Leaderboarding...

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Ever Heard "Comparison is the Thief of Joy"? Well it might be the thief of the results you are looking for too.

The reason that - since the beginning - we have awarded members with their 75 Workout Hoodie, is because we know and have seen the value of being engaged and being able to see your own progress. Comparing where you were - to where you are now. There is a time and place to check the "whiteboard" to look at the scores from other members, but in general - that is not at all why we encourage you to log.

When Street Parking was created, myself and Julian - as well as a lot of our members - came from a CrossFit background. Many, if not MOST, had been members of an affiliate and had participated in things like the CrossFit Open or other various competitions. In that culture, there is a lot of emphasis put on scores and the whiteboard/leaderboard. Some of our members may have had more exposure to the positive and negative effects of that than others, depending on the type of gym environment they came from or their level of competitiveness in the sport.

As Julian and I have gotten further and further away from competing and have seen the both the benefit and detriment of the whiteboard, we decided we really wanted to define our own culture around it and within Street Parking. We want to encourage you to use it for the parts of it that are great and leave behind the parts of it that are not.

LOGGING VS LEADERBOARDING

How can BOTH help or hinder my goals of CONSISTENCY and INTENSITY??

There are two main functions of the Wodify system of tracking we currently use…the leaderboard component, and the logging component. Both have their utility.

As we’ve said time and again, our main goals for all of you and what we truly believe are the most critical parts of following any program are consistency and intensity. Consistency first, and then intensity once you develop that consistency. If the whiteboard didn’t help you to achieve those things, we wouldn’t use it. So exactly how do the leaderboard and logbook help?

The logbook provides accountability. Studies have shown not only with fitness but with anything really that if you’re tracking results and writing them down or logging them that you will stay more accountable and you will stay involved. Staying involved will help you obtain consistency. We believe in this fact so much that we built the whole hoodie thing around it! We know that to keep you guys motivated and to get you consistent that having the 75 work out goal early on will help you find consistency. After that we have the 365 Club. That’s a really long time to be engaged and logging and we want to reward that and keep you guys involved and consistent for the long haul.

Aside from the logging helping with accountability, it gives you a way to track your progress. Every Monday we do retest WODs. Logging your scores gives you something to compare your new scores to! Staying motivated helps with consistency, and one way that you can find motivation is through seeing the progress in your fitness. Too often in the fitness industry the emphasis is put on the scale and losing weight instead of the improvement of overall fitness. When you retest your work outs, it’s super motivating to see that you got stronger, faster, or you got more rounds using a heavier weight. Having your scores logged so you can refer back to them for retests also helps you push yourself a little more during those retest work outs because you’ll want to beat your old score. That’s where logging can help with the INTENSITY side of the equation as well.

It is important to remember that after CONSISTENCY - INTENSITY is the most important component of getting the most out of our workouts. We have written several other articles about what that means and why it's important, as well as articles about how we don't expect all out intensity every day. But to make a long story short - intensity is power output. Power output comes from moving. The intensity you use in any given workout is PERSONAL and your goal is to produce as much as you can while maintaining proper movement and being realistic to what you have both physically and psychologically that day. Your intensity doesn't matter compared to anyone else. SHIFT is crazy intense for some - and others might be going RX+ on Program C. What's important is that it's THERE.

Many members will say that they don’t need to log their scores because they can judge how hard they went in a work out by how they feel afterwards. A lot of our members don’t log and that’s fine. We always encourage everyone to do what works for you. But, just keep in mind that if you are one of those people that gauges your progress or intensity off how you feel, you might not necessarily really know if you did better in a work out just because you were more tired afterwards. Other life and environmental factors like dehydration, lack of sleep, a hangover (the list goes on) could have played into that. We still encourage you to log because faster, heavier, and more rounds mean you’re getting more fit.

The most important thing we want you to understand is that the point of the log is to track YOUR improvement and to develop YOUR consistency.

Aside from the logging component of Wodify, there is the leaderboard/whiteboard. The leaderboard can also help you get consistent and intense, but it can also backfire and be demotivating when used incorrectly or by someone with a personality to fall into that trap.

If you have friends that you know will be looking for your score on that leaderboard, it may motivate you to get out there and do the work outs and stay consistent. If you find some people in the community that you tend to be the same fitness level as and they are consistent and you’ve gotten to know them a bit, it can be helpful to watch their scores and push yourself using their scores as motivation. Where the leaderboard becomes a detriment is when we worry too much about how we stack up to other people.

