The Strong and Creaky

Parable Philosophy

We believe in a genuine and passionate community. We believe in fun. We believe in mastery. We believe that, to engage our community and empower their lives, programming and exercise must have a rhyme, a reason, and an evolving quality of relevance to the member at hand. We believe you must never be comfortable, and you can find joy and passion in the uncomfortable.

A Word from One of Our Masters Coaches: Joe Genetin-Pilawa

“Masters’ Programming differs from regular Crossfit programming in that we place a larger focus on balance, mobility and flexibility, and core strength. Masters class sessions are 75 minutes in length and devote more time and attention to warming the body up to work out and building up to working loads more slowly and deliberately.  Our method allows exposure to workouts at a challenging and tolerable intensity, designed to help older athletes improve their functional fitness.  Every workout includes a strength component, an accessory movement, and metabolic conditioning.  We push, pull, squat, drag, carry, step, jump, run, lunge, and climb.  We practice moving our bodies through space, so we can continue doing so across time.

Masters are one of CrossFit’s fastest growing age groups.  Northern Virginia has a solid and growing community of 35+ years and older athletes. The beauty of CrossFit is that it is infinitely scalable so we will continue to encourage athletes in this age range to participate in regular Crossfit classes. As Crossfit founder, Greg Glassman wrote ‘the needs of Olympic athletes and our grandparents differ by degree, not kind.’  Some athletes might find that adding a weekly Masters class to their fitness routine will help improve their progress in regular classes as well.”

A Sneak Peek at The Magic:

The programming skeleton looks like this:

Week 1-4 Upper Body Pulling + Lower Body Pushing + Loaded Carries + Low Back Muscular Endurance

Week 5-8 Upper Body Pressing + Lower Body Pulling + Loaded Carries + Low Back Muscular Endurance

Week 9-12 Single Leg Strength + Bending + Loaded Carries + Low Back Muscular Endurance

Week 13-16 Upper Back Strength + Loaded Carries + Low Back Muscular Endurance

Rationale for a Masters Class

Masters have a different degree of fitness needs, and we aim to meet these needs with structural balance. This looks like:

1. Building quality movement patters- breaking this down in a smaller setting, with focus on motor patterns.
2. Creating Joint Integrity- we emphasize full range of motion in the available planes, with individualized adjustments for those with limitations.
3. Build Function AND Key Lifts- daily movements will improve, as well as deadlifts, squats, presses, and pulls.
4. Precise strength balance- overworked movement patterns that can cause things like tight pecs will have a counterpart agenda with creating balance across the body’s musculature (such as mid-back/horizontal pulling)

Structural Balance Characteristics:

• Unilateral focus– this will alleviate any side to side strength imbalances back into balance. If you want a stronger squat, assess your single leg strength.
• Rotational work– we never do rotational strength work under fatigue or under heavy load. We believe rotational work is underestimated because we live beyond the frontal or sagittal plane. We rotate in life and so we rotate in the gym.
• Isometric contractions– sometimes NOT moving is the most potent and powerful type of strength work we can do. Just hold one position with peak contractions and allow your brain and muscles to connect deeply.
• Loading implement variety– Getting out of the traditional loading patterns of barbells and using more dumbbells and kettlebells can help your brain and body adapt in new ways to help build a more diverse strength base.

The age of our Masters class starts at 40 years, but all are welcome. Come check out our first class on Monday, June 3 @6:30pm.

More fun things coming down the pike, that you will NOT want to miss:

Partick McCarty Seminar at Parable on June 30^th:

 

Meet our Masters Coaching Staff: