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25 thoughts on “Wed, Jan 28th”

1. Quiet today.

2. So how was last night,did people do the workout at RX. It bloody well looked hard.Also what did you sub for the muscle ups.

   Back to yesterday I feel when doing a WOD that instead of going full blast I tend to pace myself cause i have the fear of not finishing the workout.I would say my last round durning the kyle was faster then all my other rounds.
   So i dont think i really test my limits i think i can push harder I am just worried about my recovery durning the WOD.

3. Reallistically I can think of about one or two instances in a year’s training where I have seen someone who has had to actually abandon a WOD because they cannot finish it.

   What’s much more common is that they slow down to a near crawl, but finish eventually. Which is fine- I don’t think anyone should be worried about that.

   From time to time I have seen people have to scale a workout after they’ve begun, because they realise they’ve gone too heavy, but again- not really a big deal as long as its a rare occurance.

   With all that said, there’s nothing wrong with trying to pace yourself a bit more during a workout. We often rush out of the gate and then slow down dramatically a bit in. I like the idea of trying to build up and then finish strong. Just that most of us aren’t that good at it. A variation would be to pick numbers to shoot for during tabata workouts and stick to that, or scores per round in workouts like FGB.

4. Hey Scott, it was a bit of a lungbuster. Did the Thrusters at 40kg and jumping muscle ups.

   I’m the same. If i’m particularly nervous about a WOD i’m conscious of pacing myself and taking longer breathers between the earlier sets. End up still being wiped at the end but thinkin could I push harder. Altho a lot of the WODs i’ve been doing for the first time which means next time i’ll be aiming to blow those times away.

5. Pacing yourself is an interesting one, which is more beneficial; I aim for 1 round a minute in Cindy for example and I get 20 rounds, or if I burst out of the gates and get 15 rounds in 10 minutes then crawl through 5 more rounds in the remaining time?

   Power output is the same overall, though in the latter situation the curve is not linear, rather it peaks early and declines. I don’t know which is better tbh, I’d settle for a 20 round Cindy no matter how I got it.

6. Ditto to what Rauairi said–no matter how crap I feel and no matter how hard the WOD’s, I’ve only had to stop once and that was because it was too heavy and I was afraid if I got tired my form would slip too much.

   So to Bobby’s point–power output is the goal so I would say that there is no difference in the two scenarios. Ever since reading OPT’s article about ‘active rest’ I’ve been toying with pacing in WOD’s and in my experience so far, however, I found what seems to be a noticeable difference with pacing. Meaning that if I can do 1 round of cindy on every minute then chances then by bursting out of the gates I would probably get 5-6 rounds then crawl through 5-6 more. Of course this is both anecdotal and perceived as I’ve never tried to test it.

7. Scott.

   Yesterday’s workout was quite an elite one, it’s quite an ass kicker on the aule CNS to do heavy thrusters and muscle ups. For the guys who’d never experienced thrusters they stayed with the bar.

   Pretty much everyone did jumping muscle-ups, again training the movement pattern rather than just reverting to pull ups. The transition is, for most people, the hardest part of the MU, so training this is essential imo.

   As for should I pace or burn, the answer is “yes”. Our goal is increased output across broad time and modal domains, which means we’re training for everything. So, you should train your body to a) Burst out of the gates and see how long it can maintain this intensity, b) keep going long after you’ve burnt yourself out, and c) maintain a steady, high output.

   For Military/LEO – you can see the obvious benefits of bursting out the gate and keeping going, and for sport this can be obvious too. How often are fights determined in the first minute or so, or stupid tries/points/goals conceded because one team was on, and the other was getting into the swing of it.

   Of course, there’s benefit to getting stronger/faster as the wod wears on, which will help you in sport. Considering most people burst into it, if you can keep your power the same or rising during a workout/game, you’ll become relatively stronger/faster/etc as you reach the finish line.

8. Pacing: No. I try sometimes but it goes out the window. Taking the hypothetical 5 round WOD, I’m usually wrecked by rd3 and considering lying in a heap. RD 4 involves head shaking and hands-on-hips, rd5 is a combination of hope and desperation. I was thinking about getting one of those heart rate monitors to see what’s actually happening to the CV system and if the point where I stop to rest is at an actual physically measureable point that can be identified on a graph or something psychological.
   Not sure if the info would be any use but it could potentially be interesting. Anyone know anything about HRM’s?

   I can pace a 5k or something monostructural like that.

   Quit a WOD due to feeling dodgy once (possibly… I’ve had to stop due to time constraints the odd time too). It was the day after a 13 hour flight which involved much coffee and wine and no sleep. the wod involved rowing, thrusters and pullups. Got halfway through the first round of thrusters when a big red light went off! Any other time I’ve quit revolved around the idea that if I continued, there would likely be some sort of injury (Jason).

9. Personally I like the idea of pacing, from my experience it allows me to achieve higher scores/shorter times than I would without it.

