October 2024 Programming Focus

It’s finally here, the last phase of 2024, and we are going out with guns blazing! Let’s review September and then look at the month ahead! We finished our Horsepower Phase, which revolved around shorter sprint workouts 1-2 times a week. We also saw plenty of GPP strength days and Oly complex days throughout the month. We saw the Hero Workout, Hotshots 19, along with a retest of Kelly AND Cali Bear.

We also paid homage to the event of 9/11 with the workout Stand Tall and put our extra practice of the Ring Muscle-Up to the test with a test of the classic workout Amanda. Lastly, we were still able to work in 1-2 FLEX finishers weekly to finish out the pre-summer pump and transition into the spring. Let’s transition to outlining next month, it’s going to be spooky good!

October starts our All Wheel Drive phase which is going to aim at giving everyone the most variety of workouts possible than we’ve seen all year in regards to time domains, loading, and movements.

The idea is to lean into Classic CrossFit harder than we have all year to, A. end the year strong, and B. start preparing for the 2025 CF Open.

Expect to see a lot of variety with regards to workout lengths, types, movements and trust that everyone we’ve done up to this point will help get you better. We will also see 1 day of barbell complexes to keep the Oly spirit from the last cycle alive and with Chad right around the corner (Nov 11) we will begin Option Chad prep that can be done outside of classes.

Lastly, we will be starting our final strength cycle of the year. It is going to be a 5-3-1 strength cycle that will start and end with a test/retest of a 1RM Back Squat, Push Press, and Deadlift.

The cycle is going to mimic the Wendler 5-3-1 very closely, the biggest differences being we will not be using a training max, and we will be going off RPE, not percentages. This ensures that if someone is unable to make one of the tests the first week of the cycle they can go by feel rather than a percentage that they have to guess at. We will retest two of the lifts the week of 11/11 but because of Chad being on Monday we will push one of the tests to the following week to make sure everyone is as primed as possible to hit some end of the year PRs! Let’s dive into this month and get ready to rock! 

5-3-1 Strength Cycle 7/10-18/11 (Deadlift/ Back Squat/ Push Press) 

• W1 - 1RM Tests 
• W2 - 3x5 @ (RPE 7)
• W3 - 3x3 @ (RPE 8)
• W4 - 5-3-1 @ (RPE 7-8-9)  
• W5 - Deload 
• W6 - 1RM Retests 

Weekly October Commitments 

• (3x/ Week) Back Squat/ Deadlift/ Push Press Strength 

• (1x/ Week) Barbell Complex 
• (1x/ Week) Workout of the Week or Benchmark/ Classic workout 
• (1x/ Week) Optional Chad Prep 
• (1x/ Week) Partner Workout   
• 1 Halloween Workout + 1 Hero Workout 

September brought a few things to a close for us. Firstly, it wraps up our longer EMOMs (don’t worry we will still see EMOMs just not in this longer format). We saw our Bike-Row-Ski workout to test all the machine work we’ve been grinding away at. We saw a lot of work with the barbell specifically with the Clean and Snatch to work on building up our capacity and speed moving lighter loads. Finally, we have been slowly sprinkling in CrossFit specific qualifying workouts found in previous Open, Quarterfinals and Regionals. Here are some of the highlights from last month’s COMPETE programming…

SEPTEMBER HIGHLIGHTS 

• Tests → 3RM Power Clean, Bike-Row-Ski Test
• Focuses → Longer EMOMs, Machine Work (Bike, Row, Ski), & Barbell Work
• Skill Development → Barbell Cycling, Ring Muscle Up Complexes

As we move into October, we start to shift gears into our next phase… Ramping up skills and intensity. The focus on our minds should be towards the Open and Quarterfinals. As we have seen and will continue to see, we are mixing previous Qualifying and Game’s Season workout. On top of that we are going to mix higher skill with increased intensity. Specifically, we will be attacking gymnastics skills under fatigue. Lastly in October, we are going to put more focus on the Thruster. We will see a Strength progression that will continue into November. We’ve built a strong base of skill, strength and cardio… let’s start building the framework to fly during our metcons!

OCTOBER COMMITMENTS

• (1x/week) Thruster Strength Cycle
• (1-2x/week) Gymnastic Focus Metcons
• (1x/week) Open/Quarter Final Workouts
• (1x/week) Saturday Throwdowns

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