Don’t miss your class! SMS notifications for PRO users
Never miss your chance again to participate the class you have been queuing up. If your box is using WODconnect’s booking tool, you might have faced a situation, where the class you wanted to participate is full, but you could sign up to a queue. Sometimes, the information that a spot on a class has been freed doesn’t reach those who are waiting in the queue early enough, and the spot remains unfilled. To tackle this issue, PRO users will now receive an SMS notification immediately, once a place on a class has freed.
Here’s how you set SMS notifications on:
1. Go to your settings page and input your phone number
2. Check the box “allow SMS notifications for class bookings”
That’s it. Get your PRO status here and never miss a class anymore. If you are patient, we might have something else up in the sleeve as well, so stay tuned! ;)
Be kind and remember to cancel your class bookings if you have already made second plans for the day.
Are you losing members? New customer activation features for box owners.
As the Christmas is just around the corner, we thought that it would be a good time to delight our box owner customers with a couple of new features.
Waning customers:
The feature creates a list of clients, who are in danger to drop out or for some other reason have not participated classes lately. The feature helps you to recognize the clients, who might need activation to return your box. The feature requires that the box is using our booking system.
Renewing memberships:
The feature lists the clients whose membership is about to renew. Especially clients with long contracts appreciate a reminder when their membership’s due date draw close.
Average revenue per member:
We have added one graph into the revenue and active members -report, which shows the average revenue per member. The graph helps you to evaluate the value of one client and understand the strengths and weaknesses of your business better.
These feature additions are just the beginning, and you may expect new additions shortly. Happy Holidays!
Jonne Koski is making an impressive comeback in Dubai
The very elite of CrossFit athletes are currently competing at Dubai Fitness Championships. The competition is the largest arranged in UAE and gathers the best CrossFit athletes to compete for over 200 000$ of cash prizes. The participant list is impressive reading with athletes like Matthew Fraser, Ben Smith, Sara Sigmundsdottir, Samantha Briggs and several other well-known CrossFit Games athletes.
We are especially happy about Jonne Koski’s success so far as he is holding the second place in men’s overall ranking after 11 events with two event wins, two second places, and one third place. Koski is only outperformed by Matthew Fraser. After the difficult CrossFit Games experience earlier this year, which he eventually had to withdraw, the current success must be a huge confidence boost for Koski and gives good promises for the next season.
In the women’s series Sara Sigmundsdottir is holding the first place before Sam Briggs. Sigmundsdottir was also part of the victorious Team Europe in CrossFit Invitational a few weeks back. The final events will be held on Saturday, December 10th.
We all know what that means, right? WODconnect’s Advent Calendar of course! The concept is the same as on the earlier years.
Join the WODconnect Advent Calendar Gym (those who were with us last year, it’s the same gym feed)
A workout will be posted every day for 24 days, starting on the 1st of December. The workout, or task, will be something that can be done in addition to your own programming.
Post your results for the workouts and you’ll have a chance to win a 200 euro gift card to Rogue Europe or Rogue USA (depending on where you’re from). The more results you post during the 24 days, the better your chances of winning are.
Every “door” of the calendar reveals a surprise workout, task, tip, or something else. The purpose is to put you into a small test, go through the past year, share some useful tips, and most importantly to make the waiting of Christmas a little funnier.
Are you ready? Join the gym, it starts tomorrow! :)
CrossFit’s nicety is in the continuous learning, development, and possibility of winning yourself every day. In CrossFit, there is always something you can do better than yesterday. However, competing against other athletes can work as a great boost for development or a lift of motivation. Competitions are an excellent way for revealing your strengths and weaknesses, which will help in the planning of forthcoming programming. And who wouldn’t like a little competition now and then?
During the years we have been involved in arranging big and small CrossFit competitions in Finland. We know that the process might be more complicated than one could imagine. Even the slightest error might harm otherwise well-arranged event significantly and leave the parties with a bad feeling. Operating without proper tools increases the chance of a mistake. Thus we decided to develop a tool for competition organizers - WODcompete.
