Find Intensity - Thursday, September 14th, 2023
Find Intensity
Usually I end up sharing this blog post once a year. I first wrote this post in 2017 a year after I dislocated my shoulder. If you’ve been with us since 2017, you’ve read this post, or a version of it lots of times since.
Back in 2016 I had been on a roll. I was PRing my lifts and benchmark WODs. I had PR'd my 1RM Clean, and followed that by a Grace PR on our Grace for Grace day in March! Grace happened to be my favourite workout! The following day I hit a 2 lb 1RM Snatch PR, and went for another 3 lbs. I got under the bar beautifully, the lift felt great, as was standing it up I stepped forward and felt something odd in my shoulder. I had dislocated my shoulder! Yep, OUCH! It was a total fluke accident, I was losing the weight, stepped forward, dropped my shoulder, internally rotating it.
Shortly after, 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 keep accusing her of doing steroids to get the body she has. However one section of that post stood out to me!
"You have to train like a Games athlete to be “fit” and to look good. More is better."
Truth; 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. You need to weigh and measure your food and have some sort of tracking system that works for you. Use that information to tell you whether or not you are on the right track, then keep making tweaks until you get it right.
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 Miranda’s 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 that point I had been doing CrossFit for 4 years and my mindset was the RX. Always try to RX the workout! The RX was the gold standard. Coming out of a shoulder injury I was now 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 8 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, do just that! Rather than coming in and asking the coach what the “RX” is, ask the coach what the stimulus of the workout is meant to be.
Working on the level of intensity that is right for you is going to help you see results.
Thursday, September 14th, 2023
Focus:
Ring MU Progressions
WOD:
10 Rounds for Time:
200m Run
3 Ring Muscle-ups
workout posted from CrossFit.com Monday 230814
Check back each night at 8pm for the next days WOD .
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