Transcribed from video:
– We can actually graph pacing, so we can graph what pacing should look like. And we can also graph what it shouldn’t look like. So let’s about talk about faulty pacing. This is probably what a lot of you do. This is probably where a lot of you are sitting. These are the mistakes that most people make because remember the biggest mistake that I believe is made by cross fitters, from a pacing point of view, is using an energy system which is too intense for the length of event that they are competing in. too agressive, too high yield therefor the negative byproduct, they hit a threshold, they hit the wall. We can actually graph time per round and intensity. So let’s call this here, this is intensity or effort and we’ll just put it on a scale of zero to 10, that’s how hard you’re working. And I’ve actually done this with athletes, where I’ll record, how hard do you work after each round, what’s your heart rate, what was your round split. And this is what it tends to look like. And this is round of time here. So let’s talk about round time first. This is in seconds. And these are the rounds. Alright, so, the first round, if they go out too fast the time is going to be low yeah? Cause its really quick, so, the time round 1, is really quick, lets call this zero seconds, 30, 60, 90, 120, 150 seconds, how long it takes them to get one round done of whatever that work-out happens to be, so they go out pretty quick. Second round maybe they’re still feeling okay there, and then, they hit the wall, they hit a threshold, because what they’ve done is this, you know we’ve gone about average maybe a minute over these first two rounds, they’ve used an energy system which is perfect for 60 seconds, for two minutes sorry, they’ve used an inappropriate energy system however, and then they hit the wall and suddenly, the rounds go like this. So they get a linear increase, or even an exponential increase in their round time. What they were doing in 50 seconds at the start, they’ve now added, or over two minutes to, cause they’ve hit the wall. And if we look at their intensity during this point, they start off super high and they stay super high. So the intensity starts up here, their working at a six out of ten at the start, and then very quick they’re up here, and then they’re just redlining all the way. This here, you can see where they’ve hit the wall, and you can see where this point, correlates with their round time increasing. So we can actually graph what’s happening, round time gets slower, and the intensity is super high all the way. That is what a faulty pacing strategy looks like, and that’s what most people do. There’s an exponential increase here in the rate of perceived exertion, and a linear or an exponential growth increase in the round time. They’re working harder, its hurting more, they’re slowing down, there’s nothing good about that. Can everyone see how that’s a pretty common pattern, and if we were to graph this, and you can do this on your phone just with a split timer, at the end of every round, hit lap, end of a round, hit lap, then go back and look at it and see how they compare. And a lot of the programming I do I will actually say each round must be within 20 seconds, otherwise, it doesn’t work, or even if its a 20 or 30 minute event, I’ll say okay we’ll split it in half, its effectively two rounds, your second round must be faster than your first, just to learn those pacing strategies. Who feels like they also go out too hard? Like, they almost always go out too hard? You know my advice for you guys? Go out easier. Yeah if you always, that’s so absolute yeah, if you always go out too fast this becomes a really simple fix for you, just go out slower, and if its still too fast, go slower, and practise going out way too slow, and then go “oh no I went too far the other way”, until you find that middle ground and the pendulum comes back to where you want it to be. But its so simple, if you always go out too hard, its a really simple fix, always go out a little bit easier. Same axis here, same variables, same labels on the axis. A linear increase in rate of perceived exertion. So now lets say we’re going to start, we’re going to start at a three. As apposed to starting up at a seven here. And, that’s what your effort level should look like. So, at the end you’re working at a ten out of ten, at the start you’re working at a three out of ten, gradually increasing. Our round times, instead of starting here and increasing and going through the roof, the first round is going to be a fraction faster, because of transition time and that sort of thing, and then this is what should happen. Like that, this is a shallow inverted ‘U’ there. So lets break down what this actually means. Firstly, if we look at the range between fastest round and slowest round, here its huge, the range between fastest and slowest round here, is very small, there’s not a lot of range, we’re having to work harder as we go to maintain the same round time. So lets say over here we’re starting at 50 seconds, lets say we are at a minute 20, about all the way. Now to hold that pace, for three rounds that should be easy to hold, a minute and 20 seconds for three rounds should be fine, now we can see that because we’re only sitting into five out of ten there. But can you see that four rounds holding that pace would be harder? For five rounds, holding that pace would be harder. So our effort level, it gets harder and harder and harder and harder and harder, but our output stays about the same. We have to work progressively harder to maintain the output but maintaining output there is key. What’s this about, how come we’ve gone faster at the end here? Into a more aggressive energy system. And what’s the advantage of going into a more aggressive energy system? We can restore that off stay molecule faster. But, what’s the negative of that? Can’t do it for long, hydrogen irons, your body starts to turn into acid but by this point, your inside the last minute its okay, yeah, and that’s exactly what we’ve got here. There’s a linear increase in rate of perceived exertion with a shallow inverted ‘U’ of output, ‘AKA’ round time. So you want to build the intensity to a maximum sustainable intensity, a maximum sustainable split, round pace, then at the end you want to cross that anaerobic threshold, which you can see is happening here, and this we may even get a exponential sort of increase up like this, you cross that anaerobic threshold to take advantage of the higher yields of energy that are available there at the end. The higher yields that come from going into an anaerobic energy system. So, some people will watch people compete, and they’ll sprint finish and they’ll say ‘Oh you know, you had too much left in the tank, you didn’t go hard enough in the sprint at the end’, not the case, they could’ve been completely dead, and you guys would have felt this yeah, you’re rowing 2000m, and you’re completely dead, you can always sprint that last 100, and you’re doing that because you’re crossing that threshold you’re going anaerobic, unless you’ve really blown it, and you’re already a ten out of ten, this guy here, probably already anaerobic here, he couldn’t bring it down, his body was flooded with these hydrogen irons, flooded with acid, it was inhibiting that process of fast glycolysis, couldn’t do anything about it, the round, speed, kept increasing, but I bet his last three burpees, would still have been fast, yeah? Cause its how it works. Heres the cool thing, correct strategy equals less pain, pain means you’ve reached the threshold. So its really painful and uncomfortable and you’ve hit the wall and it sucks, you’ve probably done something wrong. Sure you can do that at the end, and it will progressively get more painful or more discomfort as you go, but if you’re in pain early, you’ve hit the wall, and no matter how much you back up from the wall, the front of that car is still squashed. So stay away from those thresholds.
