Fran
The most iconic functional fitness benchmark. A blistering sprint of thrusters and pull-ups in a descending ladder.
- Format
- Ladder
- Time cap
- 10 mins
- Level
- intermediate
Ladder
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Fran is a ladder workout by Fiz, built from 2 movements, with a 10 mins cap. It is set at intermediate level.
About Fran
Fran is the benchmark every functional fitness athlete measures themselves against, and the one most of them dread. Twenty-one thrusters and twenty-one pull-ups, then fifteen of each, then nine, a descending ladder that looks trivial written down and is anything but under a clock. It has been used as a fitness yardstick since the early 2000s, and its appeal is its brutal simplicity: two movements, no hiding, one number at the end.
Why the light barbell is the trap
The trap is that the barbell is deliberately light. It is light enough that a strong athlete can cycle the first round unbroken, which is exactly why so many people blow up. Thrusters are a full squat into an overhead press in one motion, so the same set of legs that just moved the bar off the floor has to keep your lungs working while you kip. By the round of fifteen, grip and shoulders are the limiting factor, not strength.
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Pace it backwards
Pace it backwards. Decide before you start where you will break the set of fifteen and the set of nine, and stick to that plan even if the first round felt easy. The athletes who go unbroken through twenty-one and then stand over the bar for forty seconds always lose to the athletes who took two quick breaks and never stopped moving.
What's a good Fran time
Under three minutes is a genuinely strong Fran. Elite athletes go under two. Between three and five is a solid competitive time, five to eight is where most consistent athletes land, and anything under ten at the prescribed load is a real result. If your pull-ups are the bottleneck, scale the reps rather than the movement, the point of Fran is the sprint, and a scaled version that still takes twelve minutes has missed it.