#112: How to Train Faster Cycle Time

Ever found yourself or one of your athletes having a block in increasing the cycle speed with specific movements? You do 100+ burpees in a long workout, and it's the same 'step down, step up' style you do in a shorter sprint-style workout. Is it that burpees are just hard, is there a particular technique you should use, or is it that you have a strong distaste for burpees regardless of the workout?

It's probably going to be a combination of all three. It's not as clear-cut as following a certain linear progression with the movement. You will most likely have to simultaneously develop your fitness, develop the movement and intentionally practice the sport.

One way you can get unstuck with a movement could be to polarise the scenarios in which you are training the movement. Just like long-distance runners practice sprinting now and then, and weightlifters have a broad range of percentages they practice their lifting, using burpees as an example, you could regress the movement to something easier, some sprints and then your usual range of metcons with burpees included.

Check out episode #112 to find out how we work on getting athletes to move faster on things like burpees, box jumps and dumbbell snatches.

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These podcasts are posted in video format on YouTube as well.

• [0:30] Only developing one gear in CrossFit
• [2:00] Having different movement strategies and different gears
• [4:30] What stops people from moving as fast
• [6:30] Why regressing a movement is important to increase cycle speed
• [9:20] Learning movements correctly for competition
• [10:45] Internal maps
• [13:30] Using higher paces as a training tool for slower movement strategies
• [15:45] Long-distance runners using sprinting to develop their slower-paced running
• [17:30] Building more movement strategies to develop confidence
• [19:30] Prescribing specific paces on machines in mixed training
• [22:00] Being intentional when practising the sport