MONDAY
I hope you all had a great weekend! Let’s focus on tweaking technique with our bar work this week and not focus so much on going heavy during strength.
Also I’d like to address mechanics, Range of Motion, scaling and intensity. I took a few snippets from a blog post I came across. Please take a few minutes to read this and think twice while setting up for your workout so you are set up for success.
Anyone that has been a member of Thor Fitness for any period of time knows how class starts off every day. We meet at the whiteboard and we discuss the WOD. We address the goal of the workout, about how long do we want it to take, how many rounds roughly are we looking to get. We address how the weights should feel, unbroken, broken once, broken no more than twice, etc. What are some modifications we can do if a movement on the board is outside of our current capabilities? After spending about 5 minutes at the board our goal is to have already helped all athletes start to make their workout game plan, a plan that becomes more solidified as we go through the warm-up.
Not everything we do has to be done unbroken, although some days the workout absolutely calls for it. But I want to address the desire to do something unbroken for the sake of. . . moving without stopping. But moving for the sake of moving can turn out to be at the expense of actually doing the movement correctly.
I’ve seen a movement be shortened to something no longer that movement, all in an effort to not stop moving. I admire anyone that can settle lovingly into the pain cave and just embrace the suck. I admire anyone who’s mind will tell them to continue to move, even if their body is no longer producing the same work. Because a strong mental game is clutch in CrossFit, getting comfortable with the uncomfortable. But we cannot let a strong mental game always be the guy running the show . Let’s chat about wallballs for a minute. I can move up and down while pushing a ball. And I can start off getting below parallel and getting the ball above the line, but about 15 wallballs in I no longer squat low enough and the ball is no longer getting high enough. So what am I doing? Not a wallball. It makes no difference if I hold on to a ball for 50 reps, if only 15 of those reps are actually meeting the standard of a wallball. Why? We train certain ranges of motion for every movement because working to those full ranges of motion are what strengthen our joints and the muscles that surround them. If we shorten range of motion for a movement the only thing made stronger is our cardio respiratory endurance. We are not getting stronger in said movement. And that is the key to this blog.
Whether or not you feel like you need to rest, if you are not doing the movement correctly, you need a rest. Or you need a modification or some assistance. Or we need to lighten the load. But if I want to be better at ring dips, I need to do a ring dip. If I want my wallballs to improve, I need to do wallballs. Doing more bad pull-ups will never equal to more good ones. It just equals to building a solid volume base of bad pull-ups.
Our daily goal should simply be to attack the workout with as much intensity as possible, doing the movements to their standards as best as possible, whether it is with assistance or some form of modification. Mechanics, consistency, intensity, that’s the mantra that gets us our results of improved fitness.
So with that said, being a fast sloppy athlete with bad form and technique in order to have the best time on the white board should not be your goal when you step through the doors. Just something to think about! Communicate with your coaches if you’re just not sure what to do while setting up for your workout.
STRENGTH:
power clean
5 x 3
CrossFit WOD:
5 rds:
5 power cleans 135#/95# RX+ 155#/115#
10 pull ups RX+ C2B
300 meter row