Controlling your ego and your drive?

[Frank Pipitone]

So I am one month into the Crossfit program. I have been doing three days a week for the first four weeks and so far, so good. However, this past Friday, I felt that I pushed myself a too hard. The WOD was Barbara and the number of sit-ups was just too much for me. My muscles actually failed and I could not do any more, but I pushed through and finished.

I paid the price as the whole weekend, my ab group had excessive soreness. I walked a few miles over the weekend for active recovery, but I just did not feel good at all. Today the WOD consisted of dead lifts and wall balls. Again, the dead lifts felt like too much as I think my core is weak since I was doing your standard gym workout prior to crossfit.

So how do you control yourself and know when your body has had enough? With coaches pushing you and encouraging you to go harder and heavier, how do you know when to say "I'm done?" I love crossfit, but now I am slightly worried about over training or injury.

[Robert Walsh]

Be realistic, man. Although that is easier said than done when you have coaches who may or may not know what the heck they're doing. Do you really need to be doing 200 sit-ups? I doubt it.

The bigger question would be: what are your goals? The answer will help guide your programming and give you a clearer picture of what it is you're doing in the gym.

[Frank Pipitone]

Originally Posted by Robert Walsh

Be realistic, man. Although that is easier said than done when you have coaches who may or may not know what the heck they're doing. Do you really need to be doing 200 sit-ups? I doubt it.

The bigger question would be: what are your goals? The answer will help guide your programming and give you a clearer picture of what it is you're doing in the gym.

Well my goals are to get stronger and truly fit. I am not "out of shape" by any means, but I know I am not really fit like I was 15 years ago.

I know I have to be realistic, I guess that is the part that is hard. You want to push yourself because thats what you do right? That's what your coaches want and you definitely don't want to be a "wimp."

No, I probably didn't have to do 200 sit-ups that day. I put that on me. I should have known to quit. Next time I will not make that mistake....I hope.

Don't listen to the people who say, "go hard or go home", "suck it up, finish the WOD", etc. If you are feeling fatigued, injured, etc. stop.

[Eric Montgomery]

Originally Posted by Frank Pipitone

Well my goals are to get stronger and truly fit. I am not "out of shape" by any means, but I know I am not really fit like I was 15 years ago.

I know I have to be realistic, I guess that is the part that is hard. You want to push yourself because thats what you do right? That's what your coaches want and you definitely don't want to be a "wimp."

No, I probably didn't have to do 200 sit-ups that day. I put that on me. I should have known to quit. Next time I will not make that mistake....I hope.

Yeah, you're supposed to push yourself, but within reason. Pushing yourself means something very different for someone 1 month into CFing than it does for a Games-level competitor.

There's a big difference between being smart and being a wimp. If your coaches are giving you the impression you'll be seen as a wimp for scaling a workout, then you need to find a new gym before you get hurt due to the incompetence of your coaches. It's their job to tell you how to scale the workouts...a beginner can't be expected to figure that out on their own.

[Frank Pipitone]

Originally Posted by Eric Montgomery

Yeah, you're supposed to push yourself, but within reason. Pushing yourself means something very different for someone 1 month into CFing than it does for a Games-level competitor.

There's a big difference between being smart and being a wimp. If your coaches are giving you the impression you'll be seen as a wimp for scaling a workout, then you need to find a new gym before you get hurt due to the incompetence of your coaches. It's their job to tell you how to scale the workouts...a beginner can't be expected to figure that out on their own.

I'm not sure if I gave the impression that the coaches were somehow pushing me to do something I couldn't. They have all been cool with me scaling workouts and they have all been supportive for the most part. Some more than others.

Example...today called for four rounds. Coach suggested I only do three. I knew I could get through four so I went for it.

I think with the "Barbara" WOD, it was my responsibility to call it quits on the sit-ups because I knew I had gone too far.

I guess I was more concerned with controlling myself and reigning in my competitive nature and my own ego in favor of intelligent workouts.

[Eric Montgomery]

Ok, gotcha.

I tend to look at workouts in terms of how they'll affect my subsequent workouts. If I know something will leave me too sore to train for the next 5 days, then it's not helping me progress towards my goals in a reasonable amount of time. Take a long-term view of things and you should be ok. One single workout isn't going to have a huge effect on getting you in shape, but one dumb workout can definitely derail your progress if it causes excessive soreness or injury.

[David A Hunt]

Originally Posted by Frank Pipitone

I'm not sure if I gave the impression that the coaches were somehow pushing me to do something I couldn't. They have all been cool with me scaling workouts and they have all been supportive for the most part. Some more than others.

Example...today called for four rounds. Coach suggested I only do three. I knew I could get through four so I went for it.

I think with the "Barbara" WOD, it was my responsibility to call it quits on the sit-ups because I knew I had gone too far.

I guess I was more concerned with controlling myself and reigning in my competitive nature and my own ego in favor of intelligent workouts.

I find that I struggle with the same thing in my WODs recently. I am transitioning from more strength/speed/explosive type workouts to metcon-centric WODs. One side of me wants to push and complete everything as Rx'ed, but the other side of me says that since I'm transitioning phases, it is wiser not to push too hard right away and risk injury. Always tough to know that perfect threshold though.

[Brendan McNamar]

As a coach I look for muscle failure as a sure sign to step in and have the person scale more or stop. Hopefully I have them scaled correctly so we don't reach this point with someone new enough to experience severe soreness.

A workout like Barbara lends itself well to being scald if you play with the numbers.

70% would be 14-21-28-35 per round
50% would be 10-15-20-25 per round

Still take the 3 minute break and still do 5 rounds.

I prefer this kind of scaling because it keeps the balance of the workout intact. My experience has been if something is scald more then necessary it will show up in a persons time. The vast majority of the time it works out very well. Correct scaling leads to better results.

If you blast through the 50% or 70% version you will know you can do more next time. What would have happened this time is you would have been sore anyway but not for days and days effecting other workouts.

[Mike.Phillips]

Over time, you are going to learn your limits

Obviously, you don't want to "self defeat" yourself, but you don't want to go past a point and get injured either.

The longer you do crossfit, the better you'll get to know your body and it's capabilities. Crossfit is also going to expose certain parts of your body, which may be "weaker" than other parts of your body. Some muscles may fail long before other ones. You might be able to squat 500 pounds, but your grip might give out trying to do 10 pullups for instance.

Fitness is a marathon, not a sprint. It's ok to ease back if you feel that you're approaching your limits. It doesn't make you a whimp, it doesn't make you a schmuck, it doesn't make you a loser. You'll know on the drive home if you could have gone a little harder or not.

You'll be fine, and in fact you'll come back stronger than before. While people love to cheer each other one, and encourage each other to push hard, there is a difference between pushing yourself hard, and pushing yourself over the limit. In time, you'll learn your own threshold