This week builds strength, skill, and conditioning volume with purposeful layering of barbell complexes, gymnastics development, and metabolic challenges. Monday kicks off with a squat and plyometric combo to build lower body power, paired with a short interval conditioning mash-up. Tuesday challenges power snatch cycling and endurance with “Simple Design” alongside a focused core finisher. Midweek balances heavy clean and bench press work with high-volume wall balls before Thursday’s strict gymnastics strength session and high-volume toes-to-bar chipper. Friday blends deadlift power with a fast-paced dumbbell and jump rope AMRAP. Saturday we tackle member of the month WOD Torven. Sunday closes the week with a 40-minute EMOM rotating row, kettlebell swings, ring push-ups, and GHD sit-ups to develop sustained stamina and midline control.
June 16 – August 10 8 Weeks – Strength, Speed, Skill, and Precision
Welcome to the Achilles Cycle, an 8-week progression rooted in power, precision, and performance. Named after the fierce Greek warrior, this cycle blends explosive strength work with advanced barbell and gymnastics development to prepare athletes for peak performance—culminating in a high-intensity Test Week alongside the CrossFit Games.
Cycle Theme
Train like a warrior. Move with power. Lift with precision.
The Achilles Cycle is divided into two powerful training phases that build on one another to drive results across strength, weightlifting, and conditioning:
Weeks 1–4: Power + Explosiveness
The opening four weeks are all about creating raw output. Athletes will see Post-Activation Potentiation (PAP) strength pairings—think heavy squats into high box jumps, deadlifts into broad jumps, or strict presses into explosive throws. This style of pairing taps into the fast-twitch system, developing speed, power, and muscle responsiveness.
Expect:
Heavy Barbell + Plyo Pairings to enhance athletic power
Power Olympic Variations and 3-Position Complexes to develop bar path awareness and aggression
Gymnastics Focus: Strict Pull-Ups, Handstand Push-Ups, L-Sits, and core work
Unilateral Stability Work including DB RDLs, step-ups, and carries
Banded High-Rep Accessories to build stamina and reinforce positions
Interval-Based Conditioning focused on anaerobic output and repeatability
Low-Skill Monostructural Work (running, biking, rowing) for sustainable aerobic development
Weeks 5–8: Technical Precision, Strength Application, and Threshold Conditioning
Midway through the cycle, we shift gears. The power you’ve built now gets funneled into Olympic lifting refinement, squat progression, and gymnastics skill development. Athletes will begin working toward 1RMs in the Front Squat, Snatch, and Clean & Jerk, with more structured lifting days focused on consistency, barbell mechanics, and performance under fatigue.
Expect:
Full Olympic Lifts with percentage-based progressions
Front Squat Progression leading to a 1RM in Week 8
Increased Gymnastics Focus: Strict Pull-Ups, Handstand Push-Ups, L-Sits, and core work
Classic “For Time” and “AMRAP” Conditioning for pacing, intensity, and stamina
Expanded Positional Work with unilateral strength, carries, and bodybuilding accessories
Threshold Exposure Workouts that push intensity while reinforcing movement quality
Cycle Benchmarks & Key Dates
These are your anchors throughout the cycle—designed to measure improvements in strength, stamina, and skill.
“Iron Lung” 5 Rounds for Time 600m Run 10 Clean & Jerks (135/95lb)
“Work In Progress” Part A: 5:00 AMRAP 60 Wall Balls → Max Cal Row Rest 5:00 Part B: 5:00 AMRAP Part A Calories → Max Wall Balls
“Nate” 20:00 AMRAP 2 Ring Muscle-Ups 4 Handstand Push-Ups 8 American KB Swings
“Helena” 3 Rounds for Time 400m Run 12 Bar Muscle-Ups 21 DB Snatches (50/35lb)
The Achilles Cycle is structured to build from the ground up: from explosive strength to technical mastery, from raw power to movement control. The first half will challenge your speed and output. The second will refine your capacity, precision, and sport-specific skill.
