Join us on Saturday, July 7th to set a strength baseline for power and olympic lift movements. This baseline will serve as a starting point for the next 6 months of the programming work that will end with a lifting competition in January 2019. The Baseline Lift Off will give you an idea of your current strengths and allow you to set reasonable goals for your increased stamina, control and strength. Let us know you are attending [here].
Pyramid of Strength Training
Each workout of the day, week, month, quarter, has a purpose that contributes the overall picture of the programming. If your goal is to train for fitness in a well rounded way, there is an important process to follow to obtain maximum capacity. When your coach says ‘trust the process’, that is what they are referring to.
The strongest shape that exists is the triangle. It is the shape most commonly used in successful structural buildings, and is not subject to deformation under heavy loads. Ancient structures in Greece, Italy, and Egypt use triangles and columns in their engineering, and that is why they are still standing despite centuries of age.
What does that have to do with anything, you ask?
A triangle is shaped so that weight is evenly distributed on all sides, with no aspect of its formation being weaker than the other. While this is an excellent metaphor for nutrition, health, fitness, and life in general, it also is why fitness and strength training is taught as a pyramid.
If we follow science, which teaches us that a pyramid’s top is only as strong as it’s foundation, we begin with nutrition. Without healthy, wholesome fuel, the capacity for the rest of the pyramid will never be at its maximum level. [Join us with ModNutrition to find out more]. Hydration is included here, and is an easily adjusted variable.
In our training, following nutrition is metabolic conditioning. Conditioning and endurance is necessary to help your body use its energy stores properly and efficiently. While you can refer to this as merely ‘cardio’, it also includes muscle endurance and stamina. Without the capacity to properly leverage the bodies natural energy process, progress will be built precariously. Intensity also falls under this category. Increasing your conditioning will allow you to maintain a level of intensity that will give you the maximum benefit.
After conditioning comes gymnastics, or body control. The skill and ability to control the body in space builds strength safely, allowing you the confidence and precision to execute complicated movements. When you have studied the skill and technique of any movement, your muscle develops memory that will continue to follow procedure when strength and stamina begin to break down. The understanding of your flexibility, mobility and necessary levels of recovery contribute to your overall bodily awareness as well.
When you’ve established the bottom three rows of the pyramid, you are ready to build your lifting and throwing strength and perfect your sport.
There is a factor that is not expressly included but implied, and that is consistency. In order to effectively build the pyramid from the bottom up, you need a level of a commitment to the process that establishes consistency. There is no shortage of ‘quick fix’ options out there, but a healthy dose of patience and persistence will pay off more than any of those options could offer.
Can you progress to the next level of the pyramid without working on the step before it? Of course. Can you build the roof of a house before you lay the foundation? Sure.
But what purpose would the roof serve without anything underneath it to protect?
“We don’t deliberately order these components but nature will. If you have a deficiency at any level of “the pyramid” the components above will suffer.” – What Is Fitness
What Is Fitness, Crossfit Journal. October 2002.
