Design a Workout Program

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Designing Your Program

 

While I love CrossFit it is no secret that with out some sort of training background you will not be completing CrossFit workouts on your own. You may have to design some workout programs to get closer to being able to do CrossFit, or whatever you goal may be. This is rather generic and universal. 

Inspiration

• Did something inspire you to want a new workout program? Whether it was something, someone, an event, or anything make sure you keep that in mind and reference it when your motivation starts to dwindle. Sometimes there is no inspiration. If there wasn’t any for you then just start with your goals.

Goals

• A great model to set your goals on is the SMART principle. Read my article Are Goals Necessary? for more on goals.
• After you have your goals setup some accountability. Put them on your bathroom mirror, fridge, or on your desk. Wherever is the easiest for you to reference and where you will see it frequently.

Skills Needed

• I would have loved to actually list a bunch of skills to give a better example in my mind map, but there are just too many routes you could go. Let’s take CrossFit Skills as an example. Maybe you are pretty well rounded but you are bad at body weight movement skills. You will need to break them down to all the body weight skills you need to work on; Handstand push-ups, push-ups, pull-ups, ring dips, muscle ups, etc…
• Now keep in mind I listed a specific example of body weight skills. If you want a little bit more broad or generic, say “running”. You just need to look at what is involved in running; muscular endurance in the legs, cardiovascular endurance, increasing VO2 max, etc..
• This portion you are looking at skills and techniques that are required to be good at what you want to do.

Muscle Groups and Energy Systems

• Now we keep peeling the onion. We have the skills, but how are we going to make you better at those skills. We need to train the muscle groups and energy systems associated with those skills.
• Example: When I first started working out I could not complete a dead hang pull-up to save my life. After a few months of lat pull downs and working out my back I decided to give them a try. I completed 8 dead hang pull-ups, without ever having tried a pull-up in months.
• That is what we are doing here. If you cannot do the skill at all you need to start training by muscle group for strength and coordination.  If you can do the skill, like running, then you need to run, but also plan on training muscle groups specific to running.
• How you want to attack your muscle groups is up to you; Olympic Lifting, Hypertrophic Isolation Training, Raw Strength training, etc…
• Energy Systems, also up to you. Interval training, HIIT, CrossFit or CrossFit workouts you CAN complete…. A lot of options in this category.
• Accessory training is an important aspect. Sometimes you need to break things down even further. I will just give a short example to explain this one. If I wanted a heavy squat as my goal I would train my hamstrings, quads, glutes and back. I would use squatting as my main exercise of choice, but I would also use accessory exercises to train all the muscles above by themselves.