I spent some time with Ryan a couple of weeks back talking about how I go about writing the programming for the gym. Together we looked back through previous weeks and discussed what we had seen come out in the workouts in order to come up with a varied and challenging weeks programming. I thought some of you may like to know some of the things we talked about and the process that goes on in order to write the programming that you are following.

The programming that I write at CrossFit Harrogate is a General Physical Preparedness (GPP) programme. GPP is about increasing an athlete's work capacity across broad time and modal domains (a phrase coined by CrossFit's founder, Coach Glassman). This means that the programming we follow aims to increase your capacity in any endeavour, whether it's over long or short duration, or high or low power; whether it involves one's own body, external objects (e.g., barbells, dumbbells, and throwing implements) or any combination of these modalities.

"Develop the capacity of a novice 800-meter track athlete, gymnast, and weightlifter and you'll be fitter than any world-class runner, gymnast, or weightlifter." - CrossFit Journal #2, "What is Fitness?"

(For more info on GPP and what it is, give this article a read.)

After Ryan looked at the previous two weeks of programmed workouts, we discussed how we would go about constructing the following weeks programming taking into consideration certain factors which have an impact on the decisions we make. These Included:

The different modalities in which we work i.e. Gymnastics (BW), Weightlifting (light, medium, heavy), and Mono-structural.
The time/duration of workouts, heavy days, <5min, 5-10min, 11-20min, >20min.
The number of reps, high >100, medium 50-100, low <50.
The scheme, singlets, couplets, triplets, ≧4 & chippers,
Task vs time priority.
The frequency of occurrence of the individual movement in the previous two weeks of programming.

Through analysing these things we are able to see areas of the programming which had been prominent and bring those which had been less prominent or lacking to the foreground. We then used this information to build our following week.

By using this method we keep our programme constantly varied, this is different to random.

This week, brought to you by Ryan, will start with a Heavy Day!

1. Warm up/mobilise

2. Strength: Deadlift 3-3-3-3-3-3-3

3. Recovery