Find Your Intensity - Monday, October 18th, 2021
Find Your Intensity
This is a post I’ve shared a few times over the years since 2017.
In the Spring of 2016 I (Jen) was on a roll, PRing my lifts and benchmark WODs. I had PR'd my 1RM Clean, followed by a Grace time on our Grace for Grace day! The following we had a 1RM Snatch programmed. I hit a 2 lb PR on my 1RM Snatch, and went for another 3 lbs. I got under it, and as I was standing it up and as I was, I dislocated my shoulder! Yep, OUCH! It was a total fluke accident, I was losing the weight, stepped forward, dropped my shoulder, internally rotating it and it with the weight on the bar it dislocated my shoulder.
Why am I telling you this?
Because shortly after this, on my road to recovery, I came across a blog post written by CrossFit Games athlete Miranda Alcaraz. The post was titled "I Only Look Like This Because I have Good Genetics" It was actually talking about how people kept accusing her of doing steroids to get the body she has. However it was one section stood out to me.
"You have to train like a Games athlete to be “fit” and to look good. More is better."
No, the truth is; There are 3 things you need to see amazing results from training (CrossFit or otherwise), and it’s not steroids, or more volume, or amazing genetics. Here it is…
You need intensity. You need to GO HARD in your workouts, and you need to stop thinking that 45 min EMOMs and Chippers are the key to the goods. You need to take off the weight vest, and stop adding weight, until you start seeing times that would rival Regional level athletes. Until then – go faster.
You need to eat better. I didn’t say less. For many of you (women especially) it might even be more. One thing you can bet is that Games athletes eat to perform. You should do the same thing.
This one is the most important… and you’re not going to like it…. YOU NEED TO BE CONSISTENT WITH 1 AND 2 FOR A LONG ASS TIME if you ever want results that actually stick. I am no scientist, but it is my belief that you can change how your body responds to training and nutrition if you keep reprogramming it over and over again for years.
Light Bulb Moment!
The line I took away from this post was, "You need to take off the weight vest, and stop adding weight until you start seeing times that would rival Regional level athletes. Until then – go faster."
What? At the time I came across this post in 2016, I had been doing CrossFit for 4 years and my mindset was to RX the workout. Always try to RX the workout! Then coming out of a shoulder injury I was going to have to build back up, so RXing WOD's would be a thing of the past for a little while. It was this line from Miranda's post rocked my world. It made so much sense, but I had never looked at a workout like that before. Certain workouts like, Fran, Grace, Diane, etc. are meant to be intense. Elite athletes do these in minutes, if a workout like Grace use to take me 7 mins, maybe I should take some weight off, get my time sub 5 mins, then add more weight! Would I be getting any less of a workout because I wouldn't have 95lbs on the bar? Not at all. The ladies who do Grace in 2 mins probably also have a 1RM Clean & Jerk twice as heavy as mine. So the level of intensity would be relative! "Light bulb moment" for me!
What I'm trying to say is, find intensity in your workout! If that means some days striping it down and going harder and faster, to get the stimulus out of the workout, that is what you’re meant to do. When we program workouts we program them with a desired stimulus, we want you to get the stimulus out of the workout. Just because you can RX a workout, doesn’t mean you always should. Listen to the coaches brief, and pick your weights based off what their describing they want out of the workout. If you’re not sure, just ask the coach.
Monday, October 18th, 2021
Focus:
Snatches with 3-5s pause in bottom 3 x 3 @ 65% of 1RM
Posterior Chain Pause Pulls - 2-3sec pause above knee 3 x 3 HEAVY 90%+
WOD:
For Time
1000m Row
50 Hang Power Cleans 75/55lbs
30 Pullups
Check back each night at 8pm for the next days WOD .
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