Aquila Fitness

Wednesday is about POWER.

We start with 3 power cleans every three minutes. This isn’t about cycling the bar as fast as possible. Three reps gives you plenty of time to set up, breathe, think, and execute each lift with intention while building weight throughout the 10 rounds.

The power clean is a variation we use less frequently in GPP because pulling from below the knee adds significant complexity. If the bar moves away from your thighs, you pull early with your arms, fail to finish hip extension, or struggle with the receiving position, we’ll move you to the hang and work on the more fundamental pieces of the lift.

Elbows up. Hands relaxed. Hips back. Knees out. Athletic receiving position.

There’s plenty of time for drills and coaching. Starting lighter, or starting your lifts later in the interval late to develop the movement correctly, is far more valuable than adding weight to bad reps.

Next comes a lower-skill expression of the same quality: POWER.

You’ll use one arm to explosively row the heavy sled toward you over 30 yards before sprinting it back. The load should be heavy enough that one pull can’t send the sled flying to your feet. We’re asking the hips, trunk, and upper body to explosively produce force without the technical demands of an Olympic lift. Ideally, that simpler movement even helps your body better understand what we’re asking for during the clean.

Then comes the lowest-skill expression of power: 30 seconds of MAX calories.

No complicated technique. Just output. This is where we expect some of the highest heart rates of the workout.

And then you have to return to the barbell.

Your heart rate will still be elevated, but the standard doesn’t change. Slow down. Breathe deeply. Brace your core. Set your position. Then lift.

We don’t often mix technical strength work and maximal conditioning this closely, but today’s structure gives you enough time to think while still forcing you to perform under fatigue.

Olympic lifting. Heavy sled work. Sprinting. Max-output conditioning.

High skill to low skill, all developing the same thing: POWER.

Welcome to the strengthCon.

One of the ways we optimize strength development in the powerlifts is through purposeful variation.

Saturday’s deadlift work is a great example. Most athletes will perform 3 reps sumo immediately followed by 3 conventional—or vice versa.

Changing stance trains the hips through different positions and lets you feel the mechanical differences between the two lifts. It also gives us an opportunity to carry technical strengths from one variation into the other rather than simply practicing whichever version you’re already best at.

We’re also doing something different with the loading. Six total reps is relatively high for our deadlift strength work, and every rep is performed from a dead stop. No touch-and-go. Creating tension and breaking the bar from the floor six separate times requires considerably more contractile effort than bouncing through a set.

Your STRONGER variation goes second. Stronger sumo? Do conventional first. Stronger conventional? Sumo first. We deliberately put your better lift under greater fatigue.

For athletes who can’t safely conventional deadlift, all six will be performed sumo. Variation is a tool, not a requirement at the expense of good movement.

Then we flip the script into conditioning.

Ten rounds keeps each piece of the conditioning workout small, limiting local muscular fatigue and allowing you to repeatedly cycle into another movement at high output.

We rarely use Olympic lifting in our GPP conditioning, but these hang squat cleans are deliberately LIGHT and use one of the simplest starting positions. The challenge is maintaining technique while your heart rate approaches zones 4/5.

Rooted through the heels, lean over the bar. Finish the jump and shrug with LONG arms. Then receive the bar with elbows up, hands relaxed, weight through the heels, butt out and knees out.

Moving faster doesn’t give you permission to move worse.

Rx+ changes the stimulus considerably: heavier cleans, fewer reps and rope climbs that slow the cycle down while dramatically increasing the strength and skill demand.

Heavy strength. Light, fast conditioning. And quality movement through both.

We take functional exercise to places that other facilities really just can’t even match. The gym is a great place to train in a traditional and controlled fashion. Outside can be even better. Throwing, pushing, pulling, dragging and swinging all pose unique benefits and add variety you just won’t find in many places.

Not all cardio is the same.

Friday starts with strength and accessory work before we get into a lesson in energy systems.

