Keep Moving Forward

As we enter the competition season for the CrossFit games, it helps to hear what it takes to succeed in whatever endeavor we choose. Nothing hits as hard as life does. It's about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward. About how much you can take and keep moving forward.

That's how winning is done. Period.

Fear Into Aggression

Just finished reading a book where the protagonist recounts his childhood ability to turn fear into aggression. Really hit home as I began to relate the role fear has in people's lives in this modern age. In essence, our advances in civilization effectively removes fear from our everyday lives. Despite what we perceive as fear, how often in your everyday life do you experience the adrenaline-pumping, hair standing on end, stomach tightened into a ball fear where that fight or flight syndrome kicks in? Never? Then you're in the vast majority.

Enter CrossFit. CrossFit is our connection to those base animal instincts that no amount of modernization or civilization can truly weed out of each of us. It's there. We know it's there. We just don't know what to do about it. But that's why we continue to come back to the almost insane punishment that CrossFit offers and demands. We love that fear that grips you as you grip the bar and hear "3...2...1." Because we know that we can conquer that fear. And be better, stronger, faster for it. So embrace the fear. Use it. Channel it. Fear does you no good unless you can use it to be better than you ever thought possible. Fear into aggression. It's a mindset. Live it.

Strength Training for Women

Undoubtedly, one of the most common questions/concerns I receive from women interested in CrossFit is "I don't want to lift weights, because I don't want to get big." A valid concern. And one I blame primarily on today's media. Movies/TV shows/magazine ads portray women involved in lifting heavy weights as hulk-like behemoths with 20" biceps. Utterly ridiculous. Strength training is arguably the single most effective fitness tool available to women today.

Many women are afraid of strength training because they believe that it will create large muscles that are unattractive. "I’ll weight train once I get this fat off. I don’t want to turn it into muscle". This is a prevalent misconception. The vast majority of women cannot build large muscles because they are genetically incapable of doing so. It is impossible to turn fat into muscle, or muscle into fat, as each cell is unique from the other.

In order to dispel these types of myths, we need to understand the physiology of strength training. Strength training results in an increase in muscle fiber size. As the muscle fibers increase in thickness, the shape of the muscle changes, getting thicker in the belly, or middle, of the muscle. This results in a change in the shape of the muscle. How much the muscle changes in shape, and how large the muscle gets, depends on the amount of work the muscle is asked to do (as well as other factors discussed later). If the muscle is asked to lift very heavy loads, it will respond with a significant increase in fiber/muscle size. (The goal of most men.)

In order to avoid this gain in muscle mass, women are told to lift very light weights. This recommendation is oftentimes interpreted to the extreme, and women perform many repetitions with 3 or 5 pound weights. Unfortunately, without sufficient load (weight), the muscle will not change, and the goal of "tone" and "shape" cannot be achieved. A change in the shape or tone of a muscle is created in the same way that size is created, with hard work and consistency!! In order to shape or tone your muscle, you must lift a weight that is heavy enough to create muscle fatigue (also known as failure). Working your muscles to fatigue means that your muscles refuse to lift/move the weight in a correct and safe fashion. Working your muscles to fatigue will not necessarily create large, unsightly muscle mass. Even if you work your muscles to extreme fatigue, rest assured, that the majority of women are genetically unable to create large muscles because they lack sufficient hormones or body structure to do so.

Body structure and body composition, or the amount of bodyfat vs. lean tissue, plays an important role in how you respond to weight training. Muscular body types, or mesomorphs, respond quickly to weight training and are most likely to build muscle size. Ectomorphs, (thin, frail body) are generally unable to add muscle mass, even though they need to! Most women tend to be endomorphs, or pear shaped, and have a difficult time creating tone in their lower bodies, where they store most of their bodyfat. In addition, the more fat stored on the body in general, the less likely you are to see the muscle’s tone, as subcutaneous (under the skin) fat surrounds the muscles, obscuring their shape.

Non-Permissive

Well, rest day went very well yesterday. Got a great lifting/sprint workout in this AM with Jess. Back and ribs felt good, so I'm encouraged by the progress. Have to remember, though, one day at a time. Cliche, I know, but sometimes cliches are cliches for a reason.

My old XO on La Jolla took command of the USS Jefferson City (SSN 759) this past Saturday. Funny to look back on a previous life and wonder what might have been. Congratulations to CDR Brien Dickson for a monumental achievement. Glad it's not me.

