I thought I had a good idea several weeks ago. I was in the middle of a weight cut, and I didn’t want to stress about not hitting big single squats. I was doing a lot of 5 x 10 squat sets and pause squats to maintain muscle mass. Things were pretty good.

And, then, it popped up in my Facebook News Feed.

Bring Sally Up. Something about CrossFitter Rich Froning doing tempo squats to a Moby song. Something about Twitter. Something about all of these CrossFitters doing it with 95/135 lbs.

Instead of laughing, I said, “Well, shit, that sounds like a great idea right now!” No fucking lie.

I mean, I was already doing 50 squats minimum per workout at weights much higher than that. 50 squats was fairly low volume for me, and I had been doing rep outs with 135, 185, and 225+ lbs for months and months. And, pause squats were a staple across various rep schemes.

High rep pause squats + music. It sounded like a fucking squat dance party to me!

I made a plan to do the workout with the men’s weight of 135 lbs. Although I knew I could squat 135 lbs for more than 30 reps consecutively, I didn’t think I could do it with pause squats. So, I decided I would do it as a challenge at the end of each training day with the goal of getting through the entire song by the end of the month.

3-2-1 Go!

Let’s just say that I failed on day two. I discovered that this workout fried my lower back like no other. Again, I am no stranger to high rep sets or to pause squats. But, something about the sheer length of the pauses jacked up my back on day one, and when I attempted it again on day two, it was a massive failure. I learned my lesson the hard way, and more than one person got to say, “I told you so.”

I tried to rationalize my decision by saying that even well thought out decisions don’t automatically equal success. Trial and error is the way of the world.

The key part for me, though, is “well thought out.” I knew very clearly what my goals were for the month, I had already programmed for that time period given those goals, and I told myself that this workout was in line with all of that. But, seriously, would I have thought of this idea on my own? No. Would I have done it if I hadn’t seen it on the Internet? No. Big fat screw up on my part.

In a conversation with Patrick McCarty yesterday, he said, “It’s the kool-aid chugging lemming effect that drives me nuts. Instead of stepping back and asking whether it’s even a moderately good idea, it seems as though this kind of shit just spreads like a cold sore at a Christmas party.”

I’m pretty sure Patrick and I have been hanging out at very different holiday gatherings, but you see our point, right?

If you actually care about your programming driving your success and getting you closer to your goals, then you have to ask yourself the question, “Why am I doing this?” Trial and error has its limits. There has to be a reason to TRY something in the first place. It’s not cool to be the lemming who jumps off the cliff because everyone else does it. “Hey, let’s TRY launching ourselves off a mountain today to see if we magically sprout wings!” That’s going to be a BIG error. (Side note: the belief that lemmings commit mass suicide by jumping off cliffs is apparently FALSE, but that’s another story.)

I’ve always had a problem with this idea that CrossFitters shouldn’t cherry pick their WODs. At some point, there is going to be a workout on the whiteboard that your gut is telling you NOT to do. You need to decide right then and there if you are going to be a lemming or not. Maybe it’s not in line with your goals. Maybe you think the risk of injury is too high. Maybe it’s your birthday and you hate running and would rather deadlift. Maybe it’s a sumo deadlift high pull and therefore, not even a real thing.

The point is, when you ask yourself, “Why am I doing this?,” an intelligent coach will be able to give you an answer. If they cannot tell you why they program the way they do, then take your money elsewhere and find a coach who can. We don’t just put shit up on Weightlifting Academy because it sounds like fun. We have our programming ideas outlined in a long-ass document called the Advanced Nemesis Program Variations, which is based around ideas from Nick’s article The Squat Nemesis Program: An Introduction to Volume, Load, & Intensity Zone Training.

It’s well thought out. We can answer the “why” question. That doesn’t mean we are always right nor do we expect you to be.

Start thinking about your programming and why you do things. Don’t be afraid to try new things, and don’t be afraid to say “no” to something that everyone else seems to be doing. There is always going to be a workout like Bring Sally Up that takes you by surprise, knocks you flat on your face, and then laughs at your idiocy. But, that should be an outlier and not the norm.

To quote myself, “If more people had the balls to cherry pick WODs, I think some Crossfit coaches would stop being so stupid about programming. When a room full of people finally looks at the whiteboard and says, ‘You know what? This is just fucking idiotic. This isn’t a productive use of my time and it doesn’t help me reach my goals. I refuse to do this,’ then I shall celebrate.”

Let’s all have a party together. Without cold sores.