Updated thoughts: (1) I’m going to go with 10 rounds of 2 BMU / 4 db HSC for workout #2 (2) I’m slowing my row pace down to my 30min pace not 5km pace. Other than that I stand by my original plans.

@Liana Portland yep 20 rounds/***

@Luke Kaiser yes this makes complete sense and is in parallel to my own experience as an athlete + coaching experience with others. I think to sum it up: breathing fast does not always mean you have to slow down as long as you’ve trained at high respiratory frequencies you can sustain them for long periods.

@Luke Kaiser happy to help

I’ve used these tools quite a bit, but probably in a more phased and purpose-driven way than in a blended all-the-time model. In my experience, heart rate zones, FTP, MAP, and pace-based work all have value, but I think they become a lot more useful when you are clear on what role they are actually playing inside the larger training process. For me, I’ve primarily used a basic 5-zone heart rate model during off-season work, especially when the goal is physiological support. That is generally how I view a lot of conditioning work for CrossFit athletes, especially at the higher levels. It is support for the sport. It is not the sport itself. So in those phases, heart rate monitoring makes a lot of sense because it helps keep the work where I want it and prevents athletes from turning everything into pace-chasing or competition. That is one of the big reasons I have liked heart rate zones. They give you a simple way to monitor and control intensity when the purpose of the training is to build the engine underneath the sport without creating unnecessary fatigue. Where I like it less is when coaches try to force heart rate zones into phases where output is what actually matters. Once I get closer to competition or I am specifically prepping for an event, I care much less about what zone the athlete is in and much more about whether they can hold the target pace, target split, or target wattage that the event is going to demand. At that point, pace-based work becomes far more useful to me than heart rate-guided work. So for me, there is a pretty clear shift: Off-season = more physiological monitoring Closer to competition = more pace and output execution I do use FTP pretty regularly, especially with Hyrox athletes and with higher-level CrossFit athletes, particularly semifinal level and above. We will do a 20-minute FTP test and use that to guide some of the bike work. I think FTP is useful because it gives you a practical anchor for wattage-based prescription, and on machines like the bike erg that can be really helpful.

@Nick Cole-Butler Just so much volume.

That workout was un-fun: 204.

@Chris Massaad love to hear it!!

@Liana Portland I’m assuming you’re talking about formulating their personal strategy for the workout - rather than assessing their weaknesses relative to the sport (Nick did a great job addressing that) For the majority of the athletes I work with, I steer them away from setting goals and strategies based on other people’s performances. Qualifiers are essentially time trials, and while it can help to know roughly what is required based on your goal, your best performance across the 3 weeks =your best performance. So trying to calibrate your strategy based on something outside your control takes the focus away from your execution and puts it on an outcome. That outcome could be wildly disconnected from your current capabilities. Basically we use them as rough guide posts - but individual strategies need to be based on each athletes capabilities. From an athlete assessment perspective, I think Nick’s answer is spot on.