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Don’t Be THAT Guy

REST DAY!

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I've been sitting here in front of the laptop at my moms house now for 30 minutes watching the cursor blink.  I must have gotten 5 sentences into an opening paragraph 3 times by now and trashed every single one.  I know what I want to say; I made an outline for god’s sake.  In another lifetime when I was polite, charming and intelligent, I was actually a pretty good writer.  Now my brain is soft and doughy, the kind of brain that other fit, sudoku-jumble-crossword playing brains make fun of.  So here I sit writer's blocked, rambling about everything but what I came to talk about.  Could be performance anxiety I guess, our blog has become something of a hot-spot due to Justin’s wit and sharp tongue, so eight-hundred-some odd posts later I have yet to contribute, until now.  I told him there was something on my mind, thinking that it would chap his ass all to pieces and he would just tear everyone a proverbial new one… and i could stand on the sidelines and say "YEAH, what he said!" when he said “that’s a good idea, you write it and I’ll email you the info how to make a post.” My stomach sank… “Shit.”  Out of my wheelhouse I go… bear with me.

 
Here comes the “complement sandwich” part of this bastardized essay.  A lot of really terrific things are happening around our little box.  I see a massive, ever-growing group of really great, motivated folks conquering fears, overcoming weakness and illness, becoming strong, fast and very generally physically prepared.  I see folks who never competed on any stage a day in their lives grabbing their nuts and throwing themselves into full bore athletic competitions. I see members becoming certified and turning into coaches, helping their fellow athletes with advice about nutrition, strength, conditioning.  People show up on weekends for gymnastics and endurance groups rain or shine.  Even more important, I see folks making friendships that will last a lifetime, because they are rooted with common beliefs and the desire to become and remain strong, fit and healthy.  Oh, and also a desire to occasionally party and drink their asses off and potentially do something completely embarrassing.   I see people changing their lives in this building every day, all good things.
 
Well, that was the bread, here comes the meat.  The downfall to all these good things is, folks tend to become experts overnight.  People start feeling their oats, and cant seem to see the forest through the trees.  Get someone involved in a competition and all of a sudden they become “Mr. Rx’D.”  He’s the guy who no matter what wants to do exactly what is written on the whiteboard, regardless of time lost or serious personal injury.  Different WOD’s produce different stimuli, and just because you have the physical ability to accomplish a task does not mean that it is appropriate for you.  The workouts that I program are “best case” scenarios for the best athletes.  They are designed as tasks for athletes like Jason Kahlipa, Mikko Salo, Gram Holmberg, and the like on their best day.   Our program is all about effect on the nervous system as a means to more muscle mass, cardiovascular output and thus capacity for work or “fitness”.   The goal is to put ourselves in that best case scenario on a day to day basis.
  
Example: if Jason Kahlipa can do “Fran”(21-15-9 thrusters @ 95lbs and pull-ups, a workout that produces nearly 1/3 horse power with the right athlete.) in 2 minutes flat, and he can also thruster 275lbs, should I do the same exact workout if I can only thruster 155lbs?  Will this produce the same effect on my nervous system and ultimately make me more fit if it takes me 10:00 to do the same amount of work Jason accomplished 8 minutes faster?  No!  95 lbs is roughly 1/3 of Jason's max where it is nearly 2/3 of mine, this small percentage of his max will allow him to move the bar with great speed and efficiency.  At roughly double that percentage I on the other hand would undoubtedly have to let go of the bar more often, especially as I fatigue.  The effect of a 2-minute Fran is massive on your endocrine system.  The effect of a 10 minute Fran is also huge, but in a different way.  The 2-minute fran will produce an output response; leaving you hypoxic and unresponsive on the floor.  The 10-minute Fran will be more of a strength response, heart rate much lower and muscles failing due to lack of strength, not lack of conditioning.  In a workout where we are looking for sheer power output, the point is missed with the 10-minute variety.  If I can only thruster 155, I’m better off using 45-75 lbs for this particular WOD; making the load comparable to Jason's.  Although this may insult my man ego, it may also allow me to better resemble resemble a piston during my thrusters instead of the space shuttle struggling to take off.  The more manageable load may allow me to finish my  scaled Fran in the 2-4 minute range, and while not matching total output, i may receive the same effect psychologically,  whats known as the fran affect: pulmonary edema, metallic taste in your mouth, nausea, dizziness and general awesomeness. 
 
