The Catalyst Athletics 8 week General Cycle for CrossFit Thermal Start Date: Monday, April 6, 2015 As CrossFit athletes, we are constantly trying to raise our fitness levels to new heights.  Over the past 5 weeks many of us have participated in the CrossFit Games Open, and tried to quantify where exactly we land on the...Read More

Although it’s been 2 months since testing our max snatch, there has been ample practice and variations of this complex movement. Make sure to bring that bar from the ground up to your hips to be as efficient as possible. Pull yourself under the bar and lock those elbows out! Today’s conditioning will be based...Read More

Today we continue our shoulder press linear progression by adding 2.5-5#. Bar speed should still be fast, but those last couple reps might be a fight. Our AMRAP is longer than usual and intentionally has few reps per round. The idea here is to pick a heavy clean weight (somewhere in the 70-80% range of...Read More

*see picture for an explanation of percentages. We want to add about 2-4% to the bar from last week. Find your 1RM on the left and move over to the highlight in that row. That is about how much you should add to the bar. A way to “feel” it out is the bar speed....Read More

“Breaking Up Big Movements” Breaking up the snatch into components is a good way to practice. Today we are doing this by first power snatching from the ground, then doing overhead squats. If you have trouble with getting the bar into a good second pull, pause at the hang position (mid-thigh). During the metcon, you’ll...Read More

I’ve heard people say “I’m never going to compete in the Olympic Games, why should I bother using Olympic movements when I work out?” There is no question that Olympic lifters are the strongest athletes on the planet. So by borrowing some of their techniques, and filtering these lifts systematically into our program, we can...Read More

You might find it hard to believe, but in the 1800’s the deadlift was actually refered to as the “healthlift”. Many of today’s gyms and trainers have seen the movement ostreasized, dismissed as dangerous, and even banned. I’m here to officially call a hault to the bashing of this lift and start a movement of...Read More