Yesterday talking with James Fitzgerald at OPT and coaching/chatting with some of his on-site athletes I couldn’t express enough how much life and especially sports is a game of inches not miles. If the barbell is one inch farther away from your neck than it needs to be for a high rep push press workout then that’s an excessive number of reps where you are having to apply more force to get the bar to lockout overhead. That extra used force is less efficient and creates more fatigue later. All because of one inch.
If you are snatching and the bar stays out away from your body just one inch more than it needs to be that the hang then you have to exert that much more energy to either pull the bar back above the knee or jump forward to land under the bar or swing it around your body as your hips move forward to the bar. The requires more energy and is less efficient thus creating more fatigue later. That fatigue may be the difference in you only snatching 265 instead of 275 in a ladder. The 10 pound difference could mean the difference 8th place in a workout instead of 3rd. That ranking difference could cost you a podium. All because of an inch.
Last July I posted a synopsis of Jason Hoggan completing a half-marathon row. What I noticed was that as he fatigued during the piece Jason shorted the length of his stroke a couple inches. That couple inches over thousands of strokes mean hundreds of extra meters. Those hundreds of extra meters that he didn’t achieve impacted his time. He could, in theory, have place better than half the field at the Crossfit Games if he had kept his stroke length the same. Instead he would have finished near the bottom. All because of a couple inches.
Sports are a game of inches. Don’t take the couple inefficiencies in your lifts or movement for granted and think you will just power through it. That little inefficiency could mean the difference in a win or a second place. Inches are what win competitions. Don’t ignore them for speed or competitive edge.