CF and body building/strength work

[Departed1]

for those of you who do body building/strength conditiong with crossfit, how do you do it? I feel like this would help me reach my goals but am not sure how to get there. For example
1. How do you program it? to me it's hard b/c you may not do a wod for a week that matches up with a chest work out. so do you just go ahead and do a regular bb set up even though it doesn't match up with what the wod works?
ex. -- push day mon, leg - wed, pull fri

2. do you do the wod first, or the bb workout first?

3. how do you avoid overuse of muscles? If I do a pull day and the next day is a wod that involves a lot of rowing/pull ups, or whatever, i'm going to be beat to death

[Rebecca Roth]

I don't know really anything about bb, but in general from everything I've ever read its more about external display and has absolutely nothing to do with functional strength (in most cases quite the contrary)... So you should probably clarify whether you actually MEAN bb or strength.

That said, here is a program designed for building functional strength: http://www.crossfitfootball.com/

You do a standard wod (could be the one in the middle of the page, the one on cf .com, the one from your affiliate, etc.. it really doesn't matter) then you add the strength wod at the right side of the page.

On the other hand, if you are looking to BB and do crossfit, all I can say is good luck.

[Departed1]

i agree with what you're saying and understand that. I guess that is the problem. How do you combine two things that don't really work together? I just thought I had seen people who had done it on here before and thought it sounded like something I could look into to reach the main goal of looking better.

[Departed1]

Also, I've checked out the cffb site before. How the hell do you do any of that stuff in a regular gym? I'm talking a basic high school gym that has dumbells and free weights, with a couple treadmills

[Andrew Dempsey]

I combine SS (starting strength, novice program) with CF in the same workout, but only a short 5-10 min metcon, once or twice a week. On non SS workout days, then I try to do heavier/longer CF workouts.

Doing 2 SS workouts a week focuses progress more on strength, when that starts to slow down and stall, I drop to 1 SS and increase my CF. I do choose my CF routines though, I don't follow the WOD. Once my CF progress slows, then I flip back to more SS and change the set of CF routines I use.

I only workout 3 or 4 times a week.

[Milton Brisson]

Hey Luke,

Here are links to two threads on this board for a couple of dual purpose programs:

http://www.board.crossfit.com/showthread.php?t=62078 - this is for the 70s Big Strength and Conditioning program. I was on it for two months, and got great results! You get two or three days of conditioning a week on this. I made my own up - but you can use CFFB dWoDs, or; another poster on this board - Eric Montgomery - had a list of great conditioning workouts that he posted on the 70s Big website. He will probably post on this thread at some point, so you can ask him about those.

http://www.board.crossfit.com/showthread.php?t=63090 - this is a thread on another strength and conditioning program made up by another poster on the site - Chris Mason - people are getting results from this too.

(Both links WFS as they are from this very site!)

Focus on strength, not so much on body building. If you eat right, and train right your physique will take care of itself.

(Unless BBing is your goal, then, I cant help you and you should disregard my entire post!)

[Departed1]

the 70's big stuff may be what i'm looking for. Maybe i shouldn't label it bb. I really enjoy doing crossfit, but I want to add some strength stuff to it in order to keep my core lifts up, and improve them. so i guess here's how i feel, crossfit uses a crap load of squats, cleans, and deadlifts. but you don't do a whole lot of bench work. How do you guys go about adding that in? and if you do add it in, do you add other lifts in as well (doing a leg day on top of everything else, back day, etc.)...don't have time to read the links right now. will do it later. thanks for the feedback though

[Drew Cloutier]

Originally Posted by Luke Rader

the 70's big stuff may be what i'm looking for. Maybe i shouldn't label it bb. I really enjoy doing crossfit, but I want to add some strength stuff to it in order to keep my core lifts up, and improve them. so i guess here's how i feel, crossfit uses a crap load of squats, cleans, and deadlifts. but you don't do a whole lot of bench work. How do you guys go about adding that in? and if you do add it in, do you add other lifts in as well (doing a leg day on top of everything else, back day, etc.)...don't have time to read the links right now. will do it later. thanks for the feedback though

As a bodybuilder (waiting for surgery to fix me up before getting back to competition) and someone who knows quite a few bodybuilders, I take exception to this

but in general from everything I've ever read its more about external display and has absolutely nothing to do with functional strength

I mention this because, even though the primary goal of bodybuilding may not be to have a 500lbs bench (i.e huge numbers), any serious bodybuilder will have some decent/good numbers, whereas the big numbers in powerlifting are the goal, in bodybuilding the big numbers are rather a means to an end. Many of the top bodybuilders were also powerlifting champions at one time or have been known for some SERIOUS lifts. You wont get BIG by constantly doing the SAME weight on lifts. So yes although the primary goal is to develop
SIZE, SYMMETRY, PROPORTIONS, DEFINITION, etc bodybuilders are quite strong, but they do not really work the CNS like powerlifters to get those kinds of numbers.

pretty much all pros (bb'ers) in the open (non-202 division) can bench 4-5 plates a side, squat 405+ for reps, deadlift 500+ and so on...and generally speaking for 6+ reps.

[Tamara Cohen]

Originally Posted by Luke Rader

the 70's big stuff may be what i'm looking for. Maybe i shouldn't label it bb. I really enjoy doing crossfit, but I want to add some strength stuff to it in order to keep my core lifts up, and improve them. so i guess here's how i feel, crossfit uses a crap load of squats, cleans, and deadlifts. but you don't do a whole lot of bench work. How do you guys go about adding that in? and if you do add it in, do you add other lifts in as well (doing a leg day on top of everything else, back day, etc.)...don't have time to read the links right now. will do it later. thanks for the feedback though

Do strength work prior to the WOD including benching once a week. That is all.

[Chad Anderson]

Couple ways to do it:
Pre-WOD and it is what it is. We are doing 5, 3, 1 with Press on Mon, Dead on Wed and Squat on Thurs. Primary lifts can certainly affect the WOD, but so will ring dips, ring pushups, pistol squats and a multitude of other skill exercises.

Or, take 2 days a week and do your lifts. Bench and Deads one day and Squats and Presses another, or whatever lifts you want to concentrate on.