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!