This blog is from Crossfit One World. Jusgt another one of Freddy C's awesome posts

June 08, 2011

NUMBERS, NUMBERS, AND MORE NUMBERS!

NOTE: IT was pointed out to me that I made a false fact in this post. I have corrected it. Apologies.

CrossFit is a numbers game, so take note that 4 is not 5, 18 in not 25, and 37 is definitely not 50. I'm pretty sure that every CrossFit gym has one (or two, or five, or more). It’s that person who can’t count. Over the last five years, we’ve had several characters at One World who were notorious to the other members for not being able to count their reps or rounds. 

We had one girl who trained with us for almost a year. She was a well-known athlete in the endurance race community. She was by far, the worst bad counter I have ever encountered! If she was working out next to someone and the other person finished their reps before her, she would just move on with them. If she was by herself, she rarely did the full rep schemes. For her, it was important that she reported fast times or tons of rounds so she could post about it on her blog later that night (32 rounds of Cindy??? Really???). I was the trainer at a lot of her sessions. I confronted her on it numerous times. I'd look her straight in the eyes and tell her she couldn’t count for shit. She would look at me with a blank expression and then say, “I can count!” and off she'd go.
 

Initially, everyone was impressed by the bad counter’s results. People weren’t watching or paying attention to her actual workouts. But after a while, if you start posting crazy results, people start to take notice to what you’re doing. At first people were angry and would ask me about it. When I couldn’t fix it, it just became a big joke at the gym. Pretty soon, no one took this girl serious at all. They even began to question her stories of logging miles on the trails prior to coming to the gym to workout. No one was ever mean or vindictive toward her, but after a few months, no one cared what she would write down on the dry erase board. It was a shame really. She didn't need the approval of a bunch of crazy CrossFitters. She already was well respected and admired in the crazy Ultramarathon crowd.

When I became a police officer, my first field training officer was a smart dude who taught me a ton of stuff that I still adhere to today. I remember him saying, “Whatever you do Freddy, don’t ever get a reputation as a slacker, being lazy, or not answering up for your calls. It’s hard to reverse a bad reputation in police work.” Wise words for sure.

It’s kind of the same in CrossFit. You get a rep as a bad counter, someone who short changes their workouts, and pretty much no one takes you serious anymore. You might actually put in all the work in a workout and crush it, but people will be questioning the legitimacy of your performance. To this day, a bunch of us that were around back when the ultramarathon girl was training with us still use that girl’s name to describe someone who counted short in a workout. You don’t want to get that reputation at your gym.

It comes down to reps and rounds. For me, I think it is easiest to miscount your rounds. You start counting reps within the round and the next thing you know, you find yourself wondering, “Am I on round three or round four?” (BTW- If you find yourself asking that question, it’s best if you just go with three.) I still don’t know how people lose count of their reps in a workout. I can see if you accidently do 48 or 49 reps out of 50 on occasion, but I 've seen some huge deficits within  a round. The workout is kicking your ass. I don’t know about you, but I definitely want to keep track of exactly where I am so I know how much longer until I am done.

Over the years, I’ve learned a lot of tricks to keep track of reps and rounds. I really like to use poker chips to keep track of my rounds. I just keep them on the floor right next to me. One chip set off to the side is equal to a round. A box of poker chips for your gym is cheap! Drawing a long line on the dry erase board and wiping a little hash mark on it with your fingertip works good too (thank you Crossfit Milpitas for that one). The little clicker counters can work well also. For some workouts, I will use a clipboard and paper. You can draw hash marks as you go, or you can take a number and break it up into fives and cross it off as you go. For shorter workouts that I know I am going to break up the rep scheme, I count the reps in fives or sevens or whatever. It makes it easy to keep track for me. You can often hear the audible numbers in my grunts as I get near the end of my workout. Of course, there is always just counting out loud, though I can never get the bad counters to do this.

Last but not least, why is that bad counters always do less work, and they never do more work?? You never hear people in the gym talking about the guy or gal who is always doing too many reps in a workout. Sometimes you gotta figure that they know they aren’t counting right, and they just want to put up good numbers on the dry erase board.

Keep a good count. In the end, you are the only one who your results matter to, but remember that once you put it on the dry erase board, everyone is checking you out.