GOOD VS HORRID

The classic poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

There was a little girl,
And she had a little curl
Right in the middle of her forehead.
When she was good
She was very, very good,        
 And when she was bad she was horrid.

 Reminds me of training to a certain degree.

At least, how training SHOULD be......

When we discuss a workout in class and use the terms,  efficiency, steady state, aerobic, repeatable, sustainable, unbroken, etc, we're looking for VERY GOOD training, not too hard, ie not bad, but instead mindful, focused and controlled.

And when we want a 'horrid' workout, we'll talk about lactate, 'the burn', 'grinders', discomfort and event pain.

They both have their place.

What you need to be careful of, is one of three things;

1. Making ALL your workouts horrid (intensity is important, but it doesn't work well with skill practice, you need to slow down a bit sometimes)

2. Making ALL your workouts good (it's ok to be cautious when you are learning, but eventually you need to push.  We'll help you decide when to do it safely).

3. Possibly the worst, making all of your workouts somewhere in between.  This is the domain of the person that tries to train too many times per day/week, as the intention to train 'horrid' is there, but the actual energy and mental fortitude to do so has long been drained.

The poem actually describes what our training should be like quite perfectly, but let's sub out some words to make it clearer.

There was a little athlete,
And she had a little lifting belt
Right in the middle of her lumbar.
When she focused on good movement and skill acquisition
She moved very, very deliberately,        
 And when she wanted to test her fitness she warmed up properly, then got her beast mode face on, and was the definition of intensity and focus and went all the way into the pain cave, however still maintained exceptional movement quality due to how good she was during her normal training days.