The Toughest "Wod" of Them All.....

The title is meant to be more of an attention grabber than anything, but what is the toughest wod? Fran, Eva, Murph, 10k run, Linda maybe? Not so much. I really think the toughest wod for many crossfitters is not a wod at all but the rest day. Lots of us are what would be called Type A personalities - we own our own companies, are high powered professionals near the top of our field, well educated with multiple degrees, or in general people with goals, ambitions, and who like to be in control of how successful our lives are, so we never stop going.
When the rest day hits do you feel good and say "nah I'll just go in and do some skill work" and then the skill work becomes 100 reps of snatches and then a wod on top of that? It happens, I've been there, and then after that you just resume doing the wods for the rest of the week and you've not actually rested your body. before you know it bam you've worked out for 7, 8, 10 days in a row before the extreme soreness and fatigue finally force you to take a chill pill and have an inactive rest day. Ok so if you're 16-30+ maybe you can do this for a long time and get away with it but sooner or later the body can't handle extreme stress if you're putting in in excess of 7 days straight of working out (of course there are exceptions but I'm talking the majority of us humans not the robots out there).
For the Sectional athletes out there and all for that matter please remember that quality wods are more important than the quantity of wods you do. In other words if you consistently do wods when you've gotten enough sleep, have adequate recovery from the last wod, proper nutrition, & have good energy levels going into the wod your results & performance will reflect that vs the alternative of going into a wod lethargic, with little sleep or not optimal nutrition, for the 8th day in a row just because it's your favorite wod, and you get the picture.
So a question that may come up is how often do I do wods vs rest days? The answer is it depends and how do you feel. Does 3 on 1 off, 2 on 1 off work for you as we prescribe at CF Chicago? Or maybe you can handle 5 on 2 off, or 3 on 1 off, or any other combination. I think you play it by ear and LISTEN to your body and over time you'll get to know yourself and what on-off schedule best suits you. True enough you're not going to have the right amount of sleep, best pre wod nutrition, highest energy levels, and most ideal conditions going into every single wod and it's good to work under conditions that are sub-optimal from time to time, but I think it's important to try to work under the most ideal conditions more often than not and then the results you're looking for will come faster than you think. It's ok to have a total rest day, your progress will not hault after 1 day without working out. Your body wants and needs the recovery to arm itself for the next set of challenges you bring it. You work hard make sure you rest just as hard....

Wod

REST DAY - ahhhhhhhhh feels good