You are here: Home | Blog
 
Evaluating our Gym’s Results

20

Evaluating our Gym’s Results by William Albritton

In the article “What is on Tap for September and October’s Program?”, I discussed the goals behind the programming for September and October. If you’d like to refresh your knowledge on GPP and the programming, take a second to read that article.

Our top priority is to always increase GPP. Our secondary goals for Sept and Oct were as follows:

1. Increase 1 rep max on snatch and clean and jerk.
2. Back squat your body weight. Many of you can do this so move on to #3.
3. Front Squat 85% of your back squat max.
4. Increase max reps of strict pull ups

So how did the gym as a whole do with the goals?

Let’s look at GPP. There are lots of ways to measure GPP because basically it requires getting good at a bunch of stuff. Sounds a lot like CrossFit doesn’t it? You were tested on your 1 mile run and Fran time. It is extremely difficult to improve a single modality, metabolic effort AND simultaneously improve absolute strength. So it would be fantastic if you maintained your 1 mile pace through these months. We compared your 1 mile run results to previous efforts in the past year. The majority of you had slight improvements and many maintained their same time. Again, if you are one of the ones that achieved this then you should be very happy with those results. If your one mile time dipped down some, do not be discouraged. That is expected as the focus was far from improving running speed.

Fran times should have improved as there was a focus on improving pull ups and absolute front squat strength. Fran times did improve and let’s look into why that occurred. Absolute strength (in comparison to endurance-strength, explosive-strength, speed-strength) is the ability to lift a load one time. So how do this help your Fran time which entails front squatting and pressing (thruster) 45 reps? Fran may seem to have nothing to do with a 1RM. But think about it like this. A thruster is basically a front squat. You should be able to do thrusters with 25% of your 1RM front squat with ease. So as your front squat 1RM increases, 95/65lb thrusters start to get much closer or lower than that 25% number. They become much easier.

Onto pull-ups. Getting into the empircal data let’s first look at pull ups. To increase max rep strict pull ups, each week we hit pull up variations two times. The variations alternated between standard strict pull ups, negatives and weighted. On average, males increased their pull ups by 2 reps and females by 1. Would I have liked to see a larger increase? Yes. But considering we only worked on these for 6 weeks, it is not a bad improvement.

Squatting. A front squat to back squat ratio of 85% is a great measure of an overall balanced and symmetrical body. Also, the ability to back squat your body weight is a measure of a solid foundation of strength and stability. Following is the average data during this cycle:

Guys:
Front Squat 1RM increased by 15 lbs
Back Squat 1RM increased by 13 lbs
FS/BS Ratio went from 80% to 87%

Ladies:
Front Squat 1RM increased by 11 lbs
Back Squat 1RM increased by 7 lbs
FS/BS Ratio went from 82% to 78%

These squat increases are very, very good to see in only 6 weeks. What makes them so good is that most of the data we collected were on people that have been training for one to three years. These results would be normal for a person just starting training. You always see big gains with a new athlete but those taper off usually within 6 – 12 months. It then takes months and months to see gains of 5 and 10 lbs. You did this in 6 weeks.

The results in 6 weeks on the olympic lifts were also impressive.

Guys:
Snatch – average increase of 5 lbs
Clean & Jerk – increase of 9 lbs

Ladies:
Snatch – average increase of 6 lbs
Clean & Jerk – increase of 4 lbs

This is anecdotal but my experience is it takes around 3 times as long to see the same gains in the Olympic lifts as it does the squats. Experienced athletes may train 1 – 2 years for a 5 – 10 lb gain in snatch or clean & jerk so these gains within 6 weeks are really impressive.

The programming is only part of the reason we see progress at CFA. I think the biggest factors are your work ethic, attitude in the gym and environment of the gym. Consistency is key and has become ingrained in the culture at CFA. You all have lots of fun and are encouraging to others just as others encourage you.

What now? Stay tuned to for a post on our goals to finish out the year.

Posted on by

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

 

Categories

 

Recent Posts

 

Archives

 

Most Read Articles

Friends of


Contact us

CrossFit 28
3201 Skyline Dr. Pineville
LA 71360