Cherry-picking Defined.

ATTENDING THE CrossFit Level 1 this weekend at Roots?  Click here for local information.

Ten min to find max thruster
then,
w/ 75% of established max, 3 thrusters EMOTM for 10 min, or until you can’t complete a round. Score number of rounds completed before failure.

Weight in the heels, knees slightly back and clearing the straight bar path, shoulder slightly over the bar, flat back - for 45 reps. Bryce, making the coaches proud!

Cherry-pick.

cher·ry–pick   verb \ˈcher-ē-ˌpik\

First Known Use of CHERRY-PICK: 1965

Cherry-pick in CrossFit defined:

Selecting which days to attend CrossFit based on the workout or waiting until the workout is published to determine whether or not one will attend class are the acts that define cherry-picking in the CrossFit world.  The athlete hand selects workouts that seem to confirm their belief about what they are/are not capable of doing, what they “need” or “don’t need” to do, what seems “extreme”, or what will get them fit.  The result is a contradiction between the resulting capabilities and fitness level of the athlete and CrossFit’s goal of creating a general physical preparedness.  Selective workout visitation is a pathway to plateau.

Examples of cherry-picking:

“That looks hard, I’m not going.”
“I don’t like running, I’m not going.”
“It’s “just” a lifting day, I don’t need that.”
“Longer than 10 minutes?  Arghhh.  No way I want to sweat for that long.”
“That looks AWESOME and EXTREME.  I NEED EXTREME!  I’m totally signing up.”

Whether it’s a heavy day, Oly day, breathe hard day, breathe long day, or a movement or workout that you just don’t like, cherry-picking workouts inhibits you from becoming the athlete you could be.

Have you cherry-picked a workout before?  Have you ever ended up at a workout that you were scared shitless about and found that “it was all ok” in the end?

Post to comments. 

7 Responses
    1. CAL

      DITTO re: an omgwhatamidoinghere?! sense more often than not, AND it’s always an amazing post-wod, WoW, I did it…Yay!!

  1. I’ll be the first to admit that I have cherry-picked multiple times in the past. Nothing good came of it and it only made it harder to not cherry-pick because I wanted to avoid those things that I wasn’t good at even more since I had not been doing them at all.
    If you always work on your strengths, instead of including your weaknesses, you will plateau quickly. You’ll get weaker in areas, inflexible in areas, a decreased sense of body awareness, and more than likely you’ll get bored and maybe even burnt-out.
    You will also be missing the point of the “broad, general and inclusive” fitness program that got you here in the first place.
    …and I hear it’s bad for your chi.

  2. Charlie

    I skipped a particularly horrible-sounding workout once. I immediately felt both relieved and like a complete wuss. Still feeling kind of guilty, I arrived for the WOD the next day and looked at the white board. This was back when a whole week’s worth of WODs were on the boards at the 8th St. gym. I remember how dumb I felt when I realized that I had looked at the web site too early that day, and the horrible-looking WOD was actually still from the previous day. The WOD I actually skipped wasn’t that bad.
    I resolved then to never do that again, and I never have. And it’s usually not as bad as it seems like it will be (but sometimes it’s worse 😉

  3. Wendy

    If tomorrows blog defines * sand bag * I’ll take it as a trifecta of blogs directed at ME!
    Oops! and Yikes!

  4. Mango

    If I cherrypicked I would never come in . LOL!!! I would have to give up my membership and start taking Jazzersize

  5. Hoff

    Karen WOD. You posted it late (smart move). I would’ve backed out. Didn’t and lived to tell the story.