By: Kris Thompson
(Featured Image: Jeramie Lu Photography)

As coaches part of our job is to teach movement patterns and how to perform them correctly. So when someone in class needs to be corrected whether it be an efficiency issue or a safety issue and they tell me, “Oh, ok. It’s because I’m tired” in my mind I’m like, “Hold up… What!? You’re going to choose to move less efficiently and/or put yourself at risk of injury because you’re “tired”?”

My answer to that is, “No, no, no. I don’t think so.” Just because you’re tired does not mean your form and technique should go to sh*t. I understand that WODs are tiring, believe me, I do. So when your movement patterns start to take a dive, that’s when you need to take the few extra seconds to get your mind and body right to perform the movement correctly and safely. It’s called virtuosity and it’s part of Double Edge’s core values, click this link for a great Welded Journal article about virtuosity by Welded’s founder, Greg Glassman.

In gymnastics it’s described as doing the common uncommonly well, and we strive for this in Welded because if we have poor movement in an air squat, then we’ll have poor movement when it comes to all the other variations and higher levels of squatting. Including, but not limited to: back squat, front squat, overhead squat, so on and so forth. So next time you’re doing some V-Ups and you get tired and you’re flopping around like a fish, remember this then get that core tight, keep tension throughout your body and bust out the best V-Ups you’ve ever done in your whole life!

I’m hoping that this inspires at least one person to take the time (even when they’re tired) to work on doing the common uncommonly well.