170713 - Throwback Thursday - "Training vs. Competing"

Training is the day to day progression through a set list of tasks towards the goal of competing in, excelling in or merely executing within your field of expertise.
When I was in the Infantry, we has a number of tasks necessary to become an "expert." In the no-war/slow-war Army in the 90's, we tested this with the Expert Infantry Badge. The tasks in the list have changed over the years, but roughly stayed the same throughout it's history. A few of the tasks are: Day and Night Land Navigation, 12 mile ruck march in under 3 hours, First Aid and more. Each of these elements had a Task, Condition and Standard. The infantryman was given instruction on how to accomplish the tasks, within the conditions as outlined and to a specific standard. We then trained the infantrymen to do those tasks in hopes that they could put it together when the time came (combat)

Competing is the culmination of the aforementioned training and the assessment of your preparation.
When I re-entered the Army as an Infantry officer following Sept. 11th, we still had the Expert Infantry Badge, but since it was wartime, the focus was less on assessing those independent tasks and more on putting them together to execute missions. Combat is the true culmination and assessment of preparation with a liberal dose of luck thrown in to make things spicier. Same thing with competition in CrossFit.  

When we do well or set PRs (personal records) we can get wrapped up in competing instead of training and easily lose sight of the difference. A long-time and exceedingly accomplished CrossFit coach Douglas Chapman (CrossFit Ann Arbor/Hyperfit USA) posted a conversation with a would-be Games athlete and it perfectly encapsulates the difference and why we try to insist on perfect practice rather than weight for the sake of weight and reps for the sake of reps. Read his conversation here. I'll wait. 

Though I'm not remotely as accomplished a coach; I've had one athlete go to regionals and it was largely based upon her already impressive skill set, I have however encountered similar conversations. One of the conversations I consistently have is the "I'm not getting what I want out of training" conversation.
Specifically relating to getting stronger. There's smart strength and stupid strength. I was the master of stupid strength when I was a young 20 year-old airborne infantry sergeant. I could lift pretty heavy stuff with crappy form and aside from a little soreness here and there, I could get away with it. Now, I try to coach smart strength, where I over-emphasize form, and underemphasize load. It's the longview approach to strength and fitness. If you move like shit, it doesn't matter how "strong" you are, it's not going to last. 

The CrossFit process is just that, a process. It takes time. Yes, there are a handful of folks who start CrossFit and three months later they're pretty exceptional. However, that's falling by the wayside. The community is larger, the pool of athletes is not only larger but more accomplished and unless you put in the time learning, you won't progress.

Train every day. Compete when you have prepared.  

WOD
21-15-9
Deadlift @ 65% of 1RM
Box Jumps @ 30/24