This time of the year provides a great opportunity to reflect on your training and set new goals. How much progress have you made recently? Have your WOD times gone down or pull-ups gone up? What about lifestyle and body recomposition goals: have you been sleeping 8 hours per night, or have those tight-fitting jeans been a bit looser around your waist?
Also consider some goals to improve on: have you been skipping the longer met-cons or heavier strength days, or perhaps you want to re-focus your nutrition habits between the holidays? In order to make the most out of your training, use the ‘S.M.A.R.T.’ criteria for goal-setting:
- Specific
- Measurable
- Attainable
- Realistic
- Time-specific
Using these guidelines, you might take a goal such as, “improve at gymnastics” and re-phrase it as, “be able to perform 1 muscle-up on the rings* by June 1st.” Alternately, instead of aiming to simply, “lose weight,” you might want to, “lose 5 lbs of body fat while maintaing muscle mass by June 1st.” These goals, for the most part, are specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and time-specific.
So try it out. Comment on here with your goals, or feel free to email scott@crossfitcharlottesville.com as well. Develop a plan for how you will get there, and let’s start shattering some PR’s and achieving some new goals.
60-second free-standing handstand by December 15th
bodyweight snatch by December 31st
got a 50-second freestanding handstand, confident on a fresh day I could hit 60 seconds. Training the one-arm now.
PR’ed my snatch at 76 kg. bodyweight is hovering closer to 85 kg, so a little way to go there.
70kg snatch by Dec. 31
90kg C&J by Dec. 31
set aside time to work on a strict MU… so I can get one… ummmm…. before June 30, 2013
and yay for the AZ flag! Love that sunrise.
I wasn’t going to add these because I didn’t know the next time I’d have the opportunity to test them… but when that time comes, I’d like to hit:
300# (low bar) back squat
315#+ deadlift
well never even attempted to max these lifts, because I was doing all percentage based work, so I’ll extend the ‘by this date’ to ‘next time I Total’. But before Dec. 31, 2012 I did manage to double an 80kg C&J and a 64kg snatch, sooo progress? Also PR’d my front squat with 102kg.
Snatch: 46kg (Dec 31st)
C&J: 64kg (Dec 31st)
Strict pull-up (Dec 31st)
1 strict pullup
more than 3 kipping mixed grip/underhand pullups in a row
bodyweight backsquat
by New Years!
Toes to bar by Jan. 30 and one strict pull up by the end of December. I’d like to learn kipping pull ups in December as well.
Snatch- would like to be able to do multiple 75# snatch (Spring ’13)
1 MU (June ’13)
15 PU’s without stopping (Mar. ’13)
Got #3, not the others.
New Goal- increased hip and ankle mobility by Dec. ’13
Be able to do DUs for WODs by 1/31/13.
1 HSPU (against wall) by end of 3/31/13.
Kipping pull-ups for WODs by 6/30/13.
K2E by 3/31/13 and T2B by 6/30/13.
A note for those looking for kipping pullups: I generally recommend achieving the capacity for *5 Strict Pullups* before attempting kipping (especially kipping in a WOD for high rep). There are many reasons for this, and probably some exceptions, but this is with your safety in mind. Head over to the mainsite message boards (boards.crossfit.com) and search “slap” if you would like to read up on anecdotes about SLAP tears (Superior Labral tear from Anterior to Posterior) in the CrossFit community (many due to doing high-rep, high-impact WODs with an under-developed shoulder).
Don’t get me wrong: I am encouraging these goals and hoping that you will continue to work towards them. When I started doing CrossFit I couldn’t do a single chin up, but now I can hit double-digit strict pullups (on a good day 🙂 ) and I am effectively kipping without anterior shoulder pain. The kip is a powerful technique that can be safe and effective when executed with proper shoulder position and adequate strength to support the movement.
OK, so for my goal:
Strict Muscle Up by end of January 2013
7:59:59, 2000 meter row- Dec 25
Sub 8 minutes 2k row? That’s a nice Christmas present 🙂
8:03 on Christmas Eve Eve!
185lbs/85kg Snatch – February 1st
215lbs/97kg Jerk – February 1st
7 Consecutive Muscle ups – January 15th.
-10 double unders in a row by end of the current year. (Any advice on getting there is much appreciated.)
-Perform an overhead squat with solid external rotation by the start of the Crossfit Open.
-Do 3 handstands in a row against wall by Jan 15, 2013.
405 lb deadlift, 315 lb back squat, 250 lb front squat. To not suck at double unders.
2x body weight back squat by April 1.
300# front squat by February 1.
Snatch 80kg by next Oly Totals (5 weeks from now).
C&J 100kg by next Oly Totals.
Sub-10-min 30 muscle-ups WOD by April 1.
Sub-3-min Fran by the end of the year.
1 muscle up by April 1st
Bodyweight clean by April 1st (at 110# now, just gotta get to 125#)
come to C’ville Strength (M/W) and to Gymnastics (T/Th) and you will meet those goals!
Cleaned 130# yesterday, jerked 125#. Goal met! Now to tackle those muscle ups…
And yesterday I did my first muscle up! Lots of progress lately, which means I need to set some new goals:
Full snatch 100# by April 1 (current 1RM is 85#)
Learn how to kip pull-ups more efficiently (more than 3 in a row)
Strict muscle up by May 1
By American Open (Dec. 4, 2013):
-75kg snatch
-95kg clean & jerk
-strict press over 110# (it would just be nice to get over that stagnant hump I’ve been at for a couple years now)