This is a pure strength program that was written as an add-on for those that already like their current gym, and want a little extra strength work. Many gyms out there don’t provide enough pure strength work to keep athletes really progressing through the ranks. This program will fix that. Keep reading to see all the details and the free spreadsheet for the strength program.
There is a rift in the fitness community. Some folks, and many gyms believe that you do not need to program dedicated strength programing, and as such you will see a traditional WOD only style in these gyms.
The other half of the community believes that to truly succeed as an athlete you need to focus on strength with additional strength programing. This is why many gyms have a strength portion in the first half of the session, followed up by a metcon.
Having done been an athlete for about 12 years, I can tell you that if you just want to stay active, and get in decent shape, then you can get by with a WOD only. My experience has been that for most athletes you will only show improvements for about a year, maybe two, and then you will most likely plateau.
If you want to keep making progress you’ll need to focus on strength development. I like to think of each of the 10 aspects of fitness as a circus tent, with each aspect being a pole supporting the tent. In this metaphor the central pillar, the one that raises the tent the highest, would be strength.
Certainly you cannot have well rounded fitness (tent) without all the other components, but you have no tent at all without strength!
Why a Strength Only Program?
I often receive questions from athletes around the world that really like their gym, but they don’t program dedicated strength work for them. This puts them in a tough spot. Do they leave the friendships they have made to find a better program, or do they stop making progress? This program is the third way.
This program is a simple linear periodization program that I’ve run at my home gym. It was very effective. For those that completed this program they showed an average of 14% strength increase in 12 weeks. The vast majority of these athletes had been training hard between 1-2 years.
HERE IS THE LINK TO DOWNLOAD THE SPREADSHEET
Program Details
This program is 4 days per week of lifting, with two core movements on most days. On the left side of the spreadsheet you’ll enter your current one rep maxes on the lifts. It’s ok if you don’t know them, just put in your best guess. It will then fill out the weights for each day.
Use common sense on the rounding. Round to the nearest plate and if it’s pretty evenly split make a decision based on how you feel that day. If you are feeling strong then go a bit higher. If not then be more conservative. Depending on your weights you’ll find that you might repeat some weights from week to week. Don’t fret about this. Just put in max effort on these sets.
Pairing WODs with Lifts
This is the hardest part of the program as it’s going to require that you make good pairings to make the most progress. The rule of thumb that I use on the vast majority of my programs is to pair my strength moves with similar moves in a WOD.
An example of this would be back squat, and press strength moves paired with a WOD that has wall balls, because that type of WOD stresses both of those muscle groups.
In the WOD section I’ve highlighted the types of muscle groups that should be paired with the strength moves. Don’t stress if you have a WOD that doesn’t really match perfectly. Put in the work and you will see results.
For whatever reason many coaches don’t show the full cycle of their programming. I tend to think this is because many (the bad ones) write their program the day of the workout, but ideally if you could see the program a for the gym a week or two in advance then you could better plan your program out.
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I would also recommend that you do these strength moves before the WOD, if your gym allows. Show up about 30-40 min early, warm up, then finish your strength moves prior to participating in the normal class.
Final Thoughts
I’m going to be honest. Putting together two different coach’s programs will never work as well as a thoughtfully designed coherent program by one coach. If performance is important to you then I would recommend checking out these programs that I’ve designed from the ground up to work well together. They start easy and become super hard by the end.
If you want to learn how I create my programs then check out my ebook.
I also want to let you all know that it’s fine to be an ok functional fitness athlete, and not be obsessed with performance. As with anything in life a little can be good, but a lot doesn’t always make it better!
No get out there and start training!
If you have any questions or comments put them below where I can get to them the quickest.
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On which day would you do the Front Squats or DB press?
It depends on how you like to work out. I’d pair DB press with barbell press. I’d do front squat with bench as well.