Here’s a great article about scaling your workouts to get more power. It’s not all about how heavy you are lifting. It’s about the swiftness–the power–of your workout. Figuring out what weight you should be lifting is a little easier with the formula Jon Gilson discusses in his article: Zatsiorsky, Scaling, and Power, recently reprinted on the Again Faster website.
>>> “Heavier” isn’t the answer. Balance is the answer.
On page six in The Science and Practice of Strength Training, author Vladimir Zatsiorsky posits that maximal power output occurs at approximately 30% of maximal velocity and 50% of maximal load. I’m in love with page six, and simultaneously dumbfounded by its mathematical exactitude.
Applied to CrossFit and our never ending pursuit of power, this unforgettable page states that we’re looking for a load that you can move with 30% speed, one that tends to occur somewhere around your 50% of one-rep maximum.
Of course, CrossFit won’t ask you to move the bar once, but perhaps ten or twenty or fifty times. To maximize your power across this broad spectrum of work, you’ll want to load to less than 50% 1RM, and continue to try to move the hell out of the bar.
Holy shit. A formula for scaling.” <<<