Simple is often beautiful. Therefore the application comes only with a real-time leaderboard feature and basic categorization features. The scoring system is also rather simple - the application ranks the one with either the most or least points on top. However, we are working on features like online qualifications, paid competitions, and customizable scoring systems.
WODcompete is a great tool for small internal competitions at boxes as well as bigger games. The biggest asset of WODcompete is the easiness of usage. Just sign in with your WODconnect account and set-up your competition. Simple as that. And of course, we are here to help you if problems occur.
As an individual person, what would you look from a CrossFit box you go several times a week? Would you find it beneficial to have a strong and active training community on- and offline? If you belong in any community, team or group, you probably agree that leaving it is very hard once you have become a member. Therefore a strong community is one of the most customer engaging features a CrossFit box could have. Many who have tried CrossFit have fallen in love with the community and the social aspect of the sport, so you should maybe consider starting to build a social community around your box. On- and offline.
In this article we have collected tips and good practices for CrossFit affiliates, who want to build an active community around their box and we will tell few examples how social media can be utilized in building and managing the community. However, this article isn’t about marketing in social media because building a community and marketing are two quite a different things.
Building the community starts at your gym.
Consider your social media channel as an online meeting place for your box’s members. However, what happens at your box is most important.
Before we enter the world of social media, lets take a quick observation, what your service should look and feel like, because if you want to obtain the benefits of social media, you have to have a core product you can be proud of. Social media is not a wonder tool that turns a crappy box to appealing one. It is just a channel, which you can utilize in spreading the word about your service. If the service is good the effects are positive, whereas if the service sucks…well, you got the point.
Don’t let anyone walk into your box without greeting them. Greeting plays a huge role how welcoming and open the atmosphere at your box appears. Good vibes will not only tempt your customers to return day after day but also makes them to recommend your box in their social network.
Be approachable and engaged. Ask your customers are they doing fine or do they need help. Intervent people with wrong techniques. Everyone, even with strong athletic background, need help sometimes. Be aware and on top of every situation at your gym. All times. No exceptions. You will not only prevent all the unnecessary injuries of your customers but also show your customers that you care and want them to become better CrossFit athletes.
Develop the proficiency of your coaches. The more proficient coaches your box has, the better results your customers will reach. Better results leads to increased motivation and customer satisfaction. The coaches have to be supportive and understand one’s limitations but they have to be demanding and push people forward, when they are in doubt of themselves. Your customers’ good results are your references. If their results are exceptionally good, people outside will become interested in your gym’s training methods.
Proficiency means that your coaches know the balance between supporting, demanding and when it is time to rest, which leads us to the programming your gym follows. A good and scalable programming tells a lot about the understanding of conditioning you and the other coaches at your gym posses. Bad programming will only lead to bad results and injuries, which won’t be good for your reputation. WODconnect’s features for coaches will help you and your staff in programing and becoming better as coaches.
Managing your community in social media
One of the most appealing aspects of CrossFit is the enthusiastic community around the sport and often boxes form micro communities bringing together likeminded people, who are interested not only in exercising but also the healthy way of living. As a gym owner, you are probably one of the enthusiastic people too.
You don’t have to be a social media guru to successfully manage your community and you don’t even have to have several different channels in use. First of all, it takes huge amounts of time and second, just like you would like to spend less time in social media and focus your energy in developing your business, probably your customers are pretty bored of following multiple different channels in the modern days information overload. Running one channel well is much more efficient than running several channels poorly.
What should you do in social media then? Well, you can imagine the social media feed as an extension of the whiteboard at your box. Use it as an information channel and share your box’s news and daily WODs for instance. Respond to questions and collect feedback. If you have a feedback box at your gym, you can digitalize it and take it to the social media.
If you are not using WODconnect, posting your daily WOD in social media helps your customers to prepare for it. Photo source
Using your social media channel only as an information board or feedback box is convenient but quite boring in the long run, so you might want to consider posting something else as well. Share the success and achievements of your customers. It will tell the people that training at your box leads to good results and that the box truly cares and is happy for the individual success of its athletes.
