Ages ago, I was training to be an economist. Being an economist is kind of like being a performance artist. You can gyrate wildly wearing a tutu and facepaint, making wacky proclamations in the public square and everyone will nod politely and agree with whatever you say. Don’t provoke him! He’s wearing a tutu!
My professional ambitions were derailed, but I still think about economics a lot, especially in the context of CrossFit.
Here’s a problem that fascinates me: the Law of Diminishing Marginal Utility says that as you increase consumption of CrossFit you will encounter a tipping point at which a good thing becomes a bad thing. Beyond that point, every additional “unit” of CrossFit results in diminished utility to the CrossFitter. This is how people burn out from overtraining. They went past the point of Diminishing Marginal Utility. It’s very similar to overeating at the Chinese buffet. Gadzooks, my stomach hurts but those cream cheese wontons are delectable! Just a few more units!
The tipping point is different for everyone. So here’s a question for all of you CrossFitters out there. Do you know what your tipping point is? How much is “too much” for you?
8 Comments
The Chinese buffet analogy is a good one. The WODs all look fun and interesting, but if you consume them all you’ll suffer. Here’s what I’ve learned over the past year to avoid overdoing it:
Never go 3 days in a row.
No more than 4 WODs/week (plus one open gym).
Know your sustainable burpee rate and don’t exceed it (mine, 10/minute).
Take a 5-6 day break every couple of months.
This is what it takes to keep my 61-year old carcass functioning. But when I see deadlifts or back squats on the buffet, I usually can’t help myself.
Standard CrossFit protocol is 3 wod days in a row then a day of rest, repeat till you die. I did this for a year. Some 3 day cycles seemed easy some you thought you were going to die on the 2nd day.
mine is 400 squats with running a 1/2 mile…but I survived it.
For years my tipping point was 20%…haha! No but really, I can't wait to find my Crossfit tipping point. I'm definitely still on the upswing.
Mine is around 7 beers. After that I tip pretty quickly.
I really love the 3 day on, 1 day off scheme for the WODs. It gives me plenty of time to recover and I always feel like I get a good variety of WODs in. It also forces me to do some WODs that I don't necessarily like (which is sometimes what you need). It's sure helped me to get stronger!
Your personal tipping point keys very much off of how you treat yourself outside of the gym, as I have found out. Getting good sleep, and of course a clean diet are critical for maintaining any consistency. To this end, I have found out 12 cream cheese wontons is definitely my tipping point. At this point for me, my ideal schedule is something close to 2 days on 1 day off. I find that if I go every other day, I tend to stay in a perpetual state of soreness, that diminishes my desire to go train.
I'm on the 2x a week plan. I like having two intense days then using the rest of the week to fit in sprints on my spin bike, pilates and outdoor activities like hiking, showshoeing and skiing. When there's no snow cheese wontons are a good consolation. I'm impressed folks keep count – in my experience counting and buffets don't go together. Best to get a group to go out for dim sum where everyone can fight over the wontons in those small metal dishes. Social eating with a little competitive exercise. ;)