Black Flag Fitness
General FitnessBALLAST
Eight weeks of general physical preparedness. Squat and hinge emphasis.
Ballast is the weight carried low in a hull. It is not cargo and nobody sees it. It is the reason the ship stays upright when the weather turns.
That is what this block builds. Squat and hinge strength, an engine, a midline that holds under load, and the ability to pick up something heavy and carry it somewhere. It is Block 1 of four in the Black Flag general physical preparedness track, and it is the base every other kind of training gets stacked on top of.
FOUR KINDS OF ANCHOR
A general athlete has to train everything, and everything cannot climb at once. So the lifts sit in four tiers and each has a different job.
PRIMARY: back squat and deadlift. These climb every week and they are what BALLAST is built to improve.
MAINTENANCE: strict press and bench press. Two sets of three at around eighty percent, once a week. Six working reps and deliberately small. Still tested at both ends so you can prove you held them.
PERMANENT: pulling. Never the emphasis in any block of this track and never absent from one.
POWER: the clean. A fixed dose of speed and position work that never climbs.
Every one of the six patterns, squat, push, engine, hinge, pull and power, is trained every week. What rotates between blocks is which ones are climbing.
YOU WILL NOT LOSE YOUR PRESS
Six working reps of pressing a week looks like neglect. It is not.
Research on reduced training has athletes holding their muscle and their strength on as little as a third of the volume that built it, provided the load stays heavy. Intensity preserves strength. Volume builds it. So the presses park at low cost while the squat and deadlift climb, and push day carries an extra set and an extra movement so your chest, shoulders and triceps keep their work.
Week 8 retests both so you can see it for yourself.
THE ONE RULE
Anchors repeat. The storm rotates.
The lifts hold for the whole block because you get strong at the exact thing you practise, and because you cannot add weight to something you never do twice.
Everything else changes. Thirty-six storm movements, sixteen midline movements and thirty conditioning pieces across eight weeks. Nothing repeats. No midline movement lands two sessions running.
The single exception is THE POST, which you run in Week 1 and again in Week 8. A benchmark you never repeat measures nothing.
NO PLANKS
You will not find an unloaded plank in here. Once you can hold one for a minute there is nowhere left to progress, and load is what drives adaptation. Every midline movement in this block can be loaded and made harder.
EVERY DAY IS EXPLAINED
Every session carries a coach's note telling you what the day is for. Every lift carries a reason for its prescription. When the sheet says four sets of five at seventy-four percent, it also tells you why that number and not another one.
WHO THIS IS FOR
The athlete who has to be good at everything and does not get paid to be great at one thing. The lineman on a pole. The pipefitter. The nurse on a twelve. The parent hauling two kids and the shopping. Anybody who intends to still be capable at sixty.
It is also the right starting point if you have trained for years with no structure and you want a plan that measures something.
You should be able to squat, hinge, press and pull without hurting yourself before you start. You do not need to be strong. You need to know the movements.
WHAT YOU NEED
Barbell and plates, a rack with a pull-up bar, dumbbells or kettlebells, and something to row or ride.
WHAT COMES NEXT
BROADSIDE is Block 2. Pressing goes primary, the squat and deadlift drop to maintenance, and the front squat takes the Day 1 anchor so the squat pattern still has something climbing.
Choose your suffering.
1 sessions per week
Must use App app to view and log training
Program Training
Circuit
A
8 min: 300m Row or Bike easy, then 2 rounds of 10 air squats, 10 leg swings each side, 30 second deep squat hold. Then 3 build-up sets on the bar. PRIME. Two minutes on whatever is stiff before you warm up. Ankles before squat day, thoracic spine and lats before push day, hips and hamstrings before hinge day, shoulders before pull day. You know what is tight. Give it two minutes rather than hoping it sorts itself out under load. PREP has two jobs, not one. Get warm, and rehearse the exact movements you are about to do. A general warm-up that never practises the day's patterns has done half its job. It opens with PRIME, which is two minutes on whatever is stiff before you load it. You know what is tight. Give it two minutes rather than hoping it sorts itself out under a bar.
B
Back Squat
1 x 5
C
Front Squat
3 x 8 @ 7
D
Leg Extension
2 x 15 @ 9
E
Prone Machine Hamstring Curl
2 x 15 @ 9
F
Farmers carry
4 x 40 @ 9
Finisher
G
Target: 6 min 3 rounds: 250m row, 10 push-ups. Rest 60 seconds. Stimulus: Easy. You tested today and your legs have had enough. Every finisher in this block is built to leave alone whatever the day already worked. Day 1 destroys your legs, so the finisher is upper body or machine work. Day 2 cooks your shoulders and triceps, so the finisher uses your legs. Day 5 empties your back and grip, so nothing in the finisher asks your grip for anything. Nothing repeats across the eight weeks. Thirty conditioning pieces, and the only one you see twice is THE POST.
