12-week Macrocycle

  • Cycle Goals

    • Re-establish base strength after heavy metabolic work during the Open Preseason and Open Season. Improve kinesthetic awareness on base lifts with pauses and tempo work.

    • Clean up movement mechanics on major lifts that tend to arise from heavy open prep.

    • Peak Oly and/or powerlifts in prep for SuperTotal on Saturday, June 8th.

    • Reintroduce running and re-establishing base running volume.

    • Peaking for Coalition 5k on Saturday, June 8th.

 Performance Strength

  • Oly

    • Split jerk

      • Focus | Find your foot position | Most athletes struggle with finding the proper foot placement for the split jerk. You’ll have 8 weeks to work on it .

      • Macro 1 | Behind the neck jerk from split stance + split jerk

      • Macro 2 | Jerk balance + split jerk

      • Macro 3 | Pause split jerk + split jerk

    • Snatch

      • Focus | Bar path and OH strength     

        • Macro 1 | Bar path, second pull & verticality over mid-foot, and OHS to reinforce catch position

        • Macro 2 | Bar path, leg drive and turnover

        • Macro 3 | Progressively heavy singles with snatch balance reinforcement for OH position

    • Clean     

      • Focus | Bar-path, first pull, and turnover

        • Macro 1 | First pull strength & bar path

        • Macro 2 | Segment cleans for positional strength, leg drive and turnover.

        • Macro 1 & 2 will finish with EMOMs to find heavy singles for the day in Weeks 4 & 8

        • Macro 3 | Increasing intensity with decreasing volume. Mixing Clean + Front squat + jerk complexes with heavy singles.

Fitness Strength

  • Deadlift & Bench Press

    • Macro 1

      • Pause work | Rate of force development

      • Deadlift | Mid-shin work increases focus on leg drive off the floor and finishing strength from a relatively disadvantaged position

      • Bench press | Pause within 1” of the chest, remain engaged during those pauses!

      • Speed out of the pause is more valuable than load.

      • Week 4 | Build to a heavy triple

    • Macro 2

      • Deficit Deadlifts

      • Leg drive from disadvantaged position

      • Positional overload for leg drive stimulus

      • Relatively moderate loading to keep rate of force development high

      • Bench press | Progressive volume build from 4x5 to 6x5 over three weeks with moderately heavy intensities (75-85%).

      • Week 8 | Build to a heavy double

    • Macro 3

      • Heavy triples, doubles and singles with decreasing volume and increasing intensity

Back squat

  • Performance

    • Macro 1 | Moderately heavy (75-85%) with increasing weekly volume (4x5 to 6x5)

    • Macro 2 | Pause volume (70%+)

    • Macro 3 | Heavy intensity, low volume/peaking (mostly 80-90%+)

  • Fitness

    • Macro 1 | Moderate volume-load with tempo at 4.2.1 @ 50-70%

    • Macro 2 | Moderately heavy volume load (75-85%)

    • Macro 3 | Speed squats @ 50-60%

    • For athletes looking to pump up back squat numbers, the program is set up for you to back squat 2x/week if desired. Volume and intensity are balanced over the week between the two tracks so you won’t get obliterated under too much volume-load.

    • For example, Macro 2 for Performance features pause work, which naturally keeps the intensity tempered as we work on rate of force development out of the hole.  Macro 2 for Fitness features a progressive build of volume and load that will challenge maximal motor unit recruitment.

    • This allows us to hit both ends of the spectrum for maximizing adaptations and increasing force output.

Conditioning

  • Macro 1 | Balanced duration, intensity, and skill work. Being mindful of overall conditioning volume, especially with increased demands from building back base strength.

    • Introduce low levels of running, weather permitting.

    • Running becomes more consistent when the daily low temperatures are 40° or higher.

  • Macros 2 & 3 | 8-week 5k running program released on Instagram

    • Aiming for 2x/week running in class in varying volumes with a progressive build in volume over the 8 weeks. Again, weather permitting.

    • With the increased demand of running, double under/box jump volume will be low to moderate during this period to balance the ballistic stress placed on the joints (feet/ankles/knees/hips/lower back) as well as tendon structures like the patellar/quad tendon and Achilles tendon.

    • Science nerd note | In dynamic and ballistic movements like running and jumping, tendons are designed to absorb force from the ground and transmit force from the muscles back to the ground to create movement – either vertical oscillation for jumping or a mix of horizontal/vertical oscillation for running.

    • This will be post-Quarterfinals so it should not impact any athlete participating in that event.

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