Bound Newsletter 12.22.2025
The Gym, Christmas, and the Spirit of the Season
Christmas is often described as a season of giving, sharing, and spending meaningful time with the people we care about most. It’s a time when routines slow down, calendars fill with family gatherings, and we’re reminded that connection matters more than anything else.
At first glance, the gym might not seem like it belongs in that conversation—but in many ways, it embodies the very spirit of the holidays.
A Place Built on Sharing and Giving
Every day in the gym, we give something of ourselves.
We give effort when it would be easier to hold back.
We give encouragement when someone is struggling through the last reps.
We give our time to show up, even when life is busy.
We also share in the experience—shared workouts, shared challenges, shared victories. Whether it’s celebrating a PR, finishing a tough workout together, or simply showing up side by side, the gym becomes a place where giving and sharing happen naturally, without expectation.
That’s the heart of the Christmas season.
Time with Friends (That Feel Like Family)
The holidays remind us how valuable time is, especially time spent with people who lift us up. In the gym, friendships are built through consistency, sweat, and mutual respect. Over time, those friendships often turn into something more—a second family.
You learn each other’s strengths, weaknesses, goals, and stories. You celebrate milestones inside and outside the gym. You show up for one another on good days and hard ones.
That sense of belonging is something many people search for during the holidays, and for a lot of us, it’s already waiting at the gym.
Training with Gratitude
The holiday season is also a time to reflect on what we’re grateful for. Our health. Our ability to move. The opportunity to challenge ourselves. The privilege of showing up and doing hard things.
Training during this time of year isn’t about perfection. It’s about appreciation. It’s about recognizing that movement is a gift and that caring for ourselves allows us to better care for others—our families, our friends, and our communities.
Carrying the Spirit Beyond the Holidays
The true spirit of Christmas isn’t confined to one day or one season. It’s something we can carry with us year-round: showing kindness, supporting others, staying disciplined, and choosing to show up even when it’s hard.
That spirit lives in the gym every single day.
As the year comes to a close, we’re reminded that the gym is more than a place to work out. It’s a place to connect. A place to grow. A place to give and receive support. A place where the values of Christmas—sharing, giving, gratitude, and togetherness—are practiced all year long.
From all of us at CrossFit Bound, we hope this season brings you time with the people you love, gratitude for what you have, and a renewed commitment to taking care of yourself and others.
Merry Christmas, and thank you for being part of this community.
Bragging Board
Casey Linch hit a massive double under PR of 35 unbroken :)
Check Out our Weekly Training Highlight Reel Below
Welcome New Members
Elber Roman
Upcoming Brithdays
Birthdays
Jermaine Johnson Dec 22
Matt Gray Dec 26
Dylan Porter Dec 27
Walter Davila Dec 28
Noe Ruiz Dec 28
Brittany Ringrose Dec 30
Upcoming Schedule & Events
Holiday / Christmas Schedule
December 24/25
closed
December 26
8 & 9 am only
December 27
9 am
December 31
5:30,6:30,9am, and 12pm classes
no evening classes
January 1st
9 am and 12 pm classes
January 10th - Onward “Shoulder Mobility Clinic” with Kristin Humphries
10 am to 12 pm *following the morning class
February 7th - In House Gymnastics Course with Coach Nicole Corey
10am to 12 pm *following Morning Class
Olivia Kates Path 5K in celebration of Olivia Pugh to benefit the Oliva Kate Pugh Strength and Shield Scholarship to Harrison High School Seniors
February 28, 2026 @ 8:30am
CrossFit Journal Article of the Week: Percentage-Based Training in CrossFit: The Numbers Are Just the Starting Point
By Stephane Rochet, CF-L3
You walk into your gym and see the workout on the board: “Back squat 5-5-5-5-5 at 75%.” Simple enough, right? You punch some numbers into your phone calculator, load up the bar, and get to work.
But here’s something you might not know. Those percentages? They’re more like suggestions than commandments. And understanding why might change how you approach your training.
The Collegiate Strength and Conditioning Origins
Percentage-based programming originates from the world of collegiate strength and conditioning, where coaches must manage thirty athletes simultaneously. It’s a system born out of necessity and organization.
Here’s how it worked: spend four to six weeks teaching mechanics and consistency — starting with air squats and progressing to athletes who can clean, jerk, and snatch. Drill the movements repeatedly until everyone’s competent. Then do what you might call a “soft test.”
Not a real max. Not a grind-it-out-until-your-ears-bleed effort. Just build up to a heavy triple for the day. Maybe it’s actually about 80% of what an athlete could truly do on their best day. But that becomes “the max” for programming purposes.
