Training block overview - Competitor (SPP) - WK13-18/2025

The main priority for this training block is to help you prepare for the 2025 CrossFit Games Semi-finals. We’ll focus on developing your sport-specific work capacity (semi-final style movements/workouts), movement skills/capacity, and tactical skills so you’re ready to perform in May.

You can also use this stream to prepare for other competitions in May or to simply push your sports-specific capacity further.

- 5 training sessions (90 minutes to 2 hours), an optional additional base training/Z2 day, and a full rest day (on Sundays)

- Four (4) main conditioning sessions (1-2 sport-specific interval sessions and 2-3 weekly competition workout sessions)

- Weekly skill session

- Weightlifting and strength work spread across four to five (4-5) training sessions.

Each week is organised based on the movements, repetitions and intensity to allow for sufficient recovery for you to work hard in each session (but due to the high-intensity nature of sports-specific training in our sport, the fatigue is likely to accumulate more over the weeks than in the strength/engine streams).

Most of the training in this stream is at a fairly high intensity, so you must be diligent with your rest, recovery and nutrition.

The main priority for the conditioning sessions in this training block is to prepare you to perform multiple hard workouts with full intensity over a competition weekend. We’ll have multiple competition workouts each week, work on your intra-workout recovery ability and do VERY high intensity anaerobic intervals to build your top end capacity.

- The weekly competition workouts are an opportunity to practise pushing yourself, develop your movement capacity under fatigue, work on your pacing at high intensity, and an opportunity to refine your tactics and strategy for the Semi-finals workouts.

- Two (2) to eight (8) minute mixed-modal high-intensity intervals, with active rest periods challenging your body to produce and clear lactate in a sports-specific context.

- AMRAP/EMOM 40s at threshold with short rest intervals to help your body become more efficient at managing lactate at sustained workloads in longer workouts.

- Short (but hard) anaerobic power/capacity intervals with longer recoveries that will build your lactate tolerance, and prepare you for high output workouts.

- Aerobic base sessions (optional) of longer duration, lower to moderate intensity that improve mitochondrial density and capillarization, which indirectly supports lactate clearance and ability to recover within and in-between workouts.

It’s important to note that each of these sessions should be done at prescribed intensities to stimulate the intended adaptations properly.

Learning and practising “Intensity control” (matching intensity/pace to session intent) is a key skill that will elevate the level of your training beyond merely “doing workouts.” It will allow you to make the most out of each session and ensure sufficient recovery from your training to continue to put in high-quality work.

This block focuses on preparing you for lifting heavy at the Semi-finals. We’ll follow similar progressions as on the Engine stream (review their insights for reference) but mix in more sports-specific scenarios (e.g. lifting under fatigue and preparing to max out multiple lifts under time pressure).

The skill sessions in this block are focused on the more challenging gymnastics movements such as muscle ups, rope climbs, handstand walks, single-leg squats, etc. We’ll work on efficiency, speed and capacity across the sessions.

We’ll also keep working on the barbell, DB and KB skills, but they’ll have less emphasis in this block.

As we are using this training block to prepare for Semi-finals (or other competitions in May), the training will be by design not sustainable, meaning you will need a) do your very best with sleep, nutrition and other lifestyle factors, and b) have a deload at the end of the training block to recover.

The quality of your training is the quality of your repetitions. Aim to make every training session the best it can be. Focus on what’s within your control:

- Giving your best effort (this is not merely pushing as hard as you can each time but reflecting on the intent of the training session, then applying yourself to it).

- Doing the work (and not skipping skill pieces or other parts of training)

- Holding yourself to movement standards (establishing solid foundations for all upcoming training)

- Warming up / cooling down

- Sleeping well

- Fuelling sufficiently

Exposure to competition workouts will help you develop your tactical skills (making and executing plans) as well as improve your movement skills in a high-intensity context.

For each conditioning interval, it’s important that you hit the with the intended intensity. If you go too hard on the 1st interval in a session, your intensity will drop too much later in the session. If you go too easy, your output and heart rate won’t get high enough to stimulate the intended adaptations.

For strength and skill, we are looking to simply put in quality work from one session to the next. Aim to build each week from the last one, whether by increasing the reps or weights (depending on the progression). Focus on accumulating excellent repetitions to lay a solid foundation of strength and technical capacity.

You need to be able to hit the training sessions with appropriate intensity and recover from them. This means eating enough overall and getting sufficient carbohydrates to fuel your training. Having a carb drink at hand for training sessions and re-fuelling as soon as possible after might be a good idea.

A good sign that you could eat more to fuel your training is that you feel hungry. If you’re not sure, a few rough reference points for daily intake (if you’re into macros) could be:

Protein - 2.2g per kg (1 gram per lb) BW

Fat - 25-30% of daily calories or 1g per kg (1g per lb) BW

Carbs - Remaining calories or 4+g per kg (1.8+g per lb) BW

Calories - 22 x BW (body weight) in kg (or 10 x BW in lbs) x (1.5 to 1.8 as “activity multiplier”)

Remember that if you don’t eat enough, you won’t recover and get the results you want.

The most important thing for your recovery will be to get enough (7.5-9 hours) sleep regularly. Your training (and results) will be better if you can sleep more. Aim to be in bed before 11pm latest, and sleep in a cool, dark, quiet room. If you can, get out for a short (10-minute) walk soon after sunrise (before 10am is fine) and again around sunset. This will help set your circadian rhythm so it’ll be easier to go to bed early.

All other recovery modalities will come second to this. Implementing a 10 to 30-minute daily mobility routine, split between morning, training and evening will also very likely pay off, both short and long-term.