Mark’s Blog – YOUR SECRET WEAPON…

posted November 1, 2015 by Mark Divine
With the 5 attitudes we recently discussed backing you with a mental power-source for your personal moonshots, let’s turn our attention to building the booster rockets that will get your ship off the ground, through the atmosphere, and into orbit:

Work capacity is that component of SEALFIT OPWOD training that prepares you for the proverbial (or actual) firefight. For the uninitiated, work capacity training is, to say the least, uncomfortable. Your first exposure will check your ego and make you sore for a week. You may wonder if it is even good for you! It often takes two to three months for your body to adapt to the intensity of work capacity, but you will experience the benefits almost immediately.

High-intensity training is to performance what strength training is to durability. It is what’s going to drive your fitness and athletic potential through the roof. Work capacity is your secret weapon. One look at the athletes in the CrossFit Games or undertaking our SEALFIT 20X Challenge should help motivate you to employ this training to it’s fullest.

Work capacity develops your overall horsepower as a person. It gives you the ability to do more work in less time. Improvements in work capacity will elicit improvements in power, stamina, speed, and endurance.

In SEALFIT, we use a clock—either as a time-trial stopwatch or countdown timer—to create the external stimulus to motivate your work. Team competition and accountability are also effective ways to escalate output with work capacity. Finally, we implement benchmark workouts to measure progress.

Work capacity at SEALFIT is very similar to CrossFit programming. In fact, CrossFit provided a ton of inspiration for the early development of the OPWOD training model.

My friend, CrossFit founder Greg Glassman, says that CrossFit “leverages constantly-varied functional movements done at high-intensity.” And that develops work capacity.

There are three critical components to Coach Glassman’s description: Constant variance, functional movements, and high-intensity.

Let’s zoom in on the third of those components – high-intensity. High-intensity is a double-edged sword: It triggers tremendous adaptations in your training, but if you fail to use good technique or allow your form to crumble while in the competitive environment of a work capacity session, then you’ve made yourself vulnerable to injury.

There are also limits to how much high-intensity you can put your body through without courting breakdown. In a single training session, this part of your training will be anywhere from 5 to twenty minutes. If done right, your body will be temporarily “done” and you will need to put some gas in the tank before your next round. Your body can handle this intensity only 3 or 4 times a week when you are just beginning. It’s important to take a couple recovery days each week to give your nervous system, and your cortisol levels, a break.

I have mentioned this before, but SEALFIT daily training is most effective with a team. Doing a full OPWOD or even just a work capacity session alone isn’t going to be as effective, motivating, or fun as it is with a team. In a team atmosphere, you will have skilled teammates, and if luck even a certified SEALFIT coach to support your efforts, (see our new Basic Training Certification Click Here). The team ensures that you put out, but also at the right pace and with good technique to ensure you achieve the results without injury.

If you are new to this type of training it is very important to follow the on-ramp program or work with a certified coach to learn the movements properly. This will ensure that you don’t risk over-exposure to the high-intensity in your training. You may have heard of rhabdomyolysis, or “rhabdo,” a rare but dangerous syndrome that can occur from too much muscle breakdown. There have been documented cases of rhabdo in the CrossFit community from newcomers going too hard, too fast. They don’t check their ego at the door and harm themselves in the process. We are in this for the long haul; so let’s take it one step at a time. The athletes most in danger of getting rhabdo are those who used to be in decent shape and are out to make a comeback, or those who were focused exclusively on bodybuilding. These athletes may have the mental toughness to power through a work capacity session, only to find their muscles break down excessively as a result. (For a good introduction to what rhabdo is and what you can do to prevent it, read Greg Glassman’s article on the subject.)

Next week, we’ll take a fresh look at the other two components of work capacity—constant variance and functional movements.

Till then – let’s build some horsepower. Hooyah!

Mark Divine

P.S. If you’re interested in taking the first steps toward mastering the full-range of SEALFIT training principles and programming, you should join my elite coaching team and me at SEALFIT HQ, November 14-15, for the Basic Training Certification. Click http://register.sealfit.com/basic-training/ to learn more.