You can also share interesting articles you have read or if you have had interesting conversation around a certain topic you can continue in social media and get more people to participate and share their thoughts. Social media is full of interesting conversations, which one can learn from and get useful tips. Why not to bring the conversations to your page?
In social media the tone of your voice should be human, not a company. Don’t think selling ahead because in principle people are not interested receiving promotions and sales offers in their social media feeds. Instead, they log in to their social media accounts to see what is happening in their social network and take part in conversations they feel related to. Therefore, place your customers first and think what they are interested in.
Even though this article wasn’t about marketing, a nice bonus is that eventually the efforts you have invested in building a community, can be seen as marketing efforts. The community you have successfully built will become your marketing asset, when they share their experiences with their social networks and recommend you to their friends. On- and offline.
Community work by CrossFit Basement. Perfect example of sharing your real life actions in social media. They even made it to local news papers with this gesture. Photo source
Back injury ended Jonne Koski’s CrossFit Games early
Jonne Koski’s Games journey didn’t end up as hoped after his injuries forced him to withdraw from the contest. After the competition Jonne visited our office and we made a short interview with him about his Games experience, injuries and plans for next year.
You had to withdraw from the Games due to a back injury, what can you tell about it?
The problems started in The Open back in the spring. The symptoms at the Games were identical to the symptoms I had in the Open. Back then I had small tears in both of my glutes, which partly caused the pain there. Now at the Games the pain radiated to my right leg causing a feeling that it would fail. The back itself wasn’t too painful but it caused the pain in my leg.
I went to see a doctor last week and the injury seems to be in the disc. Now I just need to wait for the MRI. Sitting for long times is the worst and the flight over Atlantic before the Games was terrible; the symptoms started right after the flight. The first Games events I survived thanks to the adrenaline boost, but right after every event even tying my shoelaces was difficult because of the pain.
What about your knee you hurt in the Regionals?
The knee is okay. I sprained my knee’s ACL while doing the pistol squats (surprise). As a result, I couldn’t squat at all after the Regionals. I am not a doctor, but I could imagine the knee injury having something to do with the recent back injury, from reserving too heavy loads on my back. According to the doctor my pelvis is slightly lopsided, so that might cause some extra pressure for the back.
When did you make the decision to withdraw from the competition?
The first time I was thinking of withdrawing was after the deadlift ladder (2nd event). We had only about 20 minutes to do the warm-up for that event and the heaviest weight I lifted was 140 kg, which already felt like 200 kg. After the deadlift ladder I felt a lot of pain in my back just sitting in the GHD machine, and that was the moment I almost quit. The third event I could barely do, but finished last. GHDs were the worst, wallballs were fine as there was so few of those.
The third event was the ocean swim, announced at the ranch. Although I was quite sure I could swim and finish high in the event, I considered withdrawing before the swim. There is always a risk that something extra appears, some additional workouts or a maximum test. I also thought that if I swim and would win the event, it could be even more frustrating to withdraw. My team took very good care of me and I received many valuable tips from Finland and Dubai over phone and social media, so I decided to take the chance and participate in the swimming event.
What do you have to say about the events you were able to participate and when did you realize that you were going to the ranch?
The mystery started to resolve at the airport when we got the flight tickets. Some of the athletes had already been at the ranch and they were the first ones starting to figure out the plot.
The trail run was such a great event. What an amazing sport. All the athletes starting in one heat generates a true competitive atmosphere. The profile of the track was insane. After approximately one mile of flat ground, the track was basically only steep up- and downhill. The pace of the race was quite unbelievable, I ran the first kilometer in 3:40 and felt exhausted already at that point. Some athletes took some damage and blood scratches during the race but I managed to finish without any bigger injuries. My right leg was just failing few times in the descends. All in all, a great experience and an awesome event!
After the run there was a short break and a deadlift ladder. I knew right away that we were going to do deadlifts when we were arriving to the ranch as the place was full of signs reminding about 2009 (the events of 2009 can be found from here). I wasn’t quite sure about my condition to do deadlifts and as I said the 140 kg felt like 200 kg in the warm up. In the competition I lifted 475 lb (about 215 kg), which is 50 lb less than my personal record. The barbell came up so inclined that I thought it would fly out of the area when I dropped it. I simply didn’t have strength to lift more as I wasn’t able to fully use the strength of my right leg.
