“You don’t need harder workouts. You need to go harder in your workouts.” – Tom Hackenbruck
The thought process for many CrossFitters is that they need more in the one hour of class or they need harder workouts in order for them to get to their goals.
Their goals can be to get stronger or lose body fat or develop a certain skill or anything else you can imagine.
I'm here to tell you, that is not the case. This is not something that I think is correct, this is something I am certain of. I study CrossFit and fitness everyday. I have exposed myself to many courses and learned from some of the best coaches in the CrossFit community.
Some of these coaches had experience as CrossFit Games athletes themselves or coach CrossFit Games athletes.
And the response from them is the same. In one hour of class, we just need one workout. Within that one hour, properly getting warmed up will get you both psychologically and physically ready to move with greater intensity, build on range of motion and reduce injuries. You will also need to get coached to improve on your mechanics so you can move more safe, efficient and effective. Then we find the loading, repetitions, distance or movement that currently meets you so you can move with the greatest intensity you have that day. Doing this allows you to aim for the stimulus of the workout which is the physiological response we wanted you to experience. And once done, doing a cool down after your workout is where your body starts to recover and rebuild so you can see the gains you desire in the future.
The most effective workouts are the most simple workouts. They live within a 8-12 minute timeframe, are couplets or triplets, are complementary movements, are task oriented and require full range of motion.
You live within workouts built like the description above for majority of your workouts, then you are moving with high intensity. And intensity is the independent variable that leads to favorable adaptations. In other words, you are going harder or as hard as you can go for the day in a safe manner and this leads to results.
And side note, before we start looking to do more workouts to see the results you want, look at your nutrition, sleep and overall consistency with your health and fitness. I bet you that is where the problem is, not that you're only doing one workout.
Respectfully Sent,
Josh Melendez
