The Fitness Pyramid

Hey Vic City,

Watching the live Open announcement last Thursday, 18.2, at first seemed terrible. A 12 minute, time capped workout with ascending reps of burpees and db squats. In my opinion, tough, and not exciting from a spectator's standpoint. However, what was exciting was when Dave Castro announced the addition of the 1 rep max clean. Not only did this section not have an additional time period, but some athletes were in real danger of not even getting to the clean bar, as you needed to complete the 110 rep couplet before getting your shot.

This style of workout has not been seen before in the Open, but it is actually a perfect representation of CrossFit's theory.

The CrossFit Pyramid was introduced by Greg Glassman. Essentially, to build a large, strong, and stable pyramid you need to have a solid base before building up.

WODs or workouts of the day are also sometimes referred to as 'Metcons' which is short for metabolic conditioning. What we do in metcons is use our body's energy to express fitness. The energy from our body comes from the food we eat, which is the base of the CrossFit pyramid. The better you eat, the easier it is for your body to use that as fuel for stronger, faster workouts.

18.2 started off with a metcon - squats and burpees. If your metabolic condition was a solid enough base and you could express that in your body control and range of motion, you then had the opportunity to move up the pyramid to the weightlifting.

For most of us, the bottom of the pyramid is boring and challenging, but as we move up it gets more exciting. Counting macros and doing assault bike intervals aren't everyone's favourite, they'd rather be snatching or playing soccer, hockey, or baseball. Dave Castro reminded us to build a pyramid from the base up, regardless of difficulty, to allow for us to get to the fun.

If you are a fan of the TV show The Office, this clip might help you understand. You have Kevin and Darryl, just interested in the good stuff but not wanting to build the base, they are the guys that skip conditioning and just do lifting. On the other hand, Pete, knows what he wants but equally importantly knows how to get there. Pete spends the extra time to build the base so that they can build the tower to the ceiling.

Enjoy!

Adam

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TRAINING WEDNESDAY - THURSDAY

WARM-UP: 3 rounds of: 10 kbs, 10 steps walking lunge, 10 double crunch

SKILL: DB Thruster, Barbell Thruster, or Wallballs - 5 x 10 E90s

Keep these LIGHT, just for practice!

WOD: Team Scream

This workout is all about conditioning and adjusting your pace each round. Work with your team mates and encourage each other!

You may row or use the assault bike, for this workout we will use the main clock as the timer for both the bike and row (so no additional time in changeovers).

Rx: In teams of 3 - 1 min each person, 45 seconds each, 30 seconds each, 15 seconds each.

This is one round (7 minutes 30 seconds). You will do three rounds total, re-starting each round with the 1 min intervals. Total wod time - 22:30

Your score is your total calories for your team

FG: 1-2 full cycles.