We are moving onto our second 6-week pre-season training block.

You have already put in a solid amount of work for the coming season:

Strength-wise, we’ve built up to heavy fours (4s) on the strict press and chin-up, triple (3) on the deadlift, doubles (2s) on the front squat and the snatch, and single (1) on the power snatch (strength stream).

Conditioning-wise, our focus has been building your bike capacity as a foundation for general and leg endurance. We’ve explored Bossi intervals (VO2max), Wingate (anaerobic capacity), over/unders (lactate threshold), and FTP intervals (threshold). We’ve also worked in a sport-specific context with “high lactate intervals” (VO2max) and 4-6min VO2max intervals. We’ve also built aerobic volume in the weekly base training session (engine stream).

Skills-wise, we’ve worked on barbell cycling, muscle ups (strict and kipping), midline capacity (GHD sit-ups) as well as kept touches on many other movements.

Now that we are six (6) weeks into our pre-season training, check in with yourself: “What progress have you made in the past six (6) weeks? " and “What opportunities do you have ahead of you now?”

We’ll continue to build on the same themes over this pre-season block to put you in a strong position to have a successful season in 2025 (whatever you decide to do).

If you want to continue building your work capacity (especially on the bike), have a hard time recovering between sessions/intervals/workouts, or just feel like your conditioning is holding you back, Engine Stream is the best choice for you.

We’ll continue to use the BikeErg as our main tool to build up your conditioning and leg endurance. You’ll have two (2) primary Bike sessions a week to build up both your MAP5 (VO2 max) and FTP20 (threshold) capacity. We’ll continue to incorporate some biking into our mixed-modality intervals.

If you don’t have a BikeErg or want to prioritise a different machine, you can do any of these sessions on SkiErg, Rower or Air bike.

You’ll have a weekly competition workout, an optional longer aerobic base session, and skill work together with four (4) sessions with strength work.

Strength Stream is your best choice if you want to continue focusing on getting stronger or struggle with heavier workouts.

You’ll have five (5) lifting sessions each week, three (3) of which will involve weightlifting (but we focus less on weightlifting overall in this block). Below is an overview of the strength targets/themes for the block.

Conditioning-wise, you’ll have a weekly competition workout and a mixed interval session (to leave room for more strength work). There is less skill work than on the SPP and Engine streams.

If you have a competition coming up, feel like your strength and conditioning are pretty balanced, and want more exposure to sports-specific skills and competition workouts, then the SPP stream is the choice for you.

The training elements are similar to Engine stream, with an additional competition workout each week.

Following the first pre-season block, we’ll continue building your capacity on the bike, both for base endurance and to improve your leg endurance for the season. In the New year (final week of this block), we’ll re-test the Bike power profile to see how far you’ve got.

We have some more intervals to explore in this block (upcoming ones highlighted):

MAP5 Bike intervals - Focused on improving your 5-minute power (or really your 4-8 minute output, both on and off the bike, as well as your aerobic capacity). We’ll have different interval structures such as:

FTP20 Bike intervals - Focused on improving your 20-minute power (or really your threshold capacity on and off the bike).

Both bike intervals use the Bike power profile results for individualised interval targets. Of course, there is also guidance for how to approach the sessions if you didn’t do the testing.

Mixed intervals - These will blend sports-specific movements and monostructural work. Our main focus on these is building your aerobic capacity. Some nice variations here:

Aside from these we’ll have 1-2 weekly competition workout sessions, and optional aerobic base work (Engine stream, but you could do it also on the other streams) to cover your conditioning needs.

The Engine stream features both of the bike sessions, mixed intervals, competition workout and aerobic base session.

The SPP stream will have a choice of which bike session to do (pick based on your testing results), the mixed interval session and two (2) competition workouts.

The Strength stream has the fewest amount of conditioning sessions to allow for sufficient recovery to maximise the higher-volume strength training. You will have just the mixed interval session and a competition workout.

These are the themes for this block. We’ll cover the strength stream in detail, Engine and SPP will have only some of these elements. Overall, we have a little less weightlifting in this block.

We will continue to focus on increasing our consistency with heavy weights, 80-90%. This will help you raise your bottom level. Being consistent with numbers close to your 1RM often gets overlooked, but it’s very important in our sport. This will help you when there is a heavy barbell in a workout, a snatch or c&j complex or when you have to lift heavy under fatigue.

What is the number you can ALWAYS hit? Let’s keep increasing it!

Snatch

Each week features two (2) snatch variations on the Strength stream and a single (1) one on the Engine/SPP streams.

We’ll do 4-weeks of snatch high pull + snatch on Mondays, building up across the weeks. The emphasis here is finishing the pull and being aggressive in pulling yourself under the bar. We’ll build to heavy single on week 5, before deload on the final week.

Thursdays (strength stream only) are power variations, building up to sets of 5 with moderate heavy loads, before re-testing the AMRAP 2 @ 65% on the final week.

C&J

Each week features two (2) clean and jerk variations on the Strength stream and a single (1) on the Engine/SPP streams.

Mondays are similar to power snatches on Thursday (strength stream only). The first two weeks focus on hang power cleans. Then, we’ll work up to sets of 5 on power clean and push jerk over the next three weeks before re-testing the AMRAP 2 @ 65% on the final week.

Thursdays are steady percentage clean and jerk complexes (1-2 of each / set), this time progressing in intensity (%s) through the block.

Here again the Strength stream will have all of these themes while Engine and SPP streams will have some of the elements in the programs.

In this training block, we’ll work on 3-5 rep range for your back squat, strict press, chin up and deadlift, build to a heavy triple (H3) back squat (WK6), heavy four (H4) and two (H2) on front squat @ 2 RIR (WKs4/5) and heavy single (1RM) on snatch, strict press and chin-up.

Just like in the last block, we’ll have some variations on the usual lifts (1 1/4 front squats, deficit deadlifts, wide grip pull ups, close grip bench press, front foot elevated lunges) in the first 3-weeks before fully focusing on our main target lifts. The intent behind the start of the block is to break the patterns a bit, to identify potential weak spots in the lifts and to feel fresh for the main lifts again.

There is also a good variety of assistance circuits for prehab and movement variety.

All progressions (main and accessory) fall into two (2) categories: 1) Linear ( = you’ll aim to do more reps OR heavier weights each week), 2) RIR-based top set + back-off sets/reps.

Make sure you’re pushing yourself (so you make progress) while still staying with the RIR guidelines (they’re part of the progression).

Skill work continues on a similar path to the last block. We’ll primarily focus on building your capacity in the most common competition movements.

The sessions will have 4-5 elements: 1) movement prep, 2) Barbell cycling, 3) Gymnastics capacity, 4) Movement micro-doses ( = making sure we keep exposure to movements that otherwise might not have shown up in training within the week), 5) AMRAP 2s (from test week) repeats (not every week).

We’ll keep most elements in 2-3 week focus blocks before rotating movements to give you time to make progress.