Last week, we kicked off our series on what you can do to support the aging process in the gym. It started with a talk by EC Synkowski. You can find that blog post here.
EC concluded her talk by stating that the training application to address weight and hormonal changes as we age is strength work and intensity.
Over the next few blog posts, I’ll address how to bring strength and intensity to your program. I’ll also highlight several things we do in the gym to sabotage our own efforts. And, you can watch below too.
Designated Strength Days
Per EC’s talk (available here), we know that the preservation and development of muscle mass as we age directly contributes to our metabolism. We build strength in the gym in many ways, one of which is through designated strength days in our training protocol.
These days look like:
- Backsquat 5×5
- Press 7×3
- 2 Clean and Jerks every minute for 15 sets
Low Attendance on Strength Days
Here’s the problem – strength days are some of the lowest attended days at my affiliate. It’s like pulling teeth to get folks to come – more on that in another blog post! I believe this is commonplace for many gyms as well!
If you or your athletes are like many, you skip the strength days to find the “sexy metcons.”
Over the past year, 67 of the 363 days programmed at Roots were designated strength days, roughly 1/5th of all workouts. While this might not seem like a lot, it adds up and affects the quality of your metcon efforts! We’ll address that phenomenon in our next blog post.
The Programming Analysis Tab
SugarWOD gives programmers an excellent way to reflect on their programming via the Programming Analysis tab. Here you can see the number of barbell (strength) days that were programmed at your gym over a month.
What to Do?
First, ADD a strength day to your program. If you attend class 3 days per week, add a 4th day to your training plan.
Check out the video below as we discuss why athletes should attend strength days and addresses how athletes approach them.