Why we don't time cap
"I was asked by a coach recently why we didn't time cap our conditioning workouts. My answer was that we used to do it, years ago. But we found that if realistic time caps were applied, too many athletes felt 'punished' or worse, 'stupid' for getting time capped, and not completing the workout. In addition, they often missed out on entire exercises (in a chipper for example) and ultimately did not receive the intended stimulus of the piece.
I've visited gyms that used time caps, but they were always very long, which certainly allowed everyone to finish, but absolutely meant that some were standing around waiting for a long time, and others again, missed the correct stimulus.
For example, placing a time cap of 15 minutes on Fran would likely allow all athletes to finish, but some would then use loads that were too heavy, break their thrusters regularly, rest more on pull-ups and completely alter the intended stimulus.
With time caps, every session becomes a time-priority workout. When that happens, the athlete can be saved by the clock and might never complete all the intended reps.
Time-capping workouts means the coach doesn’t have to think about the time domain as much, but this can make it hard to set expectations for athletes.
If we get optimisation right, all athletes should finish within 1-2 minutes or rounds of each other.
Understanding the stimulus of the workout allows the coach to effectively scale so time caps do not have to be implemented on task-priority workouts, however, offering the intended time range should help the athletes set their own expectations. We encourage them to think about the workout and learn to evaluate their own abilities—but the coach always has the final say.
There is so much more to a CrossFit class than simply scaling so athletes are able to complete the workout. Putting someone through a workout and teaching someone exactly “how” to work out are monumentally different. It is the role of the coach to help others expect a little more of themselves in moments when they want to stop, quit or slow down, and the coach must work to preserve the intended stimulus of well-conceived programming.
Set realistic expectations early on so athletes leave a little fitter, a little happier and with a little more knowledge each day."
Darren Ellis, Crossfit New Zealand.
TRAINING NOVEMBER 11th