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Matt Chan and Westside Barbell Programming
The Top Games Competitor Experiments with a Westside Strength Focus
“I saw the benefits of it and decided that I would like to implement a strength focus,” Matt Chan says of Westside Barbell programming.
Chan, who was a top competitor in both the 2010 CrossFit Games and the CrossFit-USAW Open, says he started implementing what he learned at a CrossFit Powerlifting Certification last February. Although he doesn’t have all the specialized equipment, Chan uses what he has and then gets creative to replicate pressing with boards, squatting to a box and squatting with accommodating resistance.
And the program works. In a four-month period, Chan says he went from a 405-lb. back squat to a 435-lb. back squat, which was more progress than he had made in the last two years. Chan says he will continue to use a strength focus for three months, then re-evaluate. His programming will blend a modified version of Westside programming with CrossFit met-cons and Olympic lifts.
“It’s still CrossFit. It’s still constantly varied,” Chan says.
Watch the entire video in the CrossFit Journal.
2 comments on this entry
1. LanceC wrote...
having trouble opening the link to the Journal....
12 November 2010 / 2:02 p.m.
2. Ro wrote...
Hey Lance. It is working fine now. Let us know if you are still having problems. Thanks.
15 November 2010 / 6:48 a.m.