Girevoy Sport in a Crossfit setting – I/C 13th Edition Training Cycle “Endurance Lifting”

Welcome back to Old Country Strong, this is the home Informational Blog of the Old Country Iron Club.

We’ve been on a bit of hiatus as of late. The Club finally took root in a home gym when I opened Morgan Junction Crossfit and things have been a bit hectic the last few months. But now it’s time to get back to business. And business will be expanding this Blogs content. We’re going to begin to go more in depth with program model design as well as more Coaching and nutrition articles and how they pertain to training (Don’t worry there will still be plenty of Mad Mule rants).

So I figured I’d start our first article back with some information on our next coming 13th Edition Training Cycle. As I announced in our “I’m going to Kill the Bear” article on our I/C Training Log this particular Cycle will be dealing with what we’re referring to as “Endurance Lifting.” That dirty word all lifters hate to hear ENDURANCE. Well what if I was to tell you that you were going to able to keep your Stationary Lifters status but work on you Endurance? Maybe you’d be a bit more inclined to listen then wouldn’t ya.

Its really simple actually. We’re going to fully embrace a three week Cycled phase of a training where the main focused lift is not that of a Olympic or Power lifting aspect but that of the kettlebelll lifting. What I’m getting at here is that we’re going to take three weeks and work the GS Sport aspect of the Kettlebell Snatch into a structured Training Phase.

Man was that exciting…. I hope you didnt watch the whole thing cause it can become a bit repetitive in some points.

Three weeks of that huh?

Yes, starting January 21st we will have a designed Kettle program laced three days a week into a I/C training block. The lift EMPHASIS for this phase will solely fall on the Kettlebell Snatch, BUT it won’t be our only lifting. No, we will also be incorporating in a number Front squat progressions including Tempo and non tempo styled lifts. The intensity level of designed conditioning workouts will increase as well to balance out what I’m looking at with our kettles as a Long Slow Distance style Conditioning.

Now the Club has always heavily dug into Kettle training and GS styles of lifting to help develop our program but this three week phase will be a first. The idea all came about when I was having a conversation with the guy I call Coach Jeff Martone. Jeff had recently switched over from the Long Cycle to the Kettlebell Snatch for his Sport discipline. Now Coach was already a Master of Sport in the Double 32kg Long Cycle (Clean and Jerk) and was looking forward to getting into some new training.

I myself had ranked in the Snatch and talked with Coach how much cross training I did while I was preparing for my set at Nationals set in 2011. This quickly led to us talking about style of training that could be utilized along with it. After a good 30 minute discussion Jeff and myself had decided to try have me design a Cycle of training using the Kettlebell Snatch as the lift Emphasis. This would be a first for I/C Depth Programming and its a first I’m very excited to undertake.

Coach set me up with a model design to take an athlete to the goal of a 200 Rep Snatch set and then the reprogramming and reformatting of the design began. The end result of that is the Training that begins Next Monday.

This week our Old Country articles will be dedicated to preparing a athlete to what they will need to follow a Training Cycle like this. We will show you what is needed and how to set it up so you can in turn set yourself up for success in this coming 13th Edition.

Buckle up folks cause this is going to be a Hell of a Cycle.

Posted by: Z