Looking Back on March, we had a ton going on. We wrapped up the Open, had the quarter final workouts and hosted several events too. That month literally flew by.
Last weekend Coach Nick hosted the 2nd “Ruck” event of the season. These things have been successful and a lot of fun, so stay tuned for our May event details coming soon.
Still to come later this week is our Member of the Month workout for Nick G, in case you missed that memo, here are the details on his custom workout as well as Nick’s CrossFit story!
April Programming Focus
We hinted at this in our March newsletter, but since March ends up being a weird month transitioning out of the Open, its hard to get a ton of focused traction – but now we’re back baby!!
The next 3 months are going to be centered around building a STRONG base both with our classic strength movements and strict gymnastics movements. We’re getting started with 5 weeks of tempo training for the Back Squat, Deadlift and Strict Press.
This is NOT meant to be excessively heavy, it is there to reinforce position and prime everyone for our 6-week Wendler cycle that is coming next month! Until then, we are in the “slow and steady” mentality during our lifting sessions.
Working strict gymnastics, specifically the Push-Up/ Handstand Push-Up/ Pull-Up/ Ring Muscle-Up, will be another primary focus this month and next month. By developing strength in these movements, the kipping variations will improve AND we are helping ensure our bodies stay healthy/ can hold up to kipping movements.
Our final focus is going to be our Aerobic Capacity conditioning efforts. This will take shape with 15:00-18:00 workouts so think ; plenty of AMRAPs/ EMOMs/ Chippers . The idea is to build your engine and the best way to do that is to KEEP MOVING during conditioning pieces. Those heavy days or sprint-style workouts are still going to be sticking around but the overall focus is finding your 70-80% and trying to improve it!
CrossFit Conshohocken April Benchmarks
“Helen”
“Infinity Loop”
“O-Zone”
You can refresh your memory on these workout details here.
Housekeeping – Open Gym Use
Over the past 6 months we have seen an increase in Open gym utilization. We’re excited to see so many of our members highly engaged in fitness and wanting to spend more time in the gym. The reality now is that we need to install parameters. What this means is that we must move away from what has become somewhat of a free for all and tighten up the screws a bit. With this strategy we hope to have more organization and improve your experience here at CFC.
The Forge was designed to be a strength / accessory space. Over the years we’ve always allowed anything and everything to happen there, and we love being able to offer that freedom. But as our membership numbers reach toward the 200 mark, we need to do a better job managing our space and who is in it.
Why does it matter what I’m doing in the Forge?
Different programs and fitness methods require different footprints. Strength training and weightlifting are very accessible even when others are present, and classes are in session. This type of training is quiet, not visually distracting, uses very little equipment and requires a minimum amount of square footage. When the Forge is used in this capacity, we can accommodate the largest number of members. This is how the Forge was designed to be used.
Met-cons have their place too.
We understand that sometimes you need to hit a met-con in the Forge. We have folks that are injured and can’t hit the house workout, we have folks that mix in other workouts and additional training. Sometimes this kind of training can be loud, take up huge amounts of space, is distracting, or impedes our ability to execute our core offerings at a high level.
Where we have fallen short as a gym, is laying out exactly what proper usage looks like. We’re going to lay out parameters so that there is no question as to what is allowed and what isn’t. In most cases the issues we see stem from new users who have never been told otherwise. That is not their fault, it is our fault as a staff, and we aim to correct that now.
On April 1st, we will begin to require sign-ups for Open gym. There will also be a new membership agreement that comes out via email. Think of it is a simple code of conduct. This agreement will outline the usage of the Forge and how we can maintain the freedom that we have gotten used to while still offering high quality group classes and personal training. Our goal is not to limit Forge use in any way.
If you don’t use the Forge and never intend to – you won’t need to sign the agreement.