Giving Up

Which came first?

Giving Up

Bailing out. Missing a lift. Saving your skinny little chicken neck.

In weightlifting, it is so necessary to correctly fail that dumping a barbell should be simultaneously taught with how to successfully make a lift. Also very necessary is to know when to cede to a workout or give up on a fatigued movement.

Which came first, the failure or the lift? The concept of "giving up" creates such a negative connotation that the motivational nonsense spread through life nowadays gives the impression that anyone willing to give up is a failure. Weak, inadequate, and/or inferior.

No better than a shivering chick... a wet newbie peeping for its mama hen.

Quite the contrary can be said when we look at making or failing a lift, whether it be a power lift like a Deadlift or a Squat, or an Olympic lift like a Jerk or a Snatch. It is those athletes that know how to bail out that keep themselves safe, healthy, and strong.

Those athletes that have trained the correct bar path in order to efficiently make a successful lift know this. When something goes wrong, when a movement is incorrect, even in the slightest, failure means you live to lift another day.

Plus, heavy squats are always the go-to fix for chicken legs. So the skill of dumping a barbell helps to correctly use the progressive overload principle.

For those who haven’t failed, their potential in whatever endeavor they seek in life has not been fully realized. They haven’t tested the upper limits of their capabilities. In weightlifting it's knowing how to safely fail that shows strength through intelligence.

Like a smart, egghead brainiac, strength can come in many forms.

Similar to weightlifting, if a gymnastics movement or other bodyweight exercise starts to lose efficacy, if the body is shutting down to a point of inefficiency, then giving up is a necessary evil. Sure, there are times to drive ahead, to push through fatigue and complete a workout as it was written. The mental gains are particularly worthwhile in this regard, so long as the movements are still safely executed. But the moment where one puts themselves at high risk for injury, at risk for overtraining or under-recovery, this is the time when a workout becomes completely negotiable. At this point, the decision to end a session early is not weak in any regard; it is not incompetent or pitiful. Instead, it is mentally strong. It is egotistically impressive, actually. Realizing that range of motion is breeched and safety is compromised is in fact a very, very strong attribute.

Know when to fold 'em. When it's time to "snuff the rooster." This is tricky, for sure, but highly necessary in strength and conditioning.

Dan Maggio has done such a great job at succinctly highlighting the specifics of intentional bailing from a lift that it deserves reprinting here to his credit on how to implement this into your training.

How to Miss a LiftWhen teaching/coaching weightlifting related lifts, the FEET MUST ALWAYS MOVE in order to get the base of support out from under the falling bar. [Source: The Importance of Missing Lifts and Bailing Out]

• Bailing out of the Back Squat: Release grip on bar, push chest and head UP to pop the bar off your back, JUMP feet forward to avoid the bar hitting your heals if you land on your knees.
• Bailing out of Front Squat: Release grip on bar, drop the elbows as you simultaneously JUMP your feet back and push your hands to the ground. Not jumping your feet back can cause the dumped bar to crash on your thighs and knees. (This bail is the same as bailing out of a Clean.)
• Missing the Snatch (in front): Actively EXTEND arms forward. JUMP your feet backwards.
• Missing the Snatch (behind): Actively EXTEND arms backward (as if giving “Jazz Hands”). JUMP FORWARD quickly to avoid the bar landing on shoulders or back. It is vital to extend the arms backward fully to create more space and avoid collision.
• Missing the Jerk: If the barbell is already moving forward, JUMP the body back while pushing the bar away. Similarly, if stability is not maintained and the barbell drifts backward, JUMP forward away from the weight.

Someone's gotta work on their 10 components of fitness...

Humpty Dumpty had a great fall... As far as "giving up" goes, we're on the topic of succumbing to a lift or movement in a positive, thoughtful way. Not just being lazy or unmotivated.

In reference to being smart with a conditioning workout or to avoid overtraining/under-recovering, some specifics have been highlighted in past articles. Check "MetCons" and "Progress" to get the full explanation.

Our basic concept is always to pursue lifelong fitness. If we're looking to stay healthy for years to come, then one day does not make or break a workout regimen. However, one day can turn into a week, then a month, and so on. So therefore, since a longer term view on fitness best serves our ever-aging bodies, then pushing to a point of immense fatigue is a slippery slope. Particularly dangerous is exercise addiction.

All the king's horses and all the king's men can't put an addict's fitness together again.

One must ask some important questions: "Am I working hard because this will gain me the necessary muscle breakdown and/or cardiovascular stress?" vs. "Am I doing this because I'm stubborn and masochist and want to prove something to myself?" Be honest.

In other words, be cautious of forcing a conditioning workout if you crash and burn. Once you bonk, die... lay an egg.

Finish what you started if you can, sure, but only if is still safe in the realm of total work. For example, is the run mileage just too high? Burpee reps too many? Barbell weight too heavy? Plus, will you be sore and out of commission for the rest of the week? Time to be smart and give in.

A full week of quality work is more beneficial than one day of feigned glory.

