Tori understands the benefits of scaling to reach her goals
To be precise, it is a five letter word, but I’m splitting hairs. I can assure you we have all scaled, we should all do it, and it merely requires that you leave your ego at the door. So, why do we scale? I’ll give you three big reasons, and in my opinion, in order of importance.
1. SAFETY. Not only do we scale for safety, but in almost everything that we do, safety is our number one first thought. We scale to protect against injury, minor and major. For example, commonly we see athletes insisting on not scaling the dead lift weight during a metcon. They think they’ve lifted that weight once or twice, so, they should be able to do the same in a metcon. However, what needs to be considered is how many reps will we be doing, will form degrade as we go, and will it make you a better athlete. One bad deadlift can lead to big trouble and big injury.
2. ABILITY LEVEL. Everyone starts somewhere and everyone has been where you are. This is where ego is a thing. Everyone has something they need to work on. Many come in and want to do a pull up, it’s a very common goal. We could let you hang on the bar and squeeze and huff and puff and pull and watch you not make progress or as coaches we can help you by setting up for some solid ring rows or do some work from a low bar that will help you progress to your goal.
3. GOOD, QUALITY MOVEMENT. I can do a handstand pushup. BOOM. But you know what? They’re kind of ugly and not consistent. I have caught myself in a metcon just killing them. Pounding them out…until I start hearing the dreaded “no rep.” Then I realize my movement quality sucks. I’m actually not going through the movement, I’m not really getting much out of it and of course, injury alert!. So, we scale them back to pike position handstand push ups from a box. Immediately there is quality movement, which, will lead me to a good RX handstand push up with practice. Good quality movement prevents injury!
We all have worn the RX blinders before. I won’t lie, seeing the RX next to your name feels good, but completing a workout without injury feels better. Leave your ego at the door. Be the best athlete you can be and scale that workout.