"Wait, I thought we were supposed to lift heavy shit boss?! Get your story straight!  I thought we were supposed to do what the board says?!  I competed in the "whatever-the-fuck competition" last week, i'll be lame if I don't do it Rx!" Does that mean we should never throw ourselves under the bus to see exactly what we have inside our guts?  Absolutely not.  When it says go heavy, GO FUCKIN HEAVY!  When you want to see what you are made of, go for it, you should absolutely test the waters from time to time, push your envelope and do things that scare the piss out of you.  Its good for you to get crushed by a benchmark workout now and again.  Its good to try to do the Rx variety just to see exactly what you’ve got, but this is not where you want to spend the majority of your training just because you can.   You aren't going to become a beast by trudging through a WOD that takes a stronger person half as much time to do, but you will become a monster if you scale your weight and match the time domain.  We must scale appropriately so that we can produce the same times and thus the same neuro-endocrine response that the big name athletes are putting up and getting respectively.  There are times I have scaled down my own workouts, I don't feel shamed into Rx just because I created the damn thing.  If I'm beat all to shit from a long week or the spirit just isn't in me that day i'm not against backing down the weights so I can ramp up the intensity. This is how one becomes a monster, checking your ego and your expert mind at the door, surrendering to your coaches and producing the desired results.

One final thought.  Listen.  Listen to what your coaches say, when they do say something.  Many of you are 1, 2 some close to 3 years into this program and require less and less coaching, because experience does give you a broad skill-set, but that being said no one in this gym is at a level where coaching is irrelevant.  Many of you need to slow down a bit and learn to recieve coaching during your WOD's The 10 seconds its going to take your coach to explain something or correct a technique flaw will save you 10 minutes in the long run by helping your body do what its supposed to.  When we see errors that can cause bodily harm or even inefficiency we aren't doing you any favors by letting you flail away at a spastic pace and ruin your knees so you can get a fast time.  Those same errors that will injure you also cause you to be slower, when the body moves correctly it moves quickly as well.  On the same token, if your coach says your missing depth on squats or missed chin over bar on a pull-up, take it to heart and if you give a shit, fix it.  You play how you practice, going super fast in training means nothing if you miss 10 reps and have arbitrary movement standards.  This is one reason Justin and I have always done well in CrossFit competitions, attention to detail.  Many people out there who look real good on paper don't fare so well in competition because their technique is dog-shit, and none of it counts, its not measurable.  No rep.. No rep… No rep… there's nothing worse that working your ass off and getting no credit for it.  Don't be that guy. 

That's it.  I'm proud of every one of you.  If the world ended tomorrow I think that our little cult would be just fine.  There is no other group of people that I would rather spend the majority of my life with, but let's not get too big for our britches. 

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41 comments

  1. Jill Aka Olive Oyl

    Very well stated. I really enjoyed reading your blog. 🙂

  2. Roger

    Terrific post! I think we all need a reminder once in a while (or a little more often)!

  3. Jennifer R.

    With much trepidation I was planning on dragging myself and my purple foot back to the 6AM class tomorrow morning. This morning’s post was most well-timed for me.
    Travis, you’re alRIGHT!

  4. Thank you Travis! Great post…so great I think you should jump in and post something more often. I for one will take this to heart and do what I can to listen and apply every bit of coaching and advice I can from you guys. Whether the body listens is a different issue but it tries. After visiting a few other boxes I realize how lucky we are to have such an amazing box. Despot out bitching, we love your programming and all of the advice you guys have given us in the box and out. Love ya!

  5. Liz

    Thank You Travis.. Great Post!

