Depending on the person doing it Workout I Phase I might be a bit to much for a warmup. And the legs might be fatigued to effectively execute Phase II.

I agree, phase II is just to long to maintain a high power output. And its probably not going to increase strength that at 25 rep range, that is more endurance.

Workout II Phase I

Are the KB thrusters 55lbs an arm, or total. Might be a bit heavy for a warm up, at least for most folks.

I agree, Phase II is just to much. Its like someone picked a bunch of movements they thought would be hard, strung them together, and added some running on either end. No thought as to power output, the length of the workout, etc. Anyone can put together a bunch of movements that hurt and make it a hard workout. However it takes thought and planning to put together something effective.

Great blog, i am glad i found it.

“To me Mountain athlete means over training and quickly”.

I would have to disagree. And just to put this out there, the best strength coaches in the country (guys like Mike Burgener and Steve Gough) do not believe in over training, they only believe in under recovery. If you read closely, Rob Shaul prescribes 3 days a week in the gym for his athletes, with 2 or 3 days spent in the mountains doing their sport, and at least 1 day of full rest. That doesn’t sound too ridiculous to me.

I think you miss the point of Mountain Athlete entirely. They are not crossfitters, and they don’t compete in games. These athletes regularly spend anywhere from 8 – 72 hours in the mountains, and in some cases, their lives can depend on their fitness. They have a greater understanding of what they are training for than CrossFitters do. Don’t get me wrong, I love CrossFit, and I am a CrossFit trainer, but CrossFit has a different agenda than the athletes at Rob Shaul’s Gym do. I also understand the point of keeping workouts short and simple, but with all due respect, to downplay Rob Shaul’s programming when you don’t have much experience in or understanding of backcountry/alpine sports is a bit arrogant. Comparing CrossFit to Mountain Athlete is like comparing apples to oranges.

When it comes down to it, if your sport is CrossFit, then you don’t need these long wods. But at our CrossFit, most of the athletes are skiers, climbers, snowmobilers, mountain bikers, etc… and while they will get benefits out of the frans and cindys, I will hit the 30-40 minute Mtn Athlete-type workouts once a week, if not more, because our athletes require it. There are many CrossFit gyms that would agree with us. Check out the philosophies from CrossFit Jax and CrossFit 324.
CrossFit is great, but it is by no means the be all and end all of hybrid training. There are some great minds out there that are doing different things, and as crossfitters, we should respect that and learn from it.

So glad you posted this. I was actually just going to email you and ask a couple of questions about this topic. Actually, I still might…but please, focus on your qualifier this weekend, and you can get back to me next week!!!

Jenna

I would say that there is little value in going that long. The only advantage i have seen is the fact that you get mentally tougher from doing stuff in that range. You don’t get fitter.
The crazy thing about anaerobic exercise is that it is very efficient at getting you fit for aerobic exercise. If your sport is Crossfit, there is no place for 35 minute workouts. If you compete in a different sport you will need to program for that sport specifically. For example Marathon runners have to run long distances periodically so their body can handle the punishment of running long distances. A soccer player can’t become a better soccer player without touching the ball a couple times a week.
Make sense?

Great question!

If we are training to be fit across broad time domains surely some WODs need to be 35 mins plus.

The best example I can come up with is a 10k run or similar Row but would you just suggest the chippers for longer WODs?

Thanks, and I am really enjoying your blog – I hope your seminar travels to Australia at some stage.

Last summer, I did one of these WODs every Wednesday – I even gave Wednesdays a special name for them. I would try to get someone, anyone, to do them with me, but no one ever would. I didn’t get it at the time because I saw these WODs as a challenge to finish them, and whatever came up on Wednesdays, that’s what I did. Some of them were TOUGH and would take me 35+ minutes to do. I realize now, they aren’t the intent of CrossFit, and I should have scaled them for more power output because several of them absolutely broke me. I found it was similar to a post you had a while back, where I had to take 2-3 days off afterwards just to recover, and I wasn’t gaining as much as I thought I was…live and learn, right??

CF football is legit. If you scale it right it is for everyone. Their built in strength component is also legit.

Athlete vs athletic could be a spicy topic. I’ll tinker with it next week.
Thanks for the comments Mark. How did the C&J vs Thruster experiment go?