RX'D – WHAT IS IT?

By Jase

Rx’d. It’s nothing. Really, it isn’t. It’s 3 letters. It doesn’t mean anything.

I often hear people say that they are waiting for the day they can go Rx’d on a workout. They have a goal to do all The Cell workouts as Rx’d. They want to do everything on Crossfit.com as Rx’d.

Having goals is awesome and I recommend it. I have goals and I want all my athletes to have goals. But doing WOD’s as Rx’d is a pretty broad, unspecific goal. Get specific and tighten up on your goals. Get a better goal than, “ I want to do WOD’s RX’d.”

For those new to this, Rx’d is shorthand for “As Prescribed”. It means the workout of the day (WOD) was done as it was written by the programmer.

As a programmer, I prescribe loads, sets or rounds and reps because I’m looking for a particular stimulus. I’m working toward a particular time domain. I may be going for a heavy – short WOD, a moderate-load – longer WOD, a lighter – longer WOD, a heavy – longer WOD or any combination of a truck load of different things. I’m aiming to work particular movements. I may be aiming to mess with your head a bit. I’m looking to progressively overload you. I also use a fictional “perfect” athlete as my test athlete. How would they respond to the WOD; physically and mentally. How long would it take them? I also think about how long it would take me to complete the WOD, then I take off several minutes!

Rx’d is really just a programming tool. That said, it is also used as a testing tool or a measuring tool in a competition. But when you’re “training” and “practicing” what is more important is that you are moving with good technique, doing so consistently and that you’re operating at a high intensity FOR YOU! As long as you’re better today than you were yesterday, as long as you’re improving, you’re winning.

If you knock out a WOD as RX’d and it takes you 15 minutes, great. But what if I’ve programmed it as an 8 minute WOD. You just totally changed the time domain and the stimulus I was after. You missed the point of the WOD.

To use a classic benchmark WOD as an example, if Fran takes you 10 minutes as Rx’d, again, you’ve totally missed the point of the WOD and CrossFit. Check your ego at the door, drop the load and get your time under 5 mins. Then under 4 mins. Then under 3 mins. Then and only then can you start to slowly jack the load up.

Don’t fall into the the trap of focusing on those 3 letters, Rx’d, because they really don’t mean a thing!