I hear it all the time: “I switched to Catalyst workouts for a month or two and got much stronger then i switched back to Crossfit mainsite and got weak again…” Hmmm… really? Doesn’t it make sense that if you lift weights regularly you will get stronger?
To me it does.

I am going to dive a little deeper into this program but i first want to post what is posted on the info page at Cathletics.com.

The CA WOD is intended for the individual wishing to significantly improve functional strength and power—and the Olympic lifts specifically—without compromising general fitness too greatly. This individual has a greater affinity for strength and Olympic weightlifting than any other element of fitness, or wants to spend a period of time focusing on strength development or Olympic weightlifting improvement before returning to a more general approach to fitness such as the CrossFit WOD. Invariably the resulting strength and power improvements create dramatic improvements in individuals’ CrossFit performances.

These workouts are NOT what our weightlifting team or CrossFit athletes perform at Catalyst Athletics—the CA WOD is exclusively for our online community of athletes.

Agreed 100%.
I have come to the realization lately that unless you are a beginner in the fitness game you are not going to significantly improve both your strength and conditioning at the same time. As a result i have been programming smaller cycles where the focus shifts from strength to conditioning and back. With this i am trying to squeeze more out of the strength gains and focus on maintaining strength while we improve conditioning. Essentially Greg has been doing this for Crossfitters for years now. He gets the fact that if you are not strong, air squats and running will not make you stronger (provided you aren’t totally worthless to begin with) and that getting stronger will improve your performance in just about anything athletic you want to achieve.

He takes a distinctly un-crossfit approach to his strength training and uses percentages cycles to progressively overload you with strength work. The conditioning is short and simple which i really like. He refuses to use the olympic lifts with a barbell because he believes that they fuck up your form at max loads. I have to agree with this as well.
I have heard comments like this and i am sure he has as well: “I have been working on the olympic lifts a lot lately by doing grace and isabel pretty frequently.” I have even seen 100 snatch balances programmed into a workout to work on the receiving position in the snatch. (sorry to call you out John).
This is not olympic lifting. This is conditioning and is why you won’t see these kinds of workouts in the Catalyst conditioning. It will mess up your lifts really quickly. If you want to get better as a lifter, do 3 reps or less and sit the fuck down! Its a skill, not a capacity. Thats why you squat heavy.

Sorry to digress.

Greg gets more advanced with the movements and progress requires a deeper understanding and ability to do the lifts. In my opinion this is a good thing even for those that are terrible at the lifts. Those of you that never snatch because you look like a monkey humping a baseball would be better off just doing it more regularly. Obviously finding a coach is the best option but putting in the work is essentially the most important thing you can do. Remember 3 reps or less and sit the fuck down. Video it and pick 1-2 elements to work on per week. You will get better.

The conditioning (metcon) is designed to be short (2-15 min) and keep volume low. Because of all the extra strength work you are doing, your volume (rep count) and intensity (read percentage of 1RM) are relatively high already so the need to workouts like Angie decreases. I like that Greg keep the rep counts reasonable which allows for maximum power output. If you read deeper into some of his comments on the conditioning workouts you can see his effort to keep power high.

For time:
bear crawl – 30 m / alt with:
DB power clean + push press x 20-15-10 reps (find weight that allows unbroken 20 reps)

To me when he says find a weight you can do unbroken it means that he wants you to work to the limits of your capacity, both metabolically and strength wise.

A couple more things that i really like about the program and its more about the ease of use. He has the next day listed so you can see what you will be doing tomorrow. I know this is sometimes a huge issue with .com as people have trouble planning ahead when they don’t know the workout in advance.

The next thing and what i like the most is the access. If you have a question, comment or other issue, Both Greg and Aimee are available and in constant contact. Rarely will a question go un answered for more than a couple hours. I have taken a lesson from them and really make an effort to get back with people asap. Other programs should take a lesson from this, as it is just good business. When people can get immediate feedback they are more likely to stick with a program.

Bottom line, Greg gets it. So does Aimee. She trained Jolie Gentry to a 7th place finish at the games this year, after being top 3 two years in a row. Needless to say that is impressive in itself. to see the progress Jolie has made is amazing and should make everyone want to move to Sunnyvale and train with these 2.

I will leave you with a little known fact: Greg used to be quite a crossfitter himself. Check out this video: