Intelligent & Intuitive Conditioning Circuit Design

Intelligent & Intuitive Conditioning Circuit Design

By Sarah Rippel

Author of “Home Program Design Mastery,” “The Ultimate Group Training System,” “Build ‘N Burn 2.0,” & “Build ‘N Burn”

As much as a lot of fitness professionals wanna continue to hate on the CrossFit world, I just have to say that the more that I continue to tinker with conditioning pieces like this one and use my expertise to adjust them to suit myself, the more I realize that it’s really silly that people continue to get their panties in a wad over petty stuff.

So, you know lots of things. Great! That’s awesome! How are you taking that knowledge and viewing other styles of training? Are you actually trying things out or are you speaking out of your a$$? I can say this because I used to speak out of my ass & it wasn’t until I bit the bullet and started doing CrossFit programming designed by a top Games competitor’s coach back in 2017 that I was like “ohhhhhh…now I get it.” I am here to tell you that it’s a lot of fun!

As much as I appreciate and respect the fact that we have principles that govern program design, such as work:rest ratio and the proper use of intensity during interval work, when you have a solid grasp on these concepts you can take that knowledge and apply it to workouts that may outwardly seem like “just a bunch of exercises thrown together to make you sweat.”

In other words, when you have book smarts and real-world application with all sorts of clients (and yourself), and you realize that not everything has to be black or white or fit into a specific box, you can play around with this fitness stuff and let your hair down!

So, to my fit pro friends who reside on the non-CrossFit side of the fence, and continue to assume that the manner in which most CrossFit boxes design programs is waaaaaayyyy different than the way your snobby “everything has to be proven by research” self, I encourage you to open up your eyes and your mind, step outside your little box, and take that know-how & use it to view other styles of training.

If you are dead-set on always doing conditioning work that involves timed intervals (and there’s nothing wrong with that at all, as it works), start looking at how much time a set of 15 kettlebell swings takes, or a set of 10 double kettlebell squats, as well as what happens when a person goes through that set of squats super-fast vs at a moderate pace, and you’ll begin to see that things kinda fall into place naturally. A lot of things start reflecting the time domains that you are prescribing…and you don’t really need to use a timer to tell people (or yourself) when to start or stop. When people learn how to manage their fatigue and pace, it opens up a whole new world of options!

THE ORIGINAL CONDITIONING PIECE

For Time:

Double-Unders x 100

KB Russian Swing x 75 (2x24kg/2x16kg)

Toes to Bar x 25

KB Double-Racked Squat x 50 (2x24kg/2x16kg)

Toes to Bar x 25

When the average fitness-minded person looks at the above circuit, they probably think something like “man that’s a lot of swings!” or “who threw that together and called it a workout?” or “I would puke.” When the fitness professional who isn’t used to approaching this style of training looks at it, they probably think “that’s the stupidest excuse for a workout ever” or “looks like a recipe for disaster” or “I can just picture people doing sloppy reps going as fast as possible.”

What they don’t realize is that in the real world, those huge sets of reps are broken up into smaller sets. No one is doing 75 kettlebell swings in a row, trust me.

This is a “for time” piece, which means you simply get through the listed work without lallygagging. The problem with this approach is that, for the non-CrossFit competitor type, who isn’t used to knowing where their heart rate should be during various types of training, there is the tendency to just “go hard” without any idea of how to pace.

When you’ve spent some time farting around with this style of training, however, you begin to figure out how certain elements impact a workout. Some examples are you learn when to break up larger sets if the circuit includes exercises that are very grip-demanding, and to keep your heart rate from “redlining,” you learn the speed at which to perform reps.

Looking at the original piece, my brain begins to break things up into chunks, as I have a solid amount of experience at this point with looking at programming designed by top coaches in the CrossFit space (not the main site garbage). In addition, being able to tinker with my workouts & keep tabs on how my body responds in the “lab” (aka gym) is kickass because I use this know-how when I work with my clients, write articles, and create programs products for other fitness professionals.

THE REWORK & RATIONALE

5 Rounds for Time:

Single-Unders x 40
KB Russian Swing x 15
Toes to Rings x 5
KB Double-Racked Squat x 10
Toes to Rings x 5
Rest 20sec

The first thing I did in reworking this workout was substitute double-under for single-unders, as I refuse to work on double-under and feel that singles are good enough for me (and anyone else I train, as I don’t have anyone else doing “dubs” in my gym). I have heard that you should double or triple the number of singles for doubles, and honestly don’t believe there is a way to precisely convert reps to reps here, so I just doubled the double-under reps for single-unders. –

I substitute toes to rings for the toes to bar for no reason other than I really like swinging on the rings!

