
Here is a very good example of two of our athletes (Michelle & Nancy) who have focused on their “power output” during their CrossFit journey and are now doing some awesome RXing.. How is that possible you ask? These girls are lightweights (from a body size/weight perspective) compared to what we see often in BIG sports and athletics… It’s in the simple math of Power= Speed + Strength. In the article below Gilson from again faster breaks down the math of how CrossFit is about Max Power Output and scaling isn’t necessarily non Rx-ing. It is a way to find an Athletes Max power output. He then goes on to address that this dynamic effort ( he, he, something power lifting has used for quite sometime) combined with consistent strength work benefits anyone. Some of you may read this article and say to yourself,”I may need to take a step back and do some math in order to make some faster gains” Please, do that math and people remember the word Scale isn’t such a bad word after all
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Zatsiorsky, Scaling, and Power
Jan. 13, 2012, by Jon Gilson
Imagine speed and strength on the see-saw together, and strength is the fat kid. The really fat kid. In fact, he outweighs speed by a factor of ten. The see-saw stays stuck, and no one has fun at recess. Escaping my metaphor, if the load is too large and speed is too small, power is zip, much like multiplying by zero always gets you zero.
Now, imagine speed and strength are balanced, each kid weighing about the same. This parity allows them to act in concert with each other, and the see-saw really flies. We get power.
“Heavier” isn’t the answer. Balance is the answer.
On page six in The Science and Practice of Strength Training, author Vladimir Zatsiorsky posits that maximal power output occurs at approximately 30% of maximal velocity and 50% of maximal load. I’m in love with page six, and simultaneously dumbfounded by its mathematical exactitude.
Applied to CrossFit and our never ending pursuit of power, this unforgettable page states that we’re looking for a load that you can move with 30% speed, one that tends to occur somewhere around your 50% of one-rep maximum.
Of course, CrossFit won’t ask you to move the bar once, but perhaps ten or twenty or fifty times. To maximize your power across this broad spectrum of work, you’ll want to load to less than 50% 1RM, and continue to try to move the hell out of the bar.
Holy shit. A formula for scaling.
For too long, we’ve focused on strength bias this and power animal super athlete that, when this entire program is predicated on power. Stop thinking of scaling as something to keep Grandma in the game. We scale to the physical and psychological tolerance of the athlete for one reason: it enables the individual to produce as much power as possible.
Following Zatsiorsky’s formula, if you can’t thruster at least 190 pounds, you shouldn’t be doing “Fran” with 95. If you can’t clean and jerk 270, don’t do “Grace” with 135. You’re blunting your power output. Scale that weight down; it will make you more powerful.
I did not just tell you to abandon heavy weights. In fact, I want you to lift heavy. A lot. Just not in the middle of your WOD.
If you increase your 1RM, through any number of methods, your 50% 1RM will go up as well, and you’ll climb into the Rx’d echelon via this prescription. You thruster 150, you do “Fran” at 75 pounds or less. You thruster 200, welcome to the Big Leagues.
In other words, don’t strength bias your WODs—strength bias your strength, and scale your WODs to your current strength level.
Proof? Take a look at the strongest men in the world, not by fiat, but by actual numbers lifted, the gargantuan boys of Westside Barbell. Their program regularly calls for moving 50% 1RM as fast as possible. In fact, it was a conversation with Louie Simmons, the founder of the Westside Method and its Dynamic Effort Days, that persuaded me to pick up a copy of The Science and Practice of Strength Training in the first place.
I’m sure he’d be disappointed I never made it past page six, but I bet he’d love it if you stopped trying to do Fran with 65% of your 1RM.
The successful implementation of scaling demands a simple recognition: there are an infinite number of weights that can be loaded on a barbell, and every one must be removed from ego and firmly affixed to power. When this mental shift occurs, we’ll get more powerful athletes, guaranteed.
Jon Gilson is the owner of Again Faster.