What’s in a Rep?

By Jen Jacobs

A few months ago we wrapped up the CrossFit Open at Old City. It was a great test of speed, strength, endurance, mental toughness, and it has also been a chance to push the body to limits we never knew possible with movements such as heavy cleans and bar muscle ups, which we saw numerous people excel at for the first time by either repping out their previous 1RM or achieving their first ever lift at a new weight!

During the Open, the coaches laid out the rules for the latest announced workout, describing the workout as it should be performed either as prescribed, scaled, or maybe somewhere in between.

Since the Open, we’ve tried to continue with these concepts when describing movements within each and every workout. Before each workout, we engage in a discussion about the weight used for a barbell movement, where the movement should start and finish, and what constitutes a good or bad repetition. We’ve been referring to this as the “Games Standard.”

Here are a examples of what “Games Standards” include:

• A good rep for a chest to bar pull-up is starting with the arms fully extended at the bottom and finishing when the chest makes contact with the bar.

• A good rep for a hand release push up is starting with the body in a plank position, the chest touching the ground with some separation between the grounds and the hands, and the body returning to the plank position with no sagging of the body, ‘snaking’, or a knee push up.

• A good rep for toes to bar or the scaled knee raise is starting with your feet behind the body/pull-up rig and finishing when either the feet touch the bar between your hands at the same time, or when your knees rise above your hips.

• A good rep for a wall ball has you starting the movement with a full squat (hips below the crease of the knee) hitting the ball square on the wall at 10’ or 9’, and reaching the full depth of the squat between each rep, never taking the ball off a bounce.

But these standards laid out for each workout, for each movement, are nothing new. These aren’t just The Games Standard. These are *THE* Standard.

This isn’t how the movements are supposed to be performed for these five weeks of The Open.

This is how the movements are supposed to be performed each and every day.

Each week, each workout, each movement, we all should be striving for perfection. We should be pushing ourselves to becoming better with each repetition and to meet the standard of that movement. We should make sure each rep counts – every time!

Holding yourself accountable to movement standards is how we get stronger, faster, and better as athletes.

In the months since the Open has ended, you haven’t had a judge standing beside you telling you if your medicine ball hit the appropriate height on the wall. You shouldn’t need a judge standing beside you. You should be aiming above it to make sure there is no doubt that the wall ball repetition counted.

Doing the workout as prescribed is more than using the weight listed. If you want to write RX next to your name on the board, you better be damn sure that you met the standards – that you met YOUR standards – for each movement.

• Did you get your chin over the bar for each pull up?
• Were you at full extension at the top of each push up?
• Did you snake up even just a little bit?
• Were your elbows slightly in front of the bar on that clean?
• Did you hit full hip and knee extension?
• Were your squats at full depth each and every time?
• Are you sure??

Did you earn that RX distinction next to your name and time?

As I stated at the beginning, the Open was a great test of the body’s limits, of its potential. Now that we’ve had some time to wind down from the moment and the competition, continue to push yourself every day, every week, to become a better athlete – to be the standard.

And by becoming ‘one-with-the-standards’ each and every rep, you’ll start to unlock #gainz that you didn’t even know were possible.