Chris Sinagoga | Wednesday, November 11, 2020 at 8:22PM In the football there is a new-ish offensive concept called RPO that stands for Run/Pass Option. Up until a few years ago, the coach or quarterback would call a play that was pre-determined to either be a handoff to a running back or a pass. But recently a coach from Penn State named Joe Moorhead made the RPO concept popular by adding a pass read to every run play and a run read to every pass play.
Basically every play that is being called has the flexibility to be a run or a pass; the offense is getting the best of both worlds.
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The fitness community widely recognizes 10 General Physical Skills originally theorized by Jim Cawley and Bruce Evans at Dynamax (the company that makes the our gym's med balls). CrossFit made them popular by claiming that a person was as fit as they were balanced in all 10 areas, not just one or a few. They are:
I think the term "skills" might be better replaced for "adaptations" at times because really this is a list of all the possible things we can hope to improve by doing a fitness program. The important thing to understand is that these adaptations, or skills, are divided into two categories: organic adaptations (1-4) and neurological adaptations (7-10).
Organic category. Endurance, stamina, strength and flexibility are all adaptations that happen within the muscles, joints, tissues, and lungs. They happen over time, can be measured, and occur through "training."
Neurological category. Coordination, accuracy, agility and balance are all adaptations that happen in the mind through a process called "practice." Improvements here can happen over the course of 10 seconds or 10 years.
Combo. Power and speed have a fair mix of both.
RPO. For an overwhelming majority of the workouts I apply the RPO concept to the movements: every Organic exercise has a Neurological emphasis and every Neurological movement has an Organic emphasis.
Today's workout is a great example of RPO; Mel and I were texting back and forth last night and it actually led to me writing this post. The original prescription was:
Larry
21-18-15-12-9-6-6 reps for time of:
Front squats
Bar-facing burpees
*between each round do a 200-meter heavy object carry
I subbed regular burpees because the I wanted the emphasis to be the Coordination of jumping/landing in a good position - which carries over to box jumps, cleans, volleyball, and track. As a byproduct of this neurological adaptation, stamina and endurance was also emphasized because burpees make everything hurt. The accuracy component from jumping over the bar does not have as much neurological value, in my opinion, because it only applies to jumping over a bar 8.5 inches off the ground.
I subbed a regular run because I wanted the emphasis to be on Balance - specifically falling from balance. This is a skill that carries over to cleans, snatches, kipping pull-ups, and running, in general, is found in every sport worth its gold. As a byproduct of this neurological adaptation, stamina and endurance was also emphasized because it's running. A 200-meter med ball or plate carry does not have much of a neurological component unless you count wanting to quit every step you take. Mel suggested a partner carry sub; this would only cover the stamina category, but in a non-coronavirus world I think it would have provided much-needed mental relief (unless you were partnered with Mr. Malak and worried he would shit his pants mid-carry).
I kept front squats as is because we are practicing the coordination of squatting (hips before knees, torque in the hips, bracing the spine) while also getting a serious stamina dose.
The end product looked like an arm/leg burner that had us thinking about our technique the entire time, slash a technique workout that had us looking like this halfway through:
Coach Glassman says, "the greatest adaptation in CrossFit happens between the ears." He is not only talking about the mental strength to make it through our workouts, but also the neurological adaptations that our body goes through when doing the movements. I have observed this aspect gets ignored by coaches often because coaching technique is much more difficult than making sure the athlete gets "that workout burn." The RPO, IMO, is the unique factor separating CrossFit from other strength and conditioning programs; you can combine a highly-coordinated movement (clean) with a strength piece (ring dip) and somehow get one of the most miserable endurance responses ever experienced. Getting your coordination to the point where it becomes a conditioning stimulus takes a lot of time and is why the emphasis on the neurological component is so important.
We keep the 1-sided novelty movements for Theme Workouts and occasional You've Heard Enough Of Chris workouts (Mr. Carey calls them No-Pride Sundays). Otherwise, everything that comes up in a regular workout should simultaneously have an organic emphasis and a neurological emphasis. Missing one or the other is limiting your adaptation.
