038 Strength First

Send us Fan Mail|STRENGTH FIRST|1. Strength takes a long time to develop Peak biological age for powerlifters is 35Retained for a very long time Especially for CFers 2. The concurrent training effectThe more aerobic volume you’re doing, the more your strength and power gains will be attenuated. You need to do a lot of aerobic volume to compete in CrossFit. BUT, if you’re not strong enough yet and you start turning up that volume, then you’re making it less and less likely that you’ll get stronger.  3. CF demands 50%+ tensionThe stronger you are, the lower this percentage gets, so the contractions produce fewer waste products, so they become more repeatable. 4. The loads are fixedIf you go against someone stronger than you, the loads don’t scale. If he has to make 50% tension repeatable and for you it’s 75%, he’s gonna win.  5. Mastering the skillsSquatting bending lunging pushing pulling movementsYou can be the best swimmer in the world, but that skill won’t make you enduring at the patterns. Train the patterns. Master the skills. In that sense, resistance is skill work.  6. Glycolytic, anaerobic lactic adaptations don’t take as long to develop or stick as longYou can train hard lactic AMRAPs all you want, but the adaptations aren’t sticky. If you stop training it, you lose the adaptations in 2-3 weeks. It makes more sense to turn up this type of training close to competition rather than do it all the time. Also creates a ton of fatigue and is incompatible to getting stronger.