Derek: ... My mind usually tells me to do the movements strictly, which I do. This costs me time on "the clock" which, in my mind is ok. So, with workouts like today (Burper), should I bag the strict push-ups and snake them, saving valuable time, or stay strict, or both? I'm feeling like I'm not doing it right...for some reason. Is the cardio benefit of snaking and speed more important than the strict movement on the push-up? Am I over thinking this? Have I lost my rudder?
It's only wrong if you have the intention of gaining one thing, while achieving the other.
Lately, I've been working on my upper body pushing strength and some shaping (for vanity reasons). Because of this, I've been doing a lot more of my pushups and etc. strictly during workouts.
The cool thing about GPP programming is most of our workouts yield the same results irrespective (within reason) of how you perform them. Like with today's workout, there wasn't much you could have done to get away from your heart pounding out of your chest and every region of your body (push, pull, squat, core) reaching high levels of fatigue. High heart rate and regional fatigue was paramount to this workout. As long as a person stays true to the premise of the workout they'll get most of the benefits to be gained from it.
Knowing this, it becomes possible to build certain emphasis into a given workout. Someone working on push strength and shoulder shaping (vanity reasons) could slow down and form up on pushups and OHs without losing the over-all benefit of the daily programming. Even when forming up isn't called for in the workouts.
In other words, each workout is open to your additions and subtractions based on what you want most out of your workouts. I suggest reviewing your strengths and weaknesses and doing some micro programming of your own inside of each workout. We (trainers) are not only open to that, we encourage it and stand ready to help you make adjustments that will keep you within the intended parameters of each workout.