“Strong people are harder to kill than weak people, and more useful in general.” Mark Rippetoe
The stronger you are the easier life will be, and that couldn’t be truer than in CrossFit. Whether it is Power Cleaning 100kg, performing 10 minutes for Max Calories on the Echo Bike or performing a Handstand Push-Up.
What is Strength in CrossFit?
Strength is the ability of your muscles to exert force. We often confuse the size of our muscles with strength. The size of our muscles is associated with strength, but we are focusing on increasing the amount of force your muscles can exert and why it’s important.
The obvious example of why strength helps in CrossFit is the barbell movements.
It is easy to see that a person gets stronger as they deadlift 85kg then 3 months later deadlift 100kg.
Now, when that person needs to deadlift 70kg for a workout, it feels a whole lot lighter. Where we do not always pay attention to strength helping us is on the cardio machines (Rower, Bike and Ski-Erg)
To improve in rowing there are 4 main areas we need to improve…
Technique, strength, body weight and conditioning. Improving each of these areas will have a positive impact on our performance.
We can see the strength in rowing by setting our monitor to Watts. This will show you directly how much power you are able to create…. It is quite simple the higher the power the faster our time will be in a workout.
In gymnastics, strength is also important.
Absolute vs Relative Strength
Absolute strength means all that matters is how much strength is present, regardless of body weight.
Gymnastics is more about relative strength. Relative strength is our strength compared to our own body weight.
When we improve the absolute strength of an athlete and they stay the same size, their relative strength goes up.
Strength Matters
The reason that this is important to understand is that with barbell movements, we can increase both absolute strength and relative strength.
If you want to be better at handstand push-ups, muscle-ups, and pistols then the barbell movements with accessory work will help.
The faster your hips can move, the better your kip.
The more you can press or bench press, the better your handstand push-ups and dips.
Strength In Our Next Block
Strength is involved in every single aspect of CrossFit. At CrossFit Marrickville our next block which starts at the beginning of September has been planned out to allow the body to lift heavy with adequate recovery time from the previous training days which allows you to hit each day with intensity and intention.
Start making strength a priority in your training and your CrossFit ability will go through the roof.
Reach out for a FREE Trial session HERE and see how much stronger you can be.