It’s a mistake to think that because a workout or particular day of training is hard, it must be good. Certainly, a good workout (a rather vague and meaningless term anyways) can be a hard workout, but the two are not the same.

I like to remind our students that we’re not in the business of hard workouts. Any coach -- or anyone off the street, for that matter -- can come up with a hard workout. I can make you do 1,000 burpees as fast as possible, and certainly that will be hard. But that won’t make you a better mover or healthier human, and it won’t make me a good coach, it will just make you incredibly tired and me kind of an asshole.

A hard workout will make you tired. It might make you sore, and it will probably make you feel like you did something meaningful and productive. A good workout will be goal-oriented. It will be a piece of a larger plan, will meet you at your current level of fitness, will provide intentional stimulus to drive specific change, and it very well may be hard. But just because mint chocolate chip ice cream is good doesn’t mean that all good ice cream is mint chocolate chip.

Unfortunately, much of the fitness industry has been built on this idea of physical punishment as a token of value. “Good workout” has become synonymous with drips of sweat left on the floor or how many times you felt like vomiting. Of course there will be some sweat, of course there will sometimes be soreness, and of course intensity is an essential piece of the equation, but you ought to know the difference between hard and good.

We’re in the game of creating a sustainable, educational physical practice for our students, not handing out meaningless punishment in the name of fitness.

- PS

6/26/18

• Front squat - work up to 5rm in 12 mins

Then...

• 5 rounds for time:

• 8 front squats (135/95)

• 40 DUs