With the nature of Street Parking and the diversity of the community of members the scores can just never be an exact measure. Everyone’s equipment is a little different, some of it is homemade, everyone’s gym set up is different, lives and days are different, some people lose count, etc. Putting too much stock into other people’s scores can really be demotivating especially if you are treating the scores as an exact measure….or as a measure of YOUR fitness.

I’ve seen it said so many times, “I killed that work out! And then I went to the leaderboard and realized I suck.” If this is your personality, don’t look at the leaderboard! We’ve also had people accuse others of cheating with their scores. If this is something that stresses you, don’t look at the leaderboard! We want it to be YOU vs. YOU. If you’re so worried about your placement on the leaderboard or about what other people are logging, it can affect your consistency. Maybe you’ve had a bad day or are super tired...if you’re put too much stock in the leaderboard you may be apt to say, “Well, I’m so tired today and I probably won’t get a great score so I’m just not going to do the work out.” On the other hand, if you look at the leaderboard and it excites you because you see your friends scores and it makes you get out there and push yourself, then keep checking it!

Overall, our main reasons for keeping the leaderboard and the logbook are so you can develop YOUR consistency, we can reward your consistency, and so that you can compare your fitness now to where you were before. That’s it. And for a little camaraderie and friendly smack talk between those who can handle it and enjoy it.

WHAT DOES RX AND RX+ EVEN MEAN?!

The terms RX and RX+ are built into the app and are not something we are able to remove at this time. If we could - we probably would.

RX simply means - as prescribed. So for example if the workout is:

3 Rounds
5 Deadlifts
30 Double Unders

RX Men: 185
RX Women: 125

Clicking RX would mean: (If you are a female) that you used 125# in the workout and did actual double under each time.

All of the sub and scale options listed in the description (like dumbbell hop overs or single unders) would technically negate your ability to click the RX bubble. Lowering the weight would too.

We don't love that. We have seen time and time again the pressure to CLICK RX pressure people into using a weight that isn't right for them, or to feel bad about their performance if they have to change something.

Long story short: RX AND RX+ DON'T MATTER!

We have them on there to give you guys an IDEA of how heavy the weight should be for those who have been training for a while. But the REAL goal is to read the GOAL for the workout and the tips in the description for how long each round/set should take, how it should feel etc. Hitting the GOAL of the workout and moving well is 100x more important than clicking RX.

And we WILL NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES call people out for clicking it when they shouldn't have. 99.9% of the time it wasn't an intentional ploy to get to the top of the leaderboard. Just maybe not sure what to click is almost ALWAYS the case.

Track the way that it makes most sense to you. Put notes in the comments of your entered scores so that you can remember any modifications made in case we do the workout again and you want to test it the same way.

JACKED BY JUNE IS BACK!!!

It's that time again!!!! The second challenge of the year - the 4 week - just in time for warmer weather JACKED BY JUNE challenge! (This year the challenge has also taken on the name "Cut by Camp" for those coming to Summer Camp)

This isn't the OFFICIAL release, but here is a bit of info to get everyone amped:

Challenge Registration will Open April 8th and Close April 17th.
Actual Challenge Dates are April 22 - May 19.

Things to know:

This challenge goes a LITTLE more hardcore on the eating than the others do. Why? It's only 4 weeks and the whole goal is to see as much body composition change as possible in that time.

With that said - we are still hoping to develop LIFESTYLE habits during the challenge and not looking for you guys to do some crazy low "cut" for 4 weeks, only to fall off afterwards.

The Jacked by June Challenge WILL include the use of the Street Parking Templates. If you already have one - you are set. If you need one - you will receive a discount of $10 off your template when you sing up for the challenge. We know registration isn't for a few weeks, so if you want to start now - just do it! We promise 2 extra weeks with the template is worth $10.

The Jacked by June Challenge also incorporates some of the Suns Out Guns Out and Butts and Guts Workouts (beach bod ready) - so dumbbells will be helpful to have if you don't have them already. (I mean - #projectapril starts next week - so kill 2 birds with one stone and pick up a pair or 2).

MORE INFO COMING SOON!!!

MIranda AlcarazMarch 24, 2019Newsletter