! See below some more photos.

June 2023 Bells & Bars

The Monthly CFTC Newsletter

The start of 9:30AM Murph on 5/29/23

CFTC Team-

The summer is in full swing now, and we have one big ask of you. We celebrate this week with a thank you dinner for our coaches. Please share your favorite memory or quality about your favorite CFTC coach before Thursday 6/8.

Murph was a great event this past Monday with over twenty people completing the workout over the weekend (shout-out to the Friday evening crew who did it early), and we all ended with smiles and remembrances for fallen soldiers. 

Keep reading for some other news and notes.

For June, the rest of the highlights are:

• Coach Celebration - Tell Your Coach Thank You - We will have a coach's dinner to say thank you to our coaches on Thursday, June 8. Share a few words for what you love most about one or more coaches and we'll share it with them. Note the 6:30PM class on 6/8 will be abbreviated and end at 7:00PM. Share here >>

• Summer Turn Up - Turn up the music, and just turn up to your classes. Like last year, we want to encourage everyone to keep coming out to the gym in the summer. We will have three tiers of prizes for those with the highest attendance in June, July and August. Stay tuned to social media for progress tracking. Follow CFTC >>

• Join in June - Get a friend to sign up by June and get a month free! Sign up >>

• Love CFTC? Remember to leave a review.

-Jon & Marcus
 

Events

• Coach Appreciation Dinner - Thursday 6/8

  • We will have an appreciation dinner with coaches and owners. While we can't invite the whole gym, we would love to pass on your fond memories and highlights of our coaches.

  • Note Thursday 6:30PM class on 6/8 will be an abbreviated 30 minute class

  • Share your top coach memories and positive feedback here >>

• Summer Happy Hour - Date TBD

  • We are planning on a summer happy hour since there are a lot of new faces around, and we'd love to get to know everyone better. Stay tuned for more details. If you have an idea for a great bar or place to gather, let us know :)

  • Follow us on Instagram >>

Programming Corner

The next programming phase is a strength-building phase with the goal to "get stronger while still maintaining a good level of fitness".

• Upcoming Benchmarks:

  • Strength

    • @90% or Above:

      • Box Back Squat - Mon. 6/12

      • Jerk - Fri. 6/16

  • "Grace" - Mon. 6/12

    • 30 Clean and Jerks (135/95) for Time

  •  "Nasty Girls" - Fri. 6/16

    • 3 Rounds For Time:

      • 50 Air Squats

      • 7 Muscle-Ups

      • 10 Hang Power Cleans (135/95)

• Read more >>

Announcements

• Join by June - Promotion for new members through the end of June

  • Help people find CFTC - receive a free month! For those with an existing unlimited monthly membership, receive a free month when a friend signs up for a membership.

  • The best way you can support CFTC is to be a great example of fitness by showing up, and after that, let the people you care know about what you experience at CFTC and bring them along for the ride. 

  • Sign up >>

• Welcome to Summer Hires and Interns!

  • We are excited to welcome college students and interns who are in the Northern Virginia area for the summer. If you have a valid student ID, we welcome you to sign up for this 10-week option that provides access to any of our normal Group CrossFit classes.

  • Sign up >>

Coach's Eye - Chris D.

Although he has a hectic travel schedule, Chris is a steadfast part of the 5:30PM class. The workout may get some commentary, but Chris puts in his best effort and will speed through the run, so get him on your team if you want to share the metcon load. Keep up the hard work Chris!

Subscribe for more updates

May 2023 Newsletter

May 2023 Bells & Bars

The Monthly CFTC Newsletter

CFTC Team-

May is here, and with that comes a reminder to stay hydrated - bring a bottle of water with you to class, and try to drink at least a third of your bodyweight in ounces of water each day. We started a new strength cycle back in April, and we're excited to see where everyone's squat, deadlift and press end after a few weeks of dedicated training. Get ready for Murph in just a few weeks!

Keep reading for some other news and notes.

For May, the rest of the highlights are:

• Murph is around the corner - Join us for a challenging workout on Memorial Day. Sign up for a class as normal or join the official challenge >>

• Launch of Progress Sessions - we're rolling out our first progress sessions included with all monthly memberships. Sign up >>

• Join in June - Get a friend to sign up by June and get a month free! Sign up >>

• Love CFTC? Remember to leave a review.

-Jon & Marcus
 

Events

• The Murph Challenge (with Mimosas) - Monday 5/29 - 8:30AM, 9:30AM

  • For the 9th year, we're excited to be an official host of The Murph Challenge.

  • "Murph" is a workout consisting of:

    • 1 mile run / 100 pull-ups / 200 push-ups / 300 squats / 1 mile run, weight vest optional

  • We will have scaling options for those that attend

  • Enjoy some Mimosas after the workout - we'll bring the bubbly, you bring your favorite snack to share or just your sweaty self.

