“What do collegiate and professional athletes do in the off season? They focus on strength and power production, rehab injuries and maintain conditioning. When they go to camp, a month out from the season starting, they start trying to improve their conditioning. I like this and thats what i would do if i were a competitive Crossfitter…”

I wholeheartedly agree with this statement. For those looking for further exploration into this, I’d recommend Eric Cressey’s “Ultimate Off-Season Training Manual”.

In it, he mentions how vertical jumps at the NFL combine are greater than those at the NBA combine. Why? Because NFL players have an off-season, due to the fact that it’s too hard to play full-contact football year round, while a pick-up game of basketball (essentially “conditioning”), is easy to do year round.

Just wanted to say I agree with this fully and experienced it myself. I just don’t agree with the way mainpage programs strength. 7 heavy singles, ascending 5×5, heavy back/front squatting maybe once or twice a month, it just doesn’t work, you need some type of linear or periodized progression scheme.

I absolutely love this conversation and debate, and I really appreciate the time and thought everyone has put into it! I just wish we could more accurately define what it is that we’re arguing about!

We all agree that the goal of CrossFit is IWCABTAMD, right?

So the questions remaining are:

1) What is the best way to develop IWCABTAMD?
2) What is the best method by which to test WCABTMD?
3) Is there a way to isolate programming as it relates to IWCABTAMD?

I think question number 3 is the reason there is no consensus answer, AND the reason we see numerous programming philosophies floating around the CrossFit community.

Ultimately and realistically, we’ll never have an empirical answer to that for several reasons…

1) We’ll never have a “test” so well controlled as to isolate programming as a variable.
2) IWCABTAMD is, by it’s very definition, nearly impossible to test!! It’s tested every year at the CrossFit games, but take a quick look at the last 3 games, and how differently athletes were stressed at each.

So, what’s the bottom line? These questions are DAMN fun to argue, but I really don’t think we’ll ever have a FINAL answer. But really, isn’t that the point?

I’d be more than happy to substantiate it….. read my second post. When I said “results” I was speaking only of placement in the games.

So, after clarifying that again, let’s look at what is meant by direct correlation. Simply put, if A then B.

So, let’s say that the BEST (whatever that may be – I’m not arguing for or against any system) programming in the world is “A” and a top 16 finish at the Games is “B”. A direct correlation would mean that if I followed said programming (A), than I would finish in the top 16 (B).

I would hope you realize the absolute fallacy of that statement.

Programming, in and of itself, guarantees nothing. It must be accompanied by proper nutrition, rest, recovery, etc…

Now, is programming a HUGE part? OF COURSE IT IS!! But is there a direct correlation? NO

Perhaps my initial statement wasn’t clear enough, so maybe this makes more sense.

looking forward to the review of the other sites!

Regarding .com athletes. I have had many people both regular people and competitive crossfitters come to me with frustrations about progress on .com programming. Following my advice or my programming we have broken through plateaus and improved performances.
A main issue i have with .com and any online program for that matter is that it doesn’t address people as individuals. You can’t argue with this. We hide behind the fact that everyone needs to work on everything but i think people would see better results if each of them had a personal program. This is Obviously impossible when you are running a gym with 200+ people but it is true nonetheless.
Instead of not focusing on anything i have realized that as a catch all (i’m not the only one who has seen this) strength is a huge weaknesses in both competitive crossfitters and everyday people. The olympic lifts are also a technical weakness. Like i said before, they are gymnastics with weights. In fact i would put any trained olympic lifter against an elite gymnast in a test of Crossfit anyday.

So, instead of being weak and hoping that one strength workout every 6 days will make me stronger, i am choosing to focus my clients training on what i think is invaluable in an athlete- STRENGTH.

A comment came up the other day that i really liked. What do collegiate and professional athletes do in the off season? They focus on strength and power production, rehab injuries and maintain conditioning. When they go to camp, a month out from the season starting, they start trying to improve their conditioning. I like this and thats what i would do if i were a competitive Crossfitter…

I do recommend shorter workouts but like Bullfrog mentioned i also recommend 15-20% of workouts be longer than 15 minutes. Not necessarily for fitness but for experience. 1 out of 6 seems regular enough to me, but thats just my opinion. It looks like you program the same way.

For me personally and countless others i i believe that there is a more effective, personalized plan to fitness other than .com. OPT embraces this and individualizes programs all the time. I have written about addressing ones weaknesses many times and still firmly believe that if you can’t honestly asses yourself, you still need some development as an athlete.