As I've stated before, if a lifting session or post-workout skill work aren’t going well, then a new PR or your first muscle-up probably won’t happen on your 20th, 30th, or 100th attempt. Being persistent is one thing, being stupid is another. Stop. Cut your losses. Look ahead to the next day.

This is a plan of action where giving up is actually moving forward.

So off you go with brains and brawn. Never be chicken to check yourself before you wreck yourself.

- Scott, 6.22.2015

MetCons

No Puking

MetCons

MetCon addiction is real, and chances are it's in a gym near you.

Metabolic Conditioning. A potent, potent thing, deserving of respect and responsibility. Which means abuse and misuse are rampant.

See, one thing people get a taste of when they are new to CrossFit is that feeling of being flattened from a workout. Usually in 20 minutes or less. There are even t-shirts made to brag this point. At home, in the park, at a Globo Gym, and especially in a CrossFit affiliate with a group of fellow sufferers-- the addiction can start immediately. It's an experience all its own, that's for sure. That feeling after a tough conditioning workout: dumb, dizzy, defeated... WOD drunk. And like being drunk, or high, or in love, or on a thrill-seeking adrenaline rush, the MetCon experience can be dangerous.

This is why we can't have nice things.

The human brain receives neural pathway stimuli from many sources in life, so it's not ridiculous to see something like this happen with physical fitness. Consistent exercise causes the body to produce endorphins, which are hormones secreted by your pituitary gland to block pain, decrease anxiety and create feelings of happiness. But oxidative stress, like that from aerobic cardiovascular training, also causes the hormone cortisol to be released. This is fine, but not in high levels.

There is research to suggest oxidative training and its effects can cause body cells to age prematurely. [1, 2, 3] The biggest contention is that aerobic training raises cortisol levels, which accelerates aging because it increases inflammation in the brain, heart, intestinal tract, and reproductive organs. If your cortisol levels are chronically elevated, your body may store fat instead of burning it, adding more stress to the organs and body systems.

Which means cardio is a killer. Almost literally.

Of course the opposite would be to never endure sustained physical work in your life... and we know that's by far more dangerous, and immediately so. There is of course plenty of research suggesting the opposite from above-- that aerobic activity is a must and even in excessive use it can train the body to deal with the rigor of workouts (or life), becoming more resistant to stress of the future. [1, 2, 3, 4]

Which means not doing cardio is a killer. Confused yet?

This brings us to the point: it's the type of metabolic conditioning you use and the frequency at which you use it that matter.

The related memes that have circulated for a few years are those that portray endurance athletes without the musculature of strength or speed training. Although this is arguable and it isn't very fair to pit one person's body against another's, as the saying goes, the proof is in the pudding. Trying out different workout regimens ourselves, we can come to our own conclusions about body composition and make comparisons to the former "us." Ultimately it is me vs. me, you vs. you in this whole fitness endeavor after all. Being in CrossFit has it ingrained that all cardio and no strength training is not the path towards general and overall fitness across a broad spectrum. Constantly varied, functional movements performed at high intensity in order to increase work capacity over broad time and modal domains.

Yet, if we look at intense MetCon use in a CrossFit program we can still find the overtrained athlete. CrossFit's "mascots" even include Pukie the Clown and Uncle Rhabdo... what kind of message is that? If you haven't checked the scares of Rhabdomyolysis, Google search and/or see the Journal Article here.

"Beware the sexy MetCon." So true. Melissa of Whole9Life put it in these terms way back when in an excellent article on the topic.

So let's take a typical new CrossFitter-- all gung-ho and ready with new shoes, new apparel, and a new vocabulary-- on a binge of being WODrunk in public 3 days in a row. Having that feeling of being demolished by the longer, arduous (and usually named) MetCons can be a gateway for the belief that the only way to "get good" in CrossFit is to ruin yourself daily. As the addiction begins, this MetCon abuse can in fact lead to something very similar to the above pic. Neglecting strength work or shrugging off variance in CrossFit WODs, energy pathways included, is directly at odds with the program protocol itself. But in combination with lack of recovery days, said newbie has now set up a potentially lethal habit. Not to mention mental health experts warn that in the exercise addict we see brain activity and thought processes similar to that with eating disorders and drug addiction. Scary.

This, ladies and gentlemen, is what I'm taking the time to warn you about.

BUT... high volume training is not the same as overtraining. Let's make that clear. So if you train smart by providing enough stimulus for progress, but not so much that you overtrain, any oxidative stress from your training will not damage your health but instead will help your gains on the road to fitness. Especially if you keep your MetCons relatively short and sweet. Okay, at least short(er).

CrossFit is addictive, in the best way. But funny enough it walks a fine line with an unhealthy obsession. MetCons especially. So check yourself. Know when to lay off the MetCon pedal. And if you happen upon an addict laying in a sweat angel for the umpteenth day in a row, speaking in tongues of rounds and reps after succumbing to the lure of another high rep WOD, give them warning. But don't pass judgement. They're difficult to spot, you see-- they look just like you and me. Which makes it hard to know whether to give them a sweaty pat on the back, or to tell them to take a rest day.

Maybe both.

-Scott, 7.7.2013