  • Sign up for a class as normal or join the official challenge >>

• Join by June

  • Help people find CFTC - receive a free month! For those with an existing unlimited monthly membership, receive a free month when a friend signs up for a membership.

  • The best way you can support CFTC is to be a great example of fitness by showing up, and after that, let the people you care know about what you experience at CFTC and bring them along for the ride. 

  • Sign up >>

Programming Corner

The next programming phase is a strength-building phase with the goal to "get stronger while still maintaining a good level of fitness".

• Breakdown by day:

  • Monday - Tuesday - Wednesday a mix of strength percentage work and fun Metcons

  • Thursday will become “Technique Thursdsays” in which we will include a skill or technique dedicated to go over a variety of techniques and skills

  • Friday will be strength building and a fun metcon

  • Saturday we will continue our volume days with options for Team workouts

  • Sunday (you can review Sunday workouts on Wodify even though there is no class) - we will have a “Sweaty Sunday” vibe with a aerobic style conditioning piece.

• Read more >>

Announcements

• Welcome to Summer Hires and Interns!

  • We are excited to welcome college students and interns who are in the Northern Virginia area for the summer. If you have a valid student ID, we welcome you to sign up for this 10-week option that provides access to any of our normal Group CrossFit classes.

  • Sign up >>

• Introducing our progress sessions

  • Talk one-on-one with a coach or owner to celebrate what you've been successful at and lay out a plan for the future. We'd love feedback on what could make these sessions great, so please sign up soon! We'll be reaching out to our newest members first if you don't sign up.

  • Progress sessions are available quarterly to all monthly members.

  • Sign up >>

Coach's Eye - 24/7 Members

Did you know you can get 24/7 access to CFTC? We wanted to take a second to shout-out some of our most regular 24/7 members - Tonya and Sean. You may not see them in classes too much, but they always put in hard work and we love that they're a part of the CFTC community.

• Curious about 24/7 access? Find out more >>

Subscribe for more updates

Programming Corner: Base Strength Phase

Post courtesy of Deka Comp

BASE STRENGTH PHASE

• Phase duration: Mon, Apr 10, 2023 - Sun, Jul 2

Important note: Below is an outline of our Base Strength Phase for the Perform athlete. In our classes, we will do our best to respect this cycle without sacrificing variety and fun. Our goal with this cycle is to get your members stronger while still maintaining a good level of fitness.

Throughout this cycle some changes may occur if we feel that certain movements in the Perform programming are too repetitive or we feel that there could be too much strain for our class members.

In addition, we will be using the Perform Rest days to implement session that can counter the linear progression that comes with a strength cycle.

Our class weekly schedule will include:

• Monday - Tuesday - Wednesday taken from the perform programming

• Thursday will become “Technique Thursdsays” in which we will include a skill or technique dedicated to go over a variety of techniques and skills

• Friday will stick to the Perform Programming

• Saturday we will continue our volume days but will be very inspired by our Perform programming

• Sunday will include a piece missed from classes from the Perform track but we will have a “Sweaty Sunday” vibe with a aerobic style conditioning piece.

BASE STRENGTH PHASE: BY COACH KEVIN BOWLES

In this portion of the year, we will focus on Base strength, including but not limited to: force developement- Velocity and max effort + muscle hypertrophy, gymnastics isometrics. As well as aerobic base development, using a 20 minute FTP: Functional Threshold Power, and a CrossFit friendly version of the wingate test to base our endurance training from. The goal is to increase your thresholds in every aspect in the future but first we must first build a capable base to build these thresholds in order to really smash through these plateaus. This cycle will allow the body some restoration from the specific aerobic intensity experienced leading into and during the open, as well as prepare the motor patterns, CNS, and muscle to be ready to fire quickly and with strength for the rest of the year's training.

This is our off season Strength & Endurance phase. I realize a lot of athletes will do summer competitions, this is great for their experience and encouraged because the beautiful thing about this cycle is that we will not neglect any of the 10 physical components. We are going to cycle our program in three week phases with a deload or general week between phases for a four week cycle, at the 12 week mark we will have a deload week and then we will test your strength gains & Endurance gains using the original tests you see on week 1. It is felt that this method of cycling weeks will allow for enough variance to allow athletes  to train optimally for a long term approach without getting ‘rusty’ with the physical components that might be outside of our scope of focus for the cycle. For the affiliate, we will make sure that we cycle our daily micro cycle on different days from week 1 through 12 in order to accommodate this variance for your members.

