PRVN Weekly Overview
Introducing the Chimera Strength Cycle: A Comprehensive Overview
As we embark on the new year and the new CrossFit Games season format, we introduce to you PRVN’s first training cycle of 2024. The revamped Chimera Cycle! Chimera was a monstrous fire-breathing hybrid creature. This is the energy we are bringing as we prepare you to breathe fire for the CrossFit Open and Quarterfinals.
With the new season structure, we have adjusted the Chimera cycle to ensure it matches the goals of those competing or just participating in CrossFit Open & Quarterfinals. The Chimera cycle has been split up into two Phases. Each phase has its own particular focus when it comes to Strength / Conditioning & Gymnastics which will not only make it unique, but also build off of itself.
Below is a thorough breakdown of what you can expect from each Phase:
Phase 1 of training will run from January 8th until February 25th. It will be 6 weeks of progressive training, then 1 Deload week before Phase 2. The focus through this 7 Week training block is to build our athletes up to tackle the necessary skills for the Open as well as prime our engines to hit each Open workout to the best of their ability.
Strength: Front Squat, Bench Press, Strict Press & Power Cleans:
We’re utilizing a 5-3-1 progression format. With the aim of targeting and testing your 5-rep Max. We will ensure that we hit one major lower body lifting day per week as well as one upper body strength exercise per week to ensure that we are progressing in our base strength and creating a solid foundation of support for our entire body. Remember, building our global strength and increasing time under tension, bulletproofs the body, increases metabolism, and provides a potent stimulus for increased neuromuscular efficiency and mechanics.
Conditioning: Building a Fire Breather
We will be continuing with the theme of blending and challenging different combinations and time domains moving forward, however there will be an added bias toward workouts in the time domain of 8-15 minutes, which is where the majority of Open workouts tend to target. These workouts will be more focused on Open style workouts and skills with more workouts where we will have added complexity and challenge as the workout progresses. This means more weight ladders, or higher skill gymnastics movements towards the end of a workout.
Gymnastics: Specific Skill Practice Days / Pieces
We will be creating certain focus days where we will tackle progressions on movements that tend to pop up and create bottlenecks in workouts. These are generally high skill movements or larger volume pieces of high skill gymnastics like Chest to Bar Pull-ups, Handstand Push-ups, Handstand Walks, Toe to Bar, and both Ring and Bar Muscle-Ups.
Upon the completion of Phase 1, we then transition into Phase 2:
Phase 2 of training will run from February 26th until April 21st. It will be 7 Weeks of progressive training, then 1 Deload week prior to the CrossFit Quarterfinals. During this Phase we will complete both the Open & Quarterfinals.
Weekly Structure
Here is a brief outline of how the weekly structure will work during the 3 Week Open. Normally we like to vary the days of the week and move off a typical weekly structure that athletes can expect week in and week out. We love the OG model of keeping the weeks constantly varied, but due to the Open and wanting to get as many athletes involved as possible along with ensuring proper recovery and peaking structure leading into each Open workout. This means that we will front load the week with our strength / olympic lifting progressions to allow for more recovery leading into the weekend. The expectation is to have more challenging training days on Monday-Tuesday-Wednesday, with an active recovery / monostructural or skill focused day on Thursday, the Open workout on Friday and then move into a typical weekend structure of a partner or team workout on Saturday and then filling in the week with what we missed or want to tackle on Sunday.
Strength: Front Squat, Bench Press, Strict Press & Power Cleans:
After testing the 5-rep maxes we will now shift the focus to be more Absolute Strength biased, training for a 1-rep max retest of the Front Squat, Bench Press, Strict Press & Power Clean. You will notice that each session is low in volume but the intensity of the working sets will be super high. This is for the sole reason that we want to focus purely on Strength development. Our endurance work will come with all of the other aspects of training.
Conditioning:
We will expand on the focuses through phase 1 continuing to develop your capacity with more mixed workouts, that progress in skills, load and volume to have you prepared for Quarterfinal style workouts. We understand that we are training our greater community and not everyone in the gym will be tackling these workouts, but this allows us to create a focal point for our training that will ensure everyone is moving forward and progressing even those that don’t care one bit about the Open or Quarterfinals. As always by challenging yourself with different skills, loading schemes, and varied workout structures we can broaden the horizon of everyone’s fitness capacity.
Gymnastics:
We will continue with our specific skill focused development days while also blending in some more mixed work that has a targeted emphasis on gymnastics density. This means we will be blending in specific targeted workouts for skill and capacity development. This will move from single modality pieces that we targeted in the first phase into more mixed modality pieces that are specifically designed to create a greater challenge and help athletes progress in their skill acumen.
We’re super excited here at PRVN for the first training cycle of the New Year. Each and everyone of you have worked so hard during the off-season and now this is your opportunity to really showcase that. We look forward to guiding you through this journey as you explore your potential and become a more well-rounded athlete.