INTENSITY

In Crossfit we standardize our workouts, we prescribe the movement, the weight used for that movement, even the time allotted for some workouts. The one thing that we can not standardize is the intensity with which people attack those workouts. The reason for that is because everyone's intensity levels are different. Now I don't want to get into a whole thing about  all of the different factors that play into intensity we are all aware of those factors.


I want to talk about attitude. Attitude is the one factor that affects intensity that we can control. For example a few weekends ago Crossfit Littleton did the workout "Murph" which is:


1 mile run
100 pull ups
200 push ups
300 squats
1 mile run
with a weight vest on


Anyone who knows me, knows that this type of a workout is waaaayyy out of my wheelhouse. I would venture to say that I hate this type of high rep endurance bull crap. Give me power cleans and sprints all day long but I don't even want to talk about what happens to me after 800 m on a run. It's ugly!! In order for me to get my mind right for a workout like "Murph" I have to completely change my attitude. I told myself while this is going to suck for an hour, (it ended up sucking for 73 min and change) I'm going to have fun and just do the work. And while the workout itself didn't do anything to make me a better athlete the mental barrier I had to overcome did.


So what does this mean for your training? The mass majority of crossfitters in the world only want to "get crushed" when they workout. They think that if they aren't laying in a pool of vomit and blood at the end of a WOD then they didn't get a good workout. So what do they do? They skip the strength days, or in my gym when we program strength days we also do a short met-con WOD after it. Some people will fake their way through the lift just to get to the met-con. What I mean is they won't hit the lift with the intensity they should because "I don't want to be tired for the met-con." On days like these the met-con is secondary you need to be putting everything you have into that lift. Don't hold back. BE INTENSE!! When I get done hitting a 5 rm of deads or squats I'm cashed out on the floor laying in that proverbial pool of vomit and blood.




The moral of the story is everytime you walk into the gym BE INTENSE!! And be intense right now, don't worry about what's next. Smash whatever is in front of you and then move onto the next thing and smash it as well.