This isn’t just about hitting PRs. It’s about sharpening your tools as an athlete—developing the strength, stability, and skill that translates across all movements and time domains. Whether you’re leveling up your lifting, dialing in your gymnastics, or improving conditioning under fatigue, Achilles delivers a complete roadmap to readiness.
Our weightlifting work will have a focused lifting session weekly that will build in some quality work with some pulls into positional work on the Snatch and Clean and Jerk. This will reinforce quality positioning to the hips and get athletes focused on being patient from the floor to the hips. This will also just take a little more patience from the coaching perspective as a lot of athletes might be new to this. We will also incorporate some specific work for the Push Jerk and Split Jerk along the way to round out our form and lifts.
Our powerlifting/absolute strength work will incorporate more heavy lifts with back off sets. The lifts will stay more in the range of 3-5 reps in order to target both absolute strength and muscular endurance and utilize % work that we tackled in our most recent cycle. We will also be incorporating more frequent EMOMs for lifts in an effort to tackle specific volume targets with quality sets and reinforcing correct mechanics through the use of small quicker sets, rather than large sets that tend to fatigue over the course of the set. i.e. 10:00 EMOM of 3 Back Squats @ 60-70% rather than 3 Sets of 10 Reps @ 60-70%, resting 2:00-3:00 b/t sets
For our gymnastics work, we will center our training around muscular endurance and stamina in prep for Murph at the end of May as well as peak our capacity for those higher volume, density style workouts we are expecting for the Community Cup the week of June 9th – June 15th.
Lastly, when it comes to our conditioning, we will keep a varied weekly approach to conditioning with a mixture of For Time Workouts, AMRAPs EMOMS, and Max Rep Finishers while being sure to incorporate both long and short intervals along the way. The approach here will be about blending in different styles with some interference worked early on in the cycle and then proceeding to more complementary couplets and triplets later in the cycle to peak intensity and capacity as these elicit the most power development.
Week 1 Summary: May 12th – May 18th
Strength & Weightlifting Progressions:
Deadlift + Box Jump (Tuesday): Absolute Strength and Plyometrics
Push + Split Jerk EMOM (Wednesday): Building overhead power and transition speed
Front Squat Wave (Thursday): Continued leg strength development
Hang Power Snatch (Friday): Light, fast barbell cycling
Hang + Full Power Clean Complex (Sunday): Focused clean mechanics and barbell control
Conditioning Themes:
Murph Prep (Monday): “Candy Land” chipper retest
Grip & Core (Tuesday): Russian swings, sit-ups, and rowing intervals
Short Interval Power (Wednesday): “Hypnotize” sets of high-intensity barbell + burpee sprints
Gymnastics Density (Thursday): TTB + Bike EMOM with KB lunges
Strict Gymnastics + Plyo (Friday): HSPUs, DB Snatch, and Box Jump OVers
Partner Conditioning (Saturday): High-volume wall balls and muscle-up scaling
Classic CrossFit Sprint (Sunday): Rowing, Dumbbell power cleans and wall walks
Weekend Training Focus:
Saturday: Partner strategy, gymnastics scaling, aerobic power
Sunday: Sprint-style couplet with wall walk interference and barbell pacing
Welcome to Week 8 of the Poseidon Cycle – our official Test Week. This is where all the hard work of the past seven weeks comes together. Athletes will get the chance to set new baselines, hit personal bests, and test their engine and grit across a variety of strength and conditioning benchmarks.
This week is packed with major strength lifts, classic Open-style tests, high-skill gymnastics, and team-based conditioning. It’s your job as a coach to guide athletes through heavy attempts with confidence, help them pace appropriately during retests, and create a high-energy environment that celebrates effort and growth.
Reminder Monday is a public Holiday we will have a 7:30am class with 24/7 open gym
