Hi Team,
Happy Sunday to everyone. Big thanks to everyone who has come along to the gym this week and a super big thanks to everyone who has filled out our latest survey. As I type this we have received 172 responses – if you would like to contribute your thoughts (which we would really appreciate – the link is here: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/Round1MembersSurvey)
Before I go on to this week’s blog post, I have had a few people ask me “What is the point” of the survey. Well – to be honest, I don’t exactly know yet. What I can say is that there has been a great deal of change at Round 1 (mostly COVID related) over the past 18-months and whilst there isn’t much we can do to ‘wind back the clock’, trying to get a ‘general impression’ of how everyone is finding things is important. Further, we have some plans in our back pockets right now in terms of “what’s next”. Before pulling the trigger on any additional capital spend, it would be great to make sure that the things we are planning aren’t just in our heads – but they are things you guys are genuinely looking to see implemented. In other words, I wont really know the full benefit of the survey until the survey is done and dusted!
Onto the blog for the week and it is a pretty ‘Functional Fit’ heavy blog this week – so apologies to the boxing people. There is a fair difference in the programming mechanism for those class types with Funky on a highly ‘structured’ cycle with a clear start date/end date for each phase. Boxing is a lot more fluid and whilst equal (probably more if I’m being honest) time goes into putting the boxing classes together each week those sessions are more about ensuring full-body touch points and cardio variance (long duration, short duration) than a slow build in weight using a set series of lifts + associated accessory work. Thinking about it now, the more time I am realising is allocated to putting boxing together each week (around 6-8 hours) vs Funky (3-hours per week with 3-4 extra hours per cycle) and Developing Athlete (2 hours per week with 3-4 extra hours per cycle)…I mean, DAP and Funky are essentially the same time but only 4x classes each week for DAP.
Anyway, Team Funky will already be aware that we have significantly increased the rep counts they are using – our last cycle was 5RM based and this time we are out chasing sets of TEN! As you all will have noticed we have recently spent some time doing some ‘less frequently used’ movements – Sumo Squat and Push Jerk especially – we kind of used those lifts as a bit of a circuit breaker between cycles as well as giving everyone a bit of practice…doing different stuff is fun right? Honestly, I think we were all suffering a bit of mental fatigue after what had been a L-O-N-G build (almost 12-weeks) towards max sets of 5 and hopefully this gave everyone an opportunity to refresh and get ready for the ‘next’ challenge.
The next challenge? As already mentioned, the ‘NEXT’ challenge is to build to a new 10RM for Front Squat, Strict Press and Deadlift – we have already performed baseline testing for each of these and over the next few weeks we will be working with volume, volume, volume to build this strength endurance. I know for me 10-rep-max efforts are a lot – during the testing phase I found the whole idea of 10 very intimidating and had a lot of trouble choosing my weights (in the subsequent workouts I have quickly discovered my baselines were too light!) – I mean, you just know how much 10 reps is going to HURT. My only advice right now is SMALL + FREQUENT increases in weight (you may have heard of the amazing tool SUGARWOD we provide for each of you to track your progress) over the next 4-6 weeks is the way to go…and if you really push yourself to simply ‘keep going up’ you will get the bar up to something ‘pretty heavy’ by the time this cycle is done.
This month we have also (as you will have noticed) started a cycle of Hang Power Snatch (HPS) rather than Hang Power Cleans/Power Cleans that we have been doing. Hopefully you have had the opportunity to experience this so far and we have been trying to program in the Burgener warm-up at least once per week to further assist with the SNATCH movement. As an aside, I’m not really intending to do a HPS testing cycle – to me this movement is more about skill and power development than outright ‘max weight lifting – and I wanted to increase our exposure to this movement which has generally only been ‘sprinkled in’ to the programming.
What else? Well – Pull-ups. Specifically, MAXIMUM-STRICT-PULL-Ups. I KNOW everyone seems to hate when these are programmed so I have been trying to ‘slide them in’ around other movements and sort of ‘hide them’ in SugarWOD so people still show up to train…Why don’t people come on Pull-up day? Well…I can’t really answer that. I know they’re like HARD but if there are 4x main lifts they are prob Back Squat, Bench Press, Deadlift and Pull-up (with vertical press and Power Clean next) so…maybe doing them and getting better would be a good thing?
What else? Well – we have some of the NCFit benchmark workouts coming up – Trident, Icarus, Cindy, and Purple Cobra – so when these pop-up be sure to record your time in SugarWOD so we can track our progress.
Funky Fit August/September Strength Cycle
Week 1 of 7 (August 2) – 10-Rep Test
Week 2 of 7 (August 9) – 12-12-12 (Rep scheme for strength component)
Week 3 of 7 (August 16) – 12-12-10
Week 4 of 7 (August 23) – 12-10-10
Week 5 of 7 (August 30) – 10-10-10
Week 6 of 7 (September 6) – Deload
Week 7 of 7 (Sepetember 13) – 10 Rep Re-test
We know this can be a daunting time. You’re probably wondering if we really are the right fit for each other. And it’s OK! Many people before you, have felt the same, and that’s why we want to offer you something special – our $29 Health Check.
Let’s work out together to see if we’re the right fit. Just hit the button below to let me know if you’re ready to see what’s included.
Subscribe below to join our tribe.
You'll receive email updates about the studio, special events, and membership option sales!
