Hey Reader,
Before we start I want to let you know that the price of movement screens has dropped!
You can now book a movement screen with a Performance Physical Therapist for only $140 $100.
If you want to get to the root cause of joint pain or discomfort and optimize your movement for the CrossFit Open click here to schedule your screen!
For this week’s deep dive, we’re reviewing a topic that will immediately improve your performance.
Proper Metcon pacing.
If you’ve ever found yourself burning out halfway through a WOD or struggling to maintain your energy levels throughout, you’re not alone.
It’s common for athletes to push too hard, too fast—especially in those high-intensity workouts where every second counts.
The problem?
Without proper pacing, your performance and long-term progress can take a hit.
Below I’ll break down the key pacing strategies to help you maintain energy, avoid burnout, and keep improving your MetCon times over time.
This Week's Training
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Day 1 - 1/27/2025
A) Power Snatch + Hang Power Snatch - 1+2; Every 2:30 x 5 sets - building
B1) Front Squat - 20X1; 4 x 3 @ 83-85%; rest 1' and move to B1
B2) Couch Stretch - 3 x :30e; rest 1' and move to B1
C) Metcon
4 Rounds For Time
25 Wallballs 20/14# to 10/9'
50 Double Unders
15 Calorie Row
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Be sure to snap a pic of your training and tag @WillMurtagh_DPT on social!
Deep Dive
3 Proven Pacing Strategies to Stop Burning Out in CrossFit Metcons
​Pacing is a skill that’s often overlooked in CrossFit.
It’s easy to get caught up in the excitement of high-intensity workouts and the drive to push your limits every time you hit the gym.
However, the “go all out” mentality can stagnate your progress.
To understand why pacing matters, consider this: endurance athletes in other sports prioritize building volume, fine-tuning their pacing, and gradually increasing intensity over time.
Why, then, do many CrossFitters focus almost exclusively on intensity?
When you prioritize intensity at the expense of controlled pacing, you risk burning out too early in workouts, recovering poorly between sessions, and limiting your ability to develop strength and conditioning over the long term.
By shifting your mindset and learning how to pace effectively, you’ll unlock consistent progress, better recovery, and sustained power throughout your workouts.
Strategies for Pacing Better in Metcons
Pacing in CrossFit metcons is about finding the delicate balance between effort and sustainability.
It’s not just about finishing the workout but maximizing your performance from start to finish.
Here’s how you can master pacing strategies to excel in both training and competition.
1. Inter-Interval Sustainability
Using intervals is a great way to learn how to pace.
The key to maintaining a repeatable pace across multiple metcons or intervals is consistency.
Instead of going all-out in the first round and fading in the later ones, focus on sustaining a steady output.
This approach trains your body to recover efficiently between efforts while improving overall endurance.
For example, if a workout includes multiple AMRAPs with rest periods, aim for similar rep counts in each round.
This ensures you're conditioning your engine to handle extended periods of work without burning out early.
2. Intra-Interval Sustainability
If you don't have time for intervals you can practice pacing in a single metcon.
Use a clock to time rounds to ensure that each one is close in duration to the one before it.
If you’re tackling a chipper workout, avoid sprinting through the first movement.
Instead, find a rhythm that allows you to maintain steady power across the entire sequence.
Controlled pacing reduces fatigue buildup and enables you to finish strong.
3. The “4x Work-Time Rule”
A proven method to establish sustainable pacing is the “4x Work-Time Rule.”
For any workout duration, choose a pace you could sustain for four times that length.
For example, in a 10-minute metcon, target a pace you could maintain for 40 minutes.
The 4x multiple ensures you are moving at your fastest sustainable pace.
Over time, this method builds a strong aerobic base, allowing for faster and faster pacing.
Why Pacing is Important For CrossFit Performance
At its core, CrossFit is about making unsustainable movements sustainable.
This means turning moments of high output into something you can sustain over time without compromising your performance.
When you approach your workouts with this perspective, you ensure that your energy is spent strategically rather than wasted by going too hard too soon.
Pacing allows you to balance intensity with control, helping you perform at your best for the entire workout.
