is cross fit alone enough to get hellastrong?

butterbear1980

So I'm posting this not as a theoretical for most folks but specifically for me. I know lots of women at my gym get really strong with cross fit programming but lately I'm wondering if I should add in something else too just for strength gains.
I've noticed most of the ladies at our gym who lift really heavy either played college sports or are younger than me.
I did the open last year and really struggled with the heavier lifts. My goal is to get stronger before the open this year.
Here are my stats:
34 years old
Xfit 18 months
5'3.5" large frame 140# 21% body fat?
Lifting maxes Dead lift 230 squat 210 press 80 oh squat 80
TDEE 2400 currently cutting at 10% 2030
Xfit 4xs week in summer and 5x plus 1 oly class in winter (I'm a farmer)
I'm feeling like I've got my nutrition and sleep really dialed in and want to 'take it to the next level' but not really sure what that means. Thanks!

kelly_e_montana

Well you know me, of course, since we are pals. I am 41 and I do lifting and CF 3-4x per week as well as oly class. I also PL with accessory lifts 45-90 minutes 3x per week most of the time. I have been CF'ing for 11 1/2 months.

I came into CF with no athletic background other than hiking/very slow trail running, pole and yoga. I had been doing some weights on machines over a 10 year period, but more in the 3 sets of 10 reps @75-80% range for hypertrophy. I never played sports in high school or college. When I started, my lifts were probably 90 push press, 95 bench, 140 squat, 200 DL, 55 front squat, & 35 OHP. While I have not one-rep max tested in a while, I would estimate if I were to do so I would be at about 135 push press, 230-250 back squat, 285-300 DL (last pr was 285 in June), 180 front squat, 150 bench & 100 OHS. I am hitting 3 rep maxes 5-10 pounds less than all of those right now. I would say the great majority of my strength gains were from doing Wendler progressions outside of CF, although we did do one 20 back squat progression 2x per week in CF for about 6 weeks that gave me strength and mass gains all over my body and a 25# squat increase. Your box might have much better strength programming than mine.

I am looking at transitioning to Texas Method for PL after my powerlifting meet in November. I was considering switching to Outlaw Way programming for Crossfit. However, I have decided to compete in powerlifting so I decided to continue with a dedicated lifting progression program for now. For you, you might want to look at Outlaw Way if you don't want to separate your CF and your lifting as much. They also have Outlaw Power and Outlaw Connectivity (gymnastics) stuff you can add in. Lift Big Eat Big also makes a 12 week strength training program for CF athletes, although I have not purchased that.

The issue is that when you start building in outside strength training, you start running into competing programming and that can be difficult to navigate in terms of recovery and adaptation. I do find my strength increases are much better if I cut my WODs back to 3x per week, but I do sacrifice endurance. Right now I am trying to stick to shorter, higher intensity metcons instead of longer, lighter WODs. Since my box is primarily focused on general fitness programming, my goals as a strength competitor sometimes don't jive with the majority of my box.

I know some programs (Outlaw is one of them) have cycles throughout the year where in the off-season you are building up to the Open in terms of strength and technique...and then in the cycle right before the open, you focus on increased endurance and speed with your new-found strength gains. That's kind of the approach I'm planning on taking since I don't feel like I can do everything at once both time-wise and in terms of optimal strength gains or optimal endurance gains. I have one coach who thinks you can do all of this by just doing more Crossfit (and he is a really good masters competitor who got into the masters qualifier last year). However, I have a couple of other coaches (who don't really compete for the Open but who have the best fitness levels and strength #'s in our box according to our group testing) who absolutely disagree and think that strength is the foundation for getting better at CF.

You mentioned you have a coach who is a former powerlifter to me once? Perhaps ask that coach what he/she thinks as well.

Are you friends with cmay? She is super strong and may have some ideas for you.

bostonwolf

^everything she said.

I feel like Crossfit will get you stronger, especially in your core and trunk muscles. At least this was my personal experience and continues to be my experience. And those gains lead to BIG boosts on your lifts, IMO.

At some point though, you're going to max out those gains. And to get stronger you just need to lift weights heavy. I'm almost at the point when I'm going to start adding in some lifting programming (and I will probably pester Kelly when I do)

kelly_e_montana

^everything she said.

I feel like Crossfit will get you stronger, especially in your core and trunk muscles. At least this was my personal experience and continues to be my experience. And those gains lead to BIG boosts on your lifts, IMO.

At some point though, you're going to max out those gains. And to get stronger you just need to lift weights heavy. I'm almost at the point when I'm going to start adding in some lifting programming (and I will probably pester Kelly when I do)

Agree on core. If nothing else, core, core, core! It will help your lifts tremendously, according to my coach. I am very lucky to work out with my training partner/coach who is very knowledgeable in PL, as she holds the USAPL Open Women's 75kg Raw Powerlifting combined total national record (total of # lifted in squat, bench, and deadlift). So I don't want anyone to think I know anything...I stole this all from her.

