And Thursday Makes Three (plus CrossFit cheaters)

For the second week in a row, I made it to 3 days of CrossFit midweek.  It was tough, but I pulled it off.

The first part of the workout last night was 20 minutes of "work your weakness".  I picked barbell bench presses and sumo deadlift high pulls, using the same barbell for each movement.  For 20 minutes, I alternated the two exercises doing 5 reps of one and then a minute later, doing 5 reps of the other.  I kept the weight light, but it was getting harder as I approached the 20 minute mark.

Next, our conditioning work was to accrue as many reps as possible in 12 minutes of the following:

21 sit-ups
15 push-ups
9 jumps over a box

I did four rounds plus 9 extra sit-ups.  Because I'm not yet ready to do box jumps quite yet, I simply stepped up on the box, down the other side and then repeated this to 9 reps.  Overall, I did it at a controlled pace - not all out - hoping I'd be recovered in time to ski on Saturday.

I'm sore today, but I hope to feel better by tomorrow.

I was working out beside a guy in our gym who drives me absolutely nuts.  It is possible that this person is simply incapable of counting.  But, night after night, workout after workout, he plain and simply cheats.  I've been watching this for months.  He will do part of a set, rest for a bit, and then act like he finished the set and move on.

Last night, he wrote on the board that he completed 5 full rounds of the workout.  Yet, I repeatedly counted his reps (and mine at the same time), and I was shocked at his rep totals.  For example, his middle three rounds of sit-ups were 16, 13 and 18 reps - barely two rounds worth.  One of his push-up sets was 2 reps, rest, 2 reps, rest, 2 reps, rest, 2 reps, rest, and call it done.  The closest I saw him come to completing a set was 8 box jumps.

I have no problem with people scaling the workouts.  Scaling is what allows us non-elite athletes to do these workouts without getting hurt.  But, when I scale, I do one of two things.  I either write on the board and in my logbook exactly what I did.  Or, I don't even record a score on the whiteboard.

This person cheats his way through workout after workout, and then writes lies on the board.  In this case, it probably makes me a bit crazier than it might otherwise because we are close in ability.  On Wednesday night, it was almost comical.  I'd start a set before him, but he would finish before me, despite the fact that I was moving faster.  So, I'd start the next set behind him and I'd finish my reps before he finished his cheater set.  So, I'd start first in the next set.  He'd cheat his way to finish ahead of me again.  And so on.

The "why" of this completely eludes me.  Who benefits?  Maybe no one gets hurt either, but why blatantly lie about what you've done?  How do you know if you are improving if you have no accurate records of what you've really done?

It's just bizarre and I need to let it go.  But, it drives me nuts.

On Monday, I watched one of our better athletes cheat his way through a very tough workout.  This guy did all the reps, but did every single one of them poorly.  If he was being judged for the CrossFit games, his reps would have been disallowed repeatedly.  Again, why?

I have no answer.  I admit I don't like finishing last in some of our workouts.  But it happens sometimes and I just get over it, write my time on the board, and come back to fight again another day.