So, in yesterday's WOD post I talked a little bit about the importance of taking light days. Sometimes you'll have to do that yourself, other times you might see it in the workout of the day.

We're talking about practice.

Training vs Testing.

I'll say it again. Training vs Testing. Where do you fall most of the time when you're at CFD or otherwise training?

In the begining, when you are a novice CF-er, if you're playing your cards right you should be able to, for example, back squat M W F and put more on the bar each time. You've disrupted homeostasis, repaired and are ready to go again. As you go though, it gets harder to do that and takes longer. For most intermediate people, that's roughly a week of training. So, you're looking to squat more Monday to Monday than every other day.

The underlying thought here is that not every day is an epic day. It can't be.

The competition side of CrossFit is compelling and even more so during this time of year when we have the Open, The Regionals and The Games happening to make you want to go harder -- to test yourself constantly. This is a mistake. When you're training - you are not going all darkside on your lifts or metcons and visiting Camp No Fun. To be sure, you're working hard and with goals and purpose in mind that go beyond that day's workout. You don't become a shambles and keep it together -- dosing yourself with just the right amount of intensity. That's training.

Sometimes you've doomed yourself from the start. You're going rx'd because you can and then the wheels come off the bus. That's fine if you're looking to test, but it's not the bullk of your training. It shouldn't be.

Training doesn't take you to failure or an absolute breakdown in form. In fact, you can look just about as good at the end as you do at the start of a workout when you're training. Think of power lifters dynamic effort days. The last lift looks just as good as the first and is moving just as fast.

Train. Then test. Rinse and repeat. Controlled fury. Think beyond the clock. Have a longer term plan.