July Programming — Stay Cool. Be Consistent.

July 6 – August 2 · Urban Athletic Club

When I was a kid, summer had one rule: get outside and don’t come back until you were completely wrecked.

One summer, it was baseball. Josh, Troy, and I would meet up at Owen Brown Middle School in Columbia, MD, and go through fielding drills, practice fastballs and curveballs, and get so sweaty we looked like we’d jumped in a pool (which we would do later!). Nobody told us to be there. Nobody was keeping score. We just met up every day because that’s what summer was — you find your thing, you go hard at it, and the heat makes you earn every rep.

Another summer, Matt and I would hop in my ‘82 Honda Prelude and search for pick-up basketball and volleyball games. On the days we couldn’t find a good game – keep in mind it was HOT in Maryland, and only savages were playing hoops in the sun – we’d head to Brad’s house and lift weights outside.

We didn’t have a plan. We just had the heat on our backs, and that feeling at the end of the day when you’re standing there, dripping, and you think — yeah, that was worth it.

That’s the feeling I’m chasing with July Programming at UAC.

The Heat Is the Point

There is something about a summer workout that a November workout can never replicate. The heat does something to you. It strips away the extra layer between you and the work. You feel every set. Your breathing gets honest fast. And when you’re done — when you walk out of here into the July air, and you’re somehow hotter than when you came in — there’s this quiet satisfaction that’s hard to put into words.

The pools are open. The shirts are optional. You’ve been putting in work since March. July is when that work gets seen.

This is the month to show up.

What We’re Training

Strength — Deadlift and Upper body Pull

July Programming is here: Monday is Deadlift. Wednesday is Upper Body Pull. Friday is where they collide.

Week 1 Deadlifts start with sets of 10, and that’s deliberate. Before the deadlift is a strength movement, it’s an endurance movement. Your forearms, your traps, your posterior chain all need time to adapt to holding tension before we start piling plates on. We’re also doing Nordic hamstring curls on those days — one of the most underrated exercises we train. Don’t skip them.

Wednesday’s upper-body pull will help you get that first pull-up or muscle-up, or maintain your current level.  For warm-upsand accessory movements, expect shoulder prep, isometric holds, and work on opposing muscle groups — the pressing muscles that keep your pulling structure healthy. Every Monday and Wednesday closes with a short conditioning piece. You’ll leave sweaty. That’s not optional.

Friday’s hybrid days fuse the two lifts into fun workouts, like Friday’s “Enough Space,” which combines running, cleans, and pull-ups to challenge your entire system. The movement family stays consistent. The format keeps it athletic.

Assessments This Month

• Deadlift — building to a benchmark set in Week 4
• Upper body pull — pull-up or pull-up progression, tested in Week 4
• Running — aerobic baseline tracked through conditioning output.

Virtuosity — The Barbell

Every month, we pick one thing to get genuinely better at. July’s barbell movement skills — cleans, sumo deadlifts, front rack position, overhead position. The goal isn’t to set PRs. It’s to get more comfortable and more capable with the bar in positions that will make everything else better down the road. Skill first, load later.

The Ladder

Here’s the theme running through July’s conditioning: ladders.

Not flat rep schemes where every round looks the same. Reps that go up, then come back down — or keep climbing until you’re not sure where the top is. You start a set thinking you’ve got it figured out. Then the numbers shift. You have to do the math mid-workout, recalibrate, dig in. Your brain is working while your lungs are burning, and somehow that’s what makes it fun.

2, 4, 6, 8 — then back down. Or 5, 10, 15 with a run in between. The format changes, but the idea is always the same: make the work a little more interesting than just “same thing, every round.” It keeps you honest. It keeps you present. And it mirrors what July actually feels like — you think you know how hot it’s going to get, and then it surprises you.

Conditioning

Tuesday (Engine) — steady-state blocks: rowing, skiing, or running for 20–24 minutes total. The first block is long and aerobic. The second pushes into cardiorespiratory territory — your breathing has to work for it. The Turkish get-up skill piece after conditioning is the quiet standout of Tuesdays this month. Mobility, stability, full-body coordination — and a great way to decompress after getting after it.

Thursday (Endurance) — sled work anchors these days. More muscular, more cumulative, more time under load. These sessions run a little longer than Tuesday, so pace accordingly. The clean skill work comes after the conditioning — and it’ll be waiting for you at the end of a tough session. That’s part of the challenge.

Saturday (Rally) — partner workout format with inversion skill work. Handstand and inversion progressions continuing from June. A great way to close the week and go into Sunday feeling like you did something.

Four Weeks. One Job.

Summer is the month when people fall off. Vacations show up. Schedules shift. The easy thing is to say I’ll get back to it in September.

Don’t do that.

The members who come out of summer better than they went in aren’t the ones who trained perfectly. They’re the ones who kept showing up — even when it was hot, even when the schedule was loose, even when one week looked a little different from the last.

Be consistent. Be fit. Be focused.

See you in the gym.

— Graham and the Urban Athletic Club Team