CFW Weekly Update for July 10th, 2016

Congrats to all on the CFW Barbell Classic. We had over 45 athletes from 8 different gyms. What a great day. It was so fun to see all the PR’s!!!!  We actually managed to stay on schedule  (Thanks Anna!). Prairie CrossFit took home the affiliate banner which means we have some work to do to bring it back on home turf next year.  I hope to see many more of our athletes taking part next year…

I actually competed in both the Oly and Powerlifting components of this competition and I’m delighted with the fun and supportive atmosphere. I’m also happy to have matched my post baby bests on the Olympic lifts and got post-Marius PR’s on all the powerlifts! Fun times!  I also had several people express their gratitude for putting on this competition specifically the strongman part. Thanks to Anna and Adrian for organizing as well as to Annette and all the volunteers for helping out. Big hugs to Mel who placed 3rd in the Oly competition and Stephanie who placed second in Ladies Novice Strongman, along with Ren (1st), Phillipe (2nd), and Kent (3rd), who filled up the podium for Men’s Novice in the Strongman competition.

Enrolment is still open for our summer bootcamps and our only summer Group Start Up (On Ramp). We still have some spots left in all sessions if you know anyone who is interested please send them our way.

This week will bring volume and tempo work and probably some soreness to go along with it. Enjoy! The next three months will see us doing more squats and olympic weightlifting. Monday will always be our squat day and then Thursdays and Saturdays will be either squats or Oly or deadlifts. On our upper body days we will focus a bit more on gymnastics specifically handstands and muscle-ups though there will still be barbell work in the way of presses and push presses. The skill of the month for July will be handstands!!!

I’d like to say a few words about the handstand and core work that will be programmed in the next few weeks. I cannot overemphasize how important the basics are for developing the handstand. The hollow body holds in particular are the basis of your your handstand alignment. We used to program a lot of hollow rocks and hollow holds but I’ve been easing off on them because I’ve noticed that it’s too easy to slack off on them. Even I’m guilty of that especially at the end of a workout. When done correctly they are quite difficult for most people and I’ve been finding myself scaling them back in order to do them properly. I would like to see a renewed commitment from all of us to prioritize quality on all of our gymnastics basics in particular our hollow holds and planks. Don’t hesitate to tighten up your hold by bending the knees or bringing arms up. We want to see a good 60 sec hold or multiple sets of 30 seconds before moving on to a more difficult version.

Monday: Mostly Lower body – Squat

Tuesday: Mostly Upper Body – Gymnastics

Wednesday: Conditioning & Skills

Thursday: Mostly Lower Body – Deadlift

Friday:Mostly Upper Body – Push Press

Saturday: Mostly Lower Body – Squat

Sunday: Make up or Benchmark

Spoiler Alert!  Click on the links below to see the details of this week’s group workouts.

CrossFit Health, Fitness & Performance Programming for week of July 11th, 2016

Powerlifting Programming for week of July 11th, 2016

Gymnastics Programming for week of July 11th, 2016

Kettlebell Programming for week of July 11th, 2016