The 9 Week Functional Fitness Strength Premium Program

If you’re like me you like functional fitness, but you secretly like lifting a little more.  In fact, I’d say most athletes like feeling strong and moving serious weight.  My strength programs are always popular.  This inspired me to create a premium strength program that is designed to increase your overall strength in the squat, deadlift, and bench press.  Keep reading for more. 

As with my other programs, each one is designed for a specific purpose.  This program is without a doubt your best bet to gain overall strength, without sacrificing your conditioning. When I first started testing this rep scheme I found that my intermediate athletes gained around 12-14% of strength in 10 weeks. 

While I can’t guarantee these types of tremendous gains, I can tell you that they worked very hard and gained a lot of strength.  Obviously, newer athletes can gain even more strength, as going from a 135 bench press to 185lbs is much easier than going from 335 to 385lbs! 

I can also tell you that this is one of my most thoroughly tested programs.  In my first phase of testing, I used the athletes at my home gym test the rep scheme for the primary lifts.  I found that it was well tolerated and appropriately hard. 

In the next phase, I paired the primary strength movements with the accessory work, and the WODs.  Most importantly, I personally tested each and every session.  This was key as I found that on a few days I had actually made the overall volume and intensity a little too hard or too easy, and had to adjust accordingly.  Let’s get into the details of the program.

The 9 Week Functional Fitness Strength Premium Program

This program is slightly different than my other programs.  First, I don’t specify what days you need to work out.  I have written this program as a series of four day cycles.  The expectation is that you will work for four days and then rest. 

Your rest period is entirely up to you.  If you feel recovered enough to get back to working out after one day of rest then you can continue with the next cycle.  If you are still sore, then you can take a second day of rest. 

I found as I did this program that I was able to get by with one rest day for the first several weeks.  However, as the load and intensity increased, I needed that second day to fully recover.  There is also a planned deload cycle as well.  Here is an example week of the programming. 

In this 9 Week Functional Fitness Strength Program you’ll be benching twice a week, and working your lower body twice per week as well.  I have found that many functional fitness athletes actually need more upper body pressing movements as we naturally tend to work full body and lower body movements more often. 

What about your WOD and Metcon?

It’s very clear that strength plays a large role in functional fitness performance.  It is also clear that pure strength alone will not guarantee a good score on a benchmark WOD, or Open workout.  It’s for this reason that we still include challenging WODs. 

If you look at the example week above, you’ll notice that I tend to pair the WOD movements with the strength movements.  I’ve found that this allows an athlete to get the appropriate volume in each muscle group.  This allows you to build muscle more effectively.  The only downside is that it does make the WOD even more challenging.  You don’t mind right?

Get Your Copy Here!

What Else is Included?

It’s clear that I’ve put together an even more effect program than the free version that so many athletes have already had success with.  I think it’s just as important to point out that each day you will get detailed instructions on how to warm up, including a warm up WOD. 

You will also have my “Coaches Notes” which is the type of advice I would give to an individual athlete in person.  You’ll understand what rest intervals you should use, as well as what goals to shoot for in the WOD.  You will also have scaling options for more difficult WODs.  I have also included links to my best resources, such as my nutrition calculator, and some scientifically supported recovery measures. 

Final Thoughts

I’m very proud of this program.  It took a lot of work and testing to put a program together that allows you to gain strength and conditioning.  Even as an advanced athlete I was able to gain 5-10 pounds on my lifts, while doing extra running conditioning!  I also found that most athletes increased their WOD performance as a result of increasing their strength. 

If you like functional fitness, and want a program that focuses on building total body strength, then this is the program for you.  And hey, it’s much cheaper than paying for one off custom program.  Now get out there, and start training!

Pick Up Your Copy!

Buy my product

---

The opinions and information expressed in this article are solely those of the author and are not affiliated with any corporation, group, public or private entity.This web site is not endorsed by, directly affiliated with, maintained, authorized, or sponsored by Crossfit Inc. All product and company names are the registered trademarks of their original owners. The use of any trade name or trademark is for identification and reference purposes only and does not imply any association with the trademark holder of their product brand.