The 12 Week Metabolic Strength Program (Part 1)

This program is designed for functional fitness athletes who need a high level of metabolic conditioning, and also need to increase their strength. If you are great at WODs and conditioning, but you really need to increase your overall strength then this is the program for you. Remember, you asked for this.

In my 11 plus years of coaching athletes, and participating in all types of functional fitness training, I’ve learned a few things about functional fitness, and athletic performance. First, strength matters. Secondly, strength alone, is insufficient.

We’ve all seen athletes who are imbalanced. They might be in great cardiovascular shape, or they might be incredibly strong, but when the workout of the day (WOD) calls for something that doesn’t fall in their wheel house, they are left sucking wind. This program is designed to help promote balanced development, both in maximal strength, and in your conditioning.

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Program Goals

• Increase Functional Strength Capacity
• Develop energy systems to better utilize increased strength
• Increase muscle mass

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As you can see from our program goals, this program is primarily designed to increase our lifts, but this ultimately will be useless unless we continue to develop our energy systems, so that we can express this strength during our WODs and metabolic conditioning workouts.

Lastly, we would like to build some muscle mass. This is not the primary goal for this program, but I can’t reasonably see someone working this hard and not putting on lean muscle. Obviously, newer athletes will put on more muscle mass and elite athletes will put on less. Now that we’ve covered some of the basics of this program, let’s get into more specifics.

The 12 Week Metabolic Strength Program (Part 1) Overview

As the title implies this is going to be the first six weeks of the program. It is written with workouts for 6 days per week. I do not expect you to complete all six workouts per week. Frankly, that would be too much work. I expect you to complete five days per week of this program with the understanding that occasionally you might throw in an extra rest day in there.

The sixth day is a group workout, to be done with a partner. If you are working solo, feel free to ignore this day. If you are working out at a gym or with a partner then this can be a nice change of routine. I have found that partner workouts have their own unique flavor, as you really have to go hard then rest. For solo WODs, you tend to hold a much steadier pace.

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12 Week Metabolic Strength Program (Part 1) PDF DOWNLOAD

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Week 1

This first week is our intro to this style of programming, and it will include some of the lifts, and WODs we will be using to test our improvement in the last week of this program. See the first week below

This program is a bit of a departure from my previous strength programs. There is slightly less traditional lifting and an increase in heavy lifting on the clock.

You can also see that there are three days per week of traditional lift + a WOD. There are also two days per week of long WODs and/or heavy lifting on clock, as you will see in the coming weeks.

Week 2

The majority of this week’s strength work is building to a seven rep max, then performing back off sets at 90% of that weight. I encourage you to work to the heaviest 7RM you can, while maintaining good form. If you’re back starts to round, or you cannot maintain the correct range of motion then you are going too heavy.

If you are going to choose to do the partner WOD, then you should drop your best session. If you are a great squatter, then you could skip session 7 for this week. If you are strong on conditioning, then you could drop session 9, for example.

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Week 3

In this week, we see an increase in our back off sets on sessions 13, and 14. We also continue to see a long WOD midweek, with a metabolic strength component prior to the partner WOD.

In my own testing, I’ve found that these sessions are doable in 60min or less. I expect you to complete a general warm up of 3-5 minutes of cardio, followed by some calisthenics that will warm up the specific muscle groups you will be using that day. This is also an excellent time to practice olympic lifting technique.

I highly encourage you to cool down with 10min of easy cardio at the end of the session. This should be around 60 watts worth of work, or the equivalent of an easy walk. Research shows that this is a very reliable way to increase recovery, and muscle mass.

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Week 4

This week we increase from a 7RM to an 8RM. I have found that, by now, you should be able to hit what you were able to for your 7RM previously. It’s important to note that I don’t expect that every week you’ll hit a new PR with the rep max lift. This is technical max for the day. Some days you will feel great and you might get that PR, other days you won’t. The goal is to work to a clean heavy set.

I would encourage you all to read this article where I provide a great nutrition calculator that will break down your caloric requirements, as well as calculate your energy burn for your WOD.

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Week 5

The weights are starting to creep up. This is the last week before our deload, where we will maintain intensity but reduce our overall volume. By now you are probably feeling a little beat up, and that’s ok. Remember, it is ok to add in an additional rest day here and there, if you need it.

The only other point of discussion for this week is session 29. If you are working alone then you should think of this as an increasing weight ladder every 2 minutes on the minute. If you have a group or a partner, conga line cleans are as simple as they sound. I go, then you go, until you fail.

Week 6

This is our deload week. We are still working to a nice heavy 5RM, but we don’t have any further work sets afterwards. Likewise, we still have our mid-week strength complex, but it is also reduced in volume.

My test athletes actually found that they were hitting PR’s on their 5RM lifts. This is fine if you are able to do this, but I don’t want you guys reaching for a weight that will cause your form to degrade. You will get those PR’s, but you will need to be patient. Don’t take a crappy 5lb PR here, when you might get 10-20lbs latter on!

Final Thoughts

This first six week installment is fairly hard, but if you finish, you should find that you are drastically increasing your strength, and you’ve probably also put on some muscle mass as well. This is great, but don’t let a little bit of success go to your head, and slack off! You still have more work to do in Part Two of the 12 Week Metabolic Strength Program!

Question or comments? Put them below.

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