3 cycles (12 weeks) of 3 week waves + 1 deload week:

Example week:

• Day 1: Lower Max effort: High intensity

• Day 2: Upper High Volume

• Day 3: Lower Speed & Power

• Day 4: Active Recovery

• Day 5: Upper Max Effort + Speed & Power

• Day 6: Lower High Volume

Overview:

• Weightlifting: Dynamics and speed

• Strength: Strength & Hypertrophy

• Gymnastics: Body control: strict + Isometric focus

• Metcons: Fun. Some old school workouts, some benchmarks, and some creative new ones. 

• Accessories: Isometrics: Focus on the core daily, weekly on building bulletproof shoulders, hips and posterior chains, improving strength.

The three weeks will wave up linear progressions you will see in the max effort days, herein lies the mini cycles within the major phase. The mini cycle is what will allow us to go 12 weeks without feeling too beat up and to make and track progress.

Remember that this program is a strength bias and not a full strength program, we will be a CrossFit program where everything comes up together, with a slight lean of focus toward strength methods in specific points in our training. However, we will look to maintain all other areas as we cycle through the 12 weeks.

I think a lot of varied leveled athletes will see some good strength gains from this cycle while having fun with some old school metcons and benchmarks along the way!

Have fun!

April 2023 Newsletter

April 2023 Bells & Bars

The Monthly CFTC Newsletter

CFTC Team-

Thankfully the weather is warming up, and with that comes a reason to get together outside of the gym. We encourage everyone to come out to a happy hour this Friday right after the 530PM class at The Perch / Star Hill Biergarten in Tysons. 

Congrats to the Blue Team above for winning this year's Team Intramural Open.

Keep reading for some other news and notes.

For April, the rest of the highlights are:

• Welcome new coaches - We welcome to new female coaches to the roster - long-time member Coach Alyson, and Coach Sam, another experienced CrossfFtter

• Murph prep continues - Murph is an annual Memorial Day challenge involving running, pull-ups, push-ups and squats. We will be incorporating these movements in various ways leading up to the May challenge. We are an official Murph Host for the tenth year in a row, meaning we also welcome friends and drop-ins to complete the workout with us for an official score and support of The Murph Foundation.

• A review of the Open at CFTC - check out our awesome competitors

• Congrats to Coach Meg - for completing the next round after the Open. More below.

• Love CFTC? Remember to leave a review.

-Jon & Marcus
 

Events

• Happy Hour at CFTC: Friday 4/14 ~6:45PM

  • We encourage everyone to come out to a happy hour this Friday right after the 530PM class at The Perch / Star Hill Biergarten in Tysons.

  • Directions >>

• Future Events - Ever Heard of Hyrox?

  • We're exploring participating in an upcoming Hyrox event as a gym. Stay tuned for more details, but think of Hyrox as a mix of an obstacle course race but heavier on the CrossFit side of things and much less mud (OK, no mud). There are individual, partner and team options. We'd love to know what you think about joining in this fitness race.

  • Check it out >>

• CrossFit Kids Continues

  • Our CrossFit Kids class continues to meet Thursdays at 4:40PM. We have a great, motivated group these days, and they are making great progress. There are 2 remaining weeks (4/13 and 4/20) for the Spring session, we'd love for you to join and will make an announcement for the next session soon.

  • Check out the CrossFit Kids class overview video >>

Programming Corner

The next programming phase is a strength-building phase that begins on April 10th.

• Be sure to log your strength numbers this week as we start out! 

Announcements

• Welcome to Our New Coaches!

  • Welcome to long-time member and new Coach Alyson (pictured above)!

    • Alyson started CrossFit in 2017 as a lover of group fitness classes and quickly got hooked on weightlifting and strength training. She is enthusiastic about helping athletes get stronger than they ever thought possible.

  • Welcome to new Coach Sam (picture to come)!

    • Sam started her CrossFit journey in the beginning of 2018 with the goal of getting stronger. She fell in love with the variety and camaraderie that CrossFit has to offer and hopes to exude that passion when she coaches.

    Check out the rest of the Coach roster >>

Coach's Eye - Meg

Congrats to Coach Meg for qualifying for and competing all of the Age Group Online Qualifier (AGOQ) workouts - this was the next step after the CrossFit Open for the top 10 percent of athletes. 

Some feats of note:

• Meg's best finish for the AGOQ was on a workout that had 14 rope climbs. Meg achieved her first rope climb at CFTC a few years ago

• One workout had wall-facing handstand push-ups, an unusual movement that still got Meg her second-highest placing of the weekend

• The last workout was a repeat workout from 2015, and even after all of the work for the weekend, Meg improved by over 2 minutes on the workout below, finishing in just over 11 minutes. Do you want to give it a try?

  • 27-21-15-9

    • Calorie Row

    • Thruster (95/65)

Meg has made great progress at CFTC as an athlete and coach, and all of us can make great strides with consistency and dedication.