Heavy pause bench presses at 80–90% build maximal pressing strength. The pause eliminates bounce and stored energy at the bottom, forcing you to maintain position and produce force from a dead stop.

Single-arm DB rows build upper-back strength while allowing each side to work independently. Wide-grip barbell curls aren’t just about bigger arms. They also strengthen the biceps and connective tissues around the elbow, improving elbow health.

The 20 seconds of max-effort rope smiles is a TRUE HIIT sprint. Twenty seconds isn’t “move at a pretty good pace.” Attack the ropes as violently as possible and see how much power you can produce before output falls apart, all with a safe, low-impact exercise.

Then we continue the high-intensity/low-impact theme with three conditioning tests.

First, 15 seconds HARD on the SkiErg followed by 45 seconds rest. The effort is short and recovery generous, so there’s little reason to pace. Attack it, recover, and try to reproduce that power.

Next, 30 seconds on the rower with only 30 seconds rest. Twice the work and half the recovery. Output should still be high, but accumulating fatigue makes maintaining power the challenge.

Finally, three minutes on the bike.

Three minutes is a different animal. It’s long enough that an all-out opening sprint can bury you, but short enough that comfortable pacing leaves a lot on the table. Find the highest output you can sustain while accepting that the final minute is going to hurt.

And yes, men MUST use the Echo Bike. 😂 It offers more resistance, but there’s also a practical reason: our bigger, higher-output guys place undue wear and tear on the AD6 AirDynes during maximal efforts. We’re trying to break you, not the equipment.

This is why conditioning isn’t simply “cardio.”

15 seconds. 30 seconds. 3 minutes.

Different outputs. Different recovery. Different demands. Different adaptations.

Strength AND the ability to repeatedly produce power. That’s part of building a complete athlete.

What does General Physical Preparedness actually mean?

It means building a body capable of doing a lot of different things well, not just becoming really good at a handful of exercises. Tuesday is a great example.

We start with hang squat cleans, a manageable approach to Olympic lifting that gives us tremendous return: strength, speed, power, mobility, coordination, agility, balance, and accuracy, without introducing all the technical nuance required to lift the bar efficiently from the floor.

Our Rx+ athletes overhead squat. It’s a fantastic movement, but one that exceeds the current mobility of many members. Practicing it with PVC or very light loads can absolutely be beneficial, but if mobility requires us to stay extremely light, we miss much of the weightlifting stimulus we’re after. The hang squat clean allows more athletes to train hard while still developing those athletic qualities.

Then comes a very GPP-style metcon.
Farmer’s carries challenge grip, upper back, trunk rigidity, posture, gait, and conditioning. Pick up something heavy and carry it. Simple and incredibly effective.

Reverse lunges add unilateral leg strength and stability, while the Rx+ sandbag adds the challenge of stabilizing an awkward load.
Then we grab the sledgehammer.

Sledgehammer training develops explosive rotational force through the hips, trunk, shoulders, and arms. Yet many CrossFit-style gyms abandoned it because it’s difficult to measure. One athlete can drop the hammer on the tire while another tries to destroy it. Both did 25 reps.
And that’s okay.

We don’t need every aspect of fitness to be perfectly measurable for competition. Too many valuable exercises get left out simply because they’re difficult to score.

At Aquila, we choose exercises primarily for their ability to affect your outcome, not their ability to produce a standardized score.

Carry something heavy. Lunge. Rotate. Produce force. Run while tired.

That’s General Physical Preparedness.

This week we’re highlighting the box squat, one of the best tools borrowed from powerlifting.

Unlike a traditional squat, the box squat lets us manipulate both depth and body position. By sitting farther back, we shift more of the work toward the glutes, hamstrings, and other posterior chain muscles while reducing knee travel. Combined with a low-bar position, this further emphasizes the hips and balances the quad-dominant movement patterns that many people develop over years of sitting, running, cycling, and everyday life.

Another major benefit is that the box is set at about parallel, the sticking point of the squat. In a normal squat, you rebound out of the bottom using the stretch reflex, much like a compressed spring. The box removes that stored elastic energy, forcing you to generate force from a dead stop. That’s why box squats are so effective at building starting strength and improving your regular squat.

