Just Because You Can, Doesn't Mean You Should

Written by: Lisa L.

Scaling for Stimulus

A term used in CrossFit, but not necessarily understood. Here’s a breakdown…

Stimulus meaning the intended goal of the workout, and scaling as we know is adjusting movements effectively.

We all train because we love it, why else would we put ourselves through this??! We crave that feeling of accomplishment, knowing we have put our best effort into our workout, we moved efficiently, we used our skills, we progressed. We did the thing!

The reality is we don’t always achieve this due to our decisions… (Who is feeling seen already! I am!)

Now let’s look at this scenario...

You walk into the gym and coaches briefing runs you through the workout.

3rm back squat (Yes! Love me a back squat!) The metcon reveals and AMRAP of running (Tick!) wall balls (vom, but also tick!) and pull ups (Awesome, I’ve just started stringing those in practise! I’m RX-ing this bad boy!) You feel yourself standing up a little straighter because you can already see that sweet sweet RX2 tick next to your name.

Then you look a bit closer… the reps prescribed says 20. TWENTY pull ups?! (With running and wall balls, I’ll be sweet, stuff it! RX2 you’re mine!) And off you go, to get your grips to rep out these pull ups you have been practising!

By round ONE you are already regretting your decision, will these pull ups EVER end! Fatigue has set in hard, the awesome doubles you were pumping out faded fast… you are backing yourself less and less with every single pull up. The feeling of accomplishment is disappearing, and this 18min cap cannot come fast enough!

Finally, it’s over, you aren’t exhausted, exhilarated and proud, you’re annoyed, and you spent majority of those 18mins staring up at the pull up bar, covered in chalk wishing you weighed less, maybe even a bit pissed off because the rings wouldn’t have humbled you so savagely.

This is a prime example of being blinded by the RX2 and not focusing on ‘scaling for stimulus’ Backtrack to the coaches briefing, perfect opportunity to ask for advice on how to attack this workout with pull ups, and still make the most of your session and get what you came for … pride, effort and that feeling of exhausted accomplishment.

In this case, a better option would have been 12 pull ups instead of the prescribed 20, meaning you could move more efficiently keeping the intensity high, keep those rounds ticking over and feel pretty damn proud you ‘did the thing’ in a workout, not just in practise! PROGRESS!

Scale for stimulus = Achievement

Do the thing, to get better at the thing

You’ll be ticking the RX2 box sooner rather than later with this method!