New Cycle: TERRAN

Before we talk about where we're going, let's take a second to appreciate where we've been.

Over the last couple of months, we've spent a lot of time building strength.

Front squats.

Back squats.

Overhead squats.

Heavy days. Volume days. Technique days.

We chased percentages, celebrated PRs, and probably confirmed that overhead squats still have a unique ability to humble just about everyone.

And honestly?

It worked.

We saw strength numbers climb across the board, movement quality improve, and a lot of athletes develop confidence under the barbell. More importantly, we invested in one of the most important physical qualities we can develop.

Strength.

Let's be clear.

Being strong is awesome.

Ask someone who's strong if they wish they were weaker.

Nobody says yes.

Strength is one of the best long-term investments we can make in our health and performance. It helps us build and preserve muscle mass, supports bone density, improves resilience, and allows us to continue doing the things we love for decades to come. Stronger people tend to be harder to break, harder to injure, and generally harder to kill.

And let's be honest.

If a zombie apocalypse breaks out tomorrow, I'm not picking the weak kid for my team.

That's one of the reasons I've never fully understood the industry's shift away from top-end strength work. Somewhere along the way, a lot of gyms started getting nervous about barbells. Coaches worried members would leave. Owners worried heavy lifting looked intimidating. Programming got watered down. Before long, a lot of places stopped training strength and started offering what can only be described as CrossFit Lite with mood lighting.

That's never really been our thing.

Strength matters.

A lot.

It's one of the slowest physical qualities to develop, which is exactly why we spent the last cycle investing in it.

And like every cycle at PUSH, we're not abandoning it—we're building on it.

We're called PUSH for a reason.

Before we move on, I also want to give a quick shoutout to everyone who tackled Murph and the RAD x Acid Athletics challenge over the past two weeks. Whether you completed every workout, some of the workouts, or simply showed up and embraced the chaos, it was awesome seeing so many people jump into something challenging alongside the community.

Now it's time for the next chapter.

Why TERRAN?

As I've mentioned before, I spent way too many hours playing StarCraft growing up. We've already had a cycle named Protoss, so it felt fitting to continue down the StarCraft rabbit hole.

For those unfamiliar, Terran is the human faction. They weren't necessarily the best at any one thing, but they were dangerous because they had options. They could attack, defend, expand, adapt, recover, and solve problems in a variety of ways.

It reminds me of the old saying:

"A jack of all trades is a master of none, but oftentimes better than a master of one."

That's the spirit behind this cycle.

Over the next eight weeks, we're not focusing on a single lift, a single movement pattern, or even a single energy system. Instead, we'll be training and testing multiple expressions of fitness: strength, power, aerobic capacity, anaerobic capacity, and the ability to move our own body through space.

The goal isn't to become the best deadlifter in the room.

The goal isn't to become the best runner in the room.

The goal is to become a more complete athlete.

What Are We Actually Training?

One of the reasons I've always appreciated CrossFit's original definition of fitness is because it wasn't tied to a single lift, movement, or sport.

CrossFit defines fitness as:

"Increased work capacity across broad time and modal domains."

In less coach-y language, it means being capable across a wide variety of challenges.

Different movements.

Different durations.

Different energy systems.

Different demands.

And whether you love CrossFit, HYROX, strength training, endurance sports, or some combination of all of them, I still think that's one of the best definitions of fitness out there.

Because fitness isn't about being great at one thing.

It's about having options.

That's exactly what this cycle is built around.

The five tests aren't random workouts. Each one represents a different expression of fitness. Together, they challenge our ability to produce force, move our own bodyweight, sustain output, generate power, and maintain effort across a variety of time domains.

Or, to put it another way:

They're asking whether we're actually fit.

Relative Strength

Max Strict Pull-Ups

We actually completed this test last Friday.

Pull-ups represent relative strength. In other words, how strong are you relative to your own bodyweight?

That's an important distinction because fitness isn't just about moving external load. Sometimes the challenge is moving yourself.

Whether it's pull-ups, rope climbs, gymnastics movements, climbing over an obstacle, or simply maintaining athleticism as we age, relative strength matters.

To improve this quality, we'll be running a version of the Fighter Pull-Up Program throughout the cycle.

The concept is straightforward: frequent practice without constantly training to failure.

Let's say your max strict pull-up test was 10 reps.

Your first session might look like:

6-5-4-3-2

A few days later:

6-5-4-3-3

Then:

6-5-4-4-3

Then:

6-5-5-4-3

And so on.

The progression is intentionally boring.

That's part of why it works.

Most athletes assume the answer to more pull-ups is simply doing max-effort pull-up sets over and over again until something magical happens. Unfortunately, the thing that usually happens is your elbows get cranky and your pull-up number stays exactly where it is.

Instead, we'll focus on accumulating quality volume, improving movement efficiency, and gradually building strength without constantly digging ourselves into a recovery hole.

