What’s in store for 2022?
January & February
Main Focus: Strength & Endurance
Deadlift / Bench Press / Clean
Throw Down: Individual — 1.1.2022 - 2.13.2022
Party: Women’s WOD & Wine! 1.22.2022
In preparation for the Open at the end of February, we will be doing more metcons of a longer duration. Most of our dynamic effort days (light & fast) will be built into the metcon. We will also narrow our focus in exercise selection to begin specializing in the movements statistically most common in the Open (read: “less weird Benson shit”).
Skill movements like double unders will make appearances twice a week, and bodyweight movements will be performed to open standards e.g., Chest-to-bar pull-ups rather than chin-over-the-bar pull-ups. We will maintain our more difficult standard for handstand push-ups until February, when we will switch to the Open standards.
We will also reintroduce the systems to learn handstand walking and pistol squats (single leg squats). For those of you to which these are entirely new, don’t panic! There are scalings for everyone at every level.
The Throw Down going on will take place from January 1st until February 13th, and will be for Individual Competitors.
We will be establishing new 1 rep max lifts in the deadlift, bench, and clean, the week of February 28th - March 4th.
The CrossFit Open begins February 24th and runs March 14th. We will be doing the Open workouts on Saturdays (26th, 5th and 12th). Competitors that want to be judged will also help judge others. After everyone’s gone for the day, we’ll hit up a local watering hole to decompress and tell everyone how we almost did better but, you know, the bar slipped…
March
Main Focus: Power / Hypertrophy
Throw Down: NONE! The Open is happening!
Party: Open Celebrations 2.26, 3.5, 3.12
During the first full week of March, the 7th-11th, we will be backing off the heavy weights and focusing on power workouts. What does that look like? High output, lots of rest. There’s still one week of the Open left at this point and we want you feeling ready to hit the workout hard on the 12th.
Once March 14th rolls around, we will be going into a hypertrophy phase.
Hypertrophy is the fancy word for bodybuilding. Regardless of your “unique” goals (you want to look good naked? Wow, so unique), you need to perform hypertrophy work.
How you eat outside of the gym is going to determine your results. Want to get “toned?” That’s bodybuilding while eating in a calorie deficit. Want to get “jacked?” That’s bodybuilding while eating in a calorie surplus. Either way, as we shed unwanted fat, you want to like what you see and bodybuilding/sculpting workouts is how we do that.
These hypertrophy phases are also good because it gives our bodies a break from lifting heavy so often. You’ll immediately discover hypertrophy workouts don’t need to be heavy to be challenging, and then slightly less immediately discover, effective.
We also use hypertrophy workouts to start a strength cycle. Why? Although it is not impossible to get stronger without getting bigger muscles, as a general rule, the more muscle you have the stronger you’ll be. So we take a break from lifting heavy, grow our muscles, then make our new bigger muscles stronger.
This hypertrophy phase will continue until April 8th.
April
Main Focus: Hypertrophy / Strength
Overhead Press / Squat / Clean & Jerk
Throw Down: Team — 4.4 - 5.15
Party: Women’s WOD & Wine! 4.9.2022
Our Team Throw Down will begin April 4th and run until May 15th. Teams will be comprised of two men and one woman.
Starting April 11th, our next strength cycle will begin. This time around, we will be focusing on, and retesting, our overhead press and our back squat. Just like the previous cycle though, just because we’re going to bias our strength training, doesn’t mean that we’re going to neglect any of the other movements. We will still be incorporating chest workouts, and deadlift workouts, but the emphasis will be on overhead press and squat.
This strength cycle will also be more of a true strength cycle compared to the January/February workouts in that we will allow ourselves to back off our tip top conditioning. That DOES NOT mean we will stop doing cardio. It means 4/7 days a week, we will have more emphasis on lifting heavy, then we’ll do our cardio. 2/7 days will be a cardio focus workout, and 1/7 days is Saturday. And if you don’t know what that means… you will find out. On Saturdays….
This strength cycle will carry through the first few days of June.
June
Main Focus: Endurance
Throw Down: NONE! King and Queen of the Box! 6.4.2022
Party: King and Queen of the Box!
On June 4th, before you have time to ruin your fitness with summer travel, we will be having our King and Queen of the Box competition! This will be an all morning/afternoon event taking place in person followed by a coronation party!
We will wrap up our strength cycle by establishing new 1 rep maxes in our shoulder press, back squat, and clean and jerk the week of June 6th-10th.
Once we’ve completed that cycle, we will focus more on aerobic training until mid July. Gotta burn those calories before everyone’s big summer trips and 4th of July plans!
In June and the first half of July, we will continue with all the big lifts, but more of the days than not, they’ll be part of workouts where the goal is going to be improving our aerobic conditioning and burning maximum calories.
July
Main Focus: Endurance / Hypertrophy
Throw Down: NONE! Too many of you are traveling!
Party: Women’s WOD & Wine! 7.9.2022
As we back off the aerobic conditioning work, we’re going to end our summer and begin our fall with the final hypertrophy phase of the year (see March). The hope here is that you maintain your new lower body fat percentages after 5 weeks of endurance work, continue eating enough protein, and we’ll build muscle over the four week long hypertrophy cycle.
August
Main Focus: Hypertrophy / Strength
Bench / Deadlift
Throw Down: NONE! Too many of you are traveling!
Party: End of Summer Shindig — 8.27.2022
When our final hypertrophy phase (see March) of the year concludes on August 4th, our next strength cycle will begin. The focus of this strength cycle will return to the bench and deadlift, how we began our year. However, unlike the beginning of the year, because we won’t be in “competition” mode due to the Open, this cycle will also be a truer strength cycle. Just like April though, we will not be abandoning cardio. 4/7 days a week will be focused on strength work, then followed up with shorter cardio workouts. 2/7 will still be cardio, 1/7 days will continue to be Saturdays….
This strength cycle will carry us through the start of October.
September
Main Focus: Strength
Bench / Deadlift
Throw Down: Team — 9.12-10.22-2022
Party: Women’s WOD & Wine! 9.17.2022
Our final Team Throw Down of the year will begin on September 12th, and continue until October 23rd. Teams will be comprised of 2 men and 1 woman, with 3 workouts spaced out over 6 weeks.
October
Main Focus: Strength / Power / Endurance
Bench / Deadlift
Throw Down: Team — 9.12-10.22 // Individual —10.31-12.11.2022
Party: Halloween!!!!!!!!!!! 10.29.2022
We will establish new 1 rep maxes in the Bench and Deadlift the week of October 10th-14th.
We will take the week of 17th-21st to back off the heavy weights, and work on power output. One week isn’t enough time for a great stimulus but it will allow us to deload after the strength cycle.
Starting the 24th, we will go back into an endurance phase. All the big lifts will continue to be included, but the goal of the workouts will be to burn as many calories as possible going into the holiday season of Halloween (party on the 29th!), and Thanksgiving.
The final Throw Down of the year will begin October 31st and take us until December 11th. This Throw Down will be an individuals competition.
November / December
Main Focus: Endurance / Strength
Shoulder Press / Squat
Throw Down: Individual — 10.31-12.11.2022
Party: Women’s WOD & Wine! 11.12.2022 // Holiday Party 12.17.2022
We’ll end our endurance focused training after Thanksgiving, and then begin our final strength phase of the year. This time we’ll be focusing on the shoulder press and squat. This will carry us into the new year. At which point, we will start to once again, re-up our conditioning in preparation for the Open 2023.