Perfection Kills

← back 1630 words 24 January 2026

Reflections on training, 2025 → '26

Looking back

A big shift last year has been towards skill learning and widening movement repertoire. Now that I'm 40, I can't quite recover as fast after going hard on WODs. I've also grown weary of constantly chasing higher strength numbers: squat, deadlift, clean. Most of those have plateaued years ago and now need a dedicated multi-month cycle to make meaningful progress¹. And so I found that learning new movements and practicing existing ones is one way to improve fitness while giving body a break. It's also fun and rewarding as you see your quantity and quality go up.

Testing ↔ Training ↔ Recovery

I'm now increasingly seeing my time in the gym as existing in one of 3 buckets.

I'm testing if I perform a for-score workout and push myself to my max or near-max. This is the most fun one, of course; it's rewarding to end up in top 3 on a leaderboard. But it also comes with the highest cost. For muscular stamina workouts like Cindy or Eva, you're very sore for the next few days due to the density of work (volume/time). For near-max lifts, your CNS is fried and joints take a beating.

I'm training if I perform a prescribed body of work at a specific, usually RPE5-8 intensity. Training could be timed but often isn't. 40min EMOM with ~30sec rest each min is a good example. So is doing 10 sets of 3 snatches at ~75% with 1-2min rest. These are usually less fun, but they need to constitute most of the time.

I'm recovering if I consciously limit my work to a very low intensity and/or perform low-impact movements. This is where Zone 2 training comes in, such as spending 45-90min on a bike or a rower at ~130bpm (for my age). I managed to make these type of days less boring by throwing skill learning into the mix; I would do some handstand walks every 250-500m on a rower, or do 1-2 ring muscle-ups. Anything that's ~20% of your capacity and ideally bodyweight-only.

Ideal week then looks like 1-2 days of testing, 3-4 days of training, and 1-2 days of recovery. This looks easy on paper but tends to be a very delicate balancing act and is quite difficult to get perfectly right.

The moment I push my testing a bit too much, I get injured. If I don't include recovery, I stop progressing or quickly overtrain. Another takeaway: just because I can ace that workout and beat my (or other) scores, doesn't mean I should.

Old dog, new tricks

Last year I've probably spent 30% on each of the following:

• High level gymnastic skills — Ring Muscle Ups and Handstand Walk

• Zone 2 training

• Longer/endurance-heavy WODs

RMU's and HSW were the last two pieces of the CrossFit puzzle. It was what I needed to be able to RX 99% of WODs in a typical class.

I went from being able to do 2-3 muscle-ups to hitting 10 in a row, being able to do 4-5 on any given day, and under fatigue during WODs. I even accidentally progressed to 2-3 strict ones! Handstand walks were also something I struggled to not fall just a few feet in, and now I can almost always go 50ft, confidently. The power of practice truly can not be underestimated: all I did was show up and practice every week, sometimes once, sometimes twice. In that regard, the year has been a success.

The other part was focusing on improving my endurance: weekly zone 2 training and grinding out >30min WODs. The year ended on a good note as I finally completed Eva RX at 44:04. Earlier in 2025, I've done it with 24kg bell in 40min. Even if I didn't improve in my fitness, it feels like my mental fortitude has gotten better with these grueling long workouts²; I've learned to suffer for longer and under more fatigue.

It's hard to tell if my Zone 2 training is having an actual impact on VO2 max but it certainly feels like I can sustain on med/long-duration WODs better. Running also feels the best it ever has.

Advanced lifter curse

I walked into our box yesterday and saw a "Q1 2026 Goals" board. Someone wanted to hit a 210kg squat. Below were: "3 muscle-ups", "15ft handstand walk" and a "kipping pull-up". Last year I wrote "10 RMU" and "50ft handstand walk". Few years ago I would have written 365lb (2xBW) squat or 185lb (1xBW) shoulder press; now all conquered.

I starred at the board, unsure about my next goal.

I've hit most of the things written on it and much more. It wasn't about feeling superior; I was reminded of how far I've come and how many are still on their way to reach goals that I've conquered long ago.

Do I really need to work towards hitting 15 consecutive RMUs? Or 2x50ft handstand walks, which would be a natural progression. I've hit the point of diminishing returns. Being able to walk over obstacles is a semifinals territory and isn't something I'd ever need in a regular class. To play devil's advocate, hitting strict ring muscle-up isn't something you'd need in a class either! Yet I wanted to be able to do it as a pure form of incredible upper body strength and control.

As I'm nearing 15 years into my fitness journey, all of this feels like an "advanced lifter" curse. When you've reached 90% performance on most things, the remaining 10% start to take a lot more time and the progress slows down to a crawl.

One option is to keep pushing towards Level 3 and 4 on this CrossFit standards sheet I've been using for the last few years. But while most of the Level 3 are achievable with a few month of dedicated practice, I find that many of the Level 4 would take years.

Genetics aside, the reason I hit 2.5xBW deadlift was because I powerlifted for a few years. Similarly, the only way to run 5min mile is to be… a runner. To go from my current 6:30 best (and now, likely, closer to 7:15), I'd need to start running 2-3 times a week, build capacity over a year, slowly improve speed, slowly adopt my body to volume, train the body to go that fast for that "long". You don't just run 5 min mile. You only do that if you're a runner. And so the question then becomes: do I want to put all my eggs in one basket? How would running 2-3 times a week affect my strength, my muscular endurance, my gymnastic proficiency, and other aspects of fitness?

Maintenance and aging

Biological age matters more than chronological one³, but it's hard not to think about turning 40. Relatively, my body has less work capacity than an average 30 yo athlete of the same "level". CrossFit Open also acknowledges it, putting me in a 40-45 bracket. Should the goal this year (and going forward) then just be to maintain existing fitness and avoid major regressions?

I'm already doing that intuitively. I'd make sure to squat heavy at least every other week: I'm way below my all-time-best 365lb but even hitting 300lb right now feels like a good baseline and puts me in the top 5 in the class. I might not be able to do 100 dubs like I did at one point, but comfortably banging out 30-50 goes a long way in any workout.

I realized that reaching a certain goal serves as an overextension that builds a ceiling. Hitting 10 RMU's last year was a nice goal but the ultimate "friend we've made along the way" was the fact that 3-5 started feeling like nothing. To go back to running analogy, training for a 5 min mile would create a baseline where running 7min mile feels like a child's play. I'd just need to keep that baseline by running once or twice weekly.

CrossFit Open

I ended up putting "Open 2026, do better than last year" on the whiteboard. It's a fun short-term goal that would certainly push my engine further, but I'm very much aware that Open can be easily gamed and is just a subset of overall fitness and what CrossFit wants you to achieve. Next two months I'll be focusing on frequent practice of top 5 open movements that are skill-sensitive: dubs, thrusters, muscle-ups, c2b, and rowing. I will also double-down on nausea-like WODs that Open is famous for.

Engine

I think if I were to pick one goal this year, it would be to continue building the engine (= endurance). I've built strength over many years and I've always been good at gymnastics (thanks to yoga since early age). Endurance is still lacking so I need to keep hammering >20 min WODs, more running, more hero ones.

Self-regulation

Earlier last year I did Vipassana and it was pretty life-changing. I've noticed a lot more calm during intense workouts where the feeling of "dying" (zone 4-5) still feels awful but at least it doesn't provoke as much of a panic state as it would before. I'm able to sustain in red for longer.

One of the intentions for this year is to maintain my meditation practice as it helps in both, "life" and when on the training floor.

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