Post written by Joslyn T.:
Jay sent me a rather timely link to a CF Journal video not so long ago featuring Rob Orlando talking about ‘form’ versus ‘intensity’. It is an ongoing debate, and great fodder for those outside the CrossFit community to CrossFit-bash when they see poor technique in a WID (of course they only then have to be directed to Rich Froning in open workout 12.2 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=boRe82OwxU4 which firmly quietens their smugness!)
The video link can be viewed here, but in a nutshell, Orlando talks to one member in particular, of a group from Israel, who makes each movement look perfect, but frankly, could go a little harder at the expense of not looking so pretty. This brings me back to The London Throwdown in January doing Fran. The general feedback I got from those supporting was, that I moved really well. That was great and all, but I was still slower than those that moved less well and attacked it a little more. If I get to a rep that I think is not going to be perfect, I want to stop, reset and catch my breath to get another perfect rep out. Meanwhile, my opponents will have cracked out 3 reps, perhaps a little ugly, but nevertheless 3 more reps.
I’ve asked myself time and time again, why I do this? I guess it’s because I have been working as a trainer for 9 years constantly drilling perfect technique into my clients. I stop them when things get sloppy, we reset, and start again. And it’s definitely a control thing, I love the movement of kipping pull ups for example, but to be clutching onto the bar for dear life, doing an erratic one seems so wrong!!
There is such a fine line, one I am still trying to get to grips with, of how much attack I give it, at go time. Orlando addresses this too in the video. He says the worst thing that can happen, if you push yourself too hard in a workout, is that you stop, recover for a couple of minutes, and then carry on. Of course mentally that makes me say to myself, but if I just keep it perfect, then I can carry on, at a comfortable pace and get the job done. This wouldn’t be a problem, if I didn’t want to compete at a high level. But I do. I’ve realised that I have pre-set the boundaries of where I can get to, rather than discovering them from reaching a really uncomfortable place. So I guess I have to venture out into the world of ‘get ugly’, get myself super uncomfortable, and see what happens.
How do you guys keep going when the going gets tough?
-Joslyn
Workout of the day:
“Nate”
20 minute as many rounds as possible:
2 Muscle-ups
4 Handstand push-ups
8 Kettlebell Swings 32/24kg
Good article Jos, this is very similiar to my golfing days. I used to see so many people obsessed with technique and positions that they could never just let go and get on with the task in hand and lacked any commitment as a result. Practice is the time to refine technique and improve, not competition.
Great debate. I think perfect tek is there to ensure the most efficient movement. And maximising the work done with the bigger more efficient muscles is exactly what you need for 85% of the workout. But if there’s capacity left by doing it ugly then in a comp you’d be stupid to ignore it. From my old world of rowing it is ugly and ineffective to generate boat speed with your arms. That’s true. But if giving it a rip with the arms in the last 10-20 strokes of the race is going to add to boat speed then bluddy do it! Your arms would fall off if you tried to do this for the first 200 stokes hence the need for good tek, but if you’re fighting for gold and your arms have something to offer, bluddy well use them!
Once in a while our coach would not write the workout up on the board. So the conversation would go along the lines of:
Us: What’s the workout? It’s not up.
Him: Sprints
Us: How many?
Him: Not sure yet.
Us: But then how do we know how hard to go?
Him: Go 100% each time.
Us: But if we go 100% each time, we’ll only be able to do one…because we’ll be dead.
Him: Then only do one.
Us: What, so if we go balls out on the first one, we can go home?
Him: Yup.
Us: Sweet! Shortest session ever.
We would do one, and he’d say “you were holding back – that wasn’t the deal – do one more”. And we’d argue, but we had to do one more. And the whole thing would repeat. Eventually we were too knackered to argue, and too knackered to even hold anything back. We didn’t know how many more sprints we had to do, but we willed each one to be the last one. When our rational brains had stopped chattering and we were really focused on speed and on emptying the tank so that we could make it END, it finally would. We’d do a sprint, and he’d say “There you go – that was 100% – why the hell didn’t you do it on the first one? You could have finished ages ago.” And we would respond with something unrepeatable
But we’d think about it a lot before the next race.
PS: Paul looks like Spider Man in this photo.
looks like? or secretly is?
luckily this post is now three days old mwah ha ha ha
Web-shooters = no rep.