Friday 02.01.13

Craic Ladies Pull Up Some Serious Results

In the past 2 months at CRAIC, 10 ladies got their first dead hang pull-up! This is the most we have had in such a short period of time since we opened our doors in October 2010. Huge congratulations to the 10 ladies below! They all worked their asses off.

Denise, K-Love, Jayme, Beth

Nicole B, Alla, Anne D, Julie , Elizabeth 

So what changed? Where are these results coming from all of the sudden? Well, we removed band assisted pull-ups from our program and we got all our members who couldn’t do pull-ups to work on partner assisted pull-ups, negatives, and bicep curls (yup) twice a week.

We tested each member’s current ability level and based on their results placed them into the following groups: Beginner, Intermediate and RX. We adjusted their reps, sets, rest, loads, volume, and exercises to meet each person’s individual needs and get them moving in the right direction faster. We studied strength and conditioning principles to find a solution to the fact that everyone walking through our doors is different and what they need to do in order to improve must reflect that to a certain degree. Giving everyone exactly the same workout isn’t good enough. I encourage you all to reread our post from a few months back on Neuromuscular Efficiency for a little more info on why training age is so important in relation to exercise selection and prescription. Just to be clear, I am only referring to what we did on strength days in this post. All of the ladies above still participated in conditioning workouts over the past eight weeks, but instead of band-assisted pull-ups they performed ring rows.

Every one of these 10 women tested into the Beginner category by doing zero pull-ups. Then we gave them the tools to move away from Beginner towards Intermediate. It worked, and it will continue to work. 10 women in eight weeks got to move away from weakness towards strength. They all achieved something that they have not been able to do for most of their lives. We don’t have a way (yet) to measure partial pull-ups so we have no idea how many women went from zero pull-ups to “almost one” or “much closer,” but we know that number is big and we expect the train of first pull-ups to keep rolling and that PR bell to keep ringing!

There are people walking into CrossFit gyms who have never worked out a day in their life, or if they have then it has never involved following a structured program. If you are someone who is thinking of joining a CrossFit gym, make sure you look for one that is run by staff who make the effort to educate themselves on how to tailor their program to their clients’ needs. At CRAIC, we do what we say we’re going to do: deliver balanced fitness. We have begun tracking our clients’ results and programming with a purpose—and it’s working. We want all our current clients, prospective clients and competitors to know that our program is different and it gets proven results. So allow us to pound our chests a little as we present this proof. And while we’ll keep improving our programming, today we can stand proud with data behind us and say that we’ve got a very strong foundation.

Some of you may not have liked being categorized as a Beginner or Intermediate, or you may not have liked the idea of being “tested.” Don’t get caught up worrying about what group you tested into. Expectations can play tricks on you. The secret to success is letting your expectations go, accepting the reality of where you are in the present, understanding that you want to be better, and setting about to do the work required. Our Beginner program is designed with principles of strength training that will move you towards Intermediate, our Intermediate program will grow you towards RX and RX will move you towards RX+ and mastery.

ONWARD

Stay tuned for the final results from our eight week cycle. We will be including the data in next Monday’s post.

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