2/14 Femme Fatale Day 4 - Valentine's Day Fran Massacre

You guessed it! Today's Femme Fatale is FRAN. Of course, we just couldn't ignore the most difficult and alluring of all the CrossFit women. 
We hope you survive the pain-storm that today's workout is notorious for causing. 
Fran is meant to be fast, intense, and brutal. It is meant to leave you laying on the floor, gasping for air, looking up at the sky wondering what the heck just happened to you. Coach Glassman tells how he created this workout and how he decided to name his workouts after women. He was so impressed by the devastating simplicity of this workout, he named it using the same convention that the National Weather Services names hurricanes. ​
In fact, today's workout is named for one of the most powerful hurricanes. There will never again be a hurricane using this name. The damage caused by the storm was so severe that the National Weather Service retired the name. 
We hope you survive the pain-storm that today's workout is notorious for causing. 
What do you think about Fran? How's your Fran Time? Think you can beat Miranda Oldroyd's time of 2:16, or Garret Fisher's 2:09? What if you scaled it so you could? 
Fran was introduced to the CrossFit community on November 21, 2004. ​

Mental Toughness - The importance of Scaling 

It is necessary and expected that most of the time, nearly all of us will scale a workout. We don't really give a second thought to scaling or modifying a movement we are not yet able to do. For example, today pull-ups are on the menu, and many folks in the gym will scale them to ring rows. It's just what we do. 
Have you considered scaling the load of a workout to be more specific for your bodyweight, or a percentage of your 1 rep max? It surprises the coaches when we hear folks fret over the prescribed weight of a workout. We prescribe weights based on the strongest 10% in the gym. Therefore, on any given day we expect at least 90% of you are going to scale the load. If you don't scale the load and it takes you twice as long to finish the workout, then something was lost in translation. 
You always have the coaches' permission to scale the load. A great way to do that (so that you get the same training adaptation as the prescribed load) is to define for yourself a scaling modifier. For example, Monday we did Diane (21-15-9 Deadlifts 225/155 + Handstand push-ups) Coach Amanda did it in less than 5 mins as  prescribed. Coach Amanda's 1rep max deadlift is 265. That means she did Diane at 58% of her 1 rep max. What if you scaled Diane to 50-60% of your 1 rep max? You could probably do it in less than 5 minutes and have the same physiological adaptation (maximizing the phosphgen-creatine and glycolytic pathways without going into the oxidative pathway) as Coach Amanda. If you decide not to scale and it takes you twice as long as the folks who did it prescribed, then you missed the desired training stimulus.
Next time you see a load prescribed, try scaling it to a percentage of your 1rep max or your bodyweight. Ask a coach for assistance. You might be pleasantly surprised at the training stimulus. Read this free CrossFit Journal article on scaling workouts.