• Curious about the CrossFit Games? Find out more >>

Subscribe for more updates

March 2023 Newsletter

March 2023 Bells & Bars

The Monthly CFTC Newsletter

CFTC Team-

Whew - that was a busy February and start of March. Following the Open, we needed to take a quick break to regroup after all the activity of the last few weeks so we apologize this is getting out a little late. Did you know we started coordinating this year's Open back in December?

We had 15+ people join us for our Friday Night Lights Open Scored Sessions, in addition to workout setup, rescheduling makeup sessions and making sure everyone met the workout standards. We're especially grateful to Coach Daphne for leading all of the Open work and to Coaches Abbey and Brandon for assisting with the workout explanations and to Nathalie for the great photos. (Thanks Christian for the great group shot above.)

Interested in improving on what you learned from the Open?
The last follow-up from the Open - doing these workouts can be a humbling experience. Is there anything that came up in the Open that you'd like to work on more? Please let us know!

For March, the rest of the highlights are:

• Improved free trial process - the perfect chance to spread CrossFit to those you care about

• Murph prep begins - Murph is an annual Memorial Day challenge involving running, pull-ups, push-ups and squats. We will be incorporating these movements in various ways leading up to the May challenge

• CrossFit Kids resumes - our first Spring class was Thurs. 3/9 but there's still time to sign up

• A review of the Open at CFTC - check out our awesome competitors

• Love CFTC? Remember to leave a review.

-Jon & Marcus
 

Events

• Improved Trial Process

  • We love welcoming new faces to CFTC, and we want to also continue giving the attention deserved to our core classes. So moving forward, trial clients will have a dedicated coach to walk them through their first workout. Let us know if you or someone you know wants to check out CFTC.

  • The only other difference is trials will only be available to sign up a week ahead of time so we can plan accordingly.

  • Book a free trial >>

• CrossFit Kids Continues

  • Our CrossFit Kids class continues to meet Thursdays at 4:40PM. We have a great, motivated group these days, and they are making great progress.

  • Check out the CrossFit Kids class overview video >>

Programming Corner

The next programming phase is a strength-building phase that begins on April 10th. Until then, we have a few things we'll work on:

• Integrate some "forgotten" CrossFit movements like the Sumo Deadlift High Pull and Inverted Burpees we tackled this week

• Build endurance volume for Murph, particularly for push-ups, pull-ups and running

• Execute two additional CFTC benchmarks to help us track progress

Announcements

• A Review of the 2023 CrossFit Open

  • We had 3 teams participate -

    • Black Team - Abby R, Bill, Daphne, Jean, John L, Nathalie and Noah

    • Blue Team - Abbey B, Jeanna, Juan, Julieta, Marcus, Meg

    • Green Team - Angelica, Denis, Jane, Magdi, Paul, Sam

    • Drop-In Member - Chris P

  • Spirit of the Open and final team standings will be announced soon

  • Meg made it to the 90th percentile for her age group!

  • Drop-In Member Chris P earned a 66th place finish in the 55-59 for the Scaled division in the world

  • Doing these workouts can be a humbling experience. Is there anything that came up in the Open that you'd like to work on more?

  • Please let us know! >>

Coach's Eye - Noah

Congrats to CrossFit Teens athlete Noah! Although he's still too young for an official CrossFit Teens Games age group, Noah participated in the Open this year and tackled each workout with a hard-working attitude. Since joining our Teens class, last Fall, Noah has been consistent and brings fundamentals learned from a CrossFit New England gym to our VA gym. Although our Teens class is pausing for a bit, we're glad Noah could join for a litte while. Watch for him on the leaderboard next year. 

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February 2023 Newsletter

February 2023 Bells & Bars

The Monthly CFTC Newsletter

CFTC Team-

Happy February! Thanks to Coach Abbey for a great shot of the 5:30PM class earlier this month.

You may have seen some notices about the CrossFit Open going around. If you're new to CrossFit, what the CrossFit Open means to your daily CFTC experience is that workouts on Fridays on 2/17, 2/24 and 3/3 will be the same workout performed at CrossFit gyms around the world. Even if you don't do any more than show up, it's pretty awesome to be involved with something like that. For those that want to have some additional support and cheering, we'll have scored sessions that meet at 6:30PM on Fridays for those same weeks. We'd love for some more people to join in for these high-energy sessions. If that sounds fun (or scary), you're the perfect candidate. Sign up here >>

For February, the rest of the highlights are:

• CrossFit Open is around the corner, three weeks to Revere Your Fitness

• Check out some great nutrition tips from Coach Cece below

• CrossFit Teens - bring a friend on Monday, 2/6

• Love CFTC? Remember to leave a review.

