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Across Broad Time and Modal Domains.
By Jan Dayleg
In CrossFit, we strive to
create fully functional athletes, able to tackle a plethora of physical
activities across broad time and modal domains. In other words, we want you to
be ready for anything and everything! No matter what modality we throw at you,
be it gymnastics, Olympic weightlifting, kettlebells, strongman, running,
rowing, or whatever else "comes out of the hopper", we want you to
have full confidence that you can complete any task to a certain degree of
virtuosity. (Virtuosity is a term used to describe doing common things
uncommonly well.) Aside from that, and more relevant to this blog post, we want
you to be able to work at different time domains and utilize all of your body's
energy systems. That means some workouts will be as little as 2 minutes, some
will be 30-plus!
Yes, every WOD is
constantly varied. But at the time myself or Head Coach Darren writes up that
WOD, no matter what it is, every metcon has an INTENDED time domain. As mentioned, we want you to work at a
multitude of time domains to develop each athlete to his or her full aerobic
and anaerobic capacity. Bluntly said, if myself or Coach D posts a workout that
is intended to last 10 minutes or so, and it's taking some people 20-plus,
there are a couple of things that are PROBABLY going wrong.
This is probably the
harsh truth for some, but one thing that could be going wrong is that some of
us just DO NOT PUSH HARD ENOUGH. Trust me, Coach D and I can tell if you pushed
to your limit after a WOD. Doing extra pullups and situps after a WOD without
it being prescribed doesn't make you a firebreather. If you want to work on a
skill like muscle-ups or your butterfly kip, do it BEFORE class, if there's
time and space. If you push to your optimal training intensity each and every
day, you can just trust that our programming will take you to the level that
you want, without the extra work post-WOD while everyone else that DID push
hard is lying in a pool of sweat. To clarify, this doesn't mean to push til you
have to meet Pukie the clown. "Never train minimally, never train
maximally. ALWAYS train optimally." Find your personal threshold, and hang
out there to reap the benefits of training at it.
Another problem that we
may be facing is one of ego, pride, and math. If you want to see if you can
beat your "Fran" time that you "RX'd" and got 7:15, I get
that. Go for the PR, you'll be glad you did. But relatively speaking, testing
for your baseline, going for a PR, and competitions fall in the same realm of intensity.
If you work at that level every day, you WILL burn out. Please start
distinguishing between TRAINING and TESTING. It's all about longevity, and
sometimes, a PR can wait. If you train at your OPTIMAL intensity, you WILL PR,
and you WILL get a better workout, and you CAN train at that intensity day in,
and day out. You can, and should train maximally every now and then to see
where you stand, but please limit when you do. So what's the solution? How can
everyone work at their optimal intensities and get a great workout, leading to
PR after PR? Welcome to the world of SCALING. Scaling is the reason olympians
can WOD out with weekend warriors. Whether you're doing half the reps in a 100
pullup workout, taking a round or two off of a 5 round WOD, or scaling to a 65
pound thruster in "Fran", scaling is a very useful method to preserve
the intensity of a workout. Let's do some math.
Intensity equals power. Power equals force multiplied by distance,
divided by time. In our case, power equals how much weight you moved times how
far, all divided by how long it took you.
Let's use "Fran". 21-15-9 Reps of 95 pound thrusters and
pullups.
Let's say athletes A and B have the same exact body type for the
sake of the argument, and both did kipping pullups.
Athlete A uses 95 pounds on the thruster and completes the workout
in 6:00.
Athlete B scales to 75 pounds on the thruster and completes the
workout in 4:00.
Again, for the sake of argument, we will only consider the thruster
weight into the equation and consider the distance moved as 1 to account for
equal body types.
Athlete A (95 lbs. Thruster x 45 Reps =4275 lbs.) divided by (360
seconds)
11.88 is Athlete A's score.
Athlete B (75 lbs. Thruster x 45 Reps= 3375 lbs.) divided by (240
seconds)
14.06 is Athlete B's score.
Therefore, Athlete B's choice to scale down to a 75 pound thruster
actually yielded a HIGHER power output than Athlete A who "RX'd",
since he moved 2 minutes faster.
This is only one example. Other options to scale besides dropping
weight include decreasing repetitions, decreasing rounds, even using a less
complicated movement in a WOD can be an option. The point is, get your best
workout possible. If that means you don't RX a workout, then so be it. As you
can see, sometimes not going prescribed will give you better power output,
which is our ultimate goal in the metcon.
So, what's the gist of
all this? If any of this applies to you, by all means, take action. If you find
yourself finishing way behind everyone else, consider pushing harder during the
WOD or scaling the workout to your individual fitness level next time. Ask a
coach! Ask what the intended finish time for the WOD is, ask for options to
scale, ask us anything about the WOD! That's what we're here for! Happy WODing
:)
Monday
Burgener Warm Up
Metcon
Complete as many reps as possible in 15 minutes. Use very heavy weights
5 Deadlifts
5 Front squats
5 HPC & jerks
Tuesday 11, 2012
Burgener Warm Up
Tabata each of the following exercises (20:10 x 8). Rest one minute between exercises.
Record reps for each exercise and total reps completed. Use light weights.
Push press
Deadlifts
Burpees
Pull-ups
Wall ball
"Risk more than others think is safe.
Care more than others think is wise. Dream more than others think is practical.
Expect more than others think is possible."
Claude Bissell
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