Welcome back and a very happy New Year to you all and those few extra pounds you may be bringing along with you.  You’ve squeezed into your lycra so let’s begin.

There’s a bit of an intro to the first 9-12 week training phase of 2017 here. In our CrossFit classes this year we will move away from three levels to a two level structure:

FIT – (for the general membership population, focusing more on working in higher rep ranges, building tendon and ligament strength, working on hypertrophy and muscle tone, developing skills, grinding in good patterns and teaching you new movements); and

STRONG – (for our more experienced athletes who have some substantial time weightlifting under their belts (2-3 yrs) and are confident and proficient in a range of movements).

You can choose to mix and match these levels if you want to.

This first week we are looking to get you guys moving, and record a starting point for us to build on. In strength terms we are using an undulating set and rep scheme – this week is about building strength on deadlifts and pressing and adaption on your squats and pull (next week it will be the other way round). Check form, tempos and percentages people and please keep a record of your numbers throughout to enable you to track progress later on. There is some skill work for you guys who need it and to sharpen up some of you old hands, some engine work to get you breathing and some good old WODs to keep you on your toes and make you smile.

Be wise folk, start steady and build up. The millennium falcon wasn’t built in a day.

This week’s focus

Don’t over do it this week. If you have been sitting around during the holiday season then your muscle isn’t going to thank you for jumping straight back in too quickly. Slowly, slowly remind your muscle and lungs what’s like to do some work. Building strength gains takes time.

Strength – lifts

Deadlift and OH pressing are our strength moves this week so focus on solid reps and build that weight slowly. Please keep a record and know your percentages. There is also a selection of B exercises to help build that strength.

Volume – lifts

Pull ups and back squats are the focus this week. Think form and good tempo, keep yourselves moving at a steady pace, do your reps and feel the burn.

Breathing / clean days

On our clean day we are looking to build some early technique, some good solid repetitions at manageable weights. If these look good, they ARE good. With our breathing work, work hard keep a regular pace throughout – don’t start too hard then drop off. Work hard but don’t redline.

Breathing / snatch days

As above, it’s about technique, solid reps and manageable weights. Enjoy the breathing work and keep your team mates going. Make Cindy proud.

Following on from survey feedback, we’re trialling posting the program below, rather than linking to it, so it’s easier to read on your phone. You’re welcome x

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Monday

Lower body – pull / push (strength)

Strong	Fit
Warm up / Mobility Lunge flow Hip bridges Inch worms banded pull throughs Banded rows	Warm up / Mobility Lunge flow Hip bridges Inch worms banded pull throughs Banded rows
12min E2MOM – 6sets A. Deadlifts 6×3-5 2110 12min E3MOM – 4sets B1 Front squats 4×6-8 @3100 B2 KB/ DB Split squats 4×10-12el	12min E2MOM – 6sets A. Deadlifts 6x 8-10 @ 4111 12min E3MOM – 4sets B1 Goblet squats 4×10-12 @3010 B2 KB/ DB Split squats 4×12-15el
WOD 5x2min wrk 10x Deadlifts @65%A 20 air squats	WOD 5x2min wrk 10x Deadlifts @50% A 10 air squats

Tuesday

Upper body – pull / push (volume)
Strong	Fit
Warm up / Mobility Stick warm up Disclocates Cuban rotations Behind neck press Hanging shrugs	Warm up / Mobility Stick warm up Disclocates Cuban rotations Behind neck press Hanging shrugs
8min E2MOM – 4 sets A.Pull ups 4×8-10 @ 3010 12min E3MOM – 4sets B1.Dips 4×6-8 @ 3010 B2.Horizontal ring rows 4×12-15 EMOM 10 mins C1. Odd ME 30sec UB DU C2. Even BB STOH ME 30sec	8min E2MOM – 4 sets A. Pull ups negateives 4×6-8 @ 6010 12min E3MOM – 4sets B1.feet on floor dips 4×6-8 3010 B2.Banded rows 4×15-20 @ 3010 10 mins Skill work double under skill / KB swings
WOD 5 rounds for time 80 DU 20 RKBS (heavy) 10 Burpees	WOD 5 rounds for time 80 singles 20 RKBS 10 Burpees

