Recently, I did Crossfit competition with my partner. The whole weekend was super challenging, and a blast but I was struck this week by the impact ONE workout had had on me.
Day two opened with a very generous 100 thrusters for time workout. There’s no doubt that of everything popping up over the weekend, that workout was one that preoccupied athletes.
And why not? 100 is SO many thrusters, and thrusters are already a movement that many view with fear and trepidation.
We had tried it before the comp, deciding on conservative sets of 10. In testing this seemed manageable. Sensible.
Come comp day, I flirted briefly with the idea of 15, then discarded it. It was a question of being able to do 15, that was fine. It was backing up one set of 15 a lot more sets of 15. It was the crumble. The cumulative fatigue.
But then…. in stepped Stevo.
‘Big sets Kempen. 16, 14, 12, 8.’ Says Stevo (albeit from the comfort of not having to actually do the workout).
I believe my initial response was something to the effect of ‘fuck that’. A response I maintained right up until 3, 2, 1, GO!
Stevo was right. Those numbers were fine. Super manageable both in terms of completing them and recovery for the next set. The declining reps scheme didn’t hurt either.
All of the doubts I had were just that. Doubts. About my fitness, my capacity, my grit.
And what I learned in that workout, came to bear in the workout this Thursday. High volume wallballs…. yuck 😅
42, 30, 18
My happy wallball set is 10-15. That’s a lot of sets in that range.
But the success in the thruster workout was in the back of my mind. So I did 21, 21, 30, 18. And it felt GOOD. Fine. Totally manageable.
Sometimes doing a hard thing is a gateway to making other hard things a little bit less hard. And if you always stay conservative, how will you know? It’s very likely that what you believe is your ceiling is actually not.
Do the hard thing. Push the edge a little bit further. I’m not saying you’re going to ‘enioy’ your next thruster workout, but at least it might be over quicker!
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