Can you tell us something about the games as an event from athlete’s perspective?
Are you sure you don’t want to hear my experiences as a spectator? Just kidding. It is truly one of a kind as an event. Everything is just so well arranged and the atmosphere is like in a big sport festival where everyone from athletes to spectators share the same interest and passion towards CrossFit. The atmosphere between the athletes is great. It is different from what I have been used to in swimming competitions, where you mostly spend time only with your teammates. Before and after the events we are friends and joke around. Of course you have to remember that we are competing against each other and everyone is there to win. When you hear the 3,2,1 Go, you are there by yourself and have to fight for your space and be aware of elbows.
How do you prepare for the Games besides of physical training? Do you use mental coaching or analyze the possible events for instance?
I have never had any problems with competing as I have competed more or less all my life. I have never tried a mental coach, maybe someday I will. I don’t spend too much time on speculating the possible events. I just concentrate on my own thing. It just causes unnecessary stress if you try to guess what the events are going to be. After all, it is a surprise for everyone else as well. Of course you can deduce in which way some event could develop next year but further analysis is pointless in my opinion. Besides, it is more thrilling for me and an interesting aspect of the sport, that I don’t know what is happening next.
Physically my preparation to the Games is slightly different compared to the Regionals and Open, which are more traditional CrossFit. Before the Games I try to add versatility into my training because there you have to be ready for almost anything.
Did you see a significant development in the fitness of the athletes and who did impress you the most?
(Mathew) Fraser was quite impressive by winning the Games with such a big margin. It was clear from the beginning that he really wanted to win the title. To be honest, I didn’t believe that he would be so dominant. Women’s standings weren’t that surprising but it was a great and exciting competition until the very end, Katrin Davidsdottir taking the win on the last meters. The general level of the athletes has clearly risen in one year. The level of a CrossFit athletes has constantly risen during the past years and this year wasn’t exception.
I wasn’t too excited for the spectator’s role after I withdrew, so I didn’t follow the rest of the Games that intensively. I started to rehabilitate my back straight away and spent the remaining time walking in the town, visiting different cafeterias and Rogue’s tent.
What plans do you have for next year and are there going to be any changes in your life?
I will fly to Dubai in two weeks. There I can focus on what really matters, I can live a life of a full time athlete, which wouldn’t be possible for me in Helsinki. Moving to Dubai has been a change in itself. In training everything went well and I made progress in every section. Next I need to get permanently rid of all the injuries so I just have to be patient. Maybe I had too many changes this year, moving first to Helsinki and then to Dubai. The injuries caused a lot of external distraction as I had to visit a doctor too often and the people around me changed all the time. It was definitely not an easy season for me, but now I have good time to recover from those injuries because there are no important competitions in the near future.
More reading about Jonne’s background and career as a CrossFit athlete.
Games Update: Fraser redefines dominance. Davidsdottir still the fittest woman.
What a week! Burning heat and ruthless sunshine in Carson made the weather conditions extremely demanding for the athletes. Individuals started their journey on Wednesday with a surprise transportation to the Aromas Ranch, where the first CrossFit Games were held in 2007.
Matthew Fraser was deservedly crowned the fittest man on earth after two consecutive second places. His biggest asset was consistency. Fraser won only one event but finished second seven times and only once outside the top ten, setting a new record in the CrossFit Games. Ben Smith finished second overall. Two Canadians, Patrick Vellner and Brent Fikowski, had a tough competition for the last place at the podium. In spite of Fikowski’s strong performances in the last events, Vellner was able to hold his place on the third spot.
Women’s competition was much more tighter and the winner was unclear until the very last minutes. After exciting moments in the last events, the top three ended up to be identical as year ago. Katrin Davidsdottir is the fittest woman on earth, Tia-Clair Toomey took second place and Sara Sigmundsdottir the third place. Toomey was the only woman in the top three capable to finish the last event within the 10 minute time cap but that wasn’t enough to leapfrog Davidsdottir.