Wednesday

Breathing (cleans)
Strong	Fit
Warm up / Mobility Lunge flow Muscle clean High pull Power clean Front squat Clean	Warm up / Mobility Lunge flow Muscle clean High pull Power clean Front squat Clean
6min EMOM -6 sets A1. Odd 3x High pulls A2. Even 3xScarecrow squat clean 12min E2MOM – 6sets B. 6×3-6 3 postion squats clean – floor, knee, high C 6min E90sec -4 sets 6 clean pulls A 120% B	6min EMOM -6 sets A1. Odd 3x High pulls A2. Even 3xScarecrow power clean 12min E2MOM – 6sets B. 6×3-6 3 postion power / squats clean-floor, knee, high C 6min E90sec -4 sets 6 clean pulls A 100% B
Breathing 20mins YGIG teams of 3 Row 15kcals 10 GTOH -Mx 45/30	Breathing 20mins YGIG teams of 3 10 GTOH -lght Row 15kcals

Thursday – gymnastics

Friday

Lower body – push / pull (volume)
Strong	Fit
Warm up / Mobility Squat flow Wall squat Paused goblet squat Air squats Paused BB back squats	Warm up / Mobility Squat flow Wall squat Paused goblet squat Air squats Paused BB back squats
A. 12min E2MOM – 6sets A Squats 4×10-12 @ 3010 70% B. 12min E3MOM – 4sets B1 BB RDL 4×10-12 @3101 B2 1lg squats 4×8-10el	A. 12min E2MOM – 6sets A Squats 4×12-15 3010 B. 12min E3MOM – 4sets B1 KB RDL 4×12-15 @3010 B2 step ups 4×10-12el
3x round every 3 mins 7,5,3 T2B 7,5,3 BB Thrusters @45/30	3x round every 3 mins 7,5,3 K2E / V sit 7,5,3 BB Thrusters @ light

Saturday

Upper body – push / pull (strength)
Strong	Fit
Warm up / Mobility Stick warm up Disclocates Cuban rotations Behind / front neck press Scapula press ups	Warm up / Mobility Stick warm up Disclocates Cuban rotations Behind / front neck press Scapula press ups
A. 12min E2MOM -6sets Strict OH press 6×6-8 @ 3011 12min E3MOM -4sets B1 BB BOR 4×8-10 @2012 B2 Bench press 4×10-12 @3010 4min EMOM C. 30sec ME press ups	A. 12min E2MOM -6sets Strict OH press 6×12-15 @ 3011 12min E3MOM -4sets B1 1arm BOR 4×12-15ea @2012 B2 Bench press 4×12-15 @3010 4min EMOM C. 45sec FLR
WOD 6 rounds 16 UB wall balls 9/7 8x pull ups (strict)	WOD 6 rounds 12 wall balls 7/5 6x jumping pull ups (3 sec negative)

Sunday

Breathing (snatch)
Strong	Fit
Warm up / Mobility Lunge flow Muscle Snatch Snatch High pull Power snatch Snatch balance Snatch	Warm up / Mobility Lunge flow Muscle Snatch Snatch High pull Power snatch Snatch balance Snatch
6min EMOM -6 sets A1. Odd 3x Snatch High pulls A2. Even 3xSnatch balance 12min E2MOM – 6sets B. 6×3-6 3postion squats Snatch – floor, knee, high C 6min E90sec -4 sets 6 snatch pulls A 120% B	6min EMOM -6 sets A1. Odd 3x Snatch High pulls A2. Even 3x OHS 12min E2MOM – 6sets B. 6×3-6 3postion Power Snatch – floor, knee, high C 6min E90sec -4 sets 6 snatch pulls A 120% B
25min teams 5 1min bike @ RPE 7-8 2 round “CINDY” AFAP 5 pulls 10 press ups 15 air squats time each round	25min teams 5 1min bike @ RPE 7-8 1 round “CINDY” AFAP 5ring rows 10 press ups 15 air squats time each round

 

The New Year is nearly upon us and it’s time to get stuck into a new CrossFit program. So what can we tell you to entice you into your lycra once you’ve recovered from your NYE excesses?

