Legion Strength & Conditioning Podcast

Coaches need to know how to deal with the athlete who wants to increase their squat strength — and requests to add a Smolov squat cycle on top of their normal training. We want athletes to have autonomy and to feel comfortable making suggestions and guiding their training. Simultaneously, as coaches, we can see the bigger picture in a way that athletes can't. And, we have seen a lot of mistakes an...

Jacob Tsypkin is the owner of Anarchos Training Methods. He has helped athletes at every level in CrossFit. He is a former affiliate owner at CrossFit Monterey and has coached athletes qualifying for the CrossFit Games. I first remember hearing about Jacob's coaching when he coached the winner of the UK CrossFit sectionals, Owen Satterly , back in 2010. Jacob was one of the earliest adopters of re...

Using data to track (and hopefully improve) performance is nothing new for the kinds of coaches who listen to strength and conditioning podcasts. We hope that data will help us find patterns in messy, complex systems (like the human body) and guide the training that we give athletes. But what happens when that information is not used correctly? Consider the recent widespread use of stretching and...

We've all been there. You come into the gym feeling tired and run down, and the day's programming calls for a 1RM back squat. Should you swap days around and do something different? See how your warm-up sets feel and go from there? It's competition season in CrossFit, so you may see more people than usual writing out spreadsheets of split times on mini-whiteboards. But what happens when you start...

To improve, do we need to faithfully execute everything in our training program exactly as written? Not really — the goal of training is to stimulate adaptation, not to check everything off of a list. Athletes often get caught up in the details of plans and progressions and may lose sight of the overall goal of training. To create long term progress in training, we need to be adaptable in order to...

How much does your performance in the Open matter if you are confident that you will make it to Quarterfinals? Many athletes have shifted their focus in training away from the Open and onto Quarterfinals, but staying focused on the bigger picture goal after a disappointing Open finish can be difficult. While Open finishes can provide helpful data points in guiding training priorities, it's dangero...

When is it appropriate for athletes to adjust their training based upon how they're feeling? If an athlete is fatigued and stressed going into a session and they're supposed to max out their snatch, should they adjust the session? For a sport like CrossFit, athletes and coaches should consider the goal of the training session. Are we trying to target a specific training stimulus? Are we hoping to...

How often should CrossFit athletes compete? Only the Open and Quarterfinals? Do a local throwdown every weekend? Hit every online qualifier workout that comes up? As coaches, we see people make mistakes by both competing too often and be competing too infrequently. Some people place all of their focus on the CrossFit Games season while not getting enough experience in live competitions. Others wil...

In a rare topical episode, Luke, Jon, and Todd weigh in on the recent drama surrounding the firing of Dave Castro. CrossFit firing Dave Castro is like WWE firing Vince McMahon. While Castro had a clear creative vision for the CrossFit Games, there were also obvious downsides to having so much responsibility for an entire sport's ecosystem in one person's hands. The guys discuss where this has work...

When getting back into training after injury, it's easy to compile a laundry list of corrective exercises to throw into warm-ups and accessory work to add to training sessions. But, how much do these things actually help when we are chomping at the bit to get back into "real" training? This episode wraps up the mini-series on injury and pain in CrossFit with a deep dive on returning to sport-level...

In episode 86 of the Legion Strength and Conditioning podcast, Jon, Luke, and Todd continue their mini-series on injury and pain. This discussion focuses on recovering from injury and the return to play process. Athletes and coaches often overreact to an injury, either pushing through pain and discomfort too much or, on the other end, catastrophizing and freaking out. Strategies for injury managem...

Episode 85 of the Legion Strength and Conditioning podcast is the second part of a mini-series about pain and injury. Specifically, this episode goes over the relationship between technique, fatigue and injury. Whilst technique is essential to reduce the risk of injury, fatigue often plays a significant role, especially in a sport like CrossFit. Todd and Jon discuss the different factors that coul...

