How to Scale a Workout

Knowing how to scale a workout is highly important because not all people are of the same fitness level. By nature, the Death Certificates are extremely challenging, even for highly athletic individuals. This Autopsy will cover several ways in which you can scale a workout to better tailor it to differing levels of fitness.

Rule 1: Intensity is the Key to Fitness

It doesn't matter if the workout lasts 20 minutes or 5 minutes, the intensity brought by the individual is what makes the workout effective or not.

Rule 2: It's not about ego so much as it's about human movement.

Don't worry about not being able to do the DC as prescribed. Scaling it down is acceptable, and it doesn't matter who you are. Doing a scaled version of the DC is better than doing no version.

Rule 3: There are many ways to skin a cat.

You can scale a workout by reducing/increasing the reps, reducing/increasing the load, or regressing/progressing the exercise.

Example DC:

3 rounds for time:

50 Pullups

50 Pushups

50 KB Swings

50 Box Jumps

50 Overhead Squats

Scaling the Reps

For some people, 50 reps might be too challenging. In this example, it is easy to scale the reps. A good scale-down might be using 30 reps on each exercise. Remember that rule number one states it's the intensity that's the key -- bring max intensity into those 30 reps and you'll still get a great workout.

Scaling the Load

Where one individual might opt to use a 53 lb kettlebell, another might opt to use a 26 lb kettlebell. Where one individual might use a 20-inch box jump, another might use a 10-inch box jump. Where one individual might use 45 lbs for the OH squats, another might only use a dowel.

Scaling the Exercise

Some people might not be able to do a single pullup, let alone 50. To scale it, you might use jumping pullups. Some people can't do strict pushups, so it is okay to scale it down to knee pushups. You can also scale these up by using ring pushups, elevated pushups, or parallette pushups.