The Game Plan

Hey Vic City,

Just like that the first week of the Team Series is done. Registered teams took on four tough WODs over the five day window, and final scores will be up by Wednesday at 5 pm, when all affiliate managers finish validating scores. As expected we have Games athletes at the top of all three worldwide leaderboards (men's, women's, and mixed). However, regardless of where your overall placing has you sitting, this week could be a good learning experience.

We can look back, even before any of the WODs started, ask yourself how were you feeling going into the WOD? Nervous? Excited? How did you use that energy?

Did you have a game plan or rep scheme plan going in?

This is often where, in competition, people don't perform up to their abilities. Maybe you used that early adrenaline and got a bit carried away, and it cost you in the end. This happens, and not just in competition, but in your everyday class workout.

Here is an example WOD where a game plan is important - 3 rounds of 50 wallballs and 20 chest to bar pull-ups. The athlete that is preparing for the workout has done a set of 40 unbroken wallballs once, and can get 11 or 12 chest to bar pull-ups when fresh. Our common sense tells us that they should break up both those movements early, and only start with a set of 20 wallballs before moving to 2 sets of 15. At the call of "3,2,1,GO!" rep 18 and 19 are 'feeling good', so they continue until 40 before their heavy breathing and burning shoulders can't hit the target anymore. They take a 20 second break and finish off the 10 remaining reps in the first set. Fast forward 8 minutes, at the start of the 3rd round of wallballs, their heart rate has been near max since minute two, and not only that, but they are now doing 16 sets of 3 on the wallballs before closing it out with a final set of 2.

Although they might have been feeling great at the start, they cut out one break to go 40 and 10, instead of their pre-WOD plan of 20, 15, and 15 and finished with 16 breaks on the last set, instead of the original plan of 4 breaks. This is a hypothetical situation, however, we've seen it before, and maybe it has happened to you.

I have seen a lot of success among every level of athlete in short calculated breaks early in a workout. Even if you are far from complete failure, which is often good, more times than not time can be saved later in the workout if energy allows. In the above hypothetical, from a performance standpoint, it would make more sense to aim for even split times across each round.

In the end, going out hot and posting 3 minutes for round one, slowing to 6 minutes for round two, and crawling to a 9 minute third round, probably won't yield the best overall time. Taking extra, smarter breaks in round one, will leave some strength and energy come the last couple rounds. Even as much as slowing down round one to 5 minutes, and trying to stay close to 5:30-6:00 for the final two will end with a faster time. You'll notice this approach in athlete's like Rich Froning and Ben Smith, seldom do we see them take the lead in the first 75% of the workout, but come that last quarter, they somehow are near, if not the first to cross the finish line.

Have a game plan for your next tough WOD, see what happens if you break up earlier than you usually do, you might be surprised!

The second and final week of the Team Series runs from this Wednesday at 5pm to Monday at 5pm. Get ready for some more fun challenges.



Training Wednesday - Thursday

Warm-up: Rowling - 3 rounds of 100m with air squat "reward"!

Skill: Deadlift 5 x 5 E2M

Work up but keep perfect tech. Aim for 75-80% for your last set of 5, use trap bar or axle if you want to switch it up!

WOD: Assault Pyramid

Teams of 4, aiming for max calories. Time will run continuously from the main clock, no re-setting of the monitor between team members. Wod will take 24 min!

Rx: 15 sec work each partner then 30s work each partner, then 45s work each partner x 4 times through that sequence

TG: twice through