JeffseekingV

IMHO, you're going to ask yourself what your ultimate goals are. Pure strength might mean you have to do something other than CF. But all around strength might be well suited to CF

GiddyupTim

I am going to say 'Yes,' tentatively.

Here's what I know:

All the elite Crossfit competitors, mix in heavy lifting sessions, doing the basic compound lifts, with their WODs.
Okay, that might suggest that WODs won't do it. But, if that is really true, then why do we do weighted backsquats and deadlifts and cleans, etc. in the WODs? What's the point? Why don't we all just got to one of those bootcamp workouts, where they do jumping jacks and maybe some push-ups?

More to the point, there is a guy who runs a blog called T-Nation. The blog is for powerlifters and body builders. Like so many weight lifters, this guy used to belittle Crossfit all the time. "Jack-*kitten* of all trades, masters of none," he would say. "How you gonna get swole if you don't do six sets of six, to failure?" he would ask. "Crossfit cannot work."

But then, about six months ago, he abruptly changed his tune. He said he works at his gym with Crossfit people, and he could not deny that they were very strong. So, he began to get curious and investigate.

Now he says that he believes Crossfit makes people so strong because they [we] do all kinds of posterior-chain lifts (deadlifts, backsquats, cleans), and they [we] do so many of them. It makes us overall stronger and it translates to all our lifts!

He even wrote a blog where he admitted that he got so curious that he went to Crossfit for three months. He says his lifts improved -- and this is a guy who had been powerlifting/body building in the gym for years and years!

Here's a link to one of the columns: http://www.t-nation.com/training/crossfit-apology

I would guess that the guy who runs my gym is 5'9" and perhaps 170-180 pounds. He might even weight less. But he push-presses 245 pounds and deadlifts better than 420 pounds (I am not sure the exact number). He works hard on his Olympic lifts, but I have never seen him doing strict sets of bench press or squats or whatever. He probably does sometimes. But it is not a focus.

So, again, I'm gonna say: Yes!

JeffseekingV

I've never done crossfit and do traditional lifting. But I do superset a lot

5'7" 170lbs. Age 46. Current bests which are lower than my bests 20 years ago of course. Raw

Bench 240lbs.
Squat. Not 100% positive but 345lbs or so, belted.
Dead. 385lbs no belt.

butterbear1980

IMHO, you're going to ask yourself what your ultimate goals are. Pure strength might mean you have to do something other than CF. But all around strength might be well suited to CF

Thanks everyone for the great advice. No sheer strength isn't my main goal. But right now my back squat/dead lift/overhead squat/snatch are all behind where my bodyweight movements are at, pull ups, pushups, sit ups, toes to bar etc., I'm pretty good at all of these. My longterm goal is to build strength endurance speed and flexibility and right now it just feels the strength is lagging behind.

gweneddk

IMHO, you're going to ask yourself what your ultimate goals are. Pure strength might mean you have to do something other than CF. But all around strength might be well suited to CF

Thanks everyone for the great advice. No sheer strength isn't my main goal. But right now my back squat/dead lift/overhead squat/snatch are all behind where my bodyweight movements are at, pull ups, pushups, sit ups, toes to bar etc., I'm pretty good at all of these. My longterm goal is to build strength endurance speed and flexibility and right now it just feels the strength is lagging behind.

You really can't make generalizations in all honesty; it depends on programming. My box does a strength or skill move before each WOD and I believe that over time, this type of programming will result in slow strength gains. One thing to keep in mind is that for the first couple years of strength training, much of the "strength" you gain is neuro-muscular adaptation. In other words, your brain gets better at telling your muscle how to contract to perform the lift. A lot of this is accomplished just by doing a certain amount of repetition, which is one thing CF has going for it (assuming you are able to focus on form in the midst of a WOD).

Right now I am training for a strength comp that includes the Oly lifts and powerlifts. I generally WOD 3-4x/week, go to Oly class 1x/week, and then hit 1-2 of the lifts that haven't been done in class on my own time. If I was in your shoes, that is what I would do. I would just pick 2 lifts to focus on (maybe squat or DL and one OH lift) and make sure you hit each of them at least once/week.

kelly_e_montana

I agree that it comes down to strength programming. Most of the ladies in my box who have done CF for several years cannot Rx weights on WODs. We don't do a lot of strength programming in my box. Depends on what yours does. We only do a strength skill 1-2x per week for 15 minutes, and given that I go 3-4x per week, that would be very little strength programming. Generally in CF, you don't work on strength during WODs for the most part; you work on muscular endurance if you are choosing the right weight for max conditioning and power output.

I think CF is great for building muscular endurance. But in my opinion, do some outside work on your own to build your base and then you can work on muscular endurance through CF. If nothing else, just do it for 2 months and see if anything changes! If it doesn't, stop doing the outside work!

ahemming1

I agree...it all depends on the programming at your Box. My Box programs lifting almost every day (only exception is Thursday, which is generally an active rest team WOD) and we have an OLY class on Saturday. If you participate and put the effort into it, I think it could be enough. I tend to lift heavy and go longer on the WOD if needed, but that is my preference.

