Perfect Practice Makes Perfect

The Importance of Doing Practice Rounds before High Intensity Fitness Training.

At our CrossFit facility we have adopted a lesson format that includes a general warm-up, mobility, skill progressions and practice rounds within almost every class. This flow allows our coaches to effectively train athletes from beginner to elite. I can definitely say that the consistency of this model has shown empirically and statistically that classes run smoother and athletes at all levels continually improve movement quality and capacity.

I want to just delve into the specific importance of why we include rehearsal rounds as this seems to be the one area athletes don’t always buy into.

1. It is fundamental to further your skills to have adequate ‘off the clock’ practice time. Having the mindset to take extra time delving into the most effective technique and set-up separates the good from the great. If your goal is just to get it over, not to get the most out of every workout, you are really losing out. Practice your barbell cycling, change your hand position in your pull-up, improve your stroke technique on the rower, it’s about trying to be better with every attempt.
   
   
2. Using rehearsal rounds to set-up and build towards a workout is the safest and most time efficient approach. It’s kind of funny that no one ever asks me why we take building sets to accomplish a 1RM snatch. But if you ask a group to do a couple of primer rounds of pull-ups or box-jumps as an example, they become fearful it’s going to totally mess up their score?
   
   
3. Training is about getting the most personal improvement towards your long term goal or overall fitness lifestyle. As soon as an athlete makes ‘training days’ about the fastest time or the best score at the sacrifice of long term improvement they have become lost.
   
   
4. Rehearsal rounds actually make you faster!!!! Thinking that doing small rehearsal rounds is going to make you slower is just not true. I have seen this both with my athletes and in my own training. There is NO BETTER way to prime your central nervous system and become mentally-emotionally prepared for something then to ACTUALLY DO IT.
   
   
5. It’s in the workout plan for a reason! Those extra sets and reps are purposely put into your workout to go towards adequate volume of training. There is an inversely proportionate amount of un-interrupted work you can do while maintaining intensity. Using small Primer Practice Rounds to increase the amount of training stimulus is just smart programming. Our athletes can achieve more overall quality of training while still allowing for the focused relative intensity intended for the stimulus of that workout of the day.

Trust in the process, work on improving yourself and your performance improvement will follow.