14.2: Work:Rest

Last night after the announcement of 14.2, I thought I would give the workout a shot to confirm some of my own suspicions about its impact on the athlete. Luckily for all of you there was no video. Not that the video would’ve been that long anyways…
14.2 in many ways is the exact opposite style of work out as 14.1. 14.1 was massively aerobic and became massively aerobic very early on. 14.2 is exactly the opposite. This workout is all about your ability to designate and maintain a specific work to rest ratio on the chest to bar pull-ups. The time domain set for the workout is easily manageable, at least early on, as long as you do not allow yourself to reach your lactate threshold on chest to bar pull-ups. Be realistic with your capacity and your capability when deciding on a rep scheme for this workout. If you are extremely efficient, capable, and have a high working capacity with chest to bar pull-ups, then allow for that in this work out, but do not underestimate the impact of the movement.
Talking with one of my athletes earlier, it is not all that unrealistic to approach the chest to bar pull-ups in this work out with the same mentality that you would approach the 100’s workout from Regionals last year. Work to rest ratio must be precise and calculated to your abilities. If that means going to sets of three or five from the very beginning then by all means. In fact I know very few athletes who should do more than one set of an unbroken ten reps. The time domain is not the issue, lactate threshold and muscle fatigue is.
Take a look at the Deep Movement blog for today for tips on the chest to bar pull-up and how to be as efficient as possible when performing them. However, my one piece of advice when designing a strategy plan for this workout is think about what reps scheme you want to perform and downgrade it a bit. The chest to bar pullups are just sneaky. I recognize that I am not in the best shape nor would I consider myself a CrossFitter but this workout did have the same impact on proficient Crossfitters yesterday as well.
When considering the overhead squat I would give you three pieces of advice. First, look back on my tips for 14.1 and use the exact same technique. Keep your feet in a landing position, snatch the first rap, and use a little bit more of a narrow grip to both save the shoulders and prevent the bar from moving around overhead. My second piece of advice is, if you are a pretty mobile person, do all of these reps unbroken. There is no necessity to break up the overhead squat until you reach potentially rounds of 18 or 20. It’s just not heavy enough, it doesn’t take the majority of the time in this work out, and your legs feel pretty fresh especially in comparison to your upper body. The third piece of advice is simple. Get these over with fast. The last thing you need to be spending massive amounts of time on is the overhead squat. This workout is won and lost on the chest to bar pull-up, so wasting time on the overhead squat will end your workout faster than you planned. Get those over with quick and trust that they are not near as hard as you think they are going to be.
Remember everything I said about trying to redline and push the gas pedal at the end of 14.1? This workout needs the exact opposite approach. Manage your work and your rest appropriately. Be present during the workout and focus on when you’re working and when you’re resting. Most of all don’t underestimate the pull-ups. The only time you should allow those pull-ups to get “sticky” is at the very end of a round when you are rushing to make it into the next three minutes. Enjoy this one. Another devious one created by your boys at HQ.