-Jon & Marcus
 

Events

• The Open at CrossFit Tysons - "Revere Your Fitness"

  • What does it mean to revere your fitness? To revere means to honor, to admire. And we respect our fitness by trying our best for three weeks to see what we're capable of leading into and executing those three weeks.

  • Sign up for Friday Night Lights where we'll form teams and encourage each other to have your best Open

  •  Sign up by 2/2/23 (LAST CALL) >>

  • All are invited to a post-workout hangout on 3/3 following the last workout

• CFTC Teens Bring a Friend Day

  • Teens meet Mondays in February, and for the first week, on 2/6, we'd love for you to check out a class. All CFTC community is encouraged to check out a class for 50% off a trial class. Use code TEENSFRIEND2023. Teens Bring a Friend Day Sign Up >>

  • CFTC Teens details and sign up >>

Programming Corner

We continue a "Fitness" phase that runs through February. In addition, we will be adding completing CFTC benchmark workouts to help you track your fitness progress.

What's a CFTC Benchmark?

• CrossFit Tysons has created nine workouts named after attractions local to the area that will help you understand your current fitness level.

• The CFTC 9 Trials are below. Can you guess what each entails?:

  • Trial No. 1: "Term Limit" - completed on 12/31/22

  • Trial No. 2: "Potomac View" - last completed on 1/26/21

  • Trial No. 3: "Red Line" - last completed on 1/30/23

  • Trial No. 4: "Billy Goal Trail" - last completed on 1/7/22

  • Trial No. 5: "Wolf Trap" - last completed on 1/19/22

  • Trial No. 6: "Monument" - last completed on 1/19/21

  • Trial No. 7: "Shenandoah" - last completed on 1/28/20

  • Trial No. 8: "495" - last completed on 1/7/21

  • Trial No. 9: "Commander in Chief" - last completed on 1/7/22

• Print a tracking card of the skills you've achieved >>

Announcements

• Nutrition Tips from Coach Cece

  • Although you may not see her in person too often, Coach Cece has been sharing lots of great nutrition tips via our instagram page. Check out a few quick links and feel free to drop a question in the comments!

    • What and how to order when eating out >>

    • Grocery shopping tips >>

    • Which nutrition phase are you in? Cutting, bulking, performance? >>

    • Day-in-the-life high protein sample days >>

  • If you're interested in personal nutrition coaching, check out more details >>

• February Schedule

  • On Presidents Day - Monday 2/20 - the following classes are cancelled, all other classes held as normal:

    • 6:30AM Group CrossFit

    • 6:30PM Group CrossFit

    • 7:30PM Teens

  • Friday Night Lights

    • No regular 6:30PM class on 2/17, 2/24 and 3/3. Gym will be used for CrossFit Open scored sessions. Come out and cheer us on if you're not participating!

Congrats to the current Nutrition for Performance participants. All are doing great, stick with it for a few more weeks through the Open!

Coach's Eye - Coach Victor

Congrats to Coach Victor - he recently finished up night classes to improve his emergency response education. If you didn't know, Coach Victor is a full-time firefighter in Virginia and uses CrossFit to excel on the job. If you know someone interested in getting physically ready to pass the Physical Assessment Test for firefighting, Victor would love to help.

Subscribe for more updates

January 2023 Newsletter

January 2023 Bells & Bars

The Monthly CFTC Newsletter

CFTC Team-

Welcome to 2023! Thank you to everyone who came out to our Holiday Party - the gift exchange was great, and we added some new superlatives this year. Shout-out to John Lee for winning the Top Gear award - always coming ready to throw down, to Abby - for the Best Addition to Your Zombie Apocalypse Team because she never gives up, and Daphne - for the Model Class Attendee - she's always encouraging, whether coaching or joining in for a class. Be sure to come out and vote next year.

We head into the new year with a new coach on staff - welcome Coach Lan! In addition, we have many programs kicking off in 2023.

This time of year is a great time to bring in friends and family to CFTC - sign up by 1/2/22 to receive a free piece of apparel. As a reminder, for any member who refers someone to the gym, they also get 50% off the next month, just fill out this form.

For January, the highlights are:

• Nutrition for Performance - get help optimizing your nutrition at the start of the year, sign up by 1/3/23.

• CrossFit Open is around the corner, three weeks to Revere Your Fitness

• Restart of youth programs - CrossFit Kids meets Thursdays starting 1/12

• Love CFTC? Remember to leave a review.

-Jon & Marcus
 

Events

• The Open at CrossFit Tysons - "Revere Your Fitness"

  • What does it mean to revere your fitness? To revere means to honor, to admire. And we respect our fitness by trying our best for three weeks to see what we're capable of leading into and executing those three weeks.

  • Join us for a nutrition challenge that will run Jan. 9 through  the first week of the Open.

