Work, Power, and Time

Workout for Tuesday March 24th 2009:
1. Density training - Pull-ups 3 resp every 30 sec for 10 min.
2. Work up to 1RM Bench press
3. 2 reps at 80% 1RM Bench PRess 6 rounds
4. 20 Wall Balls
20 SDHP 53#
20 box Jumps 24"
20 Push PRess 75#
Tow 20 Calories
Rest 1 Min
4x for time
5. Tabata Squat
6. 200 Reverse sit-ups

You will notice that I have a tendency to experiment on myself and right now the experiment is strength then work capacity high intensity crossfit workouts followed by tabata set of something metabolic. The idea is that pure strength has no negative "blowback" as it's called in the CIA. (unexpected negative consequences to actions). So, I thought since it's anaerobic as is most of the CrossFit WOD's it would be a good fit. I recently read about how when you combine aerobic and anaerobic in a workout you get poor results for both! So, my plan is to try this out for the next 4 weeks or so and then I am planning on changing things up again after that! I will keep you posted on the progress so far I'm wiped out after the workout and they are lasting over an hour. Not that it's new for me to workout that long it's just been a while since I have.

This workout was a tough one. I got this main part from navyseals.com and it's really tough. The idea apparently is that it was designed for a guy to solo a FGB type workout and since it's really tough to work the clock by yourself voila, there it is. Different than FGB in that I don't usually get to 20 reps on those things in 1 min on the normal FGB. Which meant that I was moving slow and largely due to the extra body mass I am still carrying around from my last experiment at the end of 2008.

I started thinking about the fact that it took my 32 min to finish just the main WOD and not including the rest of the workout and it got me to thinking about work capacity. I have been thinking about the CrossFit definition of intensity. Work divided by time. Work being force times distance. This is the definition of wattage and in CrossFit it is the staple by which everything is filtered. The entire goal of CrossFit is to increase your wattage over time, the person that can put out the most wattage for the longest period of time is by definition the “fittest.”

Unique to CrossFit, everything is secondary to work capacity. It’s been said that we would sacrifice strength for work capacity; we would sacrifice flexibility for work capacity. But, and it’s interesting for nerds like me to think about, everything – strength, power, endurance, speed, flexibility, coordination, accuracy, balance, agility, etc all contribute to work capacity, so are we really saying then we are sacrificing nothing? Work capacity – the ability to do move more weight, over longer distances, in less time.

What is also interesting to me to think about is the fact that time is the denominator in this equation. That means that if you want to most meaningfully change the wattage or intensity you need to do the same amount of work in less time. When you do more work in the same time or even more time chances are the intensity has gone down. If I do some simple math for an example you can see what I’m talking about. 12/2 equals 6. 15/2 equals 7.5, but…12/1.5 equals 8!! The number on the bottom is a bigger driver, so if you increase the amount of work in the same period of time you will only increase the wattage by a very small amount, and if you decrease the time it takes to do the same amount of work your wattage goes up big time!

Here is a great site to calculate your power output or wattage or intensity on workouts.

http://www.cathletics.com/resources/powerOutput.php

Check it out. Play with the numbers if you want to see what I’m talking about. Put in your height and weight then put in Fran at rx’d load. Input your time and then see what your wattage is. Now change the load for the thrusters up to 135# and see what the wattage is. Now change the weight to rx’d and change the time by 1 min. I bet you increased your wattage (and work capacity and intensity) more when you decreased the time to finish the same work than by increasing the work!

Here is an example: 180# 6’1” guy does Fran at 95# in 4:30 – 190 watts. Now if I did 135# in 4:30 my watts go up to 224! Not bad, but if I drop back to 95# and finish in 3:30 my watts are 246!!! Time is the biggest factor, not weight. Our goal is NOT the amount of weight on the end of the bar, but how fast you can move it over the longest distances possible.

So, if my goal is to do the same amount of work in less time the question is naturally how do I do the work(out) faster? I was reading in the Essentials of Strength and Conditioning and one of the authors talk about power and 1 rep maximums, velocity, wattage, power, etc. It got me thinking. Power maxes out when the weight is 35% of the 1 RM. Heavier than 35% and you lose too much speed? Lighter than that and it’s not enough resistance? (I’m thinking it has to do with momentum and velocity of the bar? Not sure).

Power, by its definition, which has to do with speed, is related to wattage because they are both dependent of the time it takes move something, so to maximize power is going to maximize wattage or at least have a major impact on wattage. Remember max power is when the load (weight) is about 35% of the 1 rep maximum. This is really light! There might be some ego problems at this weight! It got me thinking…so to max out on Fran then would mean ideally the rx’d weight should be 35% of my 1 RM! So 95# rx’d weight then, my 1RM thruster needs to be 272 or so. My pull-ups, I’d have to be able to do all of them non-stop which would be 45.

Strength, power, and speed are all starting to blend together.

It’s all connected though, I have to get stronger so that my 1RM Thruster is 272, which is a combo move, front squat and push press, and I will be able to maximize my power on the thruster. If I weigh 150# then that’s a 1.81x my body weight thruster! That is really strong for someone that size; and think how fast they would be able to do those pull-ups and compare that to a guy who is 200#. That’s only 1.36x body weight and they are going to have a much harder time on the pull-ups. Body mass is going to play a major role in the performance of work capacity workouts too.

So at the end of the day, get stronger, get leaner, and go faster! If I can just do those, I will be set!!