Next, I decided to divide all the exercises by a common denominator that would allow for several rounds to be performed but without the “chunks” being too many reps per round. When I divided everything by five, it seemed to make sense and seemed manageable.

Lo and behold it worked out really well in practice! I didn’t try and kill myself going through the first round and felt that a 20-second rest interval was appropriate at the end of the round. As I went into round two, I wondered if 30 seconds would have been better, but as I continued to knock out the rounds, I felt good and was able to sustain my pacing across all rounds without my heart rate being out of control.

My heart rate was 171 at the end and averaged 122 for the 10:34 timeframe. Had I not plugged in the 20-second rest intervals, it would have climbed higher during the rounds and I would have ended up having to take short rest breaks between the exercises. The 20-second rest interval enabled me to move from one exercise to the next without having to suck wind lol.

I was pretty darn consistent across the five rounds with regard to how long it took me to get the work done (1:50, 1:52, 1:52, 1:53, 1:47). This is important to note because had I started out too fast, I would have gone into the second round needing to recover just a bit more, and it would have all gone downhill from there, as I would have had to rest between exercises. I paced the workout really well and the goal was sustainable movement, so I do believe I hit the nail on the head! In fact, I felt like I could have kept going.

See? That last part is a huge thing to consider when viewing and performing (or having people perform) conditioning pieces such as this. This is AEROBIC work. We are not attempting to sprint through things. You should feel like you are working comfortably hard but could keep going. That’s where the magic happens! You should finish the workout and feel good, not be a sweaty mess crumbled up on the ground.

Trust me, as someone who likes to run fast and always had a hard time accepting the fact that you have to go slower to build an aerobic base as a triathlete, I get it! We want to train smart to make the “gains” happen, with regard to both strength work and conditioning. Trying to “win” every workout or push just a bit too much will undoubtedly result in some sort of setback. There is an art and science to pushing just enough to keep moving forward.

STRATEGIZING FOR THE ORIGINAL PIECE

So in looking at the original workout, had I approached it “as written” (but with 200 single-unders substituted), my strategy going into things would have been to take a break after 100 single-unders and then either knock out another 100 or break that up into 2 sets with a break just short enough to perform one deep breath between.

After that, I probably would have opted to perform sets of 20 swings and then knock out 15 to close out the 75 reps. During the swings if I noticed I was having difficulty keeping my heart rate at a manageable level, I would shorten the sets.

Moving on to the toes to rings, there’s no way I would have attempted to perform an unbroken set of 25 reps, therefore I would have probably chosen to go 9-8-8.

On the double kettlebell squats, aiming for five sets of 10 reps with a deep breath break between would have probably been my slant.

To close things out, the final set of 25 toes to rings would probably be the same as the first with regard to splitting up the reps.

IN CLOSING

I know I’m not the only one out there who has fun tinkering in this manner! It’s fun to be creative and play around with combinations of exercises. In addition, our clients benefit from our experience in our own workouts.

I know I’m also not the only one out there who believes that we must train ourselves regularly if we are to do our best job with clients. Call me what you want if you disagree, but a fitness professional who is able-bodied and doesn’t work out is a hypocrite!

Even worse when the excuse is “but I don’t have enough time.”

Rant over. ? If you’re with me, hit me up on Insta (@fitprosarah) and let’s talk!

Stay tuned for Part 2, where I dig into a few more workouts!

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Sarah Rippel Just Launched: Brand NEW Home Program Design Mastery for Fit Pros: Done for You Program,Templates and More!

Check out some other top level programming and Done for You products by Sarah Rippel :

“The Ultimate Small Group Training System” The most Comprehensive Guide to Semi-Private and Small Group Training for Fit Pros.

Build N’ Burn – Done For YOU 16 Wk Metabolic Group Training Program for Fit Pros

AND The NEW Done-for-You Build N Burn 2.0 for Fit Pros

Other articles by Sarah Rippel:

KISS Principle for Group Training+(3x3x3 Circuit Workout)

Deceptively Devious Conditioning Circuit