  • Nutrition focus includes

    • Personalized macronutrient guidance from Coach Cece

    • Body composition readings

    • 3 weeks to build a nutrition base followed by 3 weeks of performance focus

  • Even if you don't join in for the nutrition part, sign up for Friday Night Lights where we'll form teams and encourage each other to have your best Open

  • Sign up by 1/3/23 >>

• CFTC Youth classes begin the week of 1/9

  • Teens classes start Monday 1/9, meeting at 7:30PM Mondays

  • Kids classes start Thursday 1/12, meeting at 4:40PM Thursdays

  • Receive a discount using code CFTCYOUTHWINTER23 if you sign up by 12/31/22

  • Teens sign up >>

  • Kids sign up >>

Programming Corner

We continue a "Fitness" phase that runs through February

Fitness Phase Overview

• We started the fitness phase a few weeks ago, and you may have noticed a number of "chippers" - a series of movements that don't repeat, and you chip away, one by one

• The next few weeks will be a triplet focus

• Specific Goals and Focus Breakdown

  • Weightlifting: Increase max output work capacity

    • Snatch & Clean & Jerk: High percentage lifts under fatigue paired with low percentage cycling

    • Strength: Squats, bench press and pulling from the ground in a progressive cycle

      • Be sure to record your lifts in Wodify

• More details >>

Announcements

• Welcome to Coach Lan!

  • Landis joins us after spending time coaching in Colombia and as an experienced CrossFitter, originally from Venezuela

  • Lan also has experience with Parkour, so definitely listen to his body awareness tips

  • It's great to have another Spanish-speaker on staff, so stop by a morning class to say hello

• January Sign-Up Specials

  • New members that sign up by 1/3/23 receive a free piece of apparel. Rates for new members will be increasing slightly after this, so sign up soon. Sign up >>

  • For current members who refer friends or family, we offer 50% of the next month. Sign up >>

Coach's Eye - Melia

Did you know... Melia has worked out at the same gym as fittest man on earth Justin Medeiros? Aside from that fun fact, Melia is a consistent, hard worker from our evening classes who stays focused and always is looking to improve her technique. We love that attitude and celebrate her for it.

Subscribe for more updates

Nutrition seminar

Join us for a nutrition seminar Wed 1/11

All are welcome to attend our nutrition challenge seminar tonight at 7pm! Even if you aren't part of the challenge, we'd love to have those interested in nutrition in any aspect attend. Coach Cece is knowledgeable about lots of topics and may have time for some questions at the end.

Topic: Nutrition Seminar
Time: Jan 11, 2023 07:00 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada)

Join Zoom Meeting
https://us05web.zoom.us/j/84193510607?pwd=SjRXRi9vOFAvZXQxa3ZIRy9DZHRBUT09

Meeting ID: 841 9351 0607
Passcode: 3t7yqA

Programming Corner: Fitness Phase

Writeup provided by DekaComp

COMPETITION READY

Duration: 14 Weeks

Includes Prep for the CrossFit Games Open & Quarter Finals

Welcome to the Deka Comp Fitness Training Phase, a phase where we will build off of our Base Strength, Weightlifting, Gymnastics, & Power Endurance Phases with a focus on blending everything we’ve done this past year with progressively natured, functional movement, executed at varied intensities. This cycle is where you will notice the least amount of distinction between sections. 

At the core of this phase is the CrossFit method with a competition bias. We will specialize in being as broad and competent as possible across the 10 physical skills and the components that represent them. In the power endurance phase, we merged a lot of fitness components but maintained a training separation (for the most part) in the three major areas of: Intensity, Volume, and Speed. Now we focus on blending everything but in a gradual manner. Since we spent a long time building a strong and capable foundation by separating the components of fitness, then increasing the ceiling of your work capacity via the power endurance phase, we can now transition nicely into the broader focused fitness phase. We will work towards increasing our ability to maintain efforts over broad time and modal domains. Essentially we are improving the sustaining of rep cycle speed and duration.

Progression

This is an intensity progression from a load and metabolic standpoint. So overall you will notice a linear progression in the weightlifting reps and percentages week to week but you will also notice that we will ask you to increase your metabolic intensity week to week systematically. To do this we will begin the phase with 80% of the weekly training session as high volume / 20 % of the sessions as low intensity sessions, we will gradually focus on reducing the volume and increasing the overall intensity to a 50/50 weekly split during the open. We do this in order to prepare specifically for the Quarter finals. Before the Quarter Finals we will have the final week of the Open dedicated to completing 23.3 on the Friday, followed by a Mock QF’s week-end on that same week-end. We will use 23.3 as one of the training pieces for this week-end. You will then enter the two week taper period, which will feel like a deload and a prep, in order to allow for the maximum supercompensation of the year to occur for you. It’s important to note that all athletes are different and respond to different tapering methods differently. That said, this will be a general taper in order to allow for the benefit of the majority.
Testing

