Post by Jacob Bond

To do well at any MetCon, it is helpful to first consider how you would increase your capacity to do well at one particular MetCon. First, you’d identify the bottlenecks and character inherent to the workout. That is, the elements that most separate athletes from one another, and the qualities by which they do so. This is similar to the “stimulus” of the workout, but not always, because sometimes the bottlenecks are intentional, while other times they are not. Second, you’d identify that which limits YOU the most. Sometimes this is the same as the elements that most separate athletes; other times, it is entirely specific to your physiology, background, genetics, training history, or anatomy. Third, you would most likely—assuming you are being coached by someone intelligent—train for that MetCon in at least two distinct manners: a limiter focus and a specific practice focus. This means performing progressive, goal-based, structured, calculated, and specific progressions to target your limiters for that MetCon, while complementing this work with practice of the actual MetCon. This could mean performing it straight through, with a specific pacing strategy against a clock, or performing it in intervals, developing the capacity to complete the MetCon in segments at or above race pace, in equal or greater volumes than the actual workout. Sometimes, you introduce machines, bodybuilding exercises, or antagonistic movements to create pre-fatigue during these intervals and elicit compensatory adaptations that would ultimately increase performance come test time or race day. Wisdom comes when you’ve programmed, performed, and studied your 1,000th MetCon and realize that most people's performance in MetCons across broad modal domains shares many of the same limiters (e.g., aerobic capacity, top-end strength, etc). So, then, if you wanted to be able to crush MetCons across broad modal domains, why would you just keep doing MetCons? We just established that if you KNEW of a specific MetCon you wanted to improve in, truly getting better at that singular MetCon would require progressive, goal-based, structured, calculated, and specific progressions to target your limiters. This is where programmers and athletes fail: training for the unknown doesn't mean “never focus your training.” It means that training in a sophisticated manner is crucial. You do this by focusing your training and structuring your training. You concentrate on YOUR weakest links. Also, you examine what is KNOWN and develop capacity there. Some projection according to conserved elements and future trends is fine. THEN, and only then, you sprinkle in diverse, constantly varied MetCons, which expand the margins of your experience and provide you with experiential knowledge that can inform you of limitations you had yet to know you had. Let’s get this dialogue going. Comment below and tell me why you agree or disagree.