Barbell Strategy Podcast

"CrossFit is a strength sport until you're strong enough — and then it becomes an endurance sport." Trying to classify CrossFit as strength or endurance biased is a debate that keeps coming up in coaching and programming circles. The answer will always depend on who you ask and what their background is. What is certain is that you need to reach a baseline level of strength to compete effectively a...

Maximal strength is an important part of CrossFit, it is very obvious in the beginner phases of the sport when you are not strong enough to do some of the things you see in class, at competitions, or what athletes are doing at the Games. However, once you have reached a certain level of strength, the challenge then becomes expressing that strength under more greater fatigue or within an endurance...

Everyone comes into CrossFit with different training experience, but what should it look like when someone is strength training as a beginner, progressing through to intermediate and advanced levels? In this episode we discuss the different phases, along with the appropriate training methods and styles of programming to use at each stage. Having a clear path and approach will help you navigate som...

Season two of the Barbell Strategy Podcast is all about strength training. Over the next four episodes we will do a deep dive into all things strength for CrossFit. We'll be covering things like: how strong you need to be for CrossFit, how to develop strength endurance for CrossFit as well as plenty of practical training and programming takeaways. In this first episode of this season we keep it a...

Competing in CrossFit is very challenging. It is something that causes your average everyday athlete to knuckle down and start approaching their training, nutrition and lifestyle in a way similar to a professional athlete. But what kind of preparation goes into this and how do you select the right competitions at the right time? As a beginner it pays to compete often and develop a hunger and love...

Athletes are often focused on the skills they need to unlock, the next competition result, and what they should be doing now to perform in a year's time. But what happens after next season? Is there a better way to develop their skills for the long term, rather than simply acquiring them as quickly as possible? And what do training goals look like further down the line? This kind of long-term thin...

Athletes often seek remote coaching to achieve very specific goals. It might be mastering a certain skill, qualifying for a competition, or taking on a new challenge. What usually happens, though, is that through the process of remote coaching, athletes discover unexpected benefits that keep them engaged longer than they anticipated. Having experienced coaching from both sides—as athletes and as c...

CrossFit is a sport that demands a wide range of skills and physical qualities. You could argue that strength forms the foundation of all of these, but does that mean it's often overemphasised in people's training and coaching? One of the biggest things we'd both change, looking back on our younger years of competing and coaching, is how much focus we placed on strength.. In this week's episode, w...

We all have a pretty clear picture of what remote coaching looks like day to day, but what are the processes that make it so effective beyond individualised training and regular feedback? What is it that creates the individualised training programme in the first place? This week we take a look at how we start out with a new athlete and what the onboarding and initial training might look like in di...

Welcome to our first introductory episode of the Barbell Strategy Podcast. In this episode, we (Luke and Sam) share our stories on how we found CrossFit and got into coaching. We finish off the episode by answering some of your questions on training masters athletes and structuring a deload. Check out the episode for tales of CrossFit "back in the day", university stories, and some nuggets on coac...