New Training Cycle: Posterior Chain Engagement

Nick | 01/05/2014 | 16

New year, new programming cycle.  Our focus for the next seven week will revolve around learning to use and strengthen what is arguably the most powerful system in our body: the posterior chain.  What is the posterior chain, you ask?  It’s basically the muscles in the back of our legs.  Think glutes and hamstrings.  While these structures are built to create a lot of force production, for many of us years of sitting for a substantial portion of most days and general lack of use has caused us to “forget” how to use them.  Be ready to find muscles you might have forgot were there (often times from them letting you know with a solid case of DOMs a day or two after using them).

Sprint intervals are going to be making a regular appearance as well in this cycle.  Sprint training provides many benefits.  It can help us find and engage an intensity that we might not be able to sustain for a long period of time.  Through the use of intervals and rest periods,we’ll be able to spend more total time at a higher level of intensity then we would otherwise be able to.  Our bodies’ hormonal response to this stimulus will also provide huge benefits for any number of fitness goals including sports performance, body recomposition, and our day to day energy levels.  When these show up, make sure you set yourself up to be able to go all out for your work periods to get as much out of them as possible.

The last new theme for this cycle will be CrossFit Open style WODs.  These will be AMRAP style workouts with a (generally) low skill and weight threshold for the “Rx” version.  They are here to not only help prepare those of you who will be participating in the open, but also to remind us that we don’t need to be able to lift a million pounds or do olympic level gymnastic skills to get in a good workout.  While I have many opinions about the difference between approaching CrossFit as a sport versus using it to increase health and wellness, there is definitely some simple genius in many of the Open workouts.  While they are typically very accessible to a wide range of skill and strength levels, they do a great job of testing work capacity.  While those athletes that stand at the podium at the CrossFit games are strong as hell and highly skilled, they still rise to the top when their low skill, low weight work capacity is tested.  Some of you might be tempted to “Rx+” these workouts when you see them, but I promise you they will hurt just as bad at the prescribed weights and standards (often times worse than if you have gone to a heavier weight or harder scale).  Remember – constantly varied goes in both directions.  We want to be able to move light weights and perform simple movement patterns just as well and the heavy and complex.

So this brings us to our test and retest for this cycle.  We’ve decided to test our 1 rep max deadlift and our 500m row time.  The deadlift is a great test (as well as builder) of the posterior chain.  We will be engaging this lift on regular intervals throughout the cycle to make sure we get a significant intramuscular and hormonal response from these power generators.  The row will combine our posterior chain training with our sprint interval work and will be a great way to track progress in both.

So away we go.  Come in today ready to set your standards for the next seven weeks.  Stick with it and by the end, you’ll be blowing them out of the water.

STR:

Deadlift

find a 1RM

WOD:

500m row