We track our WODS and Strength Lifts at JCCF because it lets us see visibly our progress!! What is the easiest and best way to track you progress at Jefferson City CrossFit??
Be accountable and track your data!
How do you even begin to do this? Two easy answers: The old school way, called a pen and a notebook. Or the new efficient smartphone way using an application called MyWOD.
Did you know that between strength sets you should be resting anywhere between 1 to 3 minutes to meet your maximum potential. This is perfect!!! Why, because it gives you the exact amount of time to enter your weights and/or write down your numbers before going to the next set.
You may ask, “I just started, how would I even know where to begin?! ” Well, the good news is we have a simple solution to building a foundation to grow from there. We have many new athletes that come into our gym that may have never weightlifted before in his or her life! This is so exciting!!!! More and more scientific evidence supports that strength training is one of the most efficient ways to gain lean muscle mass, build strong bones, increase fat loss, all while increasing cardiovascular strength and endurance. You are probably going to ask why you didn’t start sooner!!
We do understand new exercises and lifts can be overwhelming. Here are some general things you can start with and then build and fine tune your numbers from there. First thing first, you have to keep track of your data to compare from week to week. You will notice when you stick around, we follow a strength cycle. You follow it, and you will experience the ever loving “Gainz baby!”
Always warm up with the class. The experienced JCCF trainer goes through just the right amount of dynamic warm up and stretching to tackle the strength of the day
- Warm up with 2 or 3 sets with just the barbell at 3 to 5 reps. This may even be a warm up with the pvc pipe.
- Add weight. Depending on you and the type of lift, it may be as little as 5-10lbs. WRITE it down. a) A solid approach with numbers would be starting at 50%, 60%, 70%, 80%, 90% of your desired max. For overall fitness it will not need to be perfect. But you will want to see your numbers increase.
- b) You could go up in increments like this: 50%, plus 5-10%, plus 5-10%, …. Doing a total of 5 TOTAL working sets. So it would look something like this if you maximal 1 rep of back squat is 90lbs. Starting with a 45lb barbell. Back squat 45-55-65-75-80. You can interchange any lift in this building process.
- Write down and track each weight in each set.
Building strength is a process that doesn’t start and begin in one day. If on that day, you feel like you could have lifted more, or that you lifted too much (Our little ego gets involved) then you have numbers for the next week to build from. And every day is unique to our own body. Some days, we are tired and maybe didn’t eat as well as we should have. Maybe we didn’t do enough mobility on our own. That is going to affect numbers. There are very few of us that have perfect form in most of our lifts. Be humble, and appreciate and enjoy the process of building the most perfect lift! We lift to lift another day.How are you going to see your successes if you don’t track them? Well, you really won’t, and it can get quite overwhelming. Keep it simple. Write it down. Ring that ever loving PR BELL!! And Succeed!!!