Fran
Intro
This week we are going to give one of the most well known CrossFit workouts a go… FRAN. This has been a staple workout in the CrossFit community over the years as it's short, intense and known for the pain it causes when you give it 100% full effort.
What?
Today's ‘named’ workout is called Fran.
The Workout,
21-15-9
Thrusters (95/65lbs)
Pull-Ups
In this workout it is designed to be a full gas effort, you are supposed to give 100%. By the end of this workout you should be in a heap on the floor potentially with a metallic taste in the back of your mouth. It's hard but it's fast!
Let's break it down
As it is a 21-15-9, you will do 21 of each movement, followed by 15 of each and then 9. As the reps are decreasing each round it should give you more chance of doing large sets or going unbroken on each round.
Thrusters
These are a push movement that primarily focus on legs and shoulders but they also become gassy as it's not easy to breath while doing them and as they use a large array of muscles they require a large oxygen uptake.
Pull-Ups
These are a pulling movement which focus on lats and shoulders, in addition when kipping you use the majority of your body making them a fairly gassy movement.
In summary… your legs, shoulders and lungs will burn!
Why is it so recognised?
In 2003, crossfit generated a series of benchmark workouts that could be used to ‘benchmark’ their performance and then could be used in future to measure progression. Some of these workouts were labelled, “The Girls” which consisted of 21 workouts all with female names, each workout varied in movement style, length and difficulty but Fran became arguably the most famous.
How to approach Fran
The best way to approach this would be to treat it as a race, it is designed to be fast and hard but also as a benchmark so you should look to push as hard as you can to ensure next time you do it you will get an accurate gauge of how you are progressing.
Good luck and let us know how you get on!
Workout
21-15-9
Thrusters (95/65lbs)
Pull-Ups