  6. Eileen

    Outstanding post, Travis! Thank you.

  7. Roger

    I am definitely in favor of Travis posting more often!

  8. Ron Gates

    Thanks Travis,great advise.We need to hear from you more often, you have a lot of knowledge we can all benifit from. Much respect Ron

  9. Lesley Heller

    Travis: that was great. We all need to look at our personal goals and not what the rest are doing. I for one realize that what the RX is, is for the highest level athlete. Our personal accomplishments in the gym are what matters. I for one could get the award for the scaling queen and proud of it.

  10. Brian

    BRAVO TRAVIS!

  11. Thanks for the reminder Travis. Also, the great coaching. Bravo on the post, man! You’re an articulate writer and as someone who writes, that was a great read. I am definitely down with hearing from you more often.

  12. Agree with everyone above. Thank you Travis! Please, post more often. That’s why we love you guys – you truly care about what you do and put your heart in it. And you KNOW your stuff.

  13. Trav, the crowd is calling your name. Encore, encore, encore! Ha. Thanks for doing this, it was nice to have a day off. We will see how Chris does tomorrow.
    To the rest of you. You guys are awesome, and it is awesome to be an integral part of helping you all live healthy lifestyles. Travis’ post is aimed at the heart of the values of this box/business/community. Excellence is the #1 goal in coaching, in eating, in movement, and in performance. We do the best we can on a daily basis to make you all better. We tell you what you need to hear, we study coaching methods and programing varieties, and we try to make the business more effective and efficient.
    We have made tremendous progress in all of these respects, but we are by no means complacent with where we are or where you are. It is quite frustrating as the experts of out place to see you guys ignoring our advice and our coaching. Travis mentioned in his write up how we both do very well in competition because of our attention to detail. We want to pass this trait on to you all, but it only happens when you buy in.
    Too often on our guy we see the egos come out and people are going for the Rx when its not appropriate. We offer advice, but after a certain amount of offering advice to def ears, we will leave you to your own demise, we can’t help you if you won’t listen.
    Biting off more than you can chew leads to slow times and shit form. Shit form for hundreds of reps leads to ingrained bad habits. Now you have made yourself less fit and more inefficient.
    You all need to be focused on becoming Jedi master students of movement and fitness. Today is only one piece of the puzzle, it’s only one day in the journey. Make it a productive day towards the overall goal. Who cares if Nabeta beats your time if you got more out of the workout than he did. (Brian, you know I love you bro) Besides, really the only true indicator of your performance is how you fair in a legit competition. Everything else is training. If you train well, you will compete well.
    See the big picture, hang on your coaches every word, forget about today, train to perfection, and if you’re fucking it up… fix it before it’s too late.

  14. Travis- great post. You are a great writer who has very valuable information to share. Keep writing! And I don’t think your brain is soft.

  15. Amy K

    Great post Travis. You make a good sandwich.

  16. Jojo Reyes

    I have to agree with everyone here.. excellent post, Travis!!

  17. Amy Muraki

    I can honestly say that after having to seriously scale things lately you guys are awesome!! There is no way that i could continue doing CF programming without the support of Brooke, Travis and Justin. Never have I done an RX workout and that doesn’t really hurt my feelings- I get my ass kicked just the same. Add on pregnancy and I want to die with basically a CF kids WOD! You guys have kept me motivated, interested and craving more for a year now. Thank you for your helpful/constructive (and the occasionally asshole) coaching. CFES kicks ass!!

  18. Brian

    I appreciate what the coaches have been doing as I have now been asking Justin and Travis what is the tim domain goal of the WOD. Ie. I saw times on the WOD from Friday on the 100 foot oh walking and saw times from 12 min all the way past 20. I demonstrated to Justin 135 and he said that will do. Travis has been giving the class time domains that we should not be over during the wods, so not going Rx is not really that important.

  19. Travis – You give great blog. Well done.
    With that said, I’ll still put in work on getting my man card back, but at least now I know why it was stripped from me – you are only trying to make me better!
    Seriously though, great post, it’s important to remember that the scaling of workouts shouldn’t be viewed as a failure by any means!