A sustainable approach to training revolves around the 80/20 rule.
This means dedicating 80% of your training to controlled, sustainable pacing while reserving only 20% for maximum effort or top-end power output.
Doing this will steadily build your engine, improve your endurance, and condition your body to handle higher volumes of work without constantly overreaching.
As your fitness level increases, so does your ability to sustain higher intensities for longer periods.
This means that a pace that feels challenging now may become your “easy” pace later.
Focusing on controlled pacing, you allow your threshold to rise naturally, making you faster and stronger without feeling like you’re working harder.
The best CrossFit athletes don’t simply rely on raw intensity to excel.
They’ve mastered the art of pacing, understanding the demands of every movement and workout variation.
They know how to allocate their energy across the workout, ensuring they maintain power output from start to finish.
Will You Get Slower Without Maximum Intensity?
Sustainability ≠Easy
Sustainable pacing often gets misunderstood as taking it easy, but that’s far from the truth.
Sustainable doesn’t mean slow—it means finding the fastest pace you can maintain while consistently producing power.
By working at this threshold, you build your engine without redlining and crashing.
This controlled intensity trains your body to perform more efficiently over time.
Training near your threshold improves your average power output and metcon performance in the long term.
Instead of focusing on all-out intensity in every session, aim to gradually increase the pace you can sustain.
Sustainability varies with workout duration.
For shorter efforts, such as intervals under five minutes, the pace may feel extremely fast, but it remains sustainable for the time frame.
Sustainability vs. Repeatability
Sustainability and repeatability may seem similar but serve distinct purposes in CrossFit training.
Repeatability simply means you can do something again.
​But, you may have worked above your sustainable power threshold to do so.
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In contrast, sustainability focuses on maintaining a steady, aerobic effort at or near your threshold.
A general rule of thumb is that if you know for certain you could not do another round or set the work was not sustainable.
Consequences of Poor Pacing in CrossFit
Poor Recovery
When you push too hard in every workout, your recovery suffers.
Poor pacing leads to fatigue, making it harder to perform well in subsequent sessions.
Subpar Engine and Strength Gains
Inefficient pacing negatively affects your ability to build both aerobic capacity and strength because of the impact it has on your nervous system.
Without adequate recovery and volume accrual, progress will inevitably stall.
Decline in Metcon Performance
Starting a workout too fast often results in a steep decline in power output for the metcon.
If you have ever gone out too hot and watched your pace get worse and worse each round this is what I am referring to.
Doing this does not improve your fitness it helps you learn to go out hot and then hold on for dear life until the metcon is over.
VO2 Max and Lactate Threshold Development
Think of your VO2 max (aerobic base) as a bucket and your lactate threshold (sustainable power threshold) as the water level.
Effective pacing and volume increase the size of the bucket by building aerobic capacity.
Over time, as the bucket "grows in size" through sustainable effort, your water level (lactate threshold) rises closer to the rim with faster paces and periods of high-intensity training throughout the year, improving your ability to sustain high-intensity efforts.
Poor pacing, however, limits the size of your bucket and prevents you from adding enough water.
Wrapping Up on Proper Pacing For CrossFit
Pacing is the foundation of sustainable training and improved CrossFit performance.
By learning to pace you will not only improve your immediate metcon performance but set the stage for larger improvements down the road.
Try these pacing strategies in your metcons, experiment with finding your threshold, and watch your performance and results soar over time.
Reply to this email with "PACING", and I’ll help you create a personalized game plan to reach your fitness goals.
If you have questions about this week's deep dive or want a topic covered, reply to this email and let me know!
Read more about improving your metcons for CrossFit (HERE)
This Week's Blog Post
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The Ultimate Guide To The Thruster CrossFit Movement
This blog will break down everything you need to know about the thruster for CrossFit.
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Talk to you soon, Reader
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Dr. Will Murtagh, PT, DPT, MS, CSCS, CISSN
Physical Therapist | Remote Fitness Coach
I help you train CrossFit without joint pain so that you can reach your highest potential possible.
Want help? Book your free consultation here​
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