Annie has lost her whiteboard

Today is a non-whiteboard day. In other words although we will be completing our workout as normal (which happens to be the benchmark workout ‘Annie’) we won’t be recording anyone's times on the whiteboard. 

The intention here is to remove the perceived ‘pressure' of the whiteboard, particularly for those of us still working on getting or improving our double unders.

We will still work hard, we will still do our best but today, it will be only you who knows your time and scaling options.

As Coaches, we use the whiteboard to relay the structure of the class, the intention of each workout and at the end of each day it provides valuable feedback which enables us to identify strengths and weaknesses across the gyms which can then be used to help focus on skills or weaknesses in future classes.

Although the whiteboard can add a healthy rivalry and motivate us to work harder and thus get fitter, it can occasionally have a negative effect on our performances and therefore achieving our long term fitness goals.

For example we may see that 'Sally' used 25kg for her Thrusters in the 3.30pm class and because I’m as fit as Sally I better use 25kg too. When perhaps 25kg is 5kg heavier than your Coach recommended to ensure that YOU achieve the desired stimulus of the workout.

Or maybe 'Jim' beat me on Tuesday and I see he got 127 reps in the 5.30pm class. Right, I better beat him today or everyone will think he is fitter than me. 
So mid-wod maybe a few of your Wall Balls fall a few feet short of the target or you are a foot above parallel in your Wall Ball and instead of no-repping yourself, you decide to rationalise with ‘ I bet Jim didn’t no rep himself’ and continue on....

We don’t want someone else’s workout score to influence your decisions as neither of the above scenarios is going to help you or your Coaches improve your fitness.

The whiteboard can do weird and wonderful things with our competitive minds and how we approach each class so let's try today's workout without it.

Remember Kids, a whiteboard can’t judge whether you are getting better or not, only you can do that. 

PS: Sally, Jim and all incidents portrayed in this post are fictitious. No identification with actual persons is intended or should be inferred and any resemblance to a real person or persons is entirely coincidental......or is it?