Firstly, this year’s new program will continue some of the principles of our usual program design (you can read more about our approach here if you’re new to Momentum and our programming). We could call this approach an undulating periodisation model, a conjugated method, the Hepburn method or we could just call it Peter if we wanted to.

Peter’s high level aim in the first part of 2017 – and this won’t come as a surprise because it’s a common theme at Momentum – will be getting you stronger in a number of fundamental movements (deadlift, squat, press, pull). This is the basis of your success and enjoyment of CrossFit – think about the base of a pyramid – the wider the base, the higher it can go. Strength isn’t the only quality Peter will be honing in 2017 but it’s the one that takes the longest to develop. Peter can polish your skills and build your engine as he goes but when it comes to strength you’ve just got to spend time (years preferably) under the bar.

Don’t think, however, that because we’re sticking to this general, simple theme, that Peter is going to be boring. Far from it, he’s an exciting guy with some surprises up his sleeve. As well as working on your strength, he’ll be building condition with some of our old favourites (including the infamous Open workout 15.5), testing you in the 2017 CrossFit Open as well as challenging your capacity with lung burning blasts on the bike and rower. Peter’ll also be working on getting that GPP fired up and more generally getting you ready for future workouts, the summer, life in general and being hot, fit and damn sexy.

In our CrossFit classes this year we will move away from three levels to a two level structure:

FIT – (for the general membership population, focusing more on working in higher rep ranges, building tendon and ligament strength, working on hypertrophy and muscle tone, developing skills, grinding in good patterns and teaching you new movements); and

STRONG – (for our more experienced athletes who have some substantial time weightlifting under their belts (2-3 yrs) and are confident and proficient in a range of movements).

You can choose to mix and match these levels if you want to.

These levels are not to be confused with the new Blue Bear program which is replacing our previous CrossFit Weapons and which is for athletes who want to compete in the sport of CrossFit. If you think you might be interested in Blue Bear and want to find out more, come and have a chat with us.

Please, please always be aware of your current training and fitness levels, any historical injuries (we don’t want to create new ones) and to quote a classic Josh Schouten, always “leave your ego at the door”. We have a strict no dicks policy and if we suspect you are swinging yours we will ask you nicely to pop it away. We always chase form over weight, weight on the bar will come, trust us. Skills are learned, good skill can take 500 reps to learn and bad skill take 5000 reps to unlearn so take your time and do it properly.

See you all on the 2nd January in your shiny new kit and let’s get this party started.

Refer a friend for 30% off

If you refer a friend (who is brand new to Momentum Training) between now and the end of February 2017 we’ll give you both 30% off one month’s membership (including Foundations or met con, if your friend hasn’t CrossFitted before). New memberships need to be purchased by the end of February 2017 then email us with your names and we’ll credit your accounts with the relevant amount to come off your subsequent month’s membership*. Please email us with any questions. Here are the details of how your pal can arrange a free trial session if they’d like to check us out first.

50% off Inbody scans

If you don’t already know, this is a new tool we have in the gym to measure your vital statistics, including weight, body fat, muscle mass, water % etc. It gives very detailed information on a range of fitness markers and is a great way to measure your gains/losses/progress. There’s some more info here and we’re offering scans at half price (£15) during January 2017 to help you kick start your training in the new year. Contact Josh to book a scan.

