Build Better Skills By Mayhem Athlete.
- Train Skills Without Fatigue Your brain does not learn new motor patterns well when tired. Strength and conditioning researchers have known this for decades:
“The body does not have the capacity to learn movement patterns when highly stressed/fatigued... To learn skilled movement patterns that are to be executed under fatigued conditions, that learning has to occur in non-fatigued states” Williams, L. R., et al. “Motor learning and performance and physical fatigue and the specificity principle.” 1979.
Learn new skills at the beginning of your sessions and in isolation. Once you become proficient with the skill, you can add complexity. Here is an example of how you could progress cleans:
Phase 1 = Clean technique work on its own
Phase 2 = Cleans paired with a monostructural movement (i.e., EMOM of cleans and biking)
Phase 3 = Cleans paired with an antagonist movement (i.e., cleans and push-ups)
Phase 4 = Cleans paired with an agonist movement (i.e., cleans and wall balls)
Phase 5 = Cleans in a traditional CrossFit metcon (i.e., cleans with muscle-ups and rowing)
- Use Low Reps and High Sets To avoid fatigue, train your skills at low loads with no more than two to three reps. You can still get plenty of touches on the skill. You will just have to add a lot more sets.
Here is one of my favorite ways to set this up in training:
A. Every 60s x 20 sets: 1 Slow Pull Clean @ 60-65% With this setup, you accumulate 20 cleans at a low load and fully recover between reps. To make the session even more effective, film your first and last set and try to make them look the same before progressing in load or complexity.
- Only Train Up to Two or Three Skills at a Time CrossFit can be daunting. There are always so many things to get better at. But, as famous strength coach Dan John says, fitness goals are like chasing rabbits. You won't catch any if you try to chase all the rabbits simultaneously.
Let's say you wanted to be audacious and improve your snatch, bar muscle-up, and double under tech. The best way to train a couple of skills simultaneously is to place them on separate training days. Here is how I would recommend structuring it over a three-week cycle:
Monday: snatch tech
Tuesday: bar muscle-ups
Wednesday: double unders
Friday: snatch
Saturday: bar muscle-ups
Monday: double unders
… and so on
Over three weeks, you will get five touches on each skill. On the other hand, if you only chose to attack two skills at a time, you would get about eight touches on each in three weeks.
Ideally, you should chase one or maybe two rabbits, catch them, and then move on to the next.
Skill development is different from the rest of CrossFit training. You can't constantly vary it or learn it with high intensity. First, train it in isolation, without fatigue, and without competing inputs.