Yeah, you could probably call this gym Crossfit inspired.
Yesterday we had something awful of a workout.
5 Rounds for Time
12 Squat Cleans, for me at 95 lbs
400 Meter Run.
My time was 21:58 min.
The day before that we did "Crossfit Total"
Its Deadlifts, Back squats, and Strict Presses. You start at a low weight and do 2-3 reps until you hit your max.
You add up the three numbers and you have your "Total" number. What I love about the gym is that they have record boards for what everyone has done, a few "Timed" workouts and most devoted to lifts.
Yeah, I've been involved, and well removed, from Crossfit for about five years. Here's what's wrong with that split:
1. 22 minutes of endurace training, where you're pushing yourself at 85-90% of your max heart rate, is strictly for elite athletes. I.E. People with 5+ months of hard conditioning under their belt (well rounded or endurance focused peeps). I don't know how long you've done CF for, but that split is brutal. I'd drop two of the sets, at least.
2. Strict squat clean when you can power clean a weight is an unnatural movement. You need at least close to a 1RM, possibly 3RM, to really do a good full clean with complete range of motion without forcing yourself in the movement. It's one thing to warm up, it's a completely different thing to break up 60 reps of a movement.
3. Also on the full cleans, they're a movement designed for a few powerful reps, not multiple endurance reps. This is due to the nature of the movement. 60 full cleans, inbetween .25 mile runs, is going to cause a massive break down in form, resulting in unsafe movements and a increased chance for injury.
While I'm well aware with what the Total is, you should see right there the issue. One day you're doing a quasi powerlifting meet, and the next day you're doing a 22 minutes of ball busting endurance movement using high reps of an Olympic lift? Here's a better one:
5 Sets - For time - all weights with 95lbs to 155lbs (scale for level of training)
5 hang cleans
5 push presses
5 back squats
400m sprint
30-90 seconds of rest
All of those are easily do able, will knock you on your ass, aren't going to go into crazy injury form territory, and are giving yourself enough of a break to where when you grab the bar again you're not going to screw up to opening cleans. (now we're getting into exercise science territory, but for endurance work that pushes you near [95%-100%] your max heart rate or the top end of your heart rate reserve, there's a recommended 1 to 5 ratio of work to rest.)
This is just my opinion, so if you're having fun and making progress AND FEEL SAFE keep at it, but Crossfit always has encouraged a "20% slop factor" (this is a real thing) and if the split isn't based around that slop factor not fucking up your joints, you're running into problem territory. There's a reason the main site has an injury page and a lot of gyms can't get liability insurance and had to create the Crossfit RRG.
