Programming Update: October Preview / September Recap
by Erik Castiglione
Greetings Relentless Family!
We have one heck of an October planned for you here at the gym. With respect to our presses and squats, you’ll be seeing a continuation of the 5/3/1 program that we’re on. We’re doing a double cycle of this program, which means we won’t be maxing our Low Bar Back and Front Squats or Bench and Push Presses until December. It’s cool though, this program gives you plenty of opportunities to rep maxes. In other words, you get to go for max reps rather than max weight. You may have noticed that even when we’re not maxing out weight, you can still earn a gold star in Wodify. This is because Wodify recognizes PR’s in total tonnage lifted. For example, 8 reps at 100 lbs = 800 lbs total tonnage. 8 reps at 110 lbs = 880 lbs total tonnage, which would be a PR. Setting PR’s like these are how we continue making progress while sparing our bodies the stress of maxing out.
We will, however, be maxing out our weightlifting – the snatch, and the clean and jerk. This will free up some time towards the end of the month for us to play with a couple of the strongman implements, so you all have something to look forward to! Also, we’ll be continuing to work on barbell cycling in our metcons so that you’re all prepared for “Grace” on October 27th. Other things to look forward to:
- Increased focus on core and gymnastics work, particularly ring dips
- Plenty of opportunity to work on skills of your choosing, and class led muscle up drills towards month’s end
- A Viking themed WOD for Leif Eriksen Day on October 8th.
- No more running intervals! But yes, there will still be running in WODs
- Increased use of the Assault Air Bikes during weekday classes
Now, let’s flash back to September. We had a productive month that saw us test our Deadlifts and Shoulder Presses. We also retested our mile runs, tested Fran, and started the aforementioned 5/3/1 program. We had some GREAT results. The highlights:
- 11 Deadlift PR’s
- Connie Yeung joined the 200 lb club, Jessa English and Charlotte Hillery joined the 300 lb club, and Chad Kirby joined the 400 lb club
- 33 Shoulder Press PR’s
- Charlotte Hillery joined the 100 lb club, and Davoncé Bell and Will Rhem joined the 200 lb club
- 12 1-mile run PR’s
- 26 Fran PR’s, plus an additional 10 people who did the WOD with heavier weights than before, and still fell within the desired time domain
- Chad Kirby and Charlotte Hillery both climbed ropes for the 1st time
- Ana Calciano hit a PR for consecutive double unders with 16 mid WOD
- We had 186 total tonnage PR’s