AS RX’D

Posted by admin on November 24th, 2009 filed in Uncategorized

This post is not directed at any one person, so don’t take it personally, or as a comment about any of the posted times today, or at any other time for that matter!

As Rx’d means that the workout is done accomplishing the full amount of reps WITH a full load AND WITH a full range of motion.  I write the workouts (and the benchmarks are designed this way too) based on completing full range of motion at a set load.  However, the more important of the two factors is FULL RANGE OF MOTION.  In order to continue to progress in CrossFit (and more directly functional fitness ie CFT, O-Course, PRT/PFT etc.) you must be able to accomplish the full range of motion FIRST.  What does that mean?  In layman’s terms, if you cannot perform a full squat clean with a PVC pipe, then your hands shouldn’t touch a loaded barbell.  Further, if you cannot perform a full squat clean with 65#, you’re not doing yourself any good but throwing 95# on the bar and ½ repping everything, or doing power cleans instead.  Decreasing the load to be able to perform full range of motion is the right thing to do, not a sign of weakness.  Same thing goes with posting a crazy fast time on air squats when you never go below parallel.  Remember that the WOD is just a performance milestone, in order to get better, you MUST work on technique and form without the “time constraint” of a stopwatch regardless of your fitness or training level.  Same goes with any training.  “Crawl, walk, run” as they say.   

On another note, be careful when reading the description of the exercises, in particular those that deal with the Olympic lifts.  For example, a “hang squat clean and jerk” means that the bar starts at the hang, goes through triple extension, is caught at a full front squat and then raised to the front rack.  From the front rack, there is then a clear dip drive to start the jerk motion to overhead.  Another way to accomplish the same movement of the load, but with a different range of motion standard would be written as “hang to overhead”.  This allows the athlete to do a hang power clean thruster combination, or any other variation that gets the bar from the hang to the overhead. 

Everyone is working hard and putting up some great times.  Just remember, you’re only cheating yourself if you aren’t using full range of motion.  DO NOT be afraid to drop the load all the way down to PVC if you have to.  Full range of motion = full benefits of the programming!  If you think you might not be doing full range of motion, ask someone to count your reps out loud for you.  This will help you ensure that each rep counts, and allow you to focus on just putting out your best effort and allowing someone else to make sure that they are watching for correct depth, height, or whatever the workout calls for.  There is nothing wrong with “calling someone out” on their range of motion.  Most of the time, you’ll find that they are just trying to go as fast as possible, not trying to “cheat” on purpose.