  20. Trav

    Thank you all so much for your kind words, I have to admit I was nervous to post because Justin sets the bar so high, and I haven’t written anything besides my name in years! I’m really really glad that it was received so well, it’s a pleasure to coach you all and watch you improve, I think that isn’t said enough. Since it wasn’t an abortion I will definitely be sharing my thoughts more often, both to give Justin a break and creative rest (I have a newfound appreciation for how much work he actually puts into the blog every day) and to share my thoughts from a bigger stage. Thanks again guys, see you in class. -trav

  21. John Michelmore

    Travis, well put, and, for me definitely hit home. Thanks.

  22. eloquent composition. thank you travis.

  23. Elizabeth T.

    Awesome Travis! As a person who has never done a Rx workout it is nice to hear. I know I have the opposite problem of believing I can do less then I really can. I really appreciate it when you force me to go up in weight, and believe in me. All the coaches are invaluable for sure!

  24. I think the summary to what Travis and Justin is something I have been told over and over, namely: “the best athletes are coachable.” Lots of people have coaches, and then they decide they are not going to listen to their advice. But each of us must make an effort to allow ourselves to be coached, especially when we realize the coaches interest is our highest level of fitness. I really think you guys are great, and thanks for the reminder.

  25. Crystal B.

    Great post Travis! This is something we all need to be reminded of now and again, and you framed the point perfectly. I have to say, I really enjoyed reading the content of your post, very educational!!!

  26. Wait… I thought Travis didn’t know we had a blog.

  27. Great post, Trav! I always enjoy the WODs where we have detailed scaling suggestions the most.

  28. Ashley D

    Great to hear from you on the blog coach Trav! What you have to say here is invaluable, motivational, smart and best of all heartfelt. I’ll look forward to more insights from you : ) Echoing the above 20+ posts, we have the BEST coaches at CFES. Hands down.

  29. Travis, awesome post. The passion in your words speaks loud and clear. Now that I am 8 BEERS in to the night, I think I will take a crack at the wheel. Justin is loving this… gives him more time to PLAN THAT WEDDING! Loren, he isn’t working that hard, don’t let him out of his responsibility!!!

  30. And this is why I love CFES. You guys are not only gym smart and street smart, but you are legitimately book smart. I think that is what really makes this place such a success. I believe in what you tell me because I believe you know what you’re talking about, and you convey your message with intelligence.

  31. Hmmm… I may have spoken too soon. Maybe I should have reserved my judgment until AFTER Lene posts 😉

  32. Trav – outstanding post!!! I’m inspired to work smarter and harder. You are an amazing coach and friend…And an incredible writer! We are all lucky to have you! 😉
    Lene – 8 beers deep, eh? Tomorrow’s post should be very interesting!

  33. LauraB

    What a great post Travis! Very, very well written. Thanks for the heartfelt words – it deserved a re-read.

  34. Memo O

    Good job Travis on the post!!!!! I could understand everything!!! even if wasn’t in Spanish!!!!

  35. Monica

    Memo – Hahahaha! Good one!
    Travis – Seriously, a very good post! It’s always good to get each of your different perspectives on things! It provides for a more well-rounded learning experience!

  36. Alan

    Travis:
    This is a great post and we all hope that you will do more in the future. We really appreciate that you, Justin, Brooke and Chris always are striving to improve the program and to improve us!

  37. Carol Penney

    Travis – Great post, great advice. I always appreciate being coached, but most of all I appreciate the PATIENCE you all exhibit when your words don’t sink in as fast as they probably should.

  38. dawn

    Thank you Travis.

  39. John Carey

    Damn that was a solid piece Travis. I’ll eat this sandwich with pleasure and can’t wait to get back into the box with you guys. One of the benefits I got from being at CFES was the constant reminder that I am a total and complete newbie, and it would serve most of us well to remember to apprentice ourselves to life instead of being masters after a weekend seminar.