Be the Bull

Well, it's been embarrassingly long since my last post. Since then, I've come a long way. Not necessarily in the direction that I had been planning, but a great distance traveled, nonetheless. Since my last update, I've competed in Sectionals and Regionals, the Texas Throwdown, seriously hurt my lower back and fractured a rib. You could say I've had some ups and downs. It happens. But what counts is how you respond to adversity and forge your own path.

This week marks the beginning of the Not Fucking Around Crew. I'm no longer fucking around with nutrition, training, rest, mobility, strength, lifting, yoga, endurance and overall well being. It's amazing the differences I've seen in just 5 days. I'm excited for the next 5 months. I've got a long road ahead, but the journey is the fun part. There is no summit.

To A Potential Degree

I decided to take about 3 days of rest following the competition on Saturday. I think it was a great idea, as one of my weaknesses is to force myself to take the necessary amount of rest to optimize recovery and improvement. Today will be my first day back in the box to hit a WOD. I'm planning on doing two WODs today, the first:

5-4-3-2-1
Deadlift
Muscle Ups

Muscle ups are not a strong movement for me, so this is a great opportunity to get some work in. Not sure what the second workout is going to be, and it's sort of frustrating me that I don't have a solid plan together. My post from the other day still holds true. I'm not focusing on what the plan is, I'm just vascillating between what I think a good second workout would be. This is not a plan for success. We'll have to see how the rest of the day falls into place.

This Is My Safety

Participated in the CrossFit FX TX competition this weekend in Allen. 4 WOD's in one day was a great challenge, especially since one of the WODs was a 250m swim, not one of my stronger skills. Also, the first event was 3 attempts at a 1 rep max split snatch, with emphasis on the split. As in, you HAD to split on the snatch attempt or it was judged a no lift. I have never even attempted a split snatch in my life, so made for an interested first event (note the sarcasm). However, the day proved to be a great challenge with some awesome athletes from all over Texas.

One of my main goals for this competition was to continue my experiment with nutrition before, during and after competitions. Saturday was much better from an energy/recovery aspect than the All Cities Open back in December. Even though there was one more WOD, I felt I had much more energy throughout the day and was ready to go at the start of each WOD. Now, to the breakdown of food intake: breakfast was 4 eggs, almond butter, one bell pepper and water. Between WOD 1 and 2, I had half a bell pepper and one large Paleokit. Energy for WOD 2 was sky high, which I am going to attribute, at least in part, to the Paleokit. Between WOD 2 and 3 I had lunch, which consisted of steak, an apple, walnuts and part of a sports drink (for the fructose). Between WOD 3 and 4 I had another Paleokit. Overall, energy was great throughout the day. My next goal is to work on post-competition nutrition as well as a stretching/roll-out plan to set up for the second day of the competitions that are coming up. Stay tuned.

No Country For Young Men

Pretty good day for WODs yesterday. First workout at noon was resting Helen:

4 Rounds:
400m run
21 KB Swings (70#)
12 Pull-Ups (C2B)
3 min rest

Stepped up to 70# KB and C2B Pullups, which was a good challenge, as I haven't spent much time on C2B pullups over the past couple of months. They were signigicantly more challenging than normal, but the butterfly motion was starting to click more and more the further I got into the workout. I set a personal goal of keeping all runs under 1:30, which I did, so I consider the WOD a victory. Still trying to push myself more and more in the runs. Final round times were: 2:31, 2:45, 3:11, 3:11.

Came back to the box at 5:30 to spend some time on heavy clean and jerks, followed by heavy back squat depending on how I felt. My first lesson learned from this second workout is to set your workout before you get into the gym. I feel many of us struggle with this (I am a major culprit). You say you will do part A and maybe do part B depending on how you feel. Fuck that. Set part A and set part B, do them both, and rock it. Or, if you know you won't do part B, don't even attempt it. Don't even let the idea of part B linger in your mind, as all it will do is to weaken part A. Keep your mind strong and focused on the workout at hand. Back to the clean and jerk. Felt very good. Haven't done heavy single clean and jerk since before the ACO back in December and I hit my PR of 275. 275 felt pretty decent, definitely heavy, but not terrible. I still have one of my personal goals to get 300 overhead, so still working to that end. Well, two more days until my next competition. Trying to eat well, maximize sleep and get mentally ready. More to come with competition results soon.

The Good Fight

It's not just you. Everyone has their own fight. Do you ever get so caught up in your own battlefield that you forget to breathe? To just breathe?