* Credit can be used against future purchases at Momentum Training (we are unable to refund cash equal to the amount of the discount).

On one level, training program design is fairly complex – it involves combining theory, empirical evidence/experience and a bit of magic. There are many, many views on how to design programs and many different methods of going about it depending on what your aims are. There is a lot of chaff amongst the wheat in an area that is too often based on conjecture rather than hard science. The digital revolution has exacerbated this by creating a platform for meat-heads with thesauruses (thesauri?) looking for fame. If you’re interested and want to read some good quality material about some different approaches and types of training, then you could have a look at Power, Speed, Endurance by Brian MacKenzie, Olympic Weightlifting – A Complete Guide for Athletes and Coaches by Greg Everett, Starting Strength by Mark Rippetoe, The Poliquin Principles by Charles Poliquin, Overcoming Gravity: A Systematic Approach to Gymnastics and Bodyweight Strength by Steven Low or the heavyweight daddy of them all, Mel Siff, in his book Supertraining. There is also good quality material on the Breaking Muscle site and the CrossFit mothership site, amongst others, as well as on our blog, obvs. As with anything in life, and certainly anything that involves so much testosterone, approach training theory critically and if something isn’t working for you then move on.

What is the basis of our CrossFit program?

At Momentum we put a lot of time, thought and planning into your training. We keep abreast of new theory and research in this area but we also measure it against the benchmark of our experience and your results. We aim to condense it all down for you into something simple and effective and, crucially, something fun. If you are interested in a bit of the background, then here are the key characteristics of our CrossFit program design:

Tripartite cycle

Those of you who have been doing this a while will know that the basis of all progression in training can be reduced to a tripartite cycle consisting of adaption, intensification and realisation segments. This basically means (1) putting your body under stresses so your body adapts, then (2) intensifying the stresses so you continue to progress and avoid plateaus, then (3) finally testing how far you’ve come to measure your progress and feedback what you’ve learned into your next cycle. This tripod forms the basis of our CrossFit program design.

Conjugated method

Another mainstay of our program design is our use of a conjugated method, which basically means that we work on multiple training qualities (strength, cardiovascular capacity, skill etc.) simultaneously, rather than dedicating ourselves to one at a time. We use a conjugated method as it sits well with the CrossFit principle of GPP, but in a broader training context there are various views on the efficacy, or otherwise, of this approach and if you’re interested to read more, there are articles discussing this on the Breaking Muscle and T-nation sites.

Undulating periodisation

Finally, we use an undulating periodisation from week to week, which simply means that the stimuli (sets and rep ranges) will change on a weekly basis to keep your body guessing.

We also adjust tempos, rest periods and exercise variations (e.g. back squat/front squat/quarter squat/box squat/sissy squat) to maximize your adaptions, broaden your skill set and keep things interesting. 

How is our CrossFit programming structured?

Our program cycle lasts 9-12 weeks. Each week will generally look like this:

Monday – lower body pull (deadlift/variation)

Tuesday – upper body pull

Wednesday – breathing and Olympic lifting

Thursday – gymnastics

Friday – lower body push (squat/variation)

Saturday – upper body push

Sunday – breathing and Olympic lifting

Although we program a realisation (testing) segment at the end of the cycle, we also test intermittently throughout the cycle to help you make adjustments as you progress.

What else do I need to know?

If you want a bit more of a steer on some of our acronyms and the other instructions that accompany our programs, such as tempo, we’ve written a very comprehensive article on this as a standalone topic.

Where can I find the CrossFit Hackney programs?

We design our programs*, ahead of time and post them on our blog to help you plan your training and allow you to follow the program on your own, even if you are unable to make it into class on a certain day.

Any questions at any time, please feel free to approach one of our coaches, we’d be delighted to chat more on this topic.

 

* As well as CrossFit programs (both regular CrossFit and our Blue Bear competitors program), we also publish Barbell Club and Olympic lifting programs. Our Metcon classes are programmed but in a more fluid, ad hoc way, by individual coaches.

