Legion Strength & Conditioning Podcast

Jon and Luke talk through some of the changes to the 2019 CrossFit Games season (which are still not fully clear yet) - but we do have enough information for athletes to start planning their training.

The structure of the season for most athletes will likely change as the focus shifts away from the Open and more toward the sanctioned CrossFit events.

We will see how this continues to shake out, but here's some initial thoughts in terms of how to structure training and what to expect.

For many athletes, every training session is a competition and they're constantly evaluating themselves on their results.

While having an idea of where you sit and what you need to work on is generally a good idea, this can also swing too far.

Athletes often find themselves getting caught in negative emotional spirals when their training results don't match up with their expectations.

However, there is also a natural variation in daily results. How do you know if you're outside of that range of acceptable variation? And how do your emotions surrounding your results impact your ability to improve over time?

Todd, Jon and Luke break down:

• How to know when you're actually overtraining - and when you're just having a bad day


• What percentage of your max you should be able to hit consistently on your lifts


• Why being overly focused on the outcome of your training sessions can make it more difficult for you to actually get better

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Athletes love to get wrecked by a really difficult workout.

People training hard often feel that they didn’t do anything productive unless they’re completely destroyed at the end of a session.

While this desire to push to maximum potential can often be helpful, there is a point past which it is no longer adaptive.

The best in the sport are often pacing just under an all out effort – they’re able to do most of their training at a high but controlled effort. Things that look like crazy difficult EMOMs are actually a blend of skill work and muscle endurance work.

So, how often should an athlete push to full on, rolling on the ground, can’t walk afterwards redline in training?

Todd and Jon break down:
•The dangers of redlining too often
•When in the season to push hard – and when to dial it back
•The psychological reasons that athletes feel that they always need to push themselves as hard as possible in their training sessions

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Tempo training has recently become quite popular in the functional fitness space - probably thanks largely to Marcus Filly's popularization of Functional Bodybuilding.

The folks at OPEX have long been teaching and prescribing tempo training, and Marcus's functional bodybuilding training started with his work with OPEX head coach Mike Lee.

As I said in this podcast, I kind of like it when solid training principles end up reaching a more "mainstream" level of recognition and acceptance. However, there's the danger of people starting to take tactical pieces from the internet like tempo training without understanding where it fits in the bigger picture of a training plan.

Todd and Jon break down why we might use tempo training for a competitive fitness athlete - and some of the common pitfalls and errors that athletes run into when attempting to apply the use of tempo in their own training?

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Jon, Todd and Luke break down when to modify training and when to do it as written.

People tend to either constantly tinker with their training - making modifications without understanding what they're doing or why they're doing it - or they tend to relentlessly follow every letter written in their program - regardless of how they're feeling on a given day.

The best are able to find a happy medium, which results in them getting the best training in for them over time. How can we find that sweet spot?

If you're enjoying the show, https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/legion-strength-conditioning-podcast/id1413580668?mt=2">why not a leave a review? It makes a difference in terms of other people finding the show.

If you're not already subscribed to our newsletter, head over to http://legionsc.com">www.legionsc.com and get with the program.

You can follow us on Instagram as well for regular training tips and crunchy tactics: http://instagram.com/legion.sc">@legion.sc