Mainsite Programing

[Jason A Smith]

As a fairly long time Crossfitter here is my take.

I actually compete at Crossfit and do reasonable well in the Open (top 5-6% worldwide for the last few years) which I guess is a reasonable enough way to evaluate whether or not you do Crossfit. I rarely look at the MP anymore but I can likely put up fairly respectable times and do all of the WODs as Rx'd 99% of the time.

I have decent (but not great) lifting numbers. I am decent at what Crossfit calls gymnastics as well as I can do 30 MUs and HSPUs and pull ups, ring dips etc.

Most importantly I have not followed MP Crossfit for years and likely have seen better and more progressive gains because of it.

The biggest issue is exactly what has been stated before, there is no progression at all to it. There are crossfit athletes who incorporate some of the WODs into their routine but most of them are doing so much more that it is completely inconsequential to their success.

I would hazard to guess that pretty much everyone at Regionals this year would have won the Games from 2007-2010 or at least be very close. That is how much the landscape of this has changed.

A long time ago Tony Budding and Pat Sherwood were involved in programming as was Glassman......not sure who does it. Do I think MP could work for someone....yes. Do I think it is the fastest way to get better ? No.

[mike vinson]

I follow mainsite. I have a strong PL background and rarely do I have to scale the wt. My problem is knowing what the time domain should be? I can still squat and pull 600 but my mile is 10+ min....Fran is 7 min....really struggle with gymnastics...it would be helpful if they gave me a time cap...sometimes im at 30min when every one else finished in 15...if that makes sense?

[Juan M Jones]

I don't want to discuss the entire programming because that's very subjective. But people must be more educated in programming and how to scale.
Obviously is Crossfit HQ philosophy not to use % of RM or bodyweight, but in the past they used it, and I think is better, I really want to know why isn't the norm.

I adapt main site WODs to use % of my RM or sometimes bodyweight. Is against the objective to use a weight that doesn't allows you to complete the WOD in time, but if you don't know about the ideas behind the program you re clueless.
Some Wods are "short metcons", duplets that take 2-10 minutes, and other are supposed to take around 20 minutes, or more. Intensity is expected to be very different in these. And the weight must be specially selected.
For example, Fran Rx in 20 minutes is not training the expected energy system, you need a scaled weight.

[David Narens]

They used to have the top athlete's times posted, does anybody know why they don't? Names like Spealler, Lipson, Holmberg would be listed under the WOD and then their times. They also used to have demo videos linked there too but they don't do that anymore either. What gives?

[Chris Sinagoga]

David,

I asked them that before and their response was something along the lines of there were just too many people whining about form and range of motion and everything. Which seems like a legit reason to discontinue doing it.

Mike,
Just ask yourself what you think the top level CrossFitters would finish the workouts in. For instance, we are behind a little bit so today we are doing the kb swing, ghd, back extension, knees to elbows workout. I scaled the reps to 15 instead of 25 so we could keep the time domain similar to what I think a firebreather would do it in.

[Juan M Jones]

Sometimes they link famous crossfiters wod videos and times. Iv watched a couple of Rich Froning main site wods last week

[David Narens]

Originally Posted by Chris Sinagoga

David,

I asked them that before and their response was something along the lines of there were just too many people whining about form and range of motion and everything. Which seems like a legit reason to discontinue doing it.

I see what you mean, I just watched a YouTube video of Annie S and Greg A doing Elizabeth from 2007. That was the early days and I don't think they were doing it intentionally, standards were largely driven by the games and really developed further a few years after this. They started with their hands on the bar and Greg lowered the bar before full extension on the cleans. Man how far things have come since then. I was watching the 2012 Games earlier and it seems things have progressed so much even since them!

[Steve Loeding]

I think MainSite programming could be SOOOO much better - it is not that difficult to program intelligently.

Why not follow their original template ???? That seemed to make a lot of sense, but they don't even follow that..... seems like it's just thrown together without any thought of "training".

The mainsite lost me when they programmed cindy, and then the next two days more of the same exact movements at high reps.

I get the unknowable, but they need somebody with experience putting those wods together.

Hey CF HQ - are you hiring ??? I'm available