Good Afternoon CFTP!
Great work grinding through our yearly assessments this past 3 weeks. Below I have some announcements about what is next with the level method and what is upcoming! Hang in there, there is a lot to go through.
Level Method Assessment
Congratulations on accomplishing the assessments this past few weeks. We went from 20% of our members who have tested all assessments to 44.7%! Those of you who are part of the 44.7% will be in the drawing tonight for some new shoes! If you are missing a couple and want to be eligible, log on now and enter your levels!
Along with the drawing, all of you who have achieved a new fitness level, will receive a certificate! On top of the certificate, you will receive a special Level Up shirt according to your color that you have achieved! Check out the front logo!
It is very important that we celebrate our victories!
How is your overall Fitness calculated?
I know there have been questions on this. Why am I a blue level when 90% of my assessments are brown+? It's important to know that your overall fitness is going to be based off of your weakest assessment. This is just for your overall. You will still go off of your different assessments each day according to what we are doing that day. i.e. On Olympic Weightlifting days, the choice for you will be based solely on your Weightlifting assessment. So even though your overall level may be a blue, on the day we do some lifting, you may be a black.
We call this the rule of 2s. In the Level Method, your Overall Level is based on your weaknesses, just like life. Your Overall Level is calculated using the RULE OF 2's. It's simple: take your two lowest levels, apply two stripes to each of them, then look for your lowest score, and that's your level.
We'll use my assessment below to review what it all means.
So even though most my levels show me at a purple+, my Rowing assessment is at a Blue. So if you add 2 placements to my lowest assessment, I get Blue II as my overall fitness level. Let's take a look at a few of these things because data is only good if you can read it.
Relative Strength vs. Objective Strength
You should have noticed that during the assessments there were some strength tests that went off of your bodyweight percentage and some had standard weights as targets. Relative strength speaks to how strong are you compared to your size? So when we tested off your percentage, i.e. Weighted pull-ups/Ring Dips, Back Squat 20 Rep, etc... That was testing your Relative strength. I am a small person so it makes sense that my Relative Strength is going to be stronger than my Objective Strength. So what is objective strength? I will take an experience I had with Big Ben Aimone as an example. I went out a few years back to his ranch in Wyoming and try as I might to tip over the steer... I was unable to do so. I tried my hardest and I am relatively strong but Ben's objective strength was on full display. He came over and that steer was on it's back immediately when he intervened. Good thing about Ben is he is objectively strong but also relatively strong... Beast of a man!
Energy Systems
Let's talk about energy systems.
Your Electricity score is an aggregate score of your overall muscle strength. Your Plumbing score is an aggregate score of your overall cellular fueling. Your Ventilation score is an aggregate score of your overall aerobic fueling.
There is much more that goes into this and I recommend you read this article to learn more: "The Simplest Way to Understand Energy Systems"
What's next?
Hopefully that answers some questions about the levels and how to read the data. So what do we do now? First off, I do not plan to do a full 3 week assessment until this time next year. I feel that a full assessment once a year is a good way of doing things and doing it right after our promotion will help our new peeps hit the ground running. This does not mean we won't test between now and then. My goal will be to hit each of these assessments at least 2 more times between now and the next 3-week test. That means we will be testing between 2-3 a month depending on the programming.
Programming...
That leads us to programming! I am super excited for the upcoming programming. I am heading back to roughly following what Mayhem is doing with a CrossFit The Point twist here and there. I have discovered that any programming we subscribe to will go through lulls where certain movements get neglected and I am hoping to design this programming to avoid those extended neglected movements.
On that note, I hope you all are excited to hit an Olympic Lifting cycle! I have been waiting to implement this since I came back in the spring and am excited to finally incorporate some snatching, cleaning, jerking, squatting... On a regular basis.
Within this programming you will begin to see us using the term RPE. I wanted to explain what this means. There are a lot of ways to look at it but at The Point we will be using RPE like this:
- RPE means Rate of Perceived Exertion. We use this instead of giving exact percentages sometimes to help you get more out of the lifting. On a “perfect day” your percentages for the lifting would match up exactly with your RPE (example: 3x3 Snatches @70% 1RM would feel like 3x3 Snatches @7/10 RPE).
- Some days how you feel and your RPE may mean you decrease (or increase) your weights so that it matches up with RPE, instead of feeling like you have to do the percentages exactly (examples 3x3 Snatches @7/10 RPE is harder today. So instead of using 70% 1RM (which would feel like 8/10 RPE, you use 60-65% of your 1RM that day).
- The reality is some days you feel great! And others you don’t. Either way, that is okay! The RPE scale allows us to be flexible in our training while still getting stronger!
Vogl Challenges
These challenges will be monthly side challenges. The winners (one male and one female) will get their name on a trophy that will stay at the gym and they will get a vinyl sticker that they can put on a water bottle or whatever.
The challenge the Vogls have this month is:
2 minutes to complete as many sandbag burpees as possible. (Video example of the movement will be posted in our Facebook group)
Buy in: 20/15 cals echo bike.
The buy in will take place during the 2 minutes to encourage athletes to push the pace.
The scores will be put on the whiteboard back by the drinking fountain.
No limits to attempts. Must video attempts please. Post to social? Even better! #voglchallenge
Sandbag weight: 65 for men. 50 for women. There is also a smaller sandbag weighing approximately 25 lbs for those that want to attempt the challenge at a lower weight. The lower weight disqualifies them from the awards but may give bragging rights.
Goal Setting Sessions
Now that we have gone through all of the assessments, I would love to sit down with you and discuss your personal goals. The goal-setting sessions will be short sessions where myself or Coach Jared can sit down with you and talk about your goals and your motivations. This will help us better cater to your fitness and help you achieve your specific goals.
These goal setting sessions are free for all unlimited members. You can sign up here (Keep in mind that this is a new system for us so there may be a chance that when you schedule, we may need to reschedule with you):
Upcoming Events
CFTP Lockdown:
This event is an in-house event that will have 3 divisions. The divisions will be based off of the Level System. This competition will be a 3-week competition and will be completed during class times. More details to come next Spotlight but be thinking about a partner! This will be a same sex partner competition and ideally you will be with someone close to your same level.
'Twas The WOD Before Christmas:
This event will take place the first Saturday of December. This event is always well attended and averages members from around 20 different gyms inside Utah, Idaho, Wyoming and Colorado. I would love to have a good number of CFTP peeps representing but if you don't want to compete, I could definitely use you as volunteers. So keep that in mind...
I think that is enough for a Sunday. Please do not hesitate to contact me with questions. My goal is to help you in any way I can.
Coach Dan
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