The Games celebrated its 10th anniversary with a combination of 15 extremely rough and difficult events. Especially ring hand stand push ups and pegboard ascends caused trouble for several athletes. The competition asked for the maximum endurance, speed, physical and mental strength. The fittest athletes were able to combine all these aspects in their performances and were able to keep their performance level high throughout the whole week and every event.
It is admirable how The CrossFit Games is able to renew and develop itself year after year and make the sport such spectator friendly and entertaining. This year the first events were broadcasted only in Facebook Live making the experience very engaging and exciting for the fans. If Dave Castro together with his team is able to continue surprising the fans with all the unexpected turn outs, the future of the sport of CrossFit will be very bright. CrossFit Games is a model example of utilizing modern broadcasting channels and social media in aim to bring the sport as close to the fans as possible.
We can only wait to see what the CrossFit Games comes up with next time. Until next year!
Big news from yesterday was that Katrin Tanja Davidsdottir got a an event win on the Double DT and Kara Webb got one in Squat Clean Pyramid. The points in women are pretty even, so Saturday and Sunday will be interesting!
Men’s top-5:
Matthew Fraser (586)
Ben Smith (444)
Alex Anderson (430)
Scott Panchik (412)
Josh Bridges (408)
Matt Fraser has big lead over everyone, but Ben Smith is back on top too and will surely challenge Matt. Alex Anderson is a Games rookie and still looking for that podium spot!
Games Update: There’s good news and there’s bad news
Good news are that Jonne Koski took the first place in the ocean swim. The former competitive swimmer has now won the swimming event three times in a row in the Games. Bad news are that he decided to withdraw from the Games after the event. We know that he has had some problems with his back and knee but we don’t know for sure if the reason behind his decision was either of those.
After a brutal day at the ranch, the 500 meter ocean swim was yesterday’s only individual event. Traditionally, Australian and California based athletes are strong in the water. All the 80 athletes were put into one heat and obviously there were some collisions. Together with the challenges that the waves offered, the athletes really needed to battle their way through to the sea.
Tia-Clair Toomey was the fastest swimmer in women’s division. Kristi Eramo was second and Tennil Reed took the second consecutive third place. Coming to the third competition day, Toomey and Reed are the first two athletes followed by Sam Briggs. Annie Thorisdottir dropped to the fifth position after finishing 23rd in the ocean swim.
In men’s division Australian Khan Porter took second place behind Koski and another former competitive swimmer, Brent Fikowski finished third. Matt Fraser continued his strong run by finishing sixth and holds the first place in men’s leaderboard.
Today the individuals are facing The Murph in the morning, Clean Squat ladder later in the afternoon and another event yet to be announced.
Follow our Facebook page to stay updated about all the announcements and results!
Fraser and Thorisdottir on top after the first day
Individuals started their journey with an early 3.30 wake up to realize they are going to be put in a plane towards place X, which solved out to be Aromas ranch, the same place where the first CrossFit Games were held back in 2007.
The extremely rough day consisted of three events in a burning heat starting with a 7k trail run on a track which profile made the run resemble a climbing contest. Ten minutes after the last athlete finished the run, the day continued with a deadlift ladder. Third event after a short break was a mini chipper with 50 wallballs, 25 GHD sit ups and a hill climb.
Matt Fraser dominated the run with over a minute gap to the second finisher, Josh Bridges. Brent Fikowski finished third in men’s division. Sam Briggs was incredibly fast in women’s division finishing third overall after Fraser and Bridges. Kristin Holte came to finish line second and Kristi Eramo third.
In the deadlift ladder there was only two athletes with perfect execution. Brooke Wells lifted 415 lb in women’s division and Sam Dancer 615 lb in men’s division. Candice Wagner was second woman with a 395 lb lift and Tia-Clair Toomey third with a 390 lb lift. In men’s division Sam Dancer was followed by Alex Vigneault (595 lb) and Lucas Parker (575 lb).
