Virtuosity is defined in gymnastics as “performing the common uncommonly well.” The idea of virtuosity in fitness is central to CrossFit, as explained in this article by Greg Glassman. The short version is this: People naturally want to advance as quickly as possible to the complex, cool-looking skills and lifts, but would actually get a greater benefit from spending more time perfecting their technique on the less-sexy (but essential) basic movements.
To me, the idea of virtuosity is closely related to the idea of integrity. It takes self-awareness, discipline and integrity to admit to yourself that your wonky air squats are a problem, and to spend 10 minutes every day shoring up those air squats instead of trying to figure out how to do your first pistol. But if you do this — if you make a focused, disciplined effort to address the weaknesses in your foundational movements like squats, pushups, pullups, deadlifts, presses, etc. — you will benefit far more than if you try to gloss over these essential movements and move quickly to the exciting, exotic, advanced stuff.
Just like you have to crawl before you can walk, and you have to walk before you can run, skill progressions are there because each step represents an important skill to be mastered in order to develop the proficiency necessary to advance to the next skill. It is often tempting to skip steps in the short run, but this strategy never pays off in the long run. If your air squat is sloppy, all of your other squats will be sloppy, as well — and this situation will never improve until you go back to that first step and address your issues with that basic movement.
So I encourage you to be honest with yourself when going through today’s skill progression for pistols. Were those air squats really perfect, or are there some things you need to work on before heading to the next step in that ladder? Are you really keeping your heel down and staying balanced when you’re doing pistols while holding a band? Is your knee staying out when you’re doing pistols with the elevated heel? Spending the time to really perfect each scaled version of the pistol will pay off in spades once you do finally reach the end of that path with technically clean, safe, efficient, powerful pistols.
Christina swinging the kettlebell
Foundation
Pistol progression practice!
Practice each step. Get 4-5 perfect reps at each step before moving to the next.
- squat
- squat, eyes closed
- pistol starting on bench
- pistol from standing to bench
- pistol w/ ring or band
- pistol w/ counter-weight & elevated heel
- pistol w/ elevated heel
- pistol
WOD
7 minute AMRAP:
7 deadlifts (305/205)
14 pistols
21 double-unders
20m sprint
Post-WOD
Goal work
