We announced the improvements to our WOD Program a few weeks ago. Please see our recent Blog post for more details. However, we have had a number of people ask us about the new “Fitness” and “Performance” programs that will be starting next week and which program they should follow so we feel that we should clarify a few details.

​The majority of people will be following the Fitness program. It is a constantly varied, high intensity CrossFit program that is designed to get you extremely fit. Once you reach a certain ability level you do not have to start on the Performance Program to get even fitter. We anticipate that there will be some athletes following the Fitness program that will have a better work capacity and strength than some of the athletes following the Performance Program, it is simply that the two programs have different aims. The Fitness program is designed for overall health, fitness and wellbeing whereas the Performance program is geared towards preparing athletes to compete in CrossFit competitions. If you want to achieve excellent strength, conditioning and body composition the Fitness program will deliver that for you and more. If you are interested in competing at CrossFit and following the Performance Program you will need to have completed virtually every aspect of the Level 2 skills on our Athletic Levels Document.

If you would like to follow our Performance Program please have a chat with Andrew or Jon before participating in any Performance level WODs to discuss your numbers and suitability for the program. Should you have any weaknesses that are preventing you from achieving the Level 2 standards please have a chat with one of our coaches who will happily offer advice and guidance as to the best way of improving to achieve them. Athletes will not be able to mix and match between the Fitness and Performance Programs.

For a full overview of our classes please have a look at Our WOD Programs on our website.

At CrossFit Avon, we are constantly striving to improve what we offer, in terms of our coaching skills, programming and service to our members.  Our experiences over the last 5 years, combined with recent studies and the latest research from the health and fitness industry, have led us to believe that there is a need for slightly different programming for our members, depending on how much training experience they have and what their goals are.

The prevalent CrossFit model is one workout for all and then scale to suit each individual. However, the boxes at the forefront of development in CrossFit have been implementing multiple programmes for their members, to give each what they really need for their stage of development.
 
The standard program will now be tailored to suit athletes who haven’t been doing CrossFit or other Strength and Conditioning Programs for long enough to develop substantial strength or conditioning.  It will contain more varied schemes for strength programming as we now know that the athletes who are working below Level 2 standards would benefit from more volume in their training.  It will also have more single arm/leg movements to create structural balance, and more regularity of certain movements to again, increase volume of work done.  This program will be re-branded our “Fitness” program and will be even more suitable for the majority of our members than the previous WOD program, which was trying to pitch it somewhere between this and programming suitable for more advanced athletes.
 
We have been running a Competitors program for those athletes we felt were ready for more advanced programming and who wished to compete, but until now they have been training separately. We now feel that it would be better for the community to once again bring them back into main classes, but still be able to do more advanced programming.  There are also other members who we feel are ready for this level of programming and they will now have the opportunity to follow it.  This program will be re-branded to be our “Performance” program. 
 
As you will see when we implement it, the programs will work alongside each other nicely in a session. There will normally be similar focuses and will often contain some of the same sections.  Occasionally, they may even be the same workout.

Which program should I follow?

The majority of our members will find they will get more benefit from the Fitness Program.  This will be aimed at those who are doing CrossFit for general fitness, health and wellbeing. The Program will still adhere to the constantly varied functional movements performed at relatively high intensity that define CrossFit workouts but will use the latest research in the health and fitness industry to ensure that athletes are performing the most suitable movements and getting the volume of training that they need to make good progress.
 
The Performance Program is aimed at those who are wanting to compete in CrossFit as a sport, which is a different goal to general fitness and can sometimes be at odds with health and wellbeing (we’ve come to accept this fact; people shouldn’t play Rugby for their health and wellbeing either, it’s a sport and has higher injury risks than fitness training.  They play because they want the buzz of competition and are prepared to take the risks).  If you decide that that is your goal, then the guidance for following our Performance Programming is to have achieved, or be very near to, our Level 2 Athletic Skills (see Athletic Levels sheets).  This means you will be proficient at weightlifting and be able to perform multiple bodyweight Pull Ups/Dips etc.  You will need to be comfortable warming yourself up for Weightlifting, as the coach will often be focused on getting the Fitness Programming athletes going on their workout (first 5 mins) before turning to you for technique tips. Please use the Open Sessions to do any 1RM testing etc to ensure you have achieved the Level 2 standards.
 
There may be some people who are at a much higher level in either Weightlifting or Gymnastics than the other.  For them, we would encourage them to get to Open sessions and address these imbalances, or seek the help of our coaching team to see what to do to tackle the issue. 

Please see the diagram below for an overview of our classes but a detailed overview can be seen here.

When will the new program start?

The new program will start on Monday November 30th 2015.

Where can I find the Athletic Levels?

We have made some updates to our Athletic Levels to bring them in to line with our new program. The new document can be downloaded from our website or you can pick up a paper copy from the office (December onwards).