We’ve had some confusion about the percentages we’ve been putting on the board in Foundation work, so I’m going to lay out a more in-depth explanation of what we’re doing.
Previously, when we posted Foundation work for the day, it would look something like this:
Foundation
Push Press
5 x 3
This notation simply told you that we were doing Push Presses in sets of 3, and that we were going to do 5 work sets. It did not give explicit guidelines as to how heavy those work sets should be, and the guidance we gave in the gym was mostly along the lines of “warm up with the empty bar, and keep adding weight with the goals of completing 5 heavy sets of 3 and also finding the heaviest good set of 3 that you can do today.”
Now, when we post Foundation work, it looks like this:
Foundation
Push Press
5 x 3All work sets at 70%+ of 1rm
All that’s changed is we’ve added a percentage. The goals of the Foundation work have not changed: We still want you to try to find the heaviest good set of 3 push presses that you can do on that day, and we still want you to accumulate a total of 5 heavy sets of 3.
The difference is that we’ve now added guidance as to what we mean when we say “5 heavy sets of 3.” The percentage given, in this case 70%, is the threshold between warm-up sets and work sets. You now have a firm, objective line between sets that “count” and those that don’t: In the Foundation work above, every set that is less than 70% of your 1-rep-max is a warm-up set, and every set that is at or above 70% of your 1-rep-max is a work set that counts towards your 5 sets of 3. If you don’t know your 1-rep-max of the movement, you treat the Foundation work just like you would if the percentage weren’t there: You start at the empty bar and keep on working up until you’ve found your heaviest good set of the day.
Adding the percentages allows us to make sure that we’re accumulating the volume that we want to accumulate on our strength work, as opposed to just blindly going for a max set every day. Making sure to complete the listed number of sets at or above the listed percentage will help you get stronger, and will also help to reinforce proper technique by ensuring that you’re completing enough challenging-but-not-maximal sets to learn how to maintain perfect form when under stress.
If you have any questions about the percentages, or anything else about how we complete our Foundation work and WOD, please let a coach know!
Team WOD!
In teams of 2:
Two-minute tests:
Max Junkyard Dogs
Max over/unders
Max burpee med ball passes
then…
Relay Race!
400m, 200m, and 100m
One partner runs 400m while other rests. When first partner returns, second partner runs 400m. When second partner finishes 400m, first partner runs 200m. Pattern continues until both partners have run all 3 distances.