What is the draw of CrossFit for most people? Is is the intensity? The comraderie? The results? Or is it deeper than that? We each have our own struggles that consume our lives, from the mundane to the critical, but letting them rule our days is where we lose perspective. CrossFit gives us that oulet to push ourselves, to give us control, to fight the good fight. Day in and day out we enter the arena of CrossFit to test ourselves, to push each other to levels we never knew we could reach, to taste the thrill of victory. But the outlet for emotion can blind us to the not only the key to victory but to experiencing life. Never let the fight prevent you from breathing. Use what CrossFit can offer to make the most of your life, to savor each opportunity to push yourself, know victory and defeat, and to always remember to just breathe.

It is your responsiblity to control the outcome.

A Long Way Down

The CFDE 3x3 Challenge was this weekend, and we had a great showing. Hopefully everyone got a lot out of the challenge. Doing 3 tough WOD's in just over an hour and half is a monumental achievement for anyone.

I did pretty well on the first WOD, ending up 3rd. I was happy with my power output over such a short time domain (4:21), as I wanted to stop and rest a few times, but never let myself. After the first WOD, I got light headed, felt like vomiting and was just struggling physically overall. I downed half a banana and two gulps of a protein powder/water combo, which helped immensely. I actually questioned my ability to finish the second and third WODs, but ended up doing them both. Which brings me to the topic today: nutirition before and during multiple WODs.

Back in December, I participated in CFDC's All Cities Open, which was a great event. Going into the thrird (of 3) events, I was tied for third. I then had an epic fail during the last event, ending up in the bottom five for that event. After much self-evaluation, I determined that my nutrition approach during that entire day did not set me up for success. Breakfast and meals between WODs are CRITICAL. I then started experimenting with what works best for breakfast and then in between WODs. Saturday I had 4 eggs, a bell pepper and almond butter for breakfast, then banana and protein powder between WODs. I definitely felt better during this Saturday than the ACO, so progress is being made, but a ways to go. This Saturday brings the CrossFit FX TX competition in Allen, so another chance to figure out the best approach. If anyone has suggestions as to what has worked for them, please post to comments, as I'm always looking for ways to get better.

Shift Fire

Over the past couple of days, numerous people have come to me asking about progress. Their questions got me to thinking about progress in the realm of physical training in general and CrossFit specifically. Progress and improvement are tricky animals and cause people to doubt not only themselves, but the CrossFit program as well.

I like to think about improvement as a form of investing. If you look at your investment portfolio on a daily basis, hoping to see drastic improvement, you will be sorely dissapointed. However, as Albert Einstein put it, "The most powerful force in the universe is compound interest." The two inputs to successful investing are consistency and time. Consistency and time. That sounds pretty familiar.

In the CrossFit universe, success is measured by minutes and seconds. But I argue that this is taking a myopic view of success as related to the individual. True success is measured over months and years. The main goal of CrossFit is to consistently improve. That's it. Consistent improvement.

So look at your time at CrossFit as an investment in yourself. If you focus on improving every day, even just a marginal progression, the progress you see will truly be amazing. Just like investing, don't get caught up in the day-to-day tracking of progress. Focus on getting better each and every day and the rewards will be awesome.

Adaptation

Pretty good day yesterday on the workout front. Hit two WOD's. First was CFDE's programming (Deadlift 7x3), which I maxed out at 425. The deadlifts felt pretty solid and tight, never really felt the lower back start to round, which has caused me problems in the past. I've really been focusing on maintaining that lumbar curve even at the higher weights, which hopefully we all know makes all the difference.

Rested for about 4 hours then came back and did OPT's metcon from 4 days ago:

50 KB Swings (2 Pood)
20 GHD Situps
10 Box Jumps (30")
40 KB Swings (2 Pood)
20 GHD Situps
20 Box Jumps (30")
30 KB Swings (2 Pood)
20 GHD Situps
30 Box Jumps (30")
20 KB Swings (2 Pood)
20 GHD Situps
40 Box Jumps (30")
10 KB Swings (2 Pood)
20 GHD Situps
50 Box Jumps (30")

This was brutal. Box jumps and GHD situps definitely reside on the weakness column for me, so I was dreading doing this workout, which means that I absolutely needed to do this workout. Very glad I did, as I felt myself getting stronger on the box jumps as the WOD continued. These are the type of mentally taxing workouts that's going to improve not only physical adaptation, but train the mind. More on that topic to come.

Nothing Else Matters

Well, this is my first (of many, hopefully) posts on the new blog. The purpose here is to detail and share all the ideas, stories, hopes, dreams, sorrows, successes and failures that I experience on the journey that is life. Enjoy the ride.