DNF

with so many members not able to complete yesterday's workout in time, i'm sure there are a few people wondering why i capped it at 15 minutes and not 20 minutes or longer.  i mean, what could have i been thinking?  aren't i wanting you to always succeed?

the answer is no.  there is no success like failure.

to start with, it's more reality in life that we are not able to meet deadlines and accomplish tasks on time. life really can be unfair.  secondly, the 15 minute time cap was directly intentional.  i knew only a handful of our members would finish the workout.  i wasn't concerned with them as much as i was concerned with the rest of our members.  i knew that our top athletes would have no problem in completing the workout in time.  but they are the exception.  they are the minority and they are the most experienced and most fit at our box.  for the rest of you, it is my duty to get you to where they are at.  it is my passion and responsibility to increase your level of fitness to match theirs.  to do so, i have to push you to your limits, for you to reach failure and for you to go beyond the margins of your experience.  every now and again, we need to dig deep down and push ourselves and prove to ourselves that we can complete the task at hand and do so within the allotted time.  scoring a DNF doesn't necessarily constitute being a failure, rather, you need to look back at the work you did accomplish and ask yourself what went wrong and what went right.  in retrospect, i'm sure a couple members yesterday wished they used a lighter load so that they could have finished in the allotted timeframe.  would this make it right?  in that case, is there even a wrong?

i used to preach that the goal is to always go RX (as prescribed).  everyone will always remember their first RX workout.  but what if going RX takes you twice the time to do the work?  is that efficient?  what if the workout is meant to be a 12-15 minute ball buster as prescribed, but it took you 25 minutes to finish it by doing it as prescribed?  are you getting the same results?

the art and beauty of scaling and modifying a workout is a science.  there are several reasons why we have you scale and modify the workout.  we scale the load/weight and intensity i.e. reps and/or rounds.  we do this so that you can maintain the same RELATIVE power output that the person who doesn't scale or modify the workout.  we want you to experience mentally, physically and hormonally what the person who does the workout as RX feels.  we want to illicit the same response and stimulus in you.

combining a task & time priority in one workout is one of several ways we can get you to go beyond your comfort zone.  it's an opportunity for you to experience failure, so that you can get stronger in every sense of the word.  it's that experience that will carry over into other aspects of your life.