CrossFit East Bay: CrossFit Games 2010

Apollonia May 2009, Norcal Qualifier

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We are now 9 months out from the CrossFit Games 2010. Greg Glassman has stated that the games are an opportunity for affiliates to show the strength of their programming.

Last year we decided late to enter the games; for the Affiliate Cup we gambled and lost on a dark horse strategy, which involved a lot of long grueling metcon (long time domains by CF standards). We chose this strategy because we had limited time to develop tons of power or strength; it takes quite a while to get strong, while developing work capacity can be done fairly quickly. Because of (or perhaps despite) this we finished 68th of 97 teams.

For the individual competition, Apollonia also had limited time to prepare, but thanks to Gita's brilliant 11-day preparation and her inherent athleticism and powerful work ethic, she qualified for the games in 5th place, but far ahead of the next nearest competititor. With good, hard training, she placed 34th at the games, and, notably, improved enough against the moving targets of the the Norcal Competitors that she placed higher than everyone who beat her at the Norcal Qualifier previously.

This year we know far in advance that we will participate in the competitive season, and therefore, We will tailor our programming to that end. Given the fact that CrossFit East Bay is dedicated to old-school CF principals, most of the training will be fully scalable, and we will offer a compelling fitness experience for anyone who wants to train hard and get results.

The next three months will be old-school CF GPP (generalized physical preparedness). However, our Max Effort work will be less varied than CF main for this period. The reasons for this being a good or bad idea could fill a very long article. Suffice to say this will make it easier for us to gauge what kind of progress we are making. We will also be working on short metcon, long metcon, light (bodyweight-ish) metcon and heavy metcon. We will deadlift heavy every week, either as Max Effort day or as a metcon with weights of up to 315/205. We will also do Max Effort Clean & Jerk at least 2X a month. While some suggest teaching the snatch first (because it is harder), I am choosing to work on my own snatch, including getting high level instruction, before committing to teaching it in a serious manner.

In addition to the above we will be working a lot on Overhead Squats, Muscle-Ups, HSPU and Double-Unders (because they take the longest to learn). Also expect to learn to back squat.

The training template is HERE.

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The subsequent training will be developed once we know more about the schedule and format, however, if possible we will spend significant time getting as strong as possible (think Deadlift, Squat, Press, Bench Press, Sled Drag, Tire Flip, etc.) while still gaining some capacity. Following that, I hope to have a well-designed volume overload scheme which will bring us right to the brink of despair overtraining/overreaching followed by a back-off, followed by a cycle of escalating intensity but lowered volume. In all cases, I hope to avoid the scenario of last year when we were a bit spun-down (if super-conditioned) coming up to our competitions. Some of us definitely peaked the week after the games. Recovery will be much more at the forefront this year. Training will be the new overtraining. The above may have to be repeated multiple times in micro-cycles (sectionals, regionals, games)