If you watch experienced lifters, you’ll notice what looks like a slight rock as they contact the box. That’s not intentional. A proper box squat has you sitting so far back that your center of mass moves behind your feet, and the box simply catches you. Don’t rock back purposefully or launch yourself forward. Stay tight, pause under control, and drive explosively upward.

The metcon complements today’s strength work perfectly. The double unders are intentionally kept to small sets so athletes still developing the skill can practice without getting stuck for minutes at a time. Bulgarian split squats return for a second week, this time using higher reps to complement today’s lower-rep strength work and continue building strong, muscular legs. Wall walks bring upper body strength and gymnastics into the mix, while sit-ups provide just enough trunk work to keep you moving.

Expect a fast-paced workout with plenty of opportunities to push the pace while accumulating quality leg strength work.

This week we’re highlighting one of the most fundamental barbell movements ever created, the back squat.

Many coaches avoid barbell squatting because it’s technically demanding. We take a different approach. Rather than avoiding the movement, we meet each athlete where they are and find the version that allows them to improve safely and effectively.

Limited hip, ankle, or shoulder mobility isn’t usually a reason to abandon squats. Through proper coaching, stance adjustments, individualized depth, and when needed, specialty bars, we can almost always train the squat while improving the limitations that made it difficult in the first place.

The squat is one of the best long-term investments you can make in your body. Strong quads, glutes, and trunk muscles help protect the knees and low back by giving those joints the strength to tolerate the demands of everyday life. Properly performed and appropriately loaded, squats build resilience, not wear and tear.

The metcon keeps the leg theme rolling. Bulgarian split squats are one of the most effective muscle-building exercises you can do. Six rounds of moderate reps means you’ll repeatedly push close to failure, one of the strongest signals for muscle growth. If you want bigger, stronger legs, this is exactly the type of work that gets it done.

The burpees and bike calories aren’t there to let you recover. They’re there to recover just enough to attack another hard set. That’s the beauty of a well-designed program. You accumulate quality work, then back off the following day so your legs can adapt and come back bigger and stronger.

For our Rx+ athletes, hopping Bulgarians add an explosive plyometric challenge, demanding even greater strength, balance, coordination, and athleticism.

Strong legs. Healthy joints. A little suffering. Sounds like a pretty good Friday.

Yeah it’s hard work, but it’s great for your mind body and soul! Do the work, reap the rewards. This is engineered for everyone to excel. Anna Orlowski showing us how to make to most of the morning.

This week we’re highlighting another accessory strength day, and it features one of my favorite kettlebell movements: the seesaw Z-press.
The Z-press starts seated on the floor with your legs spread wide, forcing you to earn an upright posture through hip mobility and core stability rather than relying on the bench for support. The “seesaw” refers to pressing one kettlebell overhead while actively pulling the other into a strong front rack position. Think of drawing a bow overhead. As one arm presses, the other creates tension by aggressively pulling down.

This movement embodies the principles of hardstyle Russian kettlebell training. Rather than simply moving the weight from A to B, we want to create as much tension as possible throughout the entire body. The result is improved shoulder stability, overhead mobility, core strength, and hip mobility, all while building pressing strength that transfers to countless other movements.

The rest of the accessory work continues the theme. Bent-over rows build the lats, traps, and rhomboids while forcing the trunk to stabilize under load. Dumbbell curls aren’t just for bigger arms, they’re also excellent for elbow health. Face pulls finish the circuit by strengthening the upper back and rear delts while promoting healthier shoulders and better posture.

The metcon is what I like to call a strengthcon. We’re blending hypertrophy-focused bench pressing with conditioning to create repeated opportunities to press near failure. At roughly 65% of your one-rep max, most athletes should hit somewhere around 6-10 reps on the first attempt before breaking. As fatigue accumulates throughout the workout, expect those sets to shrink into the 3-5 rep range.