1 More Rep
Hey Vic City,
Week 1 of the Open is over, and the score submission is closed. Regardless of how you placed on the leaderboard in 18.1, the important part is that you gave your best effort for each and every rep. For everyone, scoring just 1 rep more in the 20 AMRAP would move you up the leaderboard.
In Canada West, there have been just over 3200 score entries on the men's leaderboard. A score of 8 full rounds would land you in the middle of the pack. A score of 8 full rounds plus 1 toes to bar would move you up 34 spots in the region. In the world that single additional toes to bar would improve your placing by almost 1000 positions.
We all look back on our workout and think, "if only I could have got one more rep" or "If I just went a bit faster I could have finished that round." Everyone is thinking the same thing, and in the heat of the battle I believe we do give everything we can, but that 1 more rep is always pretty sweet. How long does 1 toes to bar take? 2 seconds? Do you think in the 1200 second workout we just did, we could find 2 seconds to do another TTB? Maybe. 18.1 is over now, and no amount of strategy will change our score. It is now time to prepare for the upcoming challenges.
How can we get that 1 more rep next workout?
The obvious way, move faster. Sometimes it is as simple as that. Rowing about 12 cal/hour faster would save you 1 second per round. Yes 12. That is the difference between 750 cal/hr and 762 cal/hr. If you did 8 rounds, that's 8 seconds, and likely 2,3, or 4 more reps, which would be a close to 100 places. It's crazy, even as I'm writing this, I wish I could have just rowed 12 cal/hr faster. But again, too late.
Another way to gain a few split seconds here and there is on transitions. Picking up the DB faster or starting to pull the row handle a split second faster will all lead to more time saved. Maybe 1 less chalk break... Coach Dub. Even the top in the world can go faster on transition. Think about switching from one movement to the next, fast. It is exponentially important the more transitions there are in the WOD. Unlikely we will see another 20 min AMRAP with such small rep ranges, but you never know.
Again, don't be discouraged, there is a lot of fitness left in this year's Open. Even the Fittest Women on Earth, Tia-Claire Toomey, is sitting on the outside of making it to Regionals. I'd bet that will change, so stick with it.
If you are looking for more tips and tricks to improve your score in 18.2 and beyond, come out on Thursday night after the Open announcement from 6:30-7:30pm to get my run-down on the WOD.
I'm looking forward to another test of fitness this week, I hope you are too!
Enjoy!
Adam
Training Wednesday - Thursday
WARM-UP: E90s x 4: 5 medball cleans, 5 medball burpees
SKILL: DB Snatch - 5 sets of 10 reps OTM WOD: Rotating EMOM
This workout is designed to get you a lot of practice of skills under a bit of fatigue. Choose appropriate reps and scaling so that you execute each movement efficiently and smoothly. If you begin to break down then scale back a bit - remember this is PRACTICE for the next time these movements come up in a workout.
Every minute on the minute, rotate through the following stations for 5 complete cycles (25 min):
1. Pullup variation - assisted, strict, kipping etc - 5-10 reps
2. Double unders - 30 sec
3. Row Calories - 30 sec
4. Handstand Pushup variation - 5 - 10 reps
5. Walking Lunge (light weight or bodyweight only) - 30 sec
All levels scale movements as needed!