New Year, New Fitness Programming
This is an explanation of the changes to the Fitness Programming for 2015
It’s a new year – welcome to 2015! As the years progress, we age. With age comes maturity (sometimes). With maturity comes a new way of looking at things – a different perspective.
This is a progression of sorts, and it takes on a different form for many people. Often, this is an opportunity to refocus. For many, the resolution is to prioritize certain aspects of their relationships with others. For some, this is an opportunity to focus on themselves and finally commit to achieving goals that they have long avoided.
For me, and “us” at San Diego Athletics, we are the pinnacle of selflessness, of course! Our goal is to create the best possible training environment for you to achieve all of your goals.
What's Familiar
Just like other aspects of life, it’s sometimes too easy to continue doing what you know; what’s familiar. The “known” breeds comfort. The unknown is a hidden cave of sorts, and it is often accompanied by a sense of angst.
The athletes at SD Athletics “know” the old version of the Fitness program, a beautiful two-week cycle of strength and conditioning work. We knew that every Monday we would bench or squat. Every Wednesday we would snatch or clean, and every Friday we would press or front squat. We knew that every Tuesday and Thursday we would do a few strict pull-ups and then some long conditioning.
But what if this was akin to living in the cave – what if, four years later, you decided to be bold and venture to the mouth of the cave? What if there was sunlight, and grass, and an entirely new experience where your adventurous nature could thrive? There would be an entirely new set of challenges and skills to hone. You would experience a completely new and exciting existence.
Macro vs. Micro
Over the past few years, our education in programming fitness has increased dramatically. As the knowledge base has been expanded, so has the need to test the efficacy of the program. No longer do we need to be constrained by the limitations of a daily and weekly structure. The focus is now on the big picture. What matters is not the “micro structure” of the daily or weekly vision but rather the “macro structure” of setting and achieving goals – the BIG PICTURE.
In the past, you would always know the precise weight and reps to be using on the prescribed rep scheme for each specific movement. But what if I asked you to do 4 sets of 3 reps, instead of 12-10-8? Would you know what weight to use for your 3-rep sets?
The ability to know how your body responds to a variety of stimuli at different rep ranges is a vital component of being a proficient athlete. The inability to understand your strength at different rep ranges is stunting your development as an athlete.
Testing Days
In the name of determining the efficacy of the program, we will now be testing every 13 weeks (quarterly), instead of bi-annually. Furthermore, we will be testing certain lifts, as well as certain conditioning workouts. In Week 1 of the cycle (starting Monday January 5th), we will do an entire week of testing different components of fitness – short WODS, longer WODS, strength lifts, etc. Then we will complete 11-12 weeks of weekly training, and then retest the exact same elements in week 13.
As far the specifics of the program, it will very closely resemble the format and structure of the “sample” week which we posted for December 29th. Some days may consist of all strength work. There will be supersets (no rest between movements), linear strength work (resting between each set), as well as a variety of high reps and low reps for each movement.
This will all work to create a much broader understanding of your own ability at different components of your fitness. While some days may be entirely strength focused, other days may be entirely conditioning based. We will probably see programming on certain days that is something like four different 10-min AMRAPs with a short rest between each. Or it could be represented in the form of a massive day of “skill work” with three different 12-minute EMOMS (every minute on the minute workouts).
As an athlete in the new program, you will need to be prepared for anything.
Schedule
This program will run on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday. Thursdays will continue to be the “try for free” day for potential members. This is the day to bring a friend. The workouts will be all bodyweight movements, as you’re used to seeing. However, this is NOT part of the program, and as always, I encourage you to participate in the official “National Rest Day” and use Thursdays to hibernate and recover so that you can be fresh and motivated to attack the work on Fridays and Saturdays.
The levels system will continue with L1, L2, L3 and L4. You will now see some levels defined for some of the strength and skill work as well.
On the snatch work, you will note that L1 and L2 athletes will be focusing on the most important part of the movement - the “hang” position. Once you are able to do the same amount of weight from the hang as you can from the ground, you are now ready to start doing the L3 and L4 version of the movements – the FULL lift, from the ground, through the squat position.
The same scaling system will be used for difficult gymnastics movements, like muscle-ups and handstand push-ups. You can see this represented in the Dec 29th WOD post for the programming on Friday, January 2nd.
The New Year is upon us. Regardless of whether your goals are selfish or selfless, the season of change has officially defined the way in which we all approach 2015.
There is an entirely new world out there – complete with a new set of challenges to overcome. Making a commitment to yourself to follow through on your resolution is the first step – accomplishing this goal is a rare feat. SD Athletics is here to help with one small part of that journey. Get out of your comfort zone and experience the massive opportunities that exist.
Take one small step out of the cave. I empathize with your hesitance, but the sun will shine light on an entirely new perspective. Let’s do big things together in 2015.
