Linda - women’s opinions?

[mixpanema]

Today was Linda (CAP programming). For reference, this one is 10-9-8-…-1 of deadlift at 1.5xBW, bench press at 1xBW, and squat clean at 0.75xBW.

I’m curious how women feel about this one. First, a man and a woman who weigh the same and are at similar fitness levels are going to have a big strength difference. Second, bench is hard for many women - I Rx’ed the cleans, but I feel like the bench is totally unattainable. For many women, benching bodyweight is a huge accomplishment, so to see 55 BW reps prescribed is daunting.

Below are my stats and what I did as a 150# woman with above-average strength. I finished in 25:11. Spoiler: turns out that I ended up doing 60-something% of 1RM across the board.

Deadlift

1RM: 285#

Rx: 225#

Today: 195#

At 79% of max, Rx would have been extremely challenging, but I supposed I would have eventually finished given lots of time. It would have been singles, and not “quick singles”. I feel like I can eventually get to Rx here. Today’s 68% was challenging but doable.

Bench Press

1RM: 165# (but I haven’t hit that in a minute)

Rx: 150#

Today: 105#

At 91% of max, Rx isn’t happening for that many reps. Especially on bench, where once you hit that wall, you’re dead in the water. Rx feels very far away. Today’s 64% worked well.

Squat Clean

1RM: 175#

Rx: 112.5#

Today: 110# (F it, calling this Rx!)

At 63% of max, these are fine! I did quick singles. Definitely a gasser (I was sucking wind here), but strength-wise these were no issue.

 

[alaric]

@mixpanema Not a lady, but I will say doing 55 reps at BW of bench is difficult for most men. I’d say the average, non-firebreathing, male cross-fitter probably has a max bench of somewhere between 200-250. So, you figure all these men probably weigh somewhere between 175-220, that’s a daunting task.

 

[cgmezmer]

@alaric So I’m 185# male, but was a power lifter prior to CrossFit so I actually love Linda. Breaking it down the way OP did:

Bench: Max - 305 // RX - 185 // 61%

Dead: Max - 415 // RX - 275 // 67%

Squat Clean: Max - 235 // RX - 140 // 60%

I agree though, CrossFit severely under practices Bench press, then asks for a pretty hefty workload in workouts like this. My wife’s 1RM on Bench is her BW, so she’d absolutely have to scale this one too.

 

[xrt]

@cgmezmer I run a Powerlifting club at a CrossFit gym. We only program Linda for the PL club for exactly the reason you mentioned.

 

[alaric]

@cgmezmer You’re definitely above average. I think for most, completing Linda as RX is a huge accomplishment.

 

[tammy1ed2]

@cgmezmer Realistically CF shouldn’t do bench press, especially if Olympic weightlifting is going to be the strength category of choice. Bench will impact and effect your RoM on overhead presses and jerks. In the grand scheme of programming, Linda is a bit of a bizarre workout for CF.

 

[cgmezmer]

@tammy1ed2 Oh my OHS/Snatch definitely suffers because of years of focusing on bench. Would gladly trade pounds off my bench to be better at OL

 

[tammy1ed2]

@cgmezmer Same my dude, same.

 

[kingdomkey]

@alaric Yep: I am 210lbs, max bench is 265 on a good day, 55 reps at 210 would take me forever and I have one of the highest benches by a lot at our gym. So difficult for males also.

 

[xrt]

@alaric A few years back I had a 250 bench at 175 bodyweight. Linda Rx was absolutely devastating, and took 34 minutes.

My bench is closer to 225 rigjt now, and I did Linda at 205/135/100 and it was an absolute delight. Hard work, but manageable, 23 minute finish.

 

[jarvis75]

@mixpanema I don’t think there’s a single woman in my gym who could bench her body weight more than five reps at 1xBW.

 

[bacsb0]

@mixpanema Linda was unquestionably written with men in mind, yes

 

[shanelg94]

@mixpanema For most people, BW bench press is harder than 1.5xBW deadlift. But crossfitters tend to not train bench press much.

 

[xrt]

@mixpanema As a coach, I tell people to ignore the BW part and pick a baseline to work from based on their ability

65/95/135
80/115/175
95/135/205
115/155/235
etc

We all have a good laugh about being able to bench bodyweight for that volume, then move to on to our warmup.

 

[mamalovesme]

@xrt This is similar to how I did it today. The "men's intermediate" option was 95/135/185

 

[mixpanema]

@xrt I like this approach - do you mix and match, or just pick one of these? I think what I’m keying in on is it feels like the bench and the clean should be equal or maybe even swapped. Do you just have people work to their weakest lift?

 

[xrt]

@mixpanema I always have folks keep the bench heavier than the clean, if only barely.

Even at high levels, the clean and the deadlift are supposed to be easier than the bench, if you swap the clean and the bench the work does become more accessible, but it becomes a very different workout.

 

[mixpanema]

@xrt Oh, interesting take - I don’t think I realized that the bench was supposed to be “the hard part”? That’s the one movement that once you hit a wall, you simply can’t push through. That wasn’t the movement where I wanted to redline, so perhaps I over-scaled? Worth my scaling, they did feel like the “break” - not gassing like the cleans, and not a super straining effort like the deads.

 

[xrt]

@mixpanema My recommendation is to do the bench at or near your 10 rep max, then split each bench set into three sets until you get close to the end.

 

[lawforchrist]

@mixpanema I will generally use 1.25×BW for deadlifts and 0.75×BW for both bench and cleans. That works out to be 70%, 75%, and 65% respectively which is pretty close to yours and approximately the stimulus I think it's meant to be.

I have no shame in scaling this one, especially because Dave Castro also recognizes the disparity - 2018 regionals had the women's weights programmed at 220, 135, 105. That should indicate that the average of the women's BW is 135, but it's really closer to 150. Meanwhile the men's weights were spot on to the average BW of 195. If fudging the numbers is good enough for the elites, it's good enough for me.