Our testing will be unlike the rest of the year, due to the nature of this phase. We will use actual CrossFit competition tests, rather than testing for specific physical skills and they will appear in a different format than we normally use. We generally book end the phase with a week of testing, the fitness phase includes multiple cycles within the phase and we will simply conclude each cycle with one test based on the cycle focus. (see ‘cycle focus’ below)

CYCLE FOCUS OVERVIEW

General

Week 1-4: 80/20: Chipper Focus

Week 5-8: 60/40: Triplet Focus

Quarter Finals Preparation

Week 1-4 50/50: Couplet- Weekly Open Focus + Mock QF

Week 5: Taper week

Week 6: Taper Week + QF

Specific Goals and Focus Breakdown

*Keep in mind these are biases and focuses not periodization excluding the squat and bench press cycles.

Weightlifting: Increase max output work capacity

Snatch & Clean & Jerk: High percentage lifts under fatigue paired with low percentage cycling

Strength:

Squats: Progressive overload back squat cycle

Pressing: Progressive overload bench press cycle

Pulling off the ground: Weightlifting will be very demanding so we will reduce the frequency of heavy loads here but will maintain this integrity via metcons and accessories.

Accessory: Post Chain + Core focus on strength and stability

Gymnastics: Increase work capacity and stamina

High skill movements under fatigue paired with low skill, high rep cycling

Metcon: Progressive over intensity

Chippers: 80/20 - Volume/Intensity format

Triplets: 60/40 - Volume/Intensity format

Couplets: 50/50 - Volume/Intensity format

Open Weakness: 1x/week In order to specifically hone in on your weakness.

EMOM 10

Amrap 30 sec

Choose a weak movement. This movement must be light (below 50% of your max rep if it's a barbell). 

Movement Conditioning: 1-2x/week in order to specifically address regular occurrences in online competition.

Accessories: Free Volume and maintenance

Posterior chain 3x/week

Core 2x/week

Shoulder Health 1x/week

Upper back 1x/week

December 2022 Newsletter

December 2022 Bells & Bars

The Monthly CFTC Newsletter

CFTC Team-

The Holiday season is approaching, and we're here for it - warm fires, hot drinks, cold and darkness all around. What's not to love?

A warm welcome to all of our CrossFit Kids participants for this session - Emily, Emily, Zora, Gwyneth, Matthew, Makena, Brianna, Mia, Calina, Keira, Lena, Madison and Hannah, and welcome back to adult member Sinan.

For December, the highlights are:

• Holiday Party - tonight at CFTC! See details below. Begins 8PM on 12/10

• Good Habits, Better Holidays challenge update

• The CrossFit Open - a 3-week celebration of fitness is coming soon. Make it your best showing by getting ready with a new-year nutrition challenge, more details here and below

• Holiday Hours - read below

• Love CFTC? Remember, you can always bring a friend or leave a review.

-Jon & Marcus
 

Events

• CFTC Holiday Party

  • Join us for a party - we will provide some drinks, snacks and holiday cheer.

  • We ask you to bring a dish to share and an optional gift ($20 or under) for an evil santa gift exchange.

  • We hope to see you! Family and friends are welcom

  • Sat. 12/10 at 8PM at CFTC

• Good Habits, Better Holidays habit builder

  • Use the time we have in December before Christmas to build some fitness momentum heading into the new year.

  • Get access to a daily habit tracker and advent-style calendar for something to focus on each day

  • The goal is to set and achieve a goal number for each of the following from 12/1 - 12/26:1 hour of exercise, eat clean (limit sugar, alcohol, eat lots of veggies, etc.), 60+ oz. of water + vitamins and bonus habits of good sleep, meditation and gratitude journaling

  • Encourage members Magdi, Jeanna and Joe who are all making great progress so far.

  • Sign up here (current members - $5 or non-members - $25)

Programming Corner

We begin a "Fitness" phase, beginning the week of 12/12 

Fitness Phase Overview

• Welcome to the Fitness Training Phase, a phase where we will build off of our Base Strength, Weightlifting, Gymnastics, & Power Endurance Phases with a focus on blending everything we’ve done this past year with progressively natured, functional movement, executed at varied intensities. This cycle is where you will notice the least amount of distinction between sections. 

• Week 1-4: 80/20: Chipper Focus

• Week 5-8: 60/40: Triplet Focus

• Specific Goals and Focus Breakdown

  • Weightlifting: Increase max output work capacity

    • Snatch & Clean & Jerk: High percentage lifts under fatigue paired with low percentage cycling

    • Strength:

      • Squats: Progressive overload back squat cycle

      • Pressing: Progressive overload bench press cycle

      • Pulling off the ground: Weightlifting will be very demanding so we will reduce the frequency of heavy loads here but will maintain this integrity via metcons and accessories.