For the next mini-series on the Legion Strength and Conditioning podcast, Todd, Jon, and Luke discuss injury and pain and how it relates to CrossFit. Episode 84 kicks things off with a discussion on the relationship many athletes have with pain. Whether an athlete is dealing with a long term overuse injury or a dislocated shoulder, it's important that they have realistic expectations of what the r...

Episode 83 of the Legion Strength and Conditioning podcast finalises the series in affiliate programming. In this episode, we get tactical and talk about programming specifically for strength training. A big challenge when programming for groups is balancing the needs and wants of a diverse membership. Some people coming into the gym may never have touched a barbell before, whilst others may be ex...

Episode 82 of the Legion Strength and Conditioning podcast is part three of our series on affiliate programming, with Luke and Todd getting in the weeds on how to actually write a week of training. Figuring out what to include in a training week can be difficult when working with members who have inconsistent attendance habits and poorly defined training goals. Todd and Luke outline some things th...

Episode 81 of the Legion podcast continues our series on programming for affiliates, with Luke and Todd diving into more details on what's helpful and important for gym programming. A gym and its coaches must build trust and buy-in with the gym members, but this becomes more challenging as more people are added to the mix. Todd and Luke outline how to minimize discrepancies between what is program...

Episode 80 of the Legion podcast is the first part in a series where Todd, Jon and Luke discuss programming for group classes at gyms. Programming for individuals is more straightforward than programming for groups. Individuals usually have specific goals, specific strengths, and specific weaknesses which guide the program design process. However, when programming for a gym, there needs to be a ba...

In Episode 79 of the Legion podcast, we discuss how much CrossFit people should be doing — particularly intermediate athletes. How much time should they spend doing training with structured progression and how much time should they be doing chaotic CrossFit workouts? Athletes often get to an intermediate level either through the brute force method of a "just doing a lot of CrossFit," or through a...

Episode 78 of the Legion podcast gets tactical and provides strategies for breaking up your reps in different conditioning workouts. When performing conditioning workouts, there are a lot of moving parts to consider when devising a plan. For example, how many reps should you do unbroken, how much time should you take between singles, and is it better to break things up into small sets or big chunk...

In episode 72 of the Legion podcast , we discussed translating improvements in weightlifting technique into actually getting better at weightlifting in conditioning workouts . Improving your positions in a non-fatigued state doesn't always translate into better lifts after you've been running around the block and doing a bunch of double-unders. This isn't just an issue with weightlifting movements...

People talk about "fast twitch athletes" and "slow twitch athletes," but does categorizing people this way hold any water? Are muscle fiber types relevant for performance? Can muscle fiber types change with training? On this episode of Science with Sergio, we discuss the paper Human Skeletal Muscle Fiber Type Classifications in an attempt to translate both the academic jargon and the bro science s...

Everyone has seen the Instagram posts of heavy snatches or ring muscle-ups with a caption that says something like "Finally! Been chasing this one for awhile…" This combination of exasperation and relief is palpable for anyone who has been tormented by a training plateau. Athletes often get stuck at a specific skill level in training, and it can feel like they're never going to make progress. This...

The CrossFit Games Semifinals are underway, and we are starting to see how the new qualification structure for the CrossFit Games will play out. After a few seasons of chaos — precipitated by some sudden and, quite frankly, nonsensical changes and a global pandemic — we are starting to see how the season will look going forward. In an ideal world, the Semifinals will build on the best of the Regio...

When designing weekly templates for athletes, it can be overwhelming to think about all of the things that they could be doing. Most people want to get stronger, improve mobility, build their engine, and improve their technique — all at once. This is hard to do! When designing training templates, it's important to pick clear priorities. But, how much training does someone need to do to maintain tr...

We recently received a question about improving weightlifting technique for CrossFitters — especially for folks who are trying to hit heavier lifts in conditioning workouts. It's challenging to incorporate skill work into training in addition to the volume most athletes are already doing in order to get stronger and improver their conditioning. And, even if an athlete does make technical improveme...