TEAM VIRTUOSITY DRILLS
Tribal Clash is expertly programmed to reward team work above all else. Sure your team has to be made up of six fit and strong individuals – that is a given – but this alone will not get you to the top spot. To take home the coveted Tribal mask your team will need to be able to work together with smooth and dreamy efficiency. Synchronisation drills are a great way to get your team dialled in and working as one well oiled machine and should become a mandatory part of every team training session. We advise using them as warm ups at the start of your sessions.
Synchronisation drills can be conducted with many different movements and in almost any team size, but we find they work best with activities that have a longer range of motion such as wallball shots, rowing, and bar touch burpees. Pullups can work well too but you may want to try with smaller team sizes – three is ideal – and add in more athletes as the team gels.
Keep efforts to about 60 seconds at a time with rest in between. Divide your athletes into teams and alternate work and rest periods. Have one team watch the other while resting so they can see how a well (or not so well) performing team looks. A huge amount can always be learned by watching others.
TOP TIPS: Our advice is to designate the best athlete in each team as leader and get him or her to set a smooth, steady pace which the others all try to synch to. Whatever happens (missed reps, balls dropped etc.) the lead athlete does not stop, but just keeps a constant and unfaltering rhythm. Start slow and once the whole team is moving as one start to gently pick up the pace.
TWO OF OUR FAVOURITES:
Below are two of our favourite team warm up drills:-
1. SYNCHRO ROW/WALLBALL SHOTS
Wherever possible try to keep your athletes training in teams of six but if you don’t have six rowers you may need to work them in smaller units.
3 rounds:-
1 min Synchro Row
1 min rest
1 min synchro wall ball shots
1 min rest
SYNCHRO ROW: Athletes must all hit front and back positions of the rowing stroke as one unit. It isn’t necessary to score anything or go for broke – just get the athletes to focus on smooth, steady perfectly synchronised strokes and nothing else.
SYNCHRO WALLBALL SHOTS:
For the wall ball shots all athletes must hit bottom position of squat (below parallel) at the same moment and all balls must make contact on the target or above the line at the same moment for reps to count. Have all athletes aim for the same height target or line regardless of height or gender. Ask a counter/judge to stand well back from the wall so he or she can clearly see the big picture. Get him or her to count good reps out loud so the team knows how they are doing. He or she can also give feedback to help get the team in synch, for example – “John you are slightly behind” or “Sue you are slightly ahead” etc. Encourage your athletes to relax, start slow and focus on synchronicity above all else. Let them have the first two rounds just to practice and only score the last round of wall balls.
Have fun and experiment with different ideas and movements but be absolutely fastidious about perfect synchronicity. If counting reps only count those that look 100% perfect with all athletes in perfect unison. The image below was taken at CrossFit Cumbria during one of our ‘Team Virtuosity Workshops’ it shows a team of athletes trying to get to grips with a synchro wallball drill. You can clearly see that this was about to be a ‘no rep’.
A well drilled team will achieve in excess of 30 good reps in a sixty second interval. We have found that if you drill your team frequently across a variety of different activities they will soon be able to throw themselves into any synchro task and with almost no practice they will fall into perfect synchronicity.
2. INDIAN RELAY
This is now the subject of it’s own post. Please Click here to go to the INDIAN RELAY page.
