Over the years at Deka Comp, we’ve had remarkable experiences both good and bad. Experiences that have profoundly changed my life and others. I have been surrounded by people who shared the same values, who were kind, supportive and had a profound impact on me. 

As I reflect on the 7 years of Deka Comp's existence, I realized that the most important part of this venture was the people I was fortunate enough to have on my team as athletes, staff, coaches and members.

Here’s what you need to know for your training during the 2024 Crossfit Games Season!

Perform Track Athletes

The main thing you need to understand is what you are training for. The Perform track athlete in reality trains for many different personal reasons, however, in the sport of CrossFit, this particular training program is designed around training mainly for the Quarter Finals (QF) each year.

Now that we’ve defined clearly what we are training for, we can discuss our competition season overview so you can understand what to expect:

With the Open going as quick as it came, we are turning our attention to what’s happening next! The Open for Deka Comp has always represented the end of a macro calendar so we can see what’s coming as the new “year” for our programming.

After the Open, our goal is to reset & rebuild starting with the base of the pyramid: Strength. Focusing on strength sets us up for success for any challenges we want to take on. The training phase we’re going to jump into next serves as a transition phase to get us from a very high intensity training bloc into a slower heavier training bloc that is our Base Strength Phase coming in May.

So here we go!

IT’S 2024 AND YOU KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS: A NEW CROSSFIT® GAMES SEASON!

As the CrossFit Games Open 2024 approaches, athletes worldwide are gearing up for one of the most iconic CrossFit® events of the year. Whether you're a seasoned competitor or a newcomer, preparing effectively is key to success. Let's dive into essential tips to help you deliver your best performance yet, drawing lessons from the 2023 Open and simple planning.

“ACTIVE RECOVERY DAY”….“REST DAY”

We’ve all heard the terms. But what do they mean and how should you employ them in your training? Why are they important?

Should we just not workout? Maybe lay around on the couch all day?

Some of us just do a lighter, less intense wod on our rest day and call it ‘Active Recovery’. Some of us may spend a bit more time in our office chairs knowing we don’t need to train that day. Some of us have a masseuse and a PT (that we see every week), a theragun, 7 foam rollers and lacrosse balls, our own cupping bowl set and Graston tool, a pair of Normatecs, and enough epsom salt to OD a horse on sodium….

Competition Ready

Duration: 9 Weeks

From October 30th to December 17th

Welcome to the Deka Comp Fitness Training Phase, a phase where we will build off of the training phases that we’ve done all year with a focus on blending together the components of fitness with progressively natured, functional movement, executed at varied intensities. This cycle is where you will notice the least amount of distinction between sections.

At the core of this phase is the CrossFit method with a competition bias. We will specialize in being as broad and competent as possible across the 10 physical skills and the components that represent them. Since we spent a long time building a strong and capable foundation by separating the components of fitness, we can now transition nicely into the broader focused fitness phase. We will work towards increasing our ability to maintain efforts over broad time and modal domains. Essentially we are improving the sustaining of rep cycle speed and duration.

Welcome to our Gymnastics phase! In this short training cycle, athletes will be exposed to a dosage of gymnastics volume based on a mix of maximum repetitions and high intensity. We will focus on base movements that have transferability throughout most other gymnastics movements. Just like when we use basic lifts in a strength cycle. These movements are: the pull up/chest to bar pull up, handstand push up/ push up, ring muscle up, toes to bar and dip.

The movements we will specifically test for class are:

- Ring muscle up

- Handstand push up

- Strict pull up

- Pistol

When it comes to our gymnastics phase, it is important to understand how to categorize athletes. Although athletes fall on a spectrum and no one is EXACTLY beginner or intermediate or advanced, we still need to put our athletes in some form of box in order to help streamline our class management.

So here are our definitions of the beginner, intermediates and advanced athletes and what we will focus on for their scaling options.

Beginner: The beginner for this phase are those who cannot perform 1 unassisted movement for lack of strength. Their scaling options will be focused on gaining strength therefore they will be given more structured sets and reps for most strength sections. It will be important to look for quality in the eccentric portions of their gymnastics movements. In metcons, we will try to include more gymnastics volume by heavily decreasing the degree of difficulty per rep.

Pulls focus on enhancing the critical aspects of our lifts, such as creating and maintaining tension, engaging specific muscle groups, maintaining an upright posture, controlling speed, and generating force through the legs. We’re going to look at some important points of performances of the pulls below.

WEIGHTLIFTING PHASE: 8 WEEKS, JULY 10TH TO SEPT 10TH

PERFORM TRACK

Welcome to the Deka Comp Weightlifting phase, where we will follow our Base Strength Phase with a focus on the Snatch and Clean & Jerk. The Base strength phase was very polarizing with the 10 general physical skills, we worked a lot on all of them individually. You should notice the focus here is stepping towards blending these components together, with our macro goal at the end of the year during the fitness phase, to blend them together almost completely.

Our main goal will be to increase your capacity for intensity in the two lifts. We have lined up our phases this way for two reasons:

As the CrossFit season marches on towards its pinnacle - the 2023 NoBull CrossFit Games - the competition FINALLY moves from an online format to in-person. With half the CrossFit season conducted online nowadays, it’s truly a breath of fresh air. The reasons we love this shift are plentiful: a better viewing experience for spectators and fans, a more tactile and visceral competition experience for the athletes, and - what we’ll discuss in this article - programming that can lean into the skill, strength, capacity, and just overall incredible ability of these amazing athletes. Which means, fellow CrossFit enthusiasts, a more exciting and creative test for the athletes!

Patrick Vellner at the 2022 CrossFit Games

Welcome to the Deka Comp Weightlifting phase, where we will follow our Base Strength Phase with a focus on the Snatch and Clean & Jerk.

It’s early to mid October and we are already working with the 2022 CrossFit Games open in sight. This year, we’re combining all the knowledge we have gained over the past years with our previous seasons and the success we’ve had with Patrick Vellner in his 2021 season into what we call our “Diamond” Training cycle.

Upon first glance, it can be assumed that a fitness program for kids is focused on purely their physical development. We argue that it is just as much progressive to the mental and emotional growth as it is to the physical growth. This is why fitness for kids can be imperative, to build these capacities and embed outlets for these areas to be challenged, and in turn, evolved and advanced.