Deadlift, Front squat, HPC & jerk

Happy anniversary to Abby and Jeronimo!

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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