Individuals’ day ended with the Ranch Mini Chipper. It seems that those who were strong in the run were strong in this event as well. Fikowski was the fastest man (3rd in the run) followed by Fraser (1st in the run) and Patrick Vellner (9th in the run). In women’s division Annie Thorisdottir was the fastest (12th in the run) followed by Wells (37th in the run) and Tennil Reed (7th in the run).
Next event is going to be a 500 meter ocean swim. We expect the strong swimmer, Jonne Koski, to improve a lot his current position in this event. The swim will start at 9am Pacific time (EEST/FIN 19.00 CEST 18.00 BST 17.00). Don’t miss the start!
CrossFit Games 2016 Schedule for the European Fans
CrossFit’s European fans can follow the Games live in Youtube.
With this schedule European fans don’t have to count time differences. Thus they are able to pay their full attention into the Games events and fully enjoy the incredible week. The schedule will be constantly updated according to CrossFit Games’ announcements and changes may occur.
The original schedule and all event information can be found here.
Tuesday 19.7.
Teenage and Masters
Event 1 - California Club
Central European Summer Time (CEST) 18.00-23.20
British Summer Time (BST) 17.00-22.20
FIN/East European Summer Time (EEST) 19.00-00.20
Event 2 - Adiós Amigos
CEST 23.40-03.00
BST 22.40-02.00
FIN/EEST 00.40-04.00 (Wednesday)
Wednesday 20.7.
Individual
Event 1 - Ranch Trail Run (Click me)
CEST 19.30-20.30
BST 18.30-19.30
FIN/EEST 20.30-21.30
Event 2 - Ranch Deadlift Ladder (Click me)
CEST 19.30-20.30
BST 18.30-19.30
FIN/EEST 20.30-21.30
Event 2 will begin 10 minutes after the last athlete completes Event 1
CrossFit Games is the climax of the three-staged Games season. The 40 fittest men and women who have qualified through The Open and Regionals compete against each other for the titles of the fittest man and woman on earth and 275,000$ cash prize.
A key aspect of CrossFit games is that the events are unknown until the very end, making the competition hard to predict. The events consist of a wide range of functional movements with heavy loads and long distances, as fast as possible, forming an ultimate test for the athletes. The competition and the events have come far since 2007, when the fittest man and woman were chosen in three events during one weekend at Dave Castro’s family’s ranch.
The evolution of CrossFit can be seen in the events and athletes. The level of athleticism of CrossFit has increased rapidly as the competitors have become stronger and they are asked for vast range of skill based physical capabilities. The development can be seen also in the participant numbers and prize sizes. For instance, in 2011 26 000 athletes attended The Open, whereas in 2016 the number was 324 000. The big jump in prize sizes was seen in 2011, after Reebok started sponsoring the Games, when the winner’s 25,000$ in 2010 jumped to 250,000$ in 2011.
CrossFit specialization is not to specialize, which suggests that the athletes need to prepare for almost anything from throwing a softball to obstacle courses and weightlifting movements.
Before the Games 2016
Ahead of the Games Dave Castro caused heavy debate with the announcement to reward the winners with Glock handguns. Many have stood against the decision and Reebok, the main sponsor of the Games, published a statement where they opposed the decision in the light of recent violent events in United States. There is also an ongoing petition asking the CrossFit Games to cancel the handgun prize, which has gathered more than 20 000 signatures by Monday, 18th of July.
What comes to the actual competition, familiar names are battling for the trophy in both men’s and women’s series. Last year’s champions, Ben Smith and Katrin Davidsdottir, are both trying to defend the trophy. In women’s division the Icelandic Dottirs are all strong contenders for the title. Last year’s champion, Katrin Davidsdottir, is extremely tough competitor but this year could be Ragnheidur Sara Sigmundsdottir’s, who won the Meridian regionals with ten point difference to Annie Thorisdottir, also a former champion. In addition to the Icelandic trio, Australian Kara Webb and experienced Samantha Briggs are athletes to follow.
