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For Time or For Quality, Which is better? Is one better? And if so then why?

First things first, let’s explain what we actually mean by these two terms. When we talk about completing something “For Time”, the aim is to complete a body of work in as short a time as possible. Good examples of this are a 2K Row Time Trial, a 400m Sprint, or a For Time based CrossFit metcon. 

The flip side to this is completing a body of work “For Quality”. Examples of this could be a 5×1 Snatch @90%, 3×10 Romanian Deadlifts, or a Strict Ring Muscle Up Progression drill. 

Now in terms of which is better, this is a little bit like comparing apples to oranges. They are two different things and depending on what kind of adaptation you’re trying to elicit, will depend on your choice of workout intent. 

Let’s take a CrossFit session as an example. The workload that is to be completed is 3 rounds of 10 Pull Ups, 15 Box Jumps & 20 Reverse Lunges. Now, if this workout has been programmed to completed “For Time”, you are going to complete the work as fast as possible. The pull-ups will more than likely be done kipping or as butterflies, the box jumps will be rebounded and the lunges will be pumped out. 

This kind of workout is designed to for want of a better phrase, to “get you out of breath”. Your heart rate will spike, your lungs will be working overtime, and most importantly, you will working on developing your “fitness”. This is the adaptation that we are after with this workout. 

Now let’s say that we change the stimulus of the session, and in the notes it states that the above workload is “For Quality”. This now becomes a totally different kettle of fish (shout out to all the fish that allowed me to use that analogy without being offended). 

The pull-ups that were performed as kipping, could now potentially be performed as strict, with an emphasis on muscle growth and development. They could even still be performed as kipping or butterfly, but with a focus of movement quality and practice as opposed to speed. Rather than rebounding the box jumps, they could be performed by resetting every time, attempting to land on the box with as straight a leg as possible to develop explosive strength. And finally the reverse lunges. A very common issue that we have found over the years is how people will favour the use of their quads in a lunge, as opposed to their glutes. By performing these for time, a greater emphasis could be placed on using the targeted muscle groups for the movement. 

So in terms of which one you should do, it depends entirely on your training discipline. Personally if you’re looking to become a well rounded healthy human being, you should be doing both. Both classifications of sessions produce different adaptations. If the goal of a session is push your lungs and heart rate to their absolute maximum during air bike sprints, your focus should be on going as hard as possible, not how much muscle recruitment you can get out of each downstroke on the pedal. In contrast to that, if you’re performing sets of deadlifts, rather than spangling your spine by doing your reps for time, focus on squeezing every bit of goodness out of each and every rep. How many fibres and motor units can I bring to the party! 

It’s definitely horses for courses,  but it’s also important to know the difference between the two. Happy training folks! 

If you enjoyed this post, check out my next post “Light Sets Feel Heavy“.