Men's Fitness Online

The 10 Best CrossFit Workouts for Strength

CrossFit prides itself on creating well-rounded athletes who are powerful, fast, agile, and, of course, strong. And it makes sense that by throwing around all those heavy weights, you’re bound to put on some muscle.

Men’s Fitness Staff

22/06/2018

“CrossFit Total”

The CrossFit Total is the sum of the highest load lifted of three fundamental moves: the back squat, shoulder press, and deadlift.

To work up to your one-rep max, you’ll warm up and then take three attempts, with plenty of rest between. Choose a heavy weight you know you can do for three reps for the first attempt. For the second attempt, choose a load you know you can do for a single rep based on the load of the first attempt. For the final lift, attempt the weight you want to do based on your performance on the previous two attempts. These are the core muscle builders. Three sets, working up to your one-rep max:

Back squat
Shoulder press
Deadlift

“Cindy”

Do as many rounds as possible in 20 minutes:

5 pull-ups
10 pushups
15 air squats

“Linda” (a.k.a., “the three bars of death”)

A benchmark workout done for time, Linda challenges your strength with a pyramid set of three classic barbell moves:

For time, 10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1 reps:

Deadlift at 1.5x body weight
Bench press at body weight
Clean at 0.75x body weight

Barbell Complex

Try this one as a 15-minute AMRAP (as many rounds as possible), or aim to do, say, five sets, increasing the load each time.

3 deadlifts
3 hang-clean squats
3 shoulder-to-overhead

Manmakers

To do: Holding dumbbells, place them on the floor and jump back into a plank. Do a pushup, then a renegade row with the right arm, then another pushup, then a row with the left. Jump your feet in between the dumbbells and do a squat clean thruster. That’s one rep. Now do 49 more, as fast as you can with good form.

For time:

50 manmakers with as heavy weights as possible

“King Kong”

This is a monster of heavy weights and gymnastic moves all mixed in one.

3 rounds for time:

1 deadlift at 200 (scaled to 180, 160, or 140)kg
2 muscle-ups (scaled to 8 chest-to-bar pullups + 8 ring dips)
3 squat cleans at 110 (scaled to 100, 90, or 80)kg
4 handstand pushups (scaled to pike handstand pushups with feet elevated on box or 16 pushups)

Snatch EMOM

Every minute on the minute (EMOM) for:

10 minutes:

1 snatch at 85% of your one-rep max

“Strict Lynne”

Five rounds for max reps of:

Bench press loaded with your body weight
Strict pull-ups

Squats and Sprints

“This is the type of workout that pushes your strength to the limits, maybe even eliciting a few cries toward the last couple of rounds.

Do 5 rounds:

5 back squats at 80% of one-rep max
Sprint 100m on track or 20 cals on the rower

Rest 2 minutes

“Meathead Deck of Cards”

Take a gamble on your workout by letting a deck of cards dictate your moves. Draw a card and do the number of reps on the card of the exercise denoted by the suit. Face cards have a value of 10 and aces are 11. With these moves, you’ll get a well-rounded strength workout.