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It’s time for someone’s first muscle-up. Why not you?[/caption] A few months ago, I did a workout as prescribed–as Rx’d–and I got crushed. The load was too heavy, and I completely imploded, missing the intended point of the workout. I turned a conditioning workout into a lot of resting and staring at the bar, and the mistake was so obvious one of our longtime members came up to me afterward and said, “Went too heavy, eh?” Indeed I did, and it was a valuable lesson. Doing a workout as prescribed is a badge of honour to most, but in reality, very few people can do it all the time. That’s because we create very challenging workouts designed to test even the fittest. This is the same principle upon which Functional Fitness.com workouts are founded. We post one workout and then scale down–or up, in some cases–as needed. The desire to do the workouts as they are written motivates us, but sometimes we take it too far. I certainly did in the example above, and I learned a lesson about letting pride come before intelligence. In other cases, I’ve seen people cheat reps and movements in order to put “Rx” on the board, and I’ve even seen people put the symbol beside their name when the workout clearly was not done as prescribed. I’ve also had a very insightful conversation with a member who told me that sometimes she’s very disheartened when she can’t Rx a workout. We took that conversation to heart, and we now regularly program workouts the whole gym can do together. You can actually feel a difference in the atmosphere on those days when everyone does the same workout, and it’s a marvelous thing. But we also need to set up challenges for you, and so some workouts are very difficult to Rx. On any given day, we might have only three or five people who do a workout as prescribed. That shouldn’t serve to discourage you but to motivate you. Can’t deadlift 315 for reps? Cheer for those who can and then work on getting stronger. Can’t do muscle-ups yet? Learn from those who can and keep practicing. Can’t overhead squat yet? Hit some front squats and then work on your mobility. Functional Fitness keeps you coming back because it’s challenging. If it were easy, you wouldn’t be here. Easy doesn’t get results in fitness, though it’s good for the ego. Why do people climb Everest? Because it’s hard. Same deal at 204. Open Workout 15.3 is disheartening for some because it starts with muscle-ups and will force many people to scale. But here’s the lesson: We all have to scale workouts at times. I should have done so on the day described above, and I have done so since. Crystal has scaled workouts to train around an injury or to focus on a skill she needs to improve. Brett has scaled workouts. Cole and Jr. have scaled workouts. And so on. Scaling when needed while working toward long-term goals is the hallmark of the intelligent athlete. The muscle-ups in 15.3 should serve to motivate you. It’s no mistake that we spent the entire day yesterday focusing on gymnastics–we suspected muscle-ups were coming at some point in the Open, and the movement is certainly coming in our programming. We’ve also created the Gymnasty program to help people improve, and we’ll keep hitting that regularly. You will have every opportunity to earn gymnastics skills in the coming months. So fear not if you don’t get to do 15.3 as prescribed. You actually have two choices: You can hit the scaled workout as hard as you can and then dedicate yourself to acquiring muscle-ups in the next weeks and months, or you can do 1 scaled rep and then head over to the rings for 13:40 of work on muscle-ups. Our coaches will be there to help you, and you’ll either get your first rep for a score of 1 or you’ll get closer to a first rep. The choice is totally up to you, and we support either decision. I’d be surprised if someone didn’t get a first muscle-up this weekend. But choose not to be disheartened. Choose to be motivated and challenged. Then pursue your goals with relentless focus. When you do write Rx beside your name down the line, it will be all the sweeter. See you at the gym tonight for 15.3.