How To Get Stronger
Lets talk about strength and how to best acquire it. How do we obtain strength? We work at it, we squat, deadlift, bench press and press. We work on our strength to get stronger and it is crazy to think that you can get stronger without working at it. That is like hoping that you will loose weight whilst eating 5 lard filled chocolate bunnies a day. CrossFit is an amazing program of general physical preparedness. Will you get stronger with CrossFit? Yes, of course you will, but it is at a very slow pace. If your goal in the New Year is to get stronger then adding a strength program to your CF routine can only do you good.
Being strong is transferable to other aspects of your life. Strength rules, it keeps you safe, adds stability and enables you to do a CrossFit WOD at the prescribed weight without worrying about every rep or thinking “ this is too heavy”. If you have a strong foundation for your house, you don’t worry about the windstorm (the foundation being your strength and the windstorm being a heavy CF WOD :).
I am always surprised when I hear people wonder why they are not better at the Olympic Lifts when they (happen to) appear in the WOD “Why am I not better at the Snatch when I work on it once every three months?” It’s not like some people start training at the age of 10 and for the last 20 years have dedicated their life to the sport. The same is true for strength. To be strong you have to work at it, regularly, not once every three weeks but every week.
Nothing is more measurable then strength. The barbell does not lie. If you cannot squat what you did last year, or as much as the girl on Instagram, guess what? It’s time to add some more squatting to your program. If you feel week and have trouble doing WODs as prescribed, guess what, its time to add strength to your program. And, if you want to get stronger, have I got an idea for you… Add strength to your program! No one has ever said, “I am too strong”…. No one.
So I’m calling you out, if any of this sounds familiar to you or appeals to you, lets work together to build a STRONG 2015!