Hey guys,
What is up?! We have a beautiful Sunday going on here in Burlington North Carolina and it’s time to dive headfirst into our upcoming week at CrossFit Simplicity. We are right on the heels of an epic Bring A Friend Day this weekend so let’s try to keep that energy rolling into Monday. I am personally very excited about this weeks workout theme. If you grew up watching spaghetti westerns you’re going to love these Clint Eastwood movie inspired workouts. I’m not sure how classic these workouts are but they’re definitely going to be challenging and full of lots of variety. We’ll also be continuing with our strength cycle which will involve a deload week to give your body a chance to recover a little bit before we go heavy again. Now, check out the announcements below and then let’s get started!
- Bring A Friend Day: Huge thank you to everyone who came out to make this Bring A Friend Day such an awesome event. Also special thank you to DJ-LA, as the music was especially “LIT” this time! Get ready for our next one in December!
- CFS Winter Gear: Our gear was in and printing began last week so expect it at the gym very soon!
Monday: We are going to kick the week off right with a true icon: “Clint Eastwood”. This workout is five rounds of calories on the rower and burpee box get overs. Each row will be broken into individual six minutes segments. You have six minutes to finish a round and whatever time remains is yours to rest and recover. The calories will decrease during the round but the box get overs will remain constant. You want to work at a pretty strong pace throughout each round knowing that finishing early will get you a good rest before your next round. We want to try to maintain consistent scores or potentially drop your time slightly across each round (negative splits). Use any method you’d like for the box get overs as long as the majority of the body passes over the box. These are a movement we have seen before and are fun and challenging. Really go for it today and get the most out of this one! After we wrap this one up we will spend a few minutes working on some skill progressions for your handstand push-ups.
Tuesday: Back Squat day! Even though we are having a deload week it is still good to get under a bar and work through that movement with some moderate loading. We will have five sets of five today varying between 40% and 60% of your one rep max. Even though these are light still take them seriously and focus on maintaining a good position and a smooth range of motion. After this we have an awesome little workout to get those shoulders burning. “Dirty Harry” will be a 21-15-9 rep couplet of pull ups and handstand push-ups. Conveniently we just worked on these handstand push-ups yesterday so use those lessons to set up an appropriate scale or progression today if needed. You’re gonna have to be strategic with how you break up these sets early on so that you don’t go to failure. Both of these movements are hard to recover from after a max effort set so think about breaking things up early and having consistent sets. This one could get spicy so hang in there and push hard on your last round!
Wednesday: Weightlifting Wednesday! Just like we talked about with the back squats on Tuesday these will be lighter reps. This means that rather than blowing them off and just quickly moving through them, this is an opportunity to work on being smooth, crisp, efficient and perfect with each and every rep! We will be doing clean and jerks at 70% today so let’s move well! This will be a 10 minute EMOM and then we’ll hit “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.” Classic! These workout names just take me back. As a quick sidenote if you have not seen these Clint Eastwood movies you’ve got to check them out! Maybe that’s some good workout motivation? This will be a 15 minute AMRAP consisting of wallballs, a run, and some moderate weight deadlifts. The reps are pretty high here but the movements are simple and light and should be ones that you can put in consistent work on throughout the entire workout. Wallballs should be something that we are knocking out in pretty big sets to begin with so make sure you pick an appropriate weight. The goal today is to finish at least one round and we would love to see some of you guys get back in the second round and knock out a good chunk of wallballs!
Thursday: “Million Dollar Baby” is on the menu today and it has a very throwback feel to all the aerobic capacity Thursdays we used to hit! This one will be a 20 minute EMOM where are you alternate between a minute of max effort kettlebell swings, a minute of sit ups, a minute of max effort double unders, and then finally a minute of rest. The stimulus we are looking for today is moderate intensity and a repeatable performance across all five rounds for each movement. You’ll be tempted to try to go to failure on the earlier rounds and then be forced to break up sets due to fatigue in the later rounds. Try not to do this. Instead use today’s workout as a test in pacing and try to find a pace that is somewhat maintainable across all rounds. The workout will be scored by the total number of reps in each round. Make sure we move well today and continue to breathe through every rep!
Friday: We have a really exciting Friday for you guys. We’ll start things off with our strength work which will be the shoulder presses today. These will follow the same rep scheme as our back squats earlier this week. Remember to stay strict on these and have no dip or bend in the hips or knees. After this the real fun begins…a partner workout! “Pale Rider” will be 2 rounds of 100 calories on the bike/row and then 40 moderate weight power snatches. You can break up the work between you and your partner anyway you would like but you have to work in order. Meaning you have to finish all the calories before you can move to the power snatches. We would suggest keeping the intensity high on the calories so break these into smaller sets like 8 to 10 cals back-and-forth. The power snatch should be something that is no more than 60 to 70% of your one rep max and you should be able to complete at least five reps touch and go in fresh. This might be a good strategy or you may want to go with quick singles back-and-forth. Your legs and lungs are definitely going to be taxed after the calories so make sure to drive through the floor and explode under the bar. Easy day!
Saturday: Such an awesome workout today and another one of my favorite Clint Eastwood movies: “A Fist Full of Dollars.” This is going to be a really fun workout today that involves multiple couplets. We will have many different AMRAPs all with a rest between them. Each AMRAP is a different couplet and you’ll see everything from push-ups to box jump overs to muscle ups to single arm dumbbell clean and jerks and lots lots more! Come into this one today ready to work hard and have a great time with your friends!
As always we have a week stacked full of awesome workouts for you guys. We can’t say enough about how much we have enjoyed this programming and all the results we’ve seen thus far. By now you guys should be getting used to the flow and feel of each week so continue to push yourself and be consistent. Don’t forget to give yourself and your body your best chance of success by continuing to focus on eating enough of the right foods and getting lots of high-quality sleep and recovery. As I mentioned before I think it would be extremely beneficial to watch some of these Clint Eastwood movies as a way to motivate and educate yourself into becoming a better athlete and person. (OK maybe that’s a little much, but they will be entertaining!) Now you guys go and enjoy the rest of this beautiful Sunday and we can’t wait to see you all in class!
~Daniel
