CrossFit Training: 90% >100%
I spent the better part of last weekend parked on my couch watching The CrossFit Games on ESPN. Half of the weekend I spent in awe of the athletes and the other half I spent in awe of the fact that our sport was being shown live on a Saturday night on the largest sport television network in the world. I still am not really sure how we got here. As the weekend wore on, and I continued to do nothing with my free time, I started analyzing performances. I started to watch how certain athletes handled each event and their mental fortitude throughout the weekend.
I spent the better part of last weekend parked on my couch watching The CrossFit Games on ESPN. Half of the weekend I spent in awe of the athletes and the other half I spent in awe of the fact that our sport was being shown live on a Saturday night on the largest sport television network in the world. I still am not really sure how we got here. As the weekend wore on, and I continued to do nothing with my free time, I started analyzing performances. I started to watch how certain athletes handled each event and their mental fortitude throughout the weekend.
On any given day, whether it is in the gym, at work, or on the internet, we consistently hear the message, “Give it 110%.” This message of people telling you how hard they work in the gym and how everything they do is with the most effort, is overplayed. Yet, as I watch the best in the world compete at the highest level, there is never a sense that these athletes are redlining, hitting 110%, or even gassed at the end of events. Please understand this is in no way an attempt to take away from their efforts. These people are total freaks and it would be a wild misunderstanding if you thought I was saying they were not trying. What I am saying though, is that they never actually give 100%, my guess is it usually falls somewhere around 90% of their maximal output.
Rich Froning is not only the face of the sport of fitness, but also the most consistent athlete to ever play this ten year old sport. He is in a league way above and beyond everyone else. He has won 6 straight workouts on the final day of competition over the last two years. With all of the pressure and on the biggest stage, he does not lose. He is also incredibly famous for his work ethic and sometimes even more impressive, his training volume. It has been documented that he will do up to eight combinations of strength, skill, and conditioning workouts in a day. This is the part that gets my brain moving. How does he maintain that volume, consistency, and intensity for so long and not break down mentally and physically? What if Rich Fronning has never actually hit 100% effort? What if he has never concerned himself with what the absolute max is and his sole focus is on perfect reps with consistent intensity?
I often find myself in the middle of workouts questioning my motives. Everyone knows that moment. You look at the bar, your brain says no, your body says yes, and you have a choice to make. Over the past couple months; this specific moment has been a focus on some self-reflection. I have found myself more times than not listening to my brain, taking the extra second, and catching my breathe before picking the bar up. What this extra breathe allows me to do is clear my head, focus on the quality of each rep, and not rush movements. My new 100% is about 90% of what I am actually capable of. Saving that 10% allows me to focus on quality, recover from the workout much quicker, not to mentally burnout, and enjoy the process of getting better.
I am by no means comparing myself to Mr. Froning. But, I cannot help but feel like he is the king of 90%. I cannot help but feel like he shows up every day, and he is more concerned with quality and increasing his ability to maintain 90%, than any PR he could ever hit. In an interview that came out before the Games, he was even quoted saying that he had not tested a PR attempt in a year. If the best in the world does not test PR’s, what is he doing? Why isn’t he finding out what his max is on everything? It is because he understands the importance of consistency, hard work, and slowly making his 90% better than everyone else. If you can maintain 90% of your absolute best, more consistently than everyone else, you will win. How does he maintain his volume? He maintains 90% so he never reaches extreme failure. How does he maintain his training intensity? He maintains 90% so his joints don’t break down, muscles do not tear, and most importantly he does not mentally break down from the pressure of operating at extremes all the time.
The real adaptation to 90% is that you can actually get better much faster with this approach. Your muscles do not reach failure, easier recovery, less soreness. Your mentality is healthier, less pressure on the result and more focus on the process. Your body and mind can operate at a higher level, much more consistently at 90% than they can at the extremes of 100%. The focus of a long term solution to your health and fitness goals is just that, long term. The big takeaway to getting better is that by adding 2% capacity over a year does not mean we are operating at 92%. We are still operating at 90% on a daily basis, but our breadth of knowledge, understanding, capacity, and strength have increased because of the consistency throughout the year. We are still operating at 90% of our total capacity, that 90% is just more now than it was at the beginning of the year.
The 90% rule is about being present, understanding your goals, and making a plan that allows for consistent growth without the mental and physical burnout. If you finish a workout and you are rolling around on the ground in agony, you probably exceeded the 90%. If you come home from work and all you can do is turn the TV on and ignore the rest of your life, give it a rest, do less. The next time you stand over the bar and know that if you pick it up you are going to redline, let it sit there for a couple more seconds – you are probably doing more harm than good. Maintain a high level of quality, be in the moment, focus on your goals, and give it about 90%.
