Practice: Hang Power Clean & JerkTeen Games WOD3 Rounds70 Double Unders (2x Singles)7 Hang Power Clean and Jerk (185/115#/Heavy)**10 Min cap**Compare to Aug.4/15By Coach MarioNote: in this post the terms INTENSITY & POWER OUTPUT are equivalent and interchangeable. All data results are for a 190 lbs male, 5’8” tall, with 10’ target.What is the best weight to use to get the most out of your workout? (i.e highest power output or intensity, aka how CrossFit training gets you results). Using a power output calculator found on the Catalyst Athletics website, we calculated power output for wall balls as shown in the 2 graphs above:Graph #1 – WOD: 150 Wall Balls for timeGraph #2 – WOD: AMRAP 8 minutes of Wall BallsBoth graphs give various power outputs according to completion time (#1) or number of repetitions performed (#2), using 4 different med ball weights. Let’s look at some of the results:Graph 1:- For all times, dropping weight by 50% (from 20# to 10#) only drops power output by about 15%. This shows med ball weight does not affect intensity on a 1:1 ratio.- For power output of 80ft-lbs/sec, finishing just under 9:00 with 20# yields the same intensity as finishing in about 7:30 with 10#. (Which one seems more manageable?)- Power output augments exponentially the shorter the WOD takes, for all weights used.Graph 2:- For all scores, dropping weight by 50% (from 20# to 10#) only drops power output by about 15%.- For power output of 80ft-lbs/sec, finishing with 110 reps at 20# ball yields the same intensity as 130 reps at 10#. (We can hypothesize that even more reps could be performed with 50% less weight)- For each specific weight, going from 100 to 150 reps (33%) augments the intensity by about 50%. (This shows the importance of total reps when going for highest intensity)In conclusion, for maximum intensity with wall balls, you should aim for the weight that will allow you to finish faster or get the most repetitions. This will be more beneficial to your training and will slowly allow you to bump up your wall ball weight in manageable increments. Long breaks during wall balls will drop your intensity fast.
