With 2016 in full swing I know many of you are wondering what the Power and Grace competition blog is going to look like as the Open is fast approaching. Therefore, for those of you using our competition programming to prepare you for the CrossFit Games Open you can expect to see three things in the next 15 weeks.
Strength Peaking: With the technique and precision of movement work complete many months ago we have spent the last couple months of 2015 peaking our strength. The final pieces of that peeking cycle will be complete in the next three weeks. What that means for you is an expectation of testing strength movements in order to gauge where you are heading into the Open. Expect to test every movement from the back squat to the strict press within the next three or four weeks.
Lactate Buffering: As we conclude the strength peaking we are going to enter into a six-week lactate buffering peaking cycle. There will be no question when this starts as the strength work and the skill work will be minimal in order to allow you to give full effort and energy to the conditioning. The conditioning, as the cycle continues, will get longer and longer and take more of your daily workout time. Expect to see resting intervals decrease as we get closer to the Open and expect the amount of rounds or the length of the AMRAP's to increase. We will complete this lactate buffering cycle with a taper that ends on the first week of the Open. Three weeks before the start of the Open will be the peak of that cycle and you can expect your body, mind, and desire to be called into check that week.
Mid-Open Work: When the Open starts everything we do will be geared around performance on those workouts. I'm going to expect that everyone following the blog will complete every Open workout twice. With that in mind plan to complete the workout on Friday and again on Monday of each week. Saturday will be light and focused on skill movement and technique work geared towards the second completion of the work out on Monday. Friday will essentially be a test run though I expect a full effort and possibly your best score to come on Friday. Monday will be used as the retest as we learn more about the workout and as you learn more about how to best score on the workout. Tuesday and Wednesday of the mid-Open weeks will be some small strength work and light interval work in order to help you recover and prepare for the next workout revealed that Thursday.
For those of you who've been following the competition blog all season long, this is it. We are entering the final phase of the season. A year's worth of work is about to be tested and I'm excited to see y'all's growth in performance.