The blessing and curse of CrossFit are that it’s competitive. A lot of former athletes gravitate to CrossFit as a method of staying competitive after their athletic careers are over.
This is one of the major reasons I fell in love with CrossFit. There are so many ways to measure our fitness, and it’s always quite clear where you need the most work. On the other hand, the competitive nature often makes people forget about form or doing what is right for their bodies. I’d venture to say that most injuries occur not from bad programming or coaching, but from letting your ego get the best of you. As coaches, understanding the psychology of these situations and putting your athletes in the best possible position with movements/scaling that match up with their abilities/goals is paramount.
Amidst the 2017 CrossFit Open athletes all over the world are taking second and maybe even a third attempt at these workouts in an effort to better their score. Athletes are trying movements they’ve never tried as well loading they’ve never tried. It’s always awesome to see how many barriers are broken during the CrossFit Open.
Conversely, it’s painful to watch so many people get wrapped around their scores and taking multiple attempts at these workouts. I know, I was one of them for the last 5 years. This year I had plans on not competing in the open to really give my mind a break. The last few years we’ve been close to making Regionals as a team and the pressure of repeating workouts made the open feel like more of a job than a hobby.
The open became something I dreaded for myself but loved for my athletes. Fast forward to this year and it’s a totally different beast. With considerably less training in preparation for the open, I told myself I participate on my own terms. I would perform the workout on Mondays only so I wouldn’t spend the weekend obsessing over how I could improve my score. I also wanted zero chance of being able to do the workout more than once.
The end result is I’m actually enjoying the Open this year. With that said, letting yourself perform these workouts more than once is simply not necessary. It’s one thing if it’s going to determine your trip to regionals, but if it’s just for your own competitive drive then it just doesn’t make sense. Your athletes would never expect you to program the same workout within days or weeks time so this situation is no different.
Substitutions
I see athletes get wrapped around performing a specific movement because a workout calls for it. This is the downfall of programming for the masses, but it’s very easy to make appropriate substitutions on the fly.
Just because a workout calls for an overhead squat does not mean you need to perform that movement, especially if it does not line up with your goals or ability.
Remember, no one is going to look at you differently if you substitute a safer variation like a front squat if that means removing the risk of injury. We are not all built the same so being mindful of long-term goals and knowing if a particular movement is going to help us get closer or further away from that goal is important. I’ve had this talk numerous times with my athletes and at times it may take a lot of convincing to get your athlete to be amenable to your recommendations.
In this situations, it’s important to not give in to what they want to do and stick to what you know is best for that athlete. Your athletes aren’t paying you to be their buddy, they are paying you to be their coach!
Scaling
Athletes often look down on scaling. This is especially true for the athlete that Rx’s most workouts then have to scale a workout because of one movement that is outside their wheelhouse. Much like providing proper substitutions, scaling a workout correctly ensures that we are getting the proper dose of training and the correct stimulus of the workout.
A way I’ve found that ensures this will happen more times than not is time caps. We all should know how long particular workout should take and how said workout is going to lend itself to the overall goal of the training session. Providing a time cap for a task domain workout gives your athletes more guidance without them having to feel as bad about scaling. A good example of this is a workout like “Fran”. My time cap is 7 minutes.
With that said, we know that athletes should be able to move quickly and should not be spending an inordinate amount of time staring at the barbell or pull-up bar so their scaling needs to ensure this does not happen. There are times when time caps will be on the faster end of the spectrum and some higher level athletes won’t finish. These time caps ensure that they are not getting complacent and pushing their boundaries. A good example of this is a workout like “GI Jane”. My time cap is 12 minutes.
For a lot of people, this will be a 12-minute AMRAP of burpee pull-ups. I can promise you your athletes will push their pace a lot harder than if the time cap was 15 minutes. And really, do you want your athletes doing burpee pull-ups for more than 12 minutes? Not likely. Overall, scaling is vital to your athlete’s success and longevity. I really believe that it lies in the coaches’ hands to portray scaling and time caps in the most positive light.
In short, I firmly believe repeating open workouts for the general public is haphazard. In the same parallel, proper scaling and substitutions must lend themselves to the athlete’s abilities and overall goals. If there is any question about a particular movement or loading then chances are it does not line up with this. This is 100% of the job to make sure proper scaling and substitutions occur more times than not.
Of course, there are going to be times that it does not happen especially with larger groups, but accurately conveying “the why” of the training and alternate scaling options of ahead of time will keep your athletes healthier and more likely of reaching their goals.
