This will be the last in our series of blogs about the main physical skills or traits that we develop in our CrossFit training, which is pretty cool to think about. When we follow a well-designed CrossFit program – and hit all the workouts, don’t cherry-pick! – we are developing in so many different ways, some of which are polar opposites. If you think of a pure Strength athlete – a powerlifter, and then a pure Endurance athlete – a marathon runner, you don’t necessarily get the same mental picture, right? And what would happen if they tried to compete in each other’s sports? They would fail miserably. Now think of someone who can be good at both simultaneously. Maybe not great at both, but good. That would be a well-rounded athlete. That would be an athlete that has identified any weaknesses and trained to eliminate them, instead of always training their strengths. That would be a CrossFit athlete!
So now we’ve come to the top of the CrossFit mountain. We have built a solid base of Strength and Durability, so we know we can handle heavy weights and won’t get ourselves hurt. We’ve picked up those weights and carried them, squatted them, thrown them for long training sessions to develop Stamina. We know that we can keep our internal engine humming for a long time, we’ve developed cardiovascular Endurance. So now what happens when we put all these skills to the test at the same time and really mash that gas pedal down to the floor? We’re testing and developing our Work Capacity, also known in your high school physics class as Power.
Remember back to those days for a second and let’s break down the equation of Power = (Mass x Distance) / Time. Your ability to generate Power is your ability to do Work (move a mass like your body and/or an external object, for a certain distance), in a specified amount of time. An oversimplified example is a workout of one minute of as many burpees as possible. If I weigh 200 lbs, and I am 6 feet tall, and can do 20 burpees in one minute, I have demonstrated a power output of (200 lbs x 120 ft) / 60 seconds = 400 foot-pounds per second. I’m assuming there that in one burpee I am moving my entire body 6 feet every time I stand back up. If you are the same height and weight as me and you can do 25 burpees in a minute (then you’re an animal), and you have demonstrated a power output of (200 lbs x 150 ft) / 60 seconds = 500 foot-pounds per second. You have more power than me in this burpee test. I bet I’ll get you on the run, though…
Any workout that starts with “Three rounds for time”, or “As many reps as possible in 15 minutes” is developing your Power output. Your ability to do a lot of work in a short amount of time is tested in CrossFit’s famous benchmark workouts like “Fran” and “Cindy”. If these workouts make you shudder when you hear their names, it’s because you know they hurt. These are tests of your physical capacity and mental willingness to work at a near maximal heart rate, and push through extreme fatigue to finish the job quickly.
The benefits of training for Power are many, as we are at the same time demonstrating and developing Strength (quick muscular contractions), Stamina (hanging on to the barbell for 10 more reps), and Endurance (efficient breathing and oxygen distribution from your heart to your tired muscles). We also will see significant metabolism shifts as your body demands so much energy from this type of workout – many CrossFitters report that as soon as they were consistently in the gym, hitting these workouts 3-4 times per week, their journey toward weight loss started and their body began morphing into an athlete’s.
These are the types of workouts that are not always fun – they’re hard! But when you take them on with a team, like your favorite group class or a police academy training together every morning, there is camaraderie that is built from doing the hard stuff together, and becoming an even stronger, more cohesive team. I think that positive, hard-working attitude can even bleed over into your other relationships, at work and at home, improving your whole life… one burpee at a time!
Everybody ready? OK, 3…2…1… GO!
Ryan