In men’s division Matthew Fraser is in extremely good shape and has a point to prove after last year’s disappointment. After dominating the East regionals with five event wins out of seven, the former Olympic lifter is undoubtedly one of the favorites for the title. Ben Smith, Noah Ohlsen and Europe’s fittest, Björgvin Gudmundsson are not going to leave Fraser without a tough competition.
The coming days will show who are the fittest on earth. Have an exciting Games week!
For further reading take a look to our older post from last year: http://blog.wodconnect.com/post/108057000752/what-you-need-to-know-about-the-crossfit-games
Recovery is a big part of CrossFit but a thing that is easily neglected. Now we are offering our users a way to better understand:
- how recovered they are
- what kind of workout they can do today
- what kind of workouts make them recover faster or beat them down the most
Ithlete is a service that tells how well you have recovered by tracking your HRV (Heart Rate Variability). It also tells you what kind of workout you should do and how hard you should push it today. Each morning you measure your HRV readings with their app and a heart rate monitor.
To enable Ithlete integration you need:
- an Ithlete Pro account: http://www.myithlete.com/ithlete-pro/
- an Ithlete device
- a WODconnect PRO account (for now, but this feature will be later available for all WODconnect users)
After you've purchased it and made your first measurements go to your settings in WODconnect. Follow the instructions to integrate Ithlete. After this has been done, your HRV scores will be shown in the feed and journal for that given day.
The HRV score will give you generic view of your recovery and of course for hard core analysis and recommendations, you should head to Ithlete Pro page.
We spent a great weekend in CrossFit Games Meridian Regionals, meeting a lot of awesome Crossfitters and gym owners. Mikko Salo was there with us to talk about The System – his training program in WODconnect. We were happy to meet several followers of The System, and people interested in trying it out. This post gathers the FAQ about The System.
For whom is The System designed?
The System is perfect for competitive athletes and people interested in competing. The idea is to create a rock solid aerobic base for athletes to rely on, while developing skills and strength numbers.
What is the goal?
The goal is to develop a big engine and skill base that enable the use of an athlete’s strength and power. To give an example, in the Open workout 16.2 you had to have a big engine to show your strength. The ultimate goal is to be in the best shape of your life at The Open 2017.
How does it work?
Mikko posts one week’s programming on WODconnect every Sunday. Every session is clearly described. When an athlete completes a session, she/he marks the result in the feed, with additional comments or questions if needed. As results are public within The System, athletes can compare and comment each other’s results and also cheer each other. Results can also be published so that only Mikko sees them.
How many sessions are there per day?
Always two sessions per training day – one AM session and one PM session. See examples of sessions here (scroll down).
How many training days / rest days are there per week?
A week consists of five training days (Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, Saturday) and two rest days (Thursday, Sunday).
How long are the sessions?
Not very long, the aim is to keep the sessions short & intense.
How personal is the training program?
The program is designed to fit multiple athletes, it’s the same for everyone and takes place online. However, the weeks can be modified to fit one’s studying/work schedule and physical or mental stress levels. An athlete can also choose to do only the PM session, if two sessions is too much. Mikko, who still works as a firefighter, answers all questions assigned to him within 24 hours.
Is the program the same for all age groups?
For the Master athletes, the program is the same, but sessions can be scaled and the workload can be reduced.
Any training camps / seminars included?
The program doesn’t include any training camps, but there are plans to arrange an additional The System training camp in the future. Follow our Facebook feed for all possible updates.
How can I start?
Go to https://www.wodconnect.com/the_system and join the team!
New features: PR badges, SMS reminders and black list for booking
Last week we released few long waited features:
PR badges
Some PRs go unnoticed, but not anymore! From now on your results that are PRs will get a badge in the feed and journal. It makes it easier to cheer your friends too!
SMS reminders
We are testing this feature with billing customers. Gym owners can send now a text message to remind a customer about an outstanding bill. For now this feature will be free for all billing customers
Black list for booking
From now on gym owners can mark the people who reserved a class, but did not show up. We gather this information on to a "black list". Gym owners can then clear the missed classes after the penalty has been suffered :)
2087
stormborns
yousharknotpass