I am actually going to post a question on the board...you may want to see how people respond if interested. But, Barbell Shrugged is doing a program called Barbell Bikini. It's a combination of losing fat and making gains. I have only listened to 1/2 of the video, so I don't have the details, yet. There is a cost, which means you have to be pretty serious at making the gains if you do this in addition to CF.

vs1023

Also in agreement on the programming. We do more strength at my gym than actual Crossfit WODs. This is why i chose them, but i think they base they're programming around Westside barbell and Conjugate strong.

So I agree that depending on the programming you can get hella strong.

When I started my dead lift was 175, press was 80 and squat around 100, bench 93. Now i'm at 250 deadlift, 103 press, 150 squat and 123 bench. I also recently had some injuries and i was surprised to see that only about 3 weeks from starting back since injury (I was out 4 weeks for a hip thing, doing modified lower and then i broke my foot and didn't do anything for 6 weeks straight) I can still hit my maxes except squats. That's a work in progress.

I'm also in a cut when i had been eating at maintenance or a slight surplus the past 10 months or so and i feel my strength is still pretty good on the bar, but i'm still kind of slow endurance wise, but that was never a strength for me (body weight stuff)

ascrit

The coaches at my gym definitely seem like they know what they are doing and the programming seems logical to me. If that wasn't the case I would find another gym.

butterbear1980

The coaches at my gym definitely seem like they know what they are doing and the programming seems logical to me. If that wasn't the case I would find another gym.

Let me be clear I love my coach and totally trust the programming its just my bodyweight work is ahead of my lifts and so my specific question was if I should do more lifting with the goal of getting stronger at the oly lifts.

butterbear1980

ahemming1 wrote: »

I agree...it all depends on the programming at your Box. My Box programs lifting almost every day (only exception is Thursday, which is generally an active rest team WOD) and we have an OLY class on Saturday. If you participate and put the effort into it, I think it could be enough. I tend to lift heavy and go longer on the WOD if needed, but that is my preference.

I am actually going to post a question on the board...you may want to see how people respond if interested. But, Barbell Shrugged is doing a program called Barbell Bikini. It's a combination of losing fat and making gains. I have only listened to 1/2 of the video, so I don't have the details, yet. There is a cost, which means you have to be pretty serious at making the gains if you do this in addition to CF.

ahemming1 wrote: »

I agree...it all depends on the programming at your Box. My Box programs lifting almost every day (only exception is Thursday, which is generally an active rest team WOD) and we have an OLY class on Saturday. If you participate and put the effort into it, I think it could be enough. I tend to lift heavy and go longer on the WOD if needed, but that is my preference.

I am actually going to post a question on the board...you may want to see how people respond if interested. But, Barbell Shrugged is doing a program called Barbell Bikini. It's a combination of losing fat and making gains. I have only listened to 1/2 of the video, so I don't have the details, yet. There is a cost, which means you have to be pretty serious at making the gains if you do this in addition to CF.

butterbear1980

11/2014 update. Sticking with just xfit and one Oly class, no extra lifting and my lifts are going up steadily:
DL 250
Squat 215
Press 95
C&J 115
Snatch 80
I'm seeing real improvement after upping cals from a cut to maintnence 2600-3000/day. Excited to see more gains before the open.
2015 goals
DL 300
Squat 230
Press 100
C&J 125
Snatch 90
Come on hellastrong!!!!!

bostonwolf

Great article about some accessory lifts that Olympic lifters do to improve their lifts.

http://www.boxlifemagazine.com/training/building-strength-for-olympic-weightlifting

bostonwolf

Most of us will see dramatic improvements in our Olympic lifting because we never did them before Crossfit. Now that we systematically train for them, our technique is every improving and our strength and mobility are too. Those three things for us are the low-hanging fruit, so to speak. At some point those gains will decline and get more difficult to attain.

That is when the accessory lifting will be of the most benefit.

sayhitostephz

I think it's possible. I have never been an athlete (more of the reading/movies/hanging out person), but I have gotten very strong just doing CF 3x a week, with no supplemental lifting. I started in July 2013 and these are my recent numbers:

Deadlift: 305# (10/15/14)
Back Squat: 215# (2/22/14 - missed the most recent 1RM day)
Front Squat: 165# (2/19/14 - ditto above)
Overhead Squat: 105# for 2 (4/2/14 - have never tested from a 1RM in this movement)
Bench: 140# (10/20/14)
Clean & Jerk: 145# (5/23/14)
Strict Press: 110# (10/23/14)
Snatch: 115# (today)

That being said, I think a lot of it has to do with the programming at your box and genetics. Our head coach programs in strength progression cycles and also has olympic lifting classes available on the weekends (which I do no attend), but I have seen great progress just attending the regular classes. There are other girls that go just as often and have been doing CF just as long as me that aren't nearly as strong though (or are much stronger). I think there are a lot of variables at play here...