I got a question yesterday about a couple things that have come up recently concerning programming workouts.  There have been 2 articles recently concerning scaling for a greater power output.  One in the CFjournal and one in the Performance Menu. I wrote something to the same effect the month before in the PM as well. My seminar also covers this topic as well as hands on exposure to making it happen.

The question was in regards to these articles and Tony Buddings comments on the CF Journal article. You can see his comment here . Chris was nice enough to copy it in comments in case you haven’t seen it.
I don’t want to get into a big argument about this topic but i do want to have a chance to refute Tony’s comment.

First of all just the thought of GPP (general physical preparedness) scares the crap out of me! In order to be fit by GPP standards i can’t be good at anything but have to be ok at everything. That sounds ok but how do we make it happen? The last couple days have been spent addressing weaknesses and figuring out ways to make them strengths or at least not so weak. Tony does a good job emphasizing the importance of having a coach that should be able to help you identify these weaknesses and address them. What if you don’t have a coach or enough experience to know when and how to address these issues?
Here is where a couple guidelines come in handy. By having a goal for a workout you are setting yourself up to succeed (or fail if you miss the goal). You can ensure that your experience is uniform with what other people are doing to get the same results. The workload may change but should only be measured on an individual basis. Compare yourself to your self only. For example if i scaled fran to 65lbs and finished in 5 minutes and 6 weeks later i do it at 95 lbs in 5 minutes have i gotten more fit? Yes. Was the 5 minute fran a new experience? No, because i knew what it felt like to be in that time domain.

In my opinion going into a workout with no clue how long it will take is a HUGE mistake. You should, or your trainer should have at least a range in mind when creating the workout. If you believe that Tony doesn’t do this when he trains himself or his clients you are mistaken. I have had numerous conversations with him about how long do you think this workout will take or that workout… He gets it. He would not prescribe someone a workout without knowing about how long it will take them. There are always times when you make a mistake but the expectation is usually there. If you create a workout and have no clue what your time will be you should probably start doing some thinking about your abilities as well as finding baselines for certain movements and workouts.

This quote in particular bothers me.
So much of GPP is being prepared for anything. The reality is that anyone who is capable of performing all the main site WODs as Rx’d, even with “mediocre” times, is very well prepared for the general demands of life (barring the extremes of course).

Like we talked about earlier, by addressing your weaknesses you can bring your overall fitness up quicker by not being bogged down by things that hold you back. To go back to Fran, if 95lbs is heavy you should probably get stronger right? Is there value in doing a 10 minute fran? Sure but is there a better way to improve your performance while getting that 5 minute fran stimulus? Check this out. I would say that using some dedicated strength work to improve your strength while scaling fran down so it takes 5 minutes will give a quicker gain in overall fitness than doing fran as rx’d until you can do it in 5 minutes.

In conclusion i will go back to my first statement, the thought of GPP scares the crap out of me. If we were to take on a true GPP program there would not be any improvement in any of the 10 general physical skills. Why? We would do 1 RM deadlifts one day and go run a marathon the next. Any strength athlete knows that prolonged endurance training significantly decreases your ability to move load. It is interesting to see that the heavy loading does benefit the endurance athlete as we have seen with Crossfit. If the benefits do not crossover it is up to the individual to decide where they need to train (time domain/weaknesses).

Sorry for the ramble i hope this makes sense. Thanks for your comment and question Chris.

Where: Crossfit Invictus – San Diego, CA When: June 27, 2009