People always assume that I'm really good at math. I'm not saying that I'm bad at math, but there's a way to make it appear like you're better at it than you really are. You just need to know some tricks. Back when Paul was one of the coaches at KOP, I got to teach him some of those tricks. He would always shake his head at me when I was able to calculate the number of reps in a workout on the fly. He'd always say how ridiculous it was that I could add numbers that quickly. The truth was that I was using a trick I had learned. I told him that he could do it just as well as I did once he knew the trick.
For example, a common rep scheme in Crossfit is 21-15-9. How many reps is that? 45. How do you figure that out quickly? If the numbers are evenly spaced from one another (these are all 6 apart), then you multiply the middle number (15) by how many numbers there are in the series (3). 15 x 3 = 45. Once Paul knew that, I could give him a rep scheme like the following:
17-15-13-11-9-7-5
And he would know the total reps in less than 10 seconds. (This works best with an odd set of numbers. If you have an even set, you have to average the middle two numbers to get the "middle number".) I didn't include the answer in case you want to figure it out on your own. I bet you got it faster than you thought you might.
Another math trick involves answering the question "what is the total of the numbers going from 1 to x?" Let's say x was 8. If someone asked you what that added up to, the answer would be 36. Adding 8 numbers wouldn't be so bad, but what if someone asked for the total of the numbers from 1 to 20? You probably wouldn't want to add all those up. So you'd want to use the trick instead. To calculate that sum, you multiply "x" times "x+1" and divide by 2. What is the total of the numbers from 1 to 20? (20 x 21)/2 = 210.
If you haven't fallen asleep already, I'll explain why I'm geeking out on math tricks. During the Open this year, we had a repeat workout. The workout started with 55 deadlifts. One of the hosts of the studio show mentioned that you might attack this part of the workout by doing sets of 10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1 as that added up to 55 reps. And he was right. (10 x 11)/2 = 55. I thought about doing the workout this way, but I stubbornly stuck to my own strategy. That was a mistake.
On Wednesday night, we were doing a benchmark WOD that required strategy. The WOD is Randy and here's how it goes:
"Randy"
75 snatches (75/55)
I've only done Randy once before exactly as it is written. One year at King and Queen, the first event was a version of Randy that included two minutes of burpees over a barbell in the middle of the WOD. As for the time that I did it sans burpees, my time was 7:22. I thought I would go much quicker than that, but I tired out about 50 reps in. I probably went for too much, too soon and paid the price. I needed a better strategy this time around. If only there was some simple way to get through this workout...
...wait! What if I just manipulated the strategy I had learned in the Open? Was there a way to easily change it so that it added up to 75 reps instead of 55 reps? The answer was yes:
- 10 + 9 + 8 + 7 + 6 + 5 + 4 + 3 + 2 + 1 = 55
- To add 20 reps, I could add 10 reps to each of the last two sets
- Instead of 2 and 1, they become 12 and 11 (they also hop to the start of the line and become the first two sets of the workout)
- 12 + 11 + 10 + 9 + 8 + 7 + 6 + 5 + 4 + 3 = 75
If I did 10 sets that decreased in size from twelve to three, I'd reach 75 reps. If you ever encounter a workout that has 95 reps in it, you'll know how to manipulate this formula to your advantage. (Answer: Go from fourteen to five.)
The only other person in Coach Jenna's 7:30 class was Neil. When Jenna asked us if we had done Randy before, both Neil and I replied that we had done it once. At first, Neil thought he did this workout in the same class as me. Then he changed his mind. It was that "bald, skinny guy" who used to come to Dudes After Dark all the time. It was up to the "bald, non-skinny guy" to figure out who he was referring to. It took me a few minutes, but then it came to me. He was referring to Chris D, my buddy who used to love Jenna's basketball-themed warmups on Wednesday nights. Neil wasn't sure what his previous time was, but he felt pretty certain that it was over 7 minutes. (Turned out it was 7:20.)
Jenna had us warm up by practicing the snatch with an empty barbell. Once she was satisfied with our form, she told us we could start loading up our barbells and work our way up to the weight we'd be using in the WOD. Me and Neil looked at each other confused. The empty barbell weighed 45 pounds. The WOD weight was 75 pounds. Did we really need to work our way up from 45 to 75 pounds? Jenna told us that she wanted to give us the option to work up to 75 pounds because we were old. Good save, Jenna. Cold blooded, but a good save.
Neil was concerned about counting all the way up to 75, so he needed some way of keeping track. There were only two of us in class, so he was free to use all of the abacuses available, but he needed 8 of them and there weren't 8 in the gym. I decided to come up with an alternative approach. I grabbed 15 ab-mats from the back of the gym and stacked them up in three piles of five. I told Neil that every time he completed 5 snatches, he could toss one of the ab-mats to the back of the gym. When they were all gone, he was done with the WOD. Neil seemed more enamored with the idea of kicking the piles of ab-mats over every time he got 25 done. I had to admit that his idea was a much more entertaining way of keeping track of your reps.
Neil was ready to count to 75 and I was ready to snatch, so without further delay, we began work on Randy. I was very controlled as I moved through my first 12 reps. I heard Neil's barbell hit the floor much earlier. I would later find out that Neil's plan was to do sets of 5 throughout. (15 sets, 15 ab-mats...I'm just sayin!) I took a short break before going into my set of 11. Then I did the set of 10. I felt under control the whole time. I was nearly halfway done and I felt good about my strategy.
The set of 9 was the first one that was painful, but it wasn't all that bad. I made it to 7 reps and had to grit my teeth to make it through the final two reps. I took a longer break after that set. The set of 8 was pretty similar. Five big sets down, five smaller sets to go. I looked at the clock and knew that I was going to be under 7 minutes this time around. The question was whether I could make it under 6 minutes. If I ditched the plan at this point and tried to stick with larger sets, I thought I'd have a better shot at staying under 6 minutes. But this was a math experiment. I bought into going from twelve to three at the start and I was sticking with that until I was done.
The sets of 7 and 6 weren't about strength as much as they were about breathing. I was trying to keep my breaks small, but at a certain point, this workout takes a toll on your lungs. I came back to my barbell with 12 reps left and began my set of 5. As I was doing that set, Neil finished up. I really thought I was going to beat him based on how he broke up his reps, but he clearly took very small breaks between his sets. With my set of 5 done, I had 7 reps left. I could do that in one set, but I refused to change the plan. I did a set of 4, took a break to shake out my arms, then did the last 3. Final time: 6:24. (Neil finished in 5:43.)
I'm glad that I stuck with my initial strategy, especially on a workout that comes up frequently. It's fun to play around with different ways to do the WOD. Not all methods work for everyone. To me, experimenting is the only way you figure out the best method for you. Was the "twelve to three" scheme the fastest way for me to get through Randy? No. I think I could condense some of those smaller sets into bigger ones. I could probably be a bit more aggressive early on in the workout as well. I tried to remain calm between the first couple of sets knowing that there was a long way to go, but I think I could have attacked the workout more there and still hung on at the end. Lesson learned.
Wednesday preview: I'm away from the gym for a full week as Jenn and I hit up wine country. The 7:30 class is once again a coach and two students, with Giulz playing the role of Jenna and Bryan playing the role of Neil.
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