What many coaches will tell you (and I will too) is:
1) Practice the basic lifts.
2) Keep it simple.
3) And one Marine saying: “In the static defensive position, if you try to be strong everywhere, you’ll be weak everywhere.”
What I’ve tried to do with this template is lay out a basic combination of Olympic and Power lifts with the end goal of being an generally stronger and more powerful athlete, but one that has my inherent strengths and weaknesses.
I’ve cobbled together several programs (Crossfit Football, Bob Takano, Jim Wendler, Prilepin’s Table, and especially Gant Grimes) based on my experience lifting with each of those programs separately and managing athletes on these programs.
To view the template click here.
Template Guidelines:
1) Add 5 lbs to each Oly lift Theoretical 1 RM (T1RM) each 4 week cycle.
2) Add 10 lbs to each lower body Wendler Deadlift T1RM each 4 week cycle.
3) Add 5 lbs to each upper body Wendler Press T1RM each 4 week cycle.
4) Add 5 lbs to each Power lift (linear progression) each 4 week cycle.
You’ll obviously need to copy the spreadsheet and then enter your weights into the yellow blocks, but the spreadsheet will do the work after that.
You’ll need to stick with this for at least 16 weeks to see good progress. Feel free to switch your Power lifts to Wendler once you get a serious sticking point.
I think this would be a great template for anybody that has a decent level of strength and good technique with the lifts. I think this would be a great fit for athletes at PCF who are doing the barbell club (contact erika@patriotcrossfit.com for more info).
PS. I get the fact that “Specialized Generalized” are contradictory terms. Also, feel free to go all kinds of honey badger on this if you’ve got some beef.
For the AMRAPs (HSPU/GHD, MU/GHD), those aren’t burners, but skill/strength sessions. Keep the total number of GHD situps below 50. Feel free to sub Reverse Hypers in there if you have one (which we do at Patriot).
For HSPU and MU, break those into sets so that they are challenging, but you’re recovering enough during the GHD situps to hit it again with consistency.
See my Volume Training for Goats article in the Crossfit Journal for some more details on this.
[...] to get a better front-rack position What does living from your authentic self really mean? A specific generalized template No excuses / Fire in the belly Balsamic roasted butternut squash and apple soup / Grilled Delmonico [...]
Hi coach… just read your post today… Just curious, how does your personal training look like nowadays? I personally, as well as my clients do what ever you post on your site.
Hey Russell, thanks for the question. What I have above is pretty much what I do. I add in 2-3x/week METCONs from Potomac Crossfit as well.
I think for nearly all athletes, that the PCF programming is the way to go. I’ve just been able to look at both what my weaknesses are and what I like doing, and tweaked it slightly.
My advice to everyone is “master the basics before you throw them away.” I’d stick with what you’re doing following PCF programming. If you want to expand out from there after a year or so, go for it. Just realize that you need to have a reason “why” you want to expand out.
I’ll try to get Aaron Moburg-Jones to respond with his thoughts as well as he does our programming.
Thanks Coach, that would be great, I’d like to see what coach Aaron thinks…
[...] Specific Generalized Template seems to be doing ok. Did Power Clean/Split Jerk 4x1x225 and Back Squat 3x5x300 [...]
I’ve been doing the template for a few days now. Two questions:
(1) This is _way_ more volume than I had gotten accustomed to with PCF’s 15ish minutes heavy lifting per workout. You adapt to that eventually, right?
(2) The Barbell Club meets M-W-Sa. Your template assumes that the athlete can do the program four days a week and a WoD on a different day. How can I adapt this to what I can do in the Barbell Club and what you’ll let me get away with at PCF?
Thanks,
Steven
Steve -
1) it’s actually not that bad at all. Biggest thing for me is to really really really do the back off week so the joints have time to recover.
2) That’d be pretty easy. You could easily do a SSMWT for 5x/week or MWTS for four days a week and get almost everything in. Since we DL on Thu, you could just do the Wendler DL on Thu and either do the METCON or go pure MWB and just call it a day after that.
So you’d only be skipping the push press.