M.E.B.B.

So what is M.E.B.B.? It stands for "Maximum Exertion Black Box." It's a Crossfit variant created by Coach Mike Rutherford from Crossfit Kansas City, the same man behind Coach Glassman's love of dumbbells. Rut as he is referred to created this variant when he noticed his clients from aerobic backgrounds lacked the absolute strength to finish Crossfit workouts and therefore needed to scale significantly. He set up a rotation that pushed the strength work while incorporating Metcon, or Crossfit Mixed Modality, into the workout frequently. In it's essence, he combines the best of power and oly lifting with metcon work on a much more programmable basis to increase strength without sacrificing work capacity. It is very similar to the Strength Bias but more programmed and it lasts longer. There are actually several gyms that offer the M.E.B.B. model as their sole training, i.e. Crossfit Norcal.

So why M.E.B.B.? As you have all noticed, I scale quite frequently. I'm almost a year in now, although did lose a month to Mountain Athlete. At this point, certain movements should be improving but my strength is still pretty static. Time to take it up a notch. I spent the last few days watching the video and putting my program together. I'll email you two soon.

Essentially, M.E.B.B. has several ways of programming, including a 3,4, and 5 day cycle. I've chosen the 4 day cycle which looks like this:

Total Body Movement

Crossfit

Rest

Lower Body Movement

Crossfit

Rest

Rest

Upper Body Movement

Crossfit

Rest and repeat

The cycle repeats 3 times with the M.E.B.B. exercises staying constant for the cycle while the rep counts change as such:

Cycle 1: 5-5-5-5-5 or 5-5-5-3-3-3

Cycle 2: 3-3-3-3-3 or 3-3-3-1-1-1

Cycle 3: 1-1-1-1-1 or 3-3-3-1-1-1

The movements are BIG. Oly lifts and progressions for the total body, Power lifting for the lower and upper body (weighted dips and pullups are in there too). Throw in the Crossfit Mixed Mode and this is gonna be tough! Again, I'll email you both my planned program for comments. Looking forward to being able to keep up finally!