February 1st

Stealing Nuclear Secrets!

(Thanks Atomic)

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Strength/Skill:

Kettlebell and Dumbbell Snatch Practice

Conditioning:

3 Rounds

7 Clean and Jerks

14 Box Jumps

21 Pull ups

14 Deadlifts

7 Burpees

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Quality: by Adrian Bozman (CrossFit San Francisco)

Much discussion is given about the best way to 'game' certain workouts. With the rise in popularity of events such as the CrossFit Games (and the popularity of CrossFit in general), many people seem to be equating 'best workout' with 'best strategy for a particular workout', instead of best effort put forth on a particular workout. Let's look at a very basic example, the CF workout 'Helen', which is done for total time:

400m Run

21 Kettlebell Swings

12 Pullups

Repeat 3 times

If competition was important to me and I absolutely had to beat Kelly and Angel (It's an ego thing...), I would be reluctant to go too hard on the running as I am a total hack runner. By dogging it on the run, I'll remain relatively fresh for the things I'm already good at, most likely resulting in a lower overall time. This is great if my goal is to beat Kelly and Angel. This is not so great if my goal includes not being lame at things I'm already lame enough at. Now, knowing that I am a hack runner, what physical improvements to my running do I receive from being a big baby on the run? How do I expect to become better at running hard and recovering if I never subject myself to that at the very time I should be...in Training! And there lies a bit of a disconnect in many people's training. The gaming of workouts has become standard practice for many of us despite the fact that we have no desire to be 'Best CFer On Earth'. Instead, the focus should be 'How can I bring my weak points up?'. The answer is to put forth the best effort possible on the things you are not good at, even if it means you blow up later on. That's what practice is for. Does it really matter if you struggle in training? Will your world end if you don't finish first, but you really give it your all on something that is difficult for you? My guess is that you will find the final product to be much more capable and complete if the stopwatch or scorecard is not your only reference while training. 

Comments

[Drew Reeves]

I thought about this as I did one double under at a time this morning, :). I actually got 9 double unders (with a single between each one) in a row on the last set of 10. One day, one day . . .

[Leah]

I think about this article more than any other CrossFit article I've ever read. It's really important for us to remember that progress is individualized and the time on the white board does not necessarily reflect the effort put into the WOD, part of why we're keeping logs at the gym now...so you can really see the kind of individualized progress you are making. Keep it up Drew...One day!