Prep
A
Push Prep
8 min: 2 rounds of 15 band pull-aparts, 10 scap push-ups, 10 wall slides. Then 3 build-up sets. PRIME. Two minutes on whatever is stiff before you warm up. Ankles before squat day, thoracic spine and lats before push day, hips and hamstrings before hinge day, shoulders before pull day. You know what is tight. Give it two minutes rather than hoping it sorts itself out under load PREP has two jobs, not one. Get warm, and rehearse the exact movements you are about to do. A general warm-up that never practises the day's patterns has done half its job. It opens with PRIME, which is two minutes on whatever is stiff before you load it. You know what is tight. Give it two minutes rather than hoping it sorts itself out under a bar.
B
Strict Press
1 x 5 @ 8
C
Bench Press
1 x 5 @ 8
D
Incline DB Bench Press
3 x 15 @ 9
E
DB Lateral Raise
3 x 15 @ 9
F
Tricep Pushdown
3 x 15 @ 9 lb
G
Paloff Press
3 x 10
Finisher
H
Target: 6 min 3 rounds: 20 air squats, 200m run. Rest 60 seconds. Stimulus: Easy. Legs are fresh today, so use them
Engine
A
25 minutes continuous. Target: Heart rate 60 to 70 percent of max, roughly 125 to 140 bpm. Full conversation the whole way. Bike, row, ski, ruck or a brisk walk up a hill. Not a workout. Zone 2 means sixty to seventy percent of maximum heart rate, roughly 125 to 140 beats per minute for most people. The test is whether you can hold a full conversation the entire time. If you cannot, slow down. Nearly everybody runs their easy days too hard, and it is the main reason engines stall. The middle zone costs almost as much as hard training and delivers less than either end.
B
Toes to Bar
3 x 10
C1
DB Lateral Raise
3 x 15 LWP +5lb
C2
Band ABD External & Ext.
3 x 15
Mobility
D
10 minutes on whatever the week tightened. Pick the two spots that limited you this week and give each of them five minutes. This is targeted maintenance rather than a stretching routine.
Scaling For This Session
E
FULL SEND. All four blocks. GET IT DONE. Cut the engine to 15 minutes. Drop C and D.
Prep
A
12 min: 300m easy, then 2 rounds of 10 empty-bar good mornings, 10 glute bridges, 10 dead bugs. Then rehearse the clean with an empty bar for 2 sets of 3. PRIME. Two minutes on whatever is stiff before you warm up. Ankles before squat day, thoracic spine and lats before push day, hips and hamstrings before hinge day, shoulders before pull day. You know what is tight. Give it two minutes rather than hoping it sorts itself out under load. PREP has two jobs, not one. Get warm, and rehearse the exact movements you are about to do. A general warm-up that never practises the day's patterns has done half its job. It opens with PRIME, which is two minutes on whatever is stiff before you load it. You know what is tight. Give it two minutes rather than hoping it sorts itself out under a bar.
B
Power Clean
6 x 2 @ 7
C
Deadlift
1 x 5 @ 5
D
KB swings
2 x 15 @ 15
E
Suitcase Deadlift
2 x 15 @ 15
F
Suitcase Carry
4 x 50 @ 8
Scaling Options
G
FULL SEND. Every block, in order. GET IT DONE. The anchor and the storm. Drop the rest. Twenty-five minutes and it counted.
Prep
A
8 min: 2 rounds of 10 ring rows, 15 band pull-aparts, 10 scap pull-ups, 20 second dead hang. PRIME. Two minutes on whatever is stiff before you warm up. Ankles before squat day, thoracic spine and lats before push day, hips and hamstrings before hinge day, shoulders before pull day. You know what is tight. Give it two minutes rather than hoping it sorts itself out under load. PREP has two jobs, not one. Get warm, and rehearse the exact movements you are about to do. A general warm-up that never practises the day's patterns has done half its job. It opens with PRIME, which is two minutes on whatever is stiff before you load it. You know what is tight. Give it two minutes rather than hoping it sorts itself out under a bar.
B
Pull-Up
1 x MAX
C
Chest-Supported DB Row
3 x 8 @ 7
D
Band Face Pull
2 x 15 @ 9
E
DB Bicep Curls
2 x 15 @ 9
F
Ab Wheel
3 x 8
The Post (Benchmark)
G
Target: 12 to 18 min For time: 800m run or 1000m row, 40 air squats, 30 push-ups, 20 kettlebell swings, 10 burpees, then a 400m farmer carry with anything heavy. Stimulus: Your benchmark. It touches everything this block trains. Record the time. Your benchmark. It touches everything this block trains, which is the point of having one. Record the time, the loads you used and the route you ran. You run it again in Week 8 and the comparison only means something if the conditions match. A benchmark you never repeat measures nothing.
Scaling Option
H
FULL SEND. Every block, in order. GET IT DONE. The anchor and the storm. Drop the rest. Twenty-five minutes and it counted.
Circuit
A
Target: 40 min 40 minutes easy on foot, bike or rower. Pick one and stay on it. Carries train the whole system at once under real load and they transfer to picking heavy things up and moving them. This day alternates between long easy aerobic work and loaded carries. Take it when you have it. Scaling Option FULL SEND. As written. GET IT DONE. Half of it, or skip it. This day is genuinely optional.
