I keep seeing this word and understand that it’s short for metabolic conditioning.
I am curious if these are additional workouts you have to do besides the WOD?
Hopefully I get this right his time as I had a horrible train-wreck the last time I tried to address one of these questions.
Nope.
All CrossFit WODs fall into one of 3 categories:
Metcon: The ones that are done “for time”, or “AMRAP” or a few other variants but you get the idea. They make you puff.
ME: The ones where try and and find out how much heavy stuff you can lift.
Monostructural: e.g. “Run 5K”
Which are which out of the first two can blur and you can even do the same workout and give it a totally different focus by tinkering with weights or speeds, but that’s a whole other discussion.
The Mainsite WODs mix all three types up so you don’t need to do anything beyond those to be getting more metcons than you’re probably ever going to want to see.
I’d say that the line between monostructural and metcon gets blurred too.
For example, the ‘150 burpees for time’ wod is a MetCon. But, technically, its only one thing (mono) so it could be called a monostructural wod.
Same thing for ‘death by pullups’, etc
I’d say that the line between monostructural and metcon gets blurred too.
For example, the ‘150 burpees for time’ wod is a MetCon. But, technically, its only one thing (mono) so it could be called a monostructural wod.
Same thing for ‘death by pullups’, etc
Yes to the burpees and maybe to the pull-up ladder.
It depends on how strict your definition of “monostructural” is. In the strictest sense then because you don’t just put your head down and power through it, then it’s arguably not a true monostructural activity. But given that you’re only doing one activity then if applying looser criteria it is.
Also the pull-up ladder is one that blurs between metcon and ME depending on where your weakness is. For the strong and easily exhausted (think powerlifter), it’s a metcon. For a marathon runner with noodle arms, it’s ME in a huge way. I tend to plonk it more between those two than in the monostructural camp, but that’s just me and it doesn’t make a bit of difference to how you do it (badly in my case).
I read this as the “is the WOD enough/what about cardio?” question.
In addition to what the wise men above me have to say, I’d add that if you have gas left in the tank on an ME day, by all means feel free to work something else in. If however you have a lot of gas left in the tank on a metcon day, try to hit it harder next time.
Also, your warmup should really be fairly vigorous.
MetCons become ME when you pick a scale where the weight is too heavy.
ME is always ME
monostructural ... I guess I never really thought about this as the third category. I always thought of the third category as LSD: seems like most monostructural wods are metcon.. pullup ladder,metcon. grace,metcon. 2k row,metcon. karen,metcon. 150 burpees.metcon.
i’ve been reading way too much journal and hopefully I haven’t gotten things all mixed up, but:
ME - Targets the phosphagen system. short single 3 to 5 reps efforts
Metcon - can target the whole energy spectrum:
from blurring the line between the phosphagen system and the glycotic,
to strictly glycotic,
to blurring the line between the glycogen and the oxidative.
LSD - workouts entirely in the oxidative path: run 5k.
Sorta like Buy In/Cash out question. 