It’s that funny time of year between the Christmas blow out and the New Year knees up. You’ve had enough of your relatives, you’ve over done pretty much everything and eaten every last Quality Street in the box even if you didn’t like them. So in this intervening period before the New Year dawns we are aiming to get you back into gym, dust down your singlets, get you moving, remind yourselves what’s it like to get your heart rate up and maybe even build up an appetite for yet more cold meat.

These days aren’t designed to be gut busting, keep the weights to the low end of your percentage 1rpm, work within your known limits, work on finding that post holiday form, think about the way you’re moving (or should be moving), there is plenty of work to come in the New Year’s training plan – think of this as an appetiser.

Wednesday 28th – Squat / Pull

Thursday 29th – Clean / Breathing

Friday 30th – Deadlift / Push

Saturday 31st- Snatch / Breathing

 

Wednesday 28^th December 2016 – Squat / Pull

Warm up / Mobility -10mins

Lunge flow

Wall squats

Paused KB goblet squats

Hanging shrugs

Banded rows

 

16min – E4MO4M -4sets

In a 4min window complete :

A1 Back squats 4×8-10 / 10-15 3010

A2 Pull ups 4×6-8 3010 scale as needed

 

12mins EMOM – 12 sets

Odd 20x box step ups @ BW

Even 10x double KB bent over rows @ medium

 

WOD – working in 3s as many rounds each in 12mins

Row 200 mtrs

10 wall balls

 

Thursday 29^th December 2016 – Clean / Breathing

Warm up / Mobility -10mins

Stick mobility

Muscle clean

High pull

Power clean

Front squat

Scarecrow squat clean

Full Clean

 

8mins EMOM – 8sets

Odd min 3x Clean high pulls

Even 3x Power cleans

 

8min E2MO2M -4 sets

2x1x mid hang power clean /mid hang squat clean

2x1x power clean / squat clean

 

Breathing – 18mins

In a 6×3 min window adding 2 and 10 reps each round

Rnd 1. 5x BB thrusters 45/30kg and 20 DU / 40singles

Rnd 2. 7x BB thrusters 45/30kg and 30 DU / 60singles

Rnd 3. 9x BB thrusters 45/30kg and 40 DU / 80singles

Rnd 4. 11x BB thrusters 45/30kg and 50 DU / 100singles

Rnd 5. 13x BB thrusters 45/30kg and 60 DU / 120singles

Rnd 6. 15x BB thrusters 45/30kg and 70 DU / 140singles

 

Friday 30^th December 2016 – Deadlift / Push

Warm up / Mobility – 10mins

Lunge flow

Banded RDL

Banded rows

Scapula press ups

Walkout to press ups

 

16min – E4MO4M – 4sets

In a 4min window complete:

A1 Deadlifts 4×8-10 / 10-15 3011

A2 Fixed dips 4×6-8

Scales to feet on floor dip > Press ups

 

12mins EMOM – 12sets

Odd 20x RKB swings @medium

Even 10x ring press ups > press ups > FLR hold

 

WOD – 10mins AMRAP

10x T2B > K2E > V sit > sit ups

10x Box jumps > step ups

10x Burpees

 

Saturday 31st December 2016 – Snatch / Breathing

Warm up / Mobility -10mins

Stick mobility

Muscle Sntach

Snatch high pull

Power Snatch

OH squat

Scarecrow squat snatch

Full Snatch

 

8min EMOM – 8sets

Odd min 3x Santch high pulls

Even 3x Power snatches

 

8min E2MO2M -4 sets

2x1x mid hang power snatch /mid hang squat snatch

2x1x power snatch / squat snatch

 

Breathing – 20mins

20min workout with a partner

P1 Run 400meters

P2 Do as many rounds as “Cindy” as possible

Always start your next round where partner left off – MAX rounds please