The benefits of increased maximal strength manifest themselves in many ways during the Crossfit Games, the two most notable are increased force production and improved strength reserve. The stronger a muscle is the more force it is capable of producing, the more force is being produced the farther each step will carry you, the more powerful each swim stroke is and the higher each jump will be, in addition to many other movements being improved. Strength reserve, is the difference created between maximal strength and the strength needed to perform certain physical tasks. For example, in one of the 2011 Crossfit Games Men’s events, the Rope/Clean, athletes performed clean and jerks with 145 pounds x5 reps, 165×4 reps, 185×3 reps, 205×2 reps and 225×1 rep, interspersed by rope climbing. If an athlete has a large strength reserve, for example if they can power clean 350 pounds the weights being used would only represent 41-64% of the athlete’s 1rm. While if the athlete only had a maximum clean and jerk of 275 pounds, the weights used would represent 53-82% of the athlete’s 1rm. It is undeniable that anyone will expend less energy lifting 64% of their maximum than they will 82% of their maximum, and the less energy that must be expended during the lifting portion of an event, the more energy will be available to utilize during the endurance based portions of the event. The same logic could be applied to any of the Crossfit Games events, such as the Triplet Sprint where women were required to do 4 sets of 10 deadlifts with 165 pounds interspersed by muscle ups, situps and sprinting. The lesser percentage 165 pounds represents of that athlete’s maximum, the faster they will be able to do the reps and the less energy they will spend doing them. Read more of Maximal Strength Programming for Crossfit by Chad Wesley Smith jtsstrength/articles/2012/11/12/jts-classic-maximal-strength-programming-for-crossfit/
Posted on: Thu, 22 Aug 2013 16:00:01 +0000