The 2010 CrossFit Games

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The ultimate proving grounds of the world’s fittest athletes.

July 16-18, 2010 • Carson, CA

The Home Depot Center Sports Complex

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Rogue Vs AF Tahoe Throwdown

The 2010 Games free webcast: watch the archives and relive the event at live.crossfit.com.

Tommy Hackenbruck

Rogue Vs AF Tahoe Throwdown

Roundtable in Tahoe: Going Long

The Place of Longer Workouts in Testing Fitness

In a roundtable discussion at the Rogue vs. Again Faster Tahoe Throwdown, Tommy Hackenbruck raised the issue of longer workouts. Longer workouts can be logistically difficult to organize. Nonetheless, it is still necessary to include some sustained workouts in order to test for broadly developed work capacity.

20 minute workouts are generally accurate predictors of performance in 40 minute workouts. On the other hand, 5 to 10 minute workouts are not as effective at predicting capacity in 20 minute workouts. Dave Lipson, for example, crushes shorter workouts but is slower at longer workouts.

There's also the question of movement selection. Pat Barber asked what movements, other than rowing, running, and swimming, can be performed with intensity for 40 minutes. Dave Castro responded with Murph, which includes 2 miles of running, 100 pullups, 200 push-ups, and 300 air squats.

The movement selection will determine who is likely to win. While lighter athletes tend to do better on long runs, long rows tend to favor heavier athletes. Longer workouts will also tend to use lighter weights than shorter workouts.

Hackenbruck argued, that it is important to be able to run long distances for both fitness and survival. In his opinion, long runs require a type of capacity that is hard to test in shorter workouts.