   Obviously you can’t pace everything but AMRAP workouts are prime targets. Next time Cindy pops up I’m aiming for a round every 80 seconds (15 Rounds Total). I’ll compare it to my last cindy score (12) which was balls to the wall all out effort.

   I get what you mean about starting strong though Colm, but conversely its important to be able to keep your power output up during fights. Look at BJ Penn vs GSP, BJ dominates in the 1st then gasses and loses via a decision. Thats not to say that you shouldn’t start strong but maybe you should start as strong as you can keep up? Or do both?

10. Ed, I’ve got a HR monitor that I’ve yet to use. If I haven’t packed it already I might take it down to CFI to see what happens–well what happens thur or fri as today isn’t really a metcon.

11. Thanks for the reply’s it is interesting to find out how each of us face a WOD. When I really think about what I am doing during a WOD I have realised that I am staying within my limits rather than trying to exceed them which I think crossfit is really about.

    As colm said “you can see the obvious benefits of bursting out the gate and keeping going, and for sport this can be obvious too “. Saying that I am stronger and fitter then I have been for years so my WODs have got faster my lifts heavier and even though I am exceeding what I thought my limits were when I started I am not exceeding what my limits are now.
    A good example was on Monday when both Jeff and Tom went RX and I scaled without really the need to.

12. I think pacing gives rise to an image of someone performing the WOD really slowly, keeping a slow pace. Pacing doesn’t infer that you go slow, only that you keep at a certain speed. 1 round a minute in Cindy is pacing, and is certainly not slow.

    Scott, I know the feeling, you’ve pushed yourself so hard before and now you’ve achieved your beginner’s goals. But CrossFit, and life in general really, are funny like that and won’t let you sit still. Keep pushing at the WODs, make sure you do them as rx’d, or as close as possible, nothing else will get you as strong as fast.

13. Apart from Squats and Milk obviously.

14. I’ve quit one or two WODs, but they were on occasions where I had absolutely no business starting them in the first place (deeply and profoundly overtrained).

    My theory is that if you’re unable to stay on the pullup bar because you’re shaking all over and breaking out in a cold sweat, it’s time to think about calling it a day.

15. You forgot ‘roids, Bobby (joke).

    I’m back trying to juggle BJJ/MMA and CrossFit. So far I’m discovering the same problem I had last time I tried this, in the sense that it can be hard to fit in a proper WOD after a good BJj or MMA session. Last night, for example, I did an hour of MMA rounds and attempted to do the monday night WOD but even as I was warming up for it I had this sense that I would be pushing it too much.

    As I said to Bobby at Kyle’s party, maybe to CrossFit 5 days in 7 and also fit in about 2-3 hours of BJJ and MMA on top of that just isn’t feasible if you’re also holding down a job.

    So, assuming I don’t win the lotto and give us this working lark, then the other possibility is to do less BJJ/MMA (say five rounds instead of a full ten) and then rest and do a WOD. Or to do full sets of rounds and do a mini-WOD (like a 10-minute Cindy). Or else to try and do morning and evening training, schedule permitting.

    I think the answer is ‘yes’.

16. Hey Ruairi I have to think there’s a bunch of guys from the main site doing MMA as well and there is probably a discussion thread or two on what schedules work for people. Everyone is different but it might be worth a perusal.

17. More food and sleep could be the answer.

18. Kyle,

    I’ll take a look.

    Will,

    Well, unfortunately the amount of sleep I get is more or less determined by the shifts I’m working. I could nap during the day … But I’m already doing that (interesting article on that in the Guardian a few days ago, incidentally, said the most beneficial was periods of less than 45 minutes or more than 1.5 hours, but nothing in between unless you want to be groggy after).

    As for more food- I’m on 16 blocks. You saying I should up that?

19. Brian: 45-50(f)-50-52.5; 6:41
    Damien: Technique work then 30 x 3; 6:48
    Deirdre: 20-22.5-25-27.5-35-37.5(f); 7:24
    Kyle, The: 80(f)-70-75-80-85; 7:18
    Rob: 40-50(f)-50(f)-50; 7:29
    Scott: 40-50-55-60(f); 7:29
    Sue: 20-22.5-22.5-20-20-20; 7:23
    Tom: 45-50(ugly)-40-45; 6:45

20. What were the mile times?

    Ah running……… Horrific, looking at last nights run we needed to be doing a total maximum of 6 mins or 45 seconds around the 200 metres to do a 5km in 20 mins,

    Bearing in mind I was nowhere near that and in bits at the end, I am a loooong way off 20 mins for 5km,

21. Tom, you see the numbers after the semi colon next to people’s names. like yours has 6:45?

    

22. Oh I see them Colm, I see them reeeal nice

    However at 9:32am I could not see them, maybe my eyes were broken at 9:32am

23. Well that kind of excuse won’t cut it on the day of your deathmatch with Jeff, Tom.

24. Nice Ruairi…… Nice,

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