Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past 7 or 8 years, you’re probably pretty familiar with Mat Fraser.
You don’t even need to watch the video; the title is enough.
“Mat Fraser is the Five-Time Fittest Man on Earth”
(Fraser even wrote a ~300-page book detailing his adventure; you can read my review of the Hard Work Pays Off Book here!)
Fraser retired from the sport after his fifth CrossFit Games and could have easily ridden off into the sunset. He certainly had a lot of endorsements and prize money to last him.
Instead, he decided to grace the world with his take on CrossFit training, creating a program, HWPO (“Hard Work Pays Off”) that can be had for $40 a month.
I followed HWPO’s Flagship program pretty closely for roughly 18 months and feel as though I have a pretty good grasp on what the training is all about.
Here is my HWPO programming review (as well as my wife’s experience with HWPO 60) and my thoughts on how it may or may not be the program for other CrossFitters.
TLDR: It is a pretty good CrossFit training program…but I much prefer (both the program itself and my results) Sentinel Training.
Table of Contents
Program Structure
The HWPO programming structure is unique (to me at least) in the manner in which each workout is scheduled. Rather than simply dropping you in to wherever a particular program is at the current moment (Ex. Comptrain), there is a definite “Day 1”, “Day 100”, “Day 400” and on. You’ll start with the same workouts everybody else has started with and work through the same cycles whether you jump in early January, April, or October.
(that year, there was a “Open Prep” option added for those looking to prep for the upcoming open, but this was programming split off from the “Flagship” track).
I like this structure and think that it gets all participants “up to speed” with the program’s overall structure as well as those of each workout. Even advanced athletes would likely struggle if they randomly dropped into “Day 273” of the program due to relatively intense nature of the workouts. The first few program weeks do an excellent job of preparing athletes for the rigors to come.
Fraser has programmed a number of cycles and “waves” into the program, most notably those involving squats, Olympic lifts and rowing…yeah…rowing.
You do a lot of rowing the HWPO training program! Mal O’Brien can confirm!
There is obviously a method to this and I can attest that my strength and rowing endurance levels (I still needed a bit of technique work!) have gotten better (and probably better than they would have gotten with other, general programming) with HWPO programming.
There are 5 “normal” training days each week. One day is a full rest day while another day involves much shorter and “lighter” activity (ex. spin bike, light swimming).
Workout Structure – HWPO Flagship vs. HWPO 60
Now that I have experience with multiple HWPO training programs, I will split this section up to discuss each in detail.
HWPO Flagship
Workouts in the Flagship program take on a pretty consistent pattern. A decently intense active warm-up (with movements somewhat mimicking the exercises) starts things off followed by strength pieces. Without fail, squats and front squats are programmed twice a week and deadlifts and bench press each once a week. Olympic lifts are generally performed three days each week with the volume and variety differing depending on the cycle.
The overall volume and rep counts differ greatly here, but you can expect to perform between 10 and 22-25 working sets during this portion. All of the weights for these sets are based off of 1RM percentages.
After the strength piece there is some kind of cardio element, whether in the form of a classic metcon, a dedicated rowing piece, or a dedicated Assault Bike/Echo Bike piece. These generally last between 12 and 20 minutes.
Accessory work and “Bonus work” close out each workout. While the bonus content is not always present, accessory work always is. Interestingly enough, these portions vary greatly in length and intensity. Some days, a few sets of GHD-machine back extensions are programmed. Other times, you might find something like…this…
The length of HWPO training workouts has been discussed at length before and, truth be told, the workouts can go pretty long. I generally keep my rest periods between 2 and 3 minutes during the strength pieces and still end up hitting my self-imposed 1:50 workout “time cap” about 70 percent of the time.
I know others rest less than I do during these pieces, but I don’t rest very long between pieces. As such, I don’t know who can reasonably expect to consistently get through these workouts in less than 1:45. If you’re not particularly “fast”, expect to make some cuts to each workout.
HWPO 60
Recently, my wife started the “HWPO 60” program…and is loving it. After bouncing around between HWPO Flagship (we started at the same time, although she switched programs after about 10 months) and Street Parking (and one…less-than-enjoyable day of PRVN) she decided to re-join the HWPO “family”!
Although it has been quite a while since she started HWPO Flagship, via careful notes she kept, she is able to compare the early days of the program to the first week of HWPO. Essentially, the program content are very, very similar.
The main difference? On most days of HWPO 60, either a strength piece or an accessory piece (sometimes multiple accessory pieces) is removed from the HWPO Flagship program. More rarely, the metcon or rowing piece is anywhere between 25 and 33 percent shorter and/or the percentages for strength workouts are slightly lighter.
Other than that, the programs are the same. My wife has never clocked a longer than 70 minutes in an HWPO 60 workout (completing all pieces and accounting for warm-up and clean-up time) yet still feels as though she is getting a complete training experience.
Intensity
There are definitely intensity waves programmed into the HWPO programming, but everything feels pretty intense to me most of the time. Even the standard 40-minute EMOM (usually scheduled for Saturday or Sunday) generally has one or two elements that up the ante.
That being said, there is always a “heavy” squat day and a “light…ish” squat day each week. During many of the high-intensity metcons, there are built-in break periods to force you to take your foot off of the gas for a bit.
These forced breaks, while giving you a brief respite from the WOD’s rigors, actually work to increase the overall intensity. In contrast to a 20-minute AMRAP that you might “get lost” in the middle of, 4, 2-minute AMRAPs with 1-minute rest periods between them forces you to really give it your all in each work window.
Equipment Needs
HWPO programming assumes you have access to a good amount of equipment to include barbells, bumpers, dumbbells, kettlebells, GHD, rower, fan bike, ski erg, spin bike, weighted vest, bench, pull-up rig, rings, rope, sandbag…probably some other stuff, too, but you get the point.
You can modify a lot of the movements (and if you listen to Fraser’s detailed, 10-15-minute explanations before each workout, he’ll mention these modifications from time to time), but I think you really need most of this stuff to get the most benefit from the workouts and program.
