This is by far my most successful program for competitive athletes. It is hard, but if you can finish it, you will be stronger, and more competitive than ever. This program marks the beginning of over 6 months of programming. It is designed to take you from your current level to peak performance in approximately 14 weeks. Keep reading for the first eight weeks of programming, all totally free!

As I alluded to earlier, this is a program primarily designed for those fitness athletes who are competitive. That doesn’t mean you have to go to competitions every week, or be a regionals hopeful. It simply means that you take your training seriously, and want to be fitter than the old you. Most importantly you must be willing to put in the work.

Downloads

This article will come with several downloadable files found at the end of the article. You’ll notice that I don’t put them here because a lot of you will download them, never read the rest of the article, and then email me, asking questions that have already been answered!

I’m always happy to respond to your questions and comments, but do a bit of reading first!

If you like awesome fitness programming, click here to join the Tier Three Team. It’s totally free and you’ll get the latest articles sent to you as they are released. If you don’t join the team, I’ll tell all your friends that you still wet the bed.

Equipment Considerations

These first two cycles will primarily be preparing you for the much heavier lifting that follows, but don’t let that fool you into thinking it’s light weight. It isn’t, and for that reason I recommend you make sure you have a solid lifting belt, one that can be used for both power and olympic lifting.

I would recommend something like this Schiek belt. It will work very well for all lifts and is much less likely to pinch your skin on moves like deadlifts. It also has a ton of great reviews.

Cycle 1

This cycle is designed to ease you back into hard training. This means that you will see a lot of moves around the 10 rep range, which allows you to build some muscle in preparation for the high intensity strength cycles to follow. It also allows you to practice the movement patterns, and become more neurally efficient. Trust me you’ll need every advantage you can get.

The more astute athletes will notice that I’ve included longer and heavier WODs in this first cycle. This is more mental training than anything. If you can push through these difficult WODs you’ll probably have the mental strength to gain some serious fitness as the programming becomes harder.

There is also bonus work listed in cycle 1. This is to help shore up weaknesses that are very common in almost all athletes. They are to be done after the WOD and are generally pretty quick. Each session should be able to be completed in an hour or slightly more.

If you want to learn how to customize your own programming get this ebook!

I’ve also listed a partner WOD for those that compete with a partner. This allows you to practice team communication and working together. This WOD should be substituted for one of the single ones during the week. You pick when you want to do it, and which other session you will replace with the partner WOD.

Cycle 2

This cycle begins the meat of the strength program for my competitors training plan. You will need to download the spreadsheet at the bottom of the article, and drop in your current personal records on the lifts.

I want to caution you to use good current PRs not lifetime, all the stars aligned, best ever lifts. I will give you a personal example. I have back squatted 405 at least once a year in the past two years, but I cannot squat that weight at anytime all year long, so I inputed 375lbs for my 1RM back squat. This is a weight I know I can hit at any time with decent form. Be a little more conservative than aggressive when inputting your PRs.

You’ll notice that there are two strength movements each session. The WOD is complimentary to the strength programing, as this portion of the overall training plan is designed to increase maximal strength.

As any reader of this site will know, strength is key for top performance, but it is not sufficient alone. Generally speaking half of the yearly cycle will be strength development and the other half will be conditioning heavy. This is, of course, and over simplification, but it gives you a general idea where we will be going.

The Strength Program

We all know we need to get stronger to be better athletes, and the bulk of this portion of the competitors program is designed to do exactly that. In fact I spent quite a bit of time devising and testing a brand new program specifically for functional athletes.

When designing this strength plan, I looked at the components of already very successful lifting plans (Smolov, 5/3/1, etc), and saw what commonalities they all have. I was then able to isolate the most efficient volume and intensity progressions that yielded the best results.

Furthermore I let my home box try this plan out, and so far almost everyone has PR’d on their lifts, and we’ve yet to actually attempt our one rep maxes. Needless to say I’m very excited about this program.

I recommend downloading the spreadsheet and inputing your PR’s as we spoke about earlier. The spreadsheets numbers are the most accurate. The percentages I’ve included in the PDF’s are rounded numbers from the spreadsheet. There isn’t a whole lot of difference between them, and both will yield great results, but personally I just used the spreadsheet as it’s much easier.

PDFs, and Spreadsheets, Oh My

I know you’ve been waiting, and here are the treasured downloads.

Competitors Program PDF (Cycles 1 and Cycle 2)

Competitors Program (Spreadsheet and Strength Worksheet)

Parting Thoughts

This is a difficult program that starts off with a generous four week intro period. Don’t skip that period. You will need to shore up some of your weaknesses, and prepare yourself for the heavy lifting that will come. If you put in the work, pay attention to your nutrition and recovery, then you can crush PRs on this program.

If you’ve finished this program you rock, and you deserve a reward. Here’s part two of the program .

Just remember when the going get’s rough, I never asked for your safe word.

It’s not too late to take your fitness to the next level!

As always leave your comments and questions below, where I can respond to them the quickest.

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