April 30, 2017
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I always watch what Rich Froning does. I follow him on Instagram and also his gym, CrossFit Mayhem. There are always some incredible feats of fitness but occasionally, he blows my mind with volume and the speed at which he and his group can complete tasks.
I came across one a week ago that I couldnt believe. It is listed in the picture above. It is a simple workout really and decreasing ladder of Assault Bike Calories and Clean and Jerks, but the Kicker is that the Clean and Jerk weights increase as the reps decrease.
When I first saw this, I thought it was an individual workout. Rich did it in 38 minutes. I looked over the volume and weights and thought that maybe he could pull that off. So, I planned to tackle this workout one day and began to think about how it might be possible to complete.
My first thought was obviously to scale the weights. Doing 90 clean and jerks at 135 lbs is the equivalent of Triple Grace and that is just the first round of this workout. Then, it continues to increase until 10 reps at 225. I dont know if I am capable of 10 reps at 225 fresh and I knew that I wasnt going to be able to pull that off after a couple of hundred reps and calories.
As I proposed this to my friends last night, I suggested starting at 75 and going to 155. To my surprise, some were interested. However, I received a text from PSC last night asking if I was sure that this wasnt a TEAM workout. I looked back through the posts and sure enough, it had been a team workout. Thank God!
So, I decided to go from 95 to 175 on this one with a partner.
I love this format because while working with a partner, you get a great interval workout and you and your partner are pushing each other to decrease the rest time and move faster.
This morning presented some challenges but we handled them well and it is a good example of how you could program something like this and deal with odd numbers and uneven athlete capabilities.
We had 5 people show up of various levels. 2 guys that were pretty even paired off and did it as a standard team workout. I partnered with one of our top runners who is not one of our top weightlifters. I set up a bar and planned on going from 95 to 175 while he set up a bar and went from 45 to 135, which was equally challenging to him as my weights were to me. Our last guy simply cut all the reps in half and stormed through on his own.
It worked out perfectly. For me, I was pushed very hard because my partner was able to cycle the lighter weights quickly, so my rest time was minimal.
My team finished in 41:47 which is sobering when I realize that Rich and his crew did it in less time with far heavier weights. He IS the best in the world.....so....
We finished up with a 5 minute ice bath which was welcome and needed.