Then you write your linear progression: 65%, 70%, 75%, 77.5%. Next cycle adds a bit more. Deload after a few weeks. Test again in 12 weeks. Run it back with new percentages.
Organized. Systematic. Scientific-looking.
And ultimately? Those percentages meant nothing.
The Organizational Tool
Let’s be clear: the percentages weren’t meaningless because the system didn’t work. They were meaningless because they were never meant to be absolute rules.
The percentages served one primary purpose: to provide athletes with a starting number to put on the bar. That’s it.
When a group trains together, everyone needs to know roughly what they’re lifting. You can group people by similar weights. You can get the session started efficiently. The athletes have something concrete on their training sheet.
But once warm-ups were done and work sets began — that’s when the real programming happened, through the coach’s eye.
Trust Your Eye (or Your Coach’s Eye)
Here’s what actually mattered: watching the movement.
The paper says 80%, but you’re bouncing up and down like the bar weighs nothing? That’s not really 80%. Add weight.
The paper says 80%, but that one rep looked like the only rep you could possibly get? Adjust accordingly.
This is what makes a great coach valuable. It’s not the ability to calculate percentages — any computer can do that. It’s the ability to see how someone’s moving, understand what the day’s intended stimulus should feel like, and adjust the loading to match.
If the workout is meant to be fast and fluid, keep the percentage lower. If it’s meant to be a grind on those last couple of reps, you may need to adjust the weight, regardless of the percentage indicated in your spreadsheet.
Real-Time Percentages: A Better Approach
Here’s a clever use of percentages that actually makes sense: build to a heavy triple in 15minutes, then use a percentage of that number for the conditioning workout that follows.
Why is this better? Because it’s based on what you did today. Not a test from six weeks ago. Not some theoretical max. What you actually lifted in the past fifteen minutes.
This approach has another benefit: newer athletes who rarely get to do workouts as prescribed might finally hit that Rx’d checkbox. The psychological boost of completing a workout at the prescribed loading is real and valuable.
The Body Weight Alternative
Another common approach is using body-weight multipliers: 1 ½ x body weight for this lift, 1 ¾ x body weight for that one. It’s fun, it gets you in the ballpark, and it’s easy to calculate.
But it has its own issues. Body-weight standards can get skewed as athletes get taller or heavier. A 6-foot-5-inch athlete faces different challenges than someone 5 feet, 5 inches at the same body weight.
Like percentages, body-weight multipliers are useful starting points. Then you fine-tune with your coach depending on the goal for that day.
What Actually Makes You Stronger
Here’s the truth that might deflate some of the spreadsheet enthusiasts: obsessing over whether today should be 75% or 77.5% isn’t what makes you stronger.
There are entire books written about programming percentages, periodization, and strength development. And yes, there’s value in having a plan. But the real value is understanding where you are in the bigger programming picture, and figuring out the weights, volume, sets, reps, and rounds you need to hit the intended stimulus.
The Bottom Line
If you’re following a program with percentages, here’s what you need to know:
Percentages are guidelines, not gospel. They’re an organizational tool to get you in the ballpark. Your actual working weight should be determined by how you’re moving that day.
Trust your coach’s adjustments. If your coach tells you to add or remove weight even though it “should” be a certain percentage, they’re doing their job. They’re watching you move and adjusting for the intended stimulus.
How it feels matters more than what it calculates to. Having a number on paper doesn’t mean anything if the actual training effect is wrong. The goal is to hit the right stimulus, not to hit a specific percentage.
Context changes everything. How much sleep you got, what you ate, stress from work, yesterday’s workout — all of this affects what your 80% actually feels like today. Good programming accounts for this through observation and adjustment, not rigid adherence to calculated percentages.
The Real Skill
At the end of the day, percentage-based training is a tool. Like any tool, its value depends on how it’s used.
Used well, it provides structure and organization. It gives you a starting point.
Used poorly, it becomes a rigid system that ignores the reality of how you’re actually moving and feeling.
The real skill, whether you’re a coach or an athlete, is understanding that the numbers are just the beginning of the conversation, not the end. The workout happens in the gym, not on the spreadsheet.
So, next time you see percentages on the board, load up that starting weight and get ready. But stay flexible. Trust the process. And remember, the best programs are written in real-time, based on what your coach sees happening in front of them.
Because in the end, it’s not about hitting 75% or 77.5%. It’s about getting the right training stimulus to make you better. The percentages are just trying to help you get there.
