John,
I’ve got a strange request. I’m currently in Iraq and assist with Spit Fire CrossFit (back in the real world, I work at Wright-Patterson AFB and am a trainer at CF Wright-Patt). Spit Fire is your typical military affiliate: lots of fit young soliders who think that if a 15 min metcon is good, then surely 45 mins is better. Hero WODs? Every fucking day. The problem is gains are minimal and the new/unfit/older crowd are either scared off or don’t bring their numbers up anytime soon. I am an avid listener of Robb’s podcast (and follower of your blog) and know how you feel about daily excessively long metcons. I’ve had great success with MEBB program (both for myself and my small crew) and have been lately more and more convinced to make a switch to CFFB.
We’re about to close up shop here and relocate and due to some personnel changes, I have the opportunity to put myself in charge of programming and alter our course from daily beat downs to something resembling smart programming. If it were completely up to me, we’d just follow your site to the letter and let the rest days fall where they do. The problem is our clients, including our general who is a fierce CrossFit advocate and an absolute badass for being 50+ (were talking Masters Level Games contender), expect to come to the gym M-Sat and get their workout on. Like many civilian clients, our folks just can’t wrap their minds around rest days mid-week or if they do, they’re all on different days. Even better, we have folks who follow main site WODs and actually find other WODs to do on the main site rest days. Although, I’m level 1 and Westside certified, I am smart enough to know my shortcomings. So tweaking your program to a straight M-Sat operation in out of the question. I am looking for a recommendation on what I should do. I’m simply looking to shamelessly copy programming, since it’ll at least be a significant improvement over what we are doing now. Any suggestions you have would be much appreciated!
Steve Grotjohn
Joint Base Balad, Iraq
Steve,
If I had a dollar for every time I have heard, “I have a strange request”…
The program runs Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday. The rest days fall on Wednesday and Sunday. If you want to include an extra workout on Wednesday make it a run, alternate between 15 min and 20 min runs and volume sprints. Or my personal favorite, pick something from the CrossFit archives circa 2003-2004, if your guys want a beat down, give them one.
*At my own gym, we love clients that don’t take rest days and ask for a higher volume of training. We give them all they can handle and watch them implode. Sometimes, you have to let people figure things out for themselves.
I feel the program lays out well with 5 training days a week. Most people would say adding another training day in there is suicide, but it is your funeral.
Have fun and keep a watchful eye on your soldiers. If you start to notice they are not making strength gains, you might try to put a padlock on the gym and force them into a rest day. Your only barometer should be strength gains.
Remember, you don’t’ get stronger during the workout. Training breaks the body down, rest and recovery allows the body to heal and adapt to the new imposed demands.
Steve, your gym patrons sound like the guys who Crossfit here at work. I’m with you on knowing CFFB programming is far superior to random, excessive volume. Glad to know I’m not alone.
I want the responder who could do Murph to pull my ass out of a burning building. Not the responder who just did Murph.
Well, I got just the answer. Its my new hybrid program. I incorporate cffb, crossfit, sealfit, and westside bb. I like to call it westsidesealfootfit. Volume? a little. Overtraining? An illusion. Rad work capacity? Very rad. And 7 days a week fellas…git some!
Granted its not random long metcons but pat mendes etc seem to get plenty strong without rest days, what gives?
Also I would think that the crossfit work should be with a goal of helping them be better prepared physically to take care of their top priority, soldering. Without proper rest/recovery this could suffer leading to liabilities in the field. Would such a perspective help your position with them?
I for one, love the rest days right where they are. With my work schedule as it is now (cop) I can do the workouts and still get some rest here and there. I was following the main site for some time and would have to do weekly “two a days” just to keep up and not feel left out. Now, the schedule feels about perfect. On a rest day, if I feel like it, I might go for an easy row on the C2, or maybe do some kettlebell stuff for 30 minutes. Please don’t change a thing John… and thanks.
Agreed on the CF Archives. That with some accessory work would be a solid program
rpaulson,
there’s an interview floating around with broz about their training, that work capacity is developed by layering in sessions as the athlete progresses.
rest days are my personal fav.
I run Crossfit Slayer, we are now in the IZ in Iraq, I have had similiar problems with the guys never wanting to take rest days. So I increased the volume for two weeks and broke everyone off. I explained to all the guys what I was doing, trying to show them that rest was needed, but during the time they continued to argue. After two weeks when our rest day came no one showed up. My point was made, now the guys are following the programming not complaining and making some very good gains. I may have been a little childish, but it worked out overall.
Great advice. It took some time for me to realize that I couldn’t go balls to the wall every single day, so I love the advice of letting them implode. Plus, it’s nice to take a day off to lay on the couch and act like a hibernating grizzly bear.
Thanks again for posting more frequently. My buddies and I check out the site daily and typically talk about the good advice or the hilarious comments. We appreciate it.
Steve,
An area where we have had great success at our gym is educating about proper recovery and rest. Every Thursday is our Mobility/Recovery day. We spend about 30 min. addressing different techniques to help our athletes recovery, it will usually go off of what we have programmed that week. Then we do a short workout that is untimed that focus more on skill development and proper movement rather than another “true” metcon. Rolling out and stretching is a good time to educate and bullshit with each other at the same time. The longer we have been doing it like this the more we have seen our members rolling out and stretching more consistently throughout the week rather than just when something hurts.
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Thanks John, et al for the response and comments. Will keep you posted.
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I don’t think there’s any need to feel “shame” when “copying” programming that is known to work extraordinarily well. At my box I use archived CFFB programming and tweak it as little as possible, according to equipment issues or particular military training requirements. I freely admit that I do not think up the WODs from scratch, and when people ask me why I use CFFB for my box, I can go on and on about it.
I don’t think that should be seen as a shortcoming at all.