Oh Fight Gone Bad, we meet again.
Why do you always do this to me?
Fight Gone Bad is a benchmark CrossFit workout that consists of three rounds of five stations, one minute at each station and a one minute break between each round. So total, it’s a 17 minute workout. That doesn’t sound so bad right? Wrong. Fight Gone Bad challenges your endurance like nothing else. It’s 17 minutes spent with your heart racing, lungs burning and entire body shaking.
The workout was designed after the mixed martial arts time domain of five minutes on, one minute recovery. It got it’s name when a professional MMA fighter remarked that it was like a “fight gone bad” when asked how it compared to a real fight.
Here are the five stations:
- Wall-ball: 20 pound ball, 10 ft target (14 lbs for women)
- Sumo deadlift high-pull: 75 pounds (55 lbs for women)
- Box Jump: 20″ box
- Push-press: 75 pounds (55 lbs for women)
- Row: calories
The clock does not reset or stop between exercises. On call of “rotate,” the athlete/s must move to next station immediately for good score. One point is given for each rep, except on the rower where each calorie is one point.
Fight Gone Bad was our prescribed workout on Friday. The first time I did this workout was back in May. I was still relatively new to CrossFit and my score was 220. I was very interested to see how it would go for me the second time around. The great thing about benchmark WODs is that they allow you to see your progress because they are always exactly the same.
I was feeling pretty good going in…well as good as I could knowing the pain that was waiting for me in just a few short minutes. I set up a 55 pound bar to do the workout “as prescribed.”
And we’re off! I started on wall balls. I think this is where I have improved the most. I was able to consistently get the highest number of reps at this station.
The second station was sumo deadlift high pulls. I struggle most with these. First, they are just hard. Especially after the first round. Second, they bother my hip a lot. I took it easy on these and just accepted that it wasn’t going to be my strongest station.
Next up, box jumps. I felt good during the box jumps and was able to go “on” the whole minute without taking breaks.
Push press. I broke this into sets of 5 or 10 and it wasn’t too bad. This is one of the easier CrossFit movements for me. Being able to use your legs to push overhead makes all the difference in the world.
And finally, rowing.Ugh, ugh, ugh. I basically felt like I was going to pass out and fall off the rower by the time I got to station five and started rowing. It is just really not my strong suit but I was able to power through knowing that recovery or the end would come after the row. This was by far my lowest score each round.
Three rounds of all of that and I was done! I kept score as I went and was thrilled to total up my reps and find that I had increased 28 points from the last time I did Fight Gone Bad! Pretty awesome! Just to give you some reference, my friend and fellow coach Lauren is working on hitting 300 which I cannot even fathom! I definitely still have room for growth and improvement but I’m really happy with the strength and endurance gains that I have made.
A HUGE thanks to my fellow CrossFitters for pushing me through and to my coach for repeatedly yelling, “JEN – GET BACK ON THE BAR” to me! 🙂 This is one of those workouts you definitely can’t do alone. You need the energy of everyone else to keep going.
My lungs physically burned for 30 minutes after the workout and I had the “Fran cough” for hours. Sushi, wine and TV time helped that immensely.
Hope y’all had a great weekend!
