Post-Black Box

I just finished my last lift of my first 3 weeks of the ME Black box accompanied by the "heavy" CrossFit workouts. I'll go ahead and restate my program for the first 3 weeks.

Day 1: ME Front Squat
Day 2:XF
Day 3:ME Deadlift
Day 4:XF
Day 5:ME Press
Day 6:XF

Myrecovery has been excellent, even with school and not the best eating. Doing one lift on the BB days is hardly a stress. The CrossFit takes a little more to recover from, but given that I have hit PR's in all the lifts this month, it looks like it wasn't too much to recover from in a day or two.

It looks like my goal of continuing to increase in absolute strength while CrossFitting is working very well. I hit 430# on the deadlift, an increase in 25 lbs over my last PR, a 270# (15# increase) Front Squat, and a 150#(5# increase) Press. I don't know if this says my program wasn't good before, or if the ME Black Box is just a really good program. My thoughts are that I was overtraining before, looking back I realize I was working around 85-90% most of the time, and at high volumes. I once did a 295# backsquat for five reps. My 1RM is 305#, so there's a problem there somewhere. I'm also hoping that by constantly working with the XF workouts using heavier weights, I'm contributing to my absolute strength, even if the intensity is fairly low compared to my 1RM.

For now, I'm going to take a week for some lighter work, incorporating some abs/back and push/pull circuits. I'll lay off the lifting for one week, and then onto another 3 week BB cycle, repeating Fran, Diane, and Elizabeth during that time, while trying some other strength-oriented CrossFit workouts. My lifts for next time will be:

-Clean
-Push-Press
-Back Squat

My overhead strength is a major concern, so I will be using the push-press this time, even if it means I will have two "total body" movements on this cycle. I'll also be slipping in some weighted pull-up work, but it will be irregular.


The experiment continues.