  • Gymnastics: Increase work capacity and stamina

  • Metcon: Progressive over intensity

  • Open Weakness: 1x/week In order to specifically hone in on your weakness.

  • Movement Conditioning: 1-2x/week in order to specifically address regular occurrences in online competition.

  • Accessory: Post Chain + Core focus on strength and stability

More details >>

Announcements

• The CrossFit Open is around the corner

  • We're doing things a little differently this year to get ready for the CrossFit Open.

  • The Open is a a three-week international event where anyone — regardless of fitness level or ability — can get scored in the biggest fitness competition in history. The 2023 Open will take place from Feb. 16 - March 6.

  • Leading up to the Open we will have a nutrition challenge with personalized suggestions focused on performance.

  • More details and sign up >>

• Holiday Hours

  • No Classes

    • 12/25

  • Cancelled Classes

    • 12/23 6:30PM

    • 12/24 9:30AM

    • 12/25 6:30AM

    • 12/26 - 12/30: 6:30PM

    • 12/31 9:30AM

  • Always check Wodify for most recent schedule

• CrossFit Kids and Teens Upcoming Sessions

  • Stay tuned for a next session announcement

  • Sessions resume the week of 1/9

Coach's Eye - Alex

Alex has been with CFTC for a few months now, and the evening classes are glad to have him as a member. He has been making great progress with CrossFit and we're glad he found CFTC to reignite his CrossFit passion.

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2022 Holiday Party

November 2022 Newsletter

November 2022 Bells & Bars

The Monthly CFTC Newsletter

CFTC Team-

We're in the heart of Fall, and we've had a lot of full classes both in the mornings and the evenings. It was great to see one evening class where every cardio machine we had was in use with members and coaches doing the workout - 8 rowers, 3 bikes and 1 ski erg all cranking away.

A warm welcome to our new morning members - Carl, Joe and welcome back to Isha.

For November, the highlights are:

• Happy Hour Nov. 1 at Solace Outpost 7PM

• Welcome to new coach Landis (goes by Lan), you'll see him around soon

• Thanksgiving Hours - read below

• Love CFTC? Remember, you can always bring a friend or leave a review.

-Jon & Marcus

Events

• Tysons Happy Hour

  • Join us for a happy hour this Nov. 1!

  • 7PM at Solace Outpost in Falls Church, VA

  • Look for a coach or one of our evening members - Tyler

• Rogue Invitation Recap - Team Style

  • This Saturday 11/5 the day's workouts will be partner versions of two events from the Rogue Invitational. The Rogue Invitational is a competition similar to the CrossFit Games that tests a variety of fitness.

  • On Saturday, we'll tackle CFTC's version of Back Attack and DT with a Spin. Check Wodify for the workout details.

  • More on the Rogue Invitational >>

Programming Corner

We continue our Power Endurance programming phase.

A few benchmarks to be on the lookout for:

• "Karen" - later this week

• "Grace" - a repeat later in December

Weightlifting focus:

• Back squats and front squats

• Jerks

Gymnastics focus:

• Lower reps over multiple rounds

• Higher level skills

More details >>

Announcements

• Thanksgiving Hours

  • Wed 11/23 - 6:30PM class cancelled

  • Thu 11/24 - only 9:00AM class (Kids class cancelled)

  • Fri 11/25 - only 9:00AM, Noon, 4:30PM classes

  • Sat 11/26 - only 8:30AM class

• Welcome New Coach Lan!

  • More to come on our new coach Landis (he goes by Lan)

  • He joins us as an experienced coach and will be helping out in the mornings initially and other classes moving forward

• Kids Class Resumes - Thurs 11/3

  • We already have a strong showing for our 6-week Kids session, but there are a few spots left

  • Kids: Thursdays 4:40PM - resumes Thurs 11/3

  • Sign up - Kids >>

• Final Sand Bags Arrived

  • We have rounded out our collection of Rogue Strongman-style sandbags

  • These are great for cleans, carries and static holds. Swap out your barbell or dumbbells for one of these (with coach's permission), if you want an extra challenge.

  • Weights are:

    • Blue = 20 lbs., Brown = 40 lbs., Green = 50 lbs., Red = 70 lbs., Yellow = 100 lbs., Black = 120 lbs.

Coach's Eye - Angelica

Good luck to Coach Angelica who will be representing her Olympic Lifting gym - CHFP, and we hope the love from CFTC as well at the 2022 USAW American Open. If you didn't know, Angelica is a competitive olympic lifter, earning her place to compete as one of the best in the country in her age division (yes she can snatch more than you). So definitely take her cues to heart when she gives tips on lifting technique. Good luck Angelica!

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