For the past four years, Tennessee Tech University has been using CrossFit to train many of its athletes. Chip Pugh, director of athletic performance, and CrossFit Games champ Rich Froning Jr., assistant strength coach, turn CrossFit into a sports-specific training tool for their athletes. This series provides an overview of the workouts these coaches use in season and out of season to condition their athletes.
In Part 1, Pugh took us on a tour of off-season CrossFit workouts for the football team. In Part 2, the team is just about to enter its summer training camp. Despite the fact that athletes were given a training assignment for the first part of the summer, Pugh says he doesn’t expect everyone followed it, so he programs the next training cycle with that in mind.
“Every day in our training, like we’ve talked about before, we prioritize a speed component, a strength component and then the intensity component,” he says.
From warm-up to strength work to “The Red Zone,” their CrossFit workout, the athletes train hard for their upcoming season.
“The greatest thing you see is when they’re done and you see them out there on the field of play, and you can see the confidence in their eye and know that they’ve been through things that are really tough, and that’s gonna help them out there on the field,” Pugh says.
10min 55sec
Additional audio: CrossFit Radio Episode 107 by Justin Judkins, published Feb. 17, 2010.