Think less Rocky training montage.

More slowly adding bricks to a wall.

We'll perform these sets at the beginning of class every Tuesday and Friday throughout the cycle before moving into the rest of the day's training.

Absolute Strength

1RM Deadlift

While the pull-up measures how well you can move yourself, the deadlift measures how much force you can produce against an external load.

This is absolute strength.

It's also one of the reasons strength remains such a foundational part of our programming philosophy. Strength supports nearly every other expression of fitness. A stronger athlete generally has more options, more resilience, and more potential to express their fitness across a variety of tasks.

Strength gives us a larger foundation to build from.

That's exactly why we continue prioritizing it cycle after cycle, even as we develop other expressions of fitness.

Think of it this way: if two athletes have the same engine, the stronger athlete usually wins. If two athletes have the same conditioning, the stronger athlete generally has more room to work with before fatigue becomes a limiting factor.

That's one of the reasons we're keeping strength in the conversation even as we broaden the scope of the cycle.

Because strength isn't the destination.

It's one of the foundations.

Anaerobic Capacity

For Time

400m Run

12 Toes-to-Bar

12 Thrusters, 95/65

400m Run

12 Toes-to-Bar

12 Thrusters, 95/65

400m Run

12 Toes-to-Bar

12 Thrusters, 95/65

400m Run

Time Cap: 12 Minutes

This is where things start getting spicy.

From an energy systems perspective, this test lives largely in the anaerobic lactic capacity world. In plain English, it's the place where your body starts producing energy faster than it can comfortably deal with the consequences.

The result is that familiar feeling where your breathing gets aggressive, your forearms start talking back, and your legs begin questioning the leadership decisions that got them into this situation.

The run elevates the heart rate.

The toes-to-bar challenge the grip and midline.

The thrusters finish the job by asking your lungs and legs to cooperate at exactly the moment they no longer want to.

Individually, none of those movements are particularly scary. Together, they create the kind of workout that slowly turns a reasonable adult into someone making strange noises and bargaining with an inanimate clock.

This is the part of fitness where pacing matters, but toughness matters too.

You can't brute force it.

You also can't hide from it.

The athletes who perform well here are usually the ones who can stay composed while things get uncomfortable and continue producing output when others start negotiating with themselves.

The final run is where the truth tends to come out.

Can you keep moving when your lungs are screaming, your grip is fading, and your legs have already informed you that they're no longer interested in participating?

That's anaerobic capacity.

And that's exactly what we're trying to develop.

Anaerobic Power

For Time

30 Bar-Facing Burpees

50/40 Cal Ski

Time Cap: 7 Minutes

This one isn't complicated.

It's just violent.

From an energy systems standpoint, we're looking at your ability to produce a high level of output over a relatively short period of time. The goal isn't simply to survive.

The goal is to push.

Hard.

The burpees demand speed, coordination, and a willingness to repeatedly throw yourself at the floor.

The ski rewards athletes who can continue producing power even when their lungs are on fire, and it tastes like you have a bloody penny in your mouth.

There isn't a lot of strategy here.

The clock starts.

You go.

Then you try to keep going.

It's simple.

Which is unfortunate.

Because simple doesn't always mean easy.

Aerobic Capacity

For Time

100 Step-Ups, 20", 50/35 lb Dumbbell

1-Mile Run

100 Wall Balls, 20/14

Time Cap: 25 Minutes

If the previous test is about intensity, this one is about patience.

Aerobic capacity often gets described as your engine, but that's only part of the story. A big engine is great.

The real question is whether you know how to drive it.

This test rewards athletes who can manage effort, control pacing, and resist the overwhelming temptation to treat minute two like it's minute twenty-three.

Because that's usually where the problems begin.

The step-ups create fatigue.

The run exposes pacing.

The wall balls reveal whether your earlier decisions were wise or wildly optimistic.

Success here doesn't come from a single heroic effort.

It comes from discipline.

Consistency.

And the ability to keep moving long after the workout has stopped being exciting.

Ask any experienced athlete what happens when you start a 25-minute workout like it's a 7-minute workout.

The answer usually involves regret.

The Goal

At the end of the day, TERRAN isn't really about pull-ups, deadlifts, burpees, skiing, or wall balls.

It's about becoming more complete.

Strong enough to move heavy things.

Fit enough to keep moving.

Capable enough to adapt when life throws something unexpected your way.

The strongest person in the room isn't always the fittest.

The fastest runner isn't always the fittest.

The athlete with the biggest engine isn't always the fittest.

Fitness lives somewhere in the overlap.

Strength.

Power.

Aerobic capacity.

Anaerobic capacity.

Relative strength.

Absolute strength.

The ability to adapt when the task changes.

In other words:

Being good at stuff.

That's what we'll be chasing over the next eight weeks.

Let's get to work.

Stay Dope.