One thing about Crossfit is that it’s meant to get to high levels of intensity. My impression is that for some athletes this means “abnormally” high levels. Being able to maintain the intensity is where an individual’s discipline is revealed. Which is not to say “fail” or “succeed” so much as it is to say over time the more discipline that is applied the more improvement. But I have no idea how to measure “intensity” or even “discipline” on a day-to-day basis.
To help me measure the work (and manage it) I started to think about “mean time between failure” (MTBF), which really just means not allowing myself so much rest time. After all the rest time is reducing the intensity, and I don’t want to lose too much of that opportunity. In practice this means do a certain number of intense reps, stop for a predetermined number of breaths (for example two) and then get back to work. In other words I need to make a very conscious effort not to rest.
Yesterday I decided I needed another formalism, an “exhaustion ratio.” So during the Open 12.5 WOD, I reached what I think is 99.99% of my ability to work — at the end of the WOD I was completely exhausted. It took me several days to totally recover.
Yesterday I did a WOD that required 3 rounds of 10 box jumps, 20 kettle bell swings, 30 ball slams, and 40 walking lunges. I used a 20 inch box, a 35# kb, and a 25# ball. I was working with a partner (PJ) and we got to rest while the other person did a round. I had a total time of 13:45, with an average round rate of 4: 38. PJ was a bit faster, so my rest time was around 3 minutes. I figured I got about 90% of that workout. I took too much rest time during the ball slams — I did sets of 10 with a 2 second rest. The idea behind the WOD was to not break the sets up — it was supposed to continuous. I’m guessing that no rest at all during the ball slams, and a 10 minute total time, would have got me to 99% of the workout.
I need to get closer to the edge of exhaustion.
Cheers.
