For the last few months, I’ve been paying closer attention to how I spend my programming time and I’ve been trying to answer one simple question: What task or problem eats the most time? The more I paid attention to what I was doing, the more I noticed it wasn't high-level planning or deciding whether to progress an athlete or pull-back. It was rebuilding things I’ve already built! Writing a week without a well-defined mesocycle or template immediately turns it into a crippling blank-page exercise. Then I find myself trying to invent a new week layout or progression for a problem I’ve already solved dozens of times. Sometimes this is because the solutions I've built aren't organized well enough to find and sometimes because I'm focused getting the week layout right rather than building the actual week. The physical process of building the program often takes significantly longer than deciding what the program needs to accomplish. Reading an athlete’s feedback, understanding how they’re adapting, and deciding whether to continue progressing, back off, or make a structural change takes time. However, that’s also the part of the coaching process where we deliver the most value to the people we're guiding, so I'd rather focus my time there than re-typing the same solution to a problem over again. The distinction I keep coming back to is this: Individualized coaching doesn’t require inventing a new solution every week. It requires: - A well-defined plan - A library of proven progressions - Clear rules for selecting and adapting them - Enough attention to athlete feedback to know when the plan needs to change Interestingly, I looked back through several of my mentorship conversations, and this same problem appeared over and over again. The most common recommendation I’ve made to other coaches is to stop programming from a blank page and start building a searchable library from the work they’re already doing. Write it once, save it in a place you can access it again, organize it, then adapt it for a client's unique situation.

This week = war of attrition! I've broken this workout down as throughly as possible in this week's strategy guide. Even though the movements are simple and the weights are light... there is still a LOT you can do to maximize your performance here. If you take one thing away from this guide, READ THE BURPEE / WEIGHT CHANGE STRATEGY SECTION!

Here is this week's strategy guide - this is basically just a test of RMU as you clearly saw in the demo. I've tried to give some strategy and points of performance around preserving the RMU by the end. GOOD LUCK AND LET US KNOW HOW IT GOES!

If its not the right topic for this community @Kyle Ruth , please let me know. Who struggles with lower back pain or has clients? So because i have lower back issues since almost 2 years, i read a lot. (L5 S1 protrusion) Had the niveau of an QF athlete, some Open workouts top 10% I think back pain is like shoulder pain. Many have it, but everbody's solution is different :D What i've noticed is, many pro athletes have/had lower back pain. And I ask myself what did they do to train healthy again? - emma lawson - alexis raptis - adrian mundwiler - katrin davidsdottir - tia Cause I messaged a lot with Adrian Mundwiler. He struggles for 5 years, had several injections, pain free for a couple of months, pain again, injection, etc. So he asked himself what is the real issue, cause he trained his back a lot. And for now it seems he has the solution - adductors Adductor stable --> Psoas calm - Pelvis neutral - L5/S1 relieved I know Paul Weber let me train jefferson curls (when he coached me for a couple of month), and clients of him felt better with this exercise. I did 26.1 and my back after this is super super tight (the day after). Some bending is painful. I know its a protection reaction and not another protrusion, but its really annoying cause i thaught with no pain i can train like i did to my best time. But honestly a did a lot of bodybuilding and no common CrossFit movements the last year or so. So my body couldn't adapt. In Adrians case for example he did a dumbbell snatch in training and booom back pain. So i asked myself whats the real problem? Tight hips over time and suddenly it could be any movement to blow it up again?! Its a mysterium for me... What lower back pain experiences do you have with yourself or your clients? Thank you!

Hey everyone - just wanted to share the 26.1 Strategy Guide I created, feel free to use this with your athletes or share with your gym communities. Coaches - if you have feedback or sections you disagree with I'd LOVE to have some dialogue here. I've been creating these now since the 2017 Open, but never really got a chance to get critical feedback on what goes into them.