Deirdre:
BS: 55-57.5-60
SP: 27.5-30-.35(f)
DL: 90-95-100 – Congratulations!

Eoin:
BS: 70-80-90
SP: 50(f)-45-47.5
DL: 90-100-110

Scott:
BS: 70-70-70 (technical corrections needed to be made)
SP: 50-60(f)-55(f)
DL: 90-100-110

Big Shane:
BS: 100-110-120
SP: 50-55(f)-?
DL: 90-120-140

Tabata
Big Shane:23-16-9-6-6-3 Push Ups
Colm: 19-19-18-15-12(whimper)-16 B2B Squats
Deirdre: 14-14-12-11-11-11 Sit Ups
Eoin: 21-11-8-5-4-4 Push Ups
Scott: 15-13-14-11-11-13 Squats
The Kyle: 27-18-12-9-7-7 Push UPs

But yeah, I’ll readily admit that even that system has it’s flaws. Scaling a workout is a completely personal thing, and is as much art as science.

The only real way to get a handle on what you’re personally capable of is to jump in, try something and see how it goes.

I started crossfit by doing a 40ish minute Fran, followed a day later by something else that was completely inappropriate. After a week or 2 of attempting workouts I got a feel for what I could and couldn’t do, and just played it by ear, trying as much as possible to keep the workouts relatively short and intense. Inside about 6 months I was doing the WODs as rx’d.

I probably could have made much faster and better progress with carefully structured, progressive scaling advised by people who knew what they were doing, but thankfully CF is robust enough that even if you’re doing it badly it’s still pretty beneficial (something about the magic being in the movements).

As regards the high-skill movements, if someone is following the WOD and something they can’t do comes up, I’d hope that would trigger a little voice in their head that says “I’d better learn how to do that”, and they’d then spend some time looking at the many excellent instructional vids at their disposal and getting some practise in that day.

I know a huge number of people look at the WOD for the first time every day and say “oh, I could never do that”, but if they click away immeadiately without taking a moment to look at a section marked Start Here, they probably weren’t too interested in the first place, and a self-taught internet programme probably wouldn’t be a good fit for their particular temperment anyway.

I’m not sure how much we can realistically do over the ‘net to save those guys.

I know BrandX provide a service in this respect but I feel the mainsite as a whole could provide a more thorough service in this regard if they want to appeal to the ordinary man. This applies across the board as there are loads of workouts which are purely too hard to do for ordinary people.

Secondly, the reliance on skill dependant movements for Metcon purposes. This is a real sticking point with me. I fully realise the importance of these movements and the GPP benefits they bring don’t get me wrong. I’m not too overly concerned with fatigue-induced form breakdowns as this occurs everywhere but moreso with how form problems can stop a person even attempting a workout. This really ties back into my scalability problem but how and ever.

Look at “Grace” for example, I can’t do that workout as its too heavy but I could attempt a 40kg version (remind me to do this at some stage). Many friends of mine could not attempt this workout at all as they have no experience doing cleans, similarly, I couldn’t do “Isabel” at the moment as I’ve never performed a snatch. (that last piece took me ages to write as to avoid various jokes about me having no experience with a snatch)

Maybe these problems aren’t too bad and its just me but they’re two points I rarely see debated. I know I haven’t put my points forward in an entirely coherent manner but I’m far better at debating in person. Oh and Ruairi, personally I think these debates are best suited to CrossFit websites. At least here everyone is in agreement with how good CrossFit is and understands the system so arguments can be laid out in a purely non-personal manner. Well thats what I think anyway.

More inspirational WOD videos are always good too, old people lifting stuff always inspires me to do some work.

Tinkering and personal adjustment is only possible or useful once you’ve established some sort of baseline.

Personally I think debates about the pros cons, real or imagined, of CrossFit itself are probably best left elsewhere- there’s nothing to be gained here.

Before I went zone this was something I wondered about. What’s a week of zone eating actually look like? I checked diet logs on the web, and a few CrossFit sites that put up zone meal ideas.

Like I discussed with Robbie a while back, some of the zone recipes in the various books are a bit … unappetising. I found it more useful just to look figure out block values of various meat / veg / fruit portions and start coming up with your own stuff.

Other than that I always enjoy the links posted and always make sure to check them out.