#scaled

For some reason, every local competition around here is always full of scaled women’s teams with a ton less RX and Elite women’s individual or teams. I don’t think it’s a lack of talented athletes though—but rather a serious lack of confidence. You should absolutely have some kind of skill level to enter any which division of course. But if you’ve been doing this for awhile and are in the middle of the spectrum… chances are the challenge would be better for you than you think.

I know, people assume this: why enter the rx and risk coming in last, second-last, or even fifth-last if I can enter the scaled competition and place in the top ten, or maybe even top three? Everyone likes winning. Also people are generally afraid to challenge themselves—body weight movements they’re not used to doing and heavy weights they’re not used to lifting on a daily basis.

But your training prepares you for it. Most people are stronger than they think and when put to the test, they will surprise themselves.

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So. When I saw the workouts announced for a local competition, I knew I could compete in either the scaled or RX division. Scaled would be a fun and not all that challenging of a weekend (good workouts, but I wouldn’t have had to work very hard) and RX would be immensely challenging but I could at least do all of the workouts in some way. I wasn’t currently signed up though because the scaled division sold out instantly. I had my name on the scaled wait list for awhile, but after I saw these workouts, I put my name on the RX wait list. 

A few days later, or six days before the competition, I was told the RX division wasn’t sold out.

So I did what any crazy person would do. I found a last minute partner (her first competition ever) equally as crazy as I and we dove in.

Did we finish dead last in three of the events? Absolutely. Were we almost last in another? Yes. Were we challenged? Fuck yes. But only in a good way that we all should be challenged with in competitions.

Did we have fun? Yes. Did we learn a ton about our strengths and weaknesses? Yes. Would we do it all over again? Yes. Were we humbled to be on the floor among the kind of athletes we used to dream of becoming? Fuck yes. 

Were we embarrassed that we placed near the very bottom of the division? Fuck no—the opposite in fact. I couldn’t be more proud of us for signing up (last minute nonetheless) in a division well outside of our comfort zone, doing our best both days, and never letting it get us down.

After the dust from the weekend settled, I was curious. I did a little bit of leaderboard stalking and realized that the top 10-15 or more teams in the scaled division beat my partner and I on the max snatch/C&J lifts, the run, and the sprint (these workouts were the same across all divisions). These people are good athletes, and the ones that I know personally (a good handful of them) could have handled the RX division. Like I did. Or better. If I was a scaled division athlete, I’d have been somewhere in the top 15-20 probably. And here I am, handlingthe RX division. That’s a lot of overlap. 

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Challenge yourself. Try the next division up if the one you’re in leaves you saying, “that wasn’t too hard.” It’s supposed to be fucking hard, you idiot.

You’re getting better every day, so the division you enter for a competition should reflect that. Leave the scaled division open for the people newer to the sport and who find their own challenge there (there are still plenty of them btw, but many are afraid to sign up because of these non-podium-but-can-still-handle-it RX athletes who keep stuck to the scaled division). 

Maybe someday the scaled division won’t sell out in 15 minutes and the RX division will have a bigger field of athletes…which is always fun. All of the same goes for the Elite divison, too. Step it up and take the hard road…always.