As 2011 draws to a close I'd like to throw out a few highlights of my year. For me, these events helped to give shape to my 2011 experience and from them I'll always remember 2011 for a great year filled with time well spent with my family, my CFS comrades, and my ongoing pursuit of world domination.
This CF games off-season I've been very intentional about gaining overall strength. In recent weeks, there have been a ton of interviews and articles with CF games athletes who say they've also been working towards making strength gains in the off-season. In a November video of a conversation on the topic of making off-season strength gains between CFHQ coaches, Nadia Shatlia and Dave Lipson, there are some great points made- many of which I've noticed in my training over the last month:
1. In order to gain strength, you must be willing to gain some mass. If you place more emphasis on hitting the primary lifts using heavier loads, yet continue to repeatedly crush yourself in 15 to 30+ minute conditioning efforts, you'll likely diminish the effect of your strength returns. You've gotta pick your battles in the box. For me, this has meant to hit at least 4 or 5 strength biased workouts per week while only performing one or two 3-10 minute met-cons and 1 chipper style WOD per week.
2. Milk does a body good. Unless you're a strict Paleo person, are lactose intolerant (in which case I'd recommend Lactaid), or can't handle farting all day like a CHAMP (and, boy, does my wife know I can handle it), milk is one of the best ways to help you not only recover- but also to gain mass.
3. Eat lots and eat clean. On the first part- EAT LOTS: You need the calories to build back up that which your training has destoyed. On the second- EAT CLEAN: Keep it simple; avoid processed foodstuffs and sugars and stick to lean meats, fresh fruits and veggies, nuts and seeds, and little starch. Glassman said it best: "You won't perform like a high-powered machine if you're always pissing in your gas tank." Even doing this MOST of the time will result in improved overall athletic performance.
4. Determine if your lack of strength is due to neuromuscular insufficiency (technique, proprioception, mechanics, etc), the fact that you've tapped out your contractile potential i.e. you need to gain mass, or perhaps a bit of both. Over the past month, as I've PR'd on many of my primary lifts, I realized that for me, it was both. In many cases, I may have already had the strength to move the weight but what was lacking was the "learned" aspect of actually executing or successfully completing the lift. Bottomline: Slow down. Practice. Go through appropriate progressions. Warm up properly. Allow for gradual accommodation to larger loads. It'll all pay off.
Anyway, that's about enough of my musings for one night...Here's what my past couple of days of training have been like: After hitting yesterday's CFS strength piece of Thruster 4-4-4-4-4 (I reached 230lb x 4 and 235lb x 3), Andy Koch and I did the conditioning WOD of 16 minutes of Wallballs (20lb) for max reps. One person works at a time. Our strategy was to perform sets of 35reps for as log as possible. We made it through 5 full rounds each (Actually 6 for Andy) until at rep number 26 I finally hit the wall and dropped the ball. At this point there was about 3 minutes remaining and it became more of an all out gut-check- at least for me. Andy caught what he called a "second wind" and continued to forge through sets of 20-35 and I managed to trudge through smaller sets of 15-25 all the way to the finish. In 16 minutes the medball touched the ground only twice. Our transitions were always seamless. We switched out by passing off the ball mid-air to the next person who would slide in and continue working. Our grand total was 522 reps of 20lb Wallballs in 16 minutes. Needless to say, today I'm wrecked.
With this in mind, for my training today I decided to go for 30 Muscle Ups for time. My hope was to beat my previous best time of 4:56. As always, I flew through the first 20 and then slugged through the last 10. However, today I slugged 11 seconds faster and PR'd with a time of 4:45. Here's the video of my effort:
Last Friday the CFS strength component was Power clean 1-1-1-1-1-1-1. My progression was 245-265-275-285-295f-300f-300PR. Rest assured, it was a gnarly looking power clean, but i picked it up regardless.
I had an amazing weekend relaxing with the family! Vin put on Christmas concerts for us:
Rowed 500m today in 1:26. One second faster than my previous best 500m row. It hurt. Ooooh, did it hurt. Not sure if it was the cold December air or just me being a pudwhacker (you're right-definitely both), but this felt like one of the most uncomfortable things I've done in a while; even more uncomfortable than that time back in 1940 when I competed in the Summer Olympics...
HardyHarHar. I'm only joking, of course (about me being a pudwhacker). I'm more just a plain 'ole sissy at heart. Anyways, rowing 500m for time just goes to show you how deceivingly difficult the simplest of tasks can be.
I also did 5 x 1 deadlift today...did 335-400-470-505-540(f). I wanted to attempt the 540lb or maybe 535lb again but I did 5 x 7 backsquat yesterday and my hamstrings were strung, if ya know what I mean. They are RIPE, ripe, I tell you.
Tuesday's 245lb Snatch miss left me with a feeling of unfinished business. I went to bed last night and woke up this morning with an insatiable desire to stick the lift and stand it up. My plan: After a good warm up, I'd take just 5 snatch attempts with progressive loads up to 245lb and let the chips fall where they may. I had to work for it but my more patient approach (This time I forced myself to take 1-2 minutes between each attempt) and strategy paid off and on my final lift I successfully snatched 245lb for a 10lb PR! Here is a video of the lift:
WooHoo!!! Very thankful to have hit it and appreciate the coaching and encouragement I received from Cole Samuelson and the rest of the noon crew! Immediately following the 5 x 1 Snatch work, I did "Isabel" (30 reps of Snatches @ 135lb for time). Not exactly sure of my previous best time but I'm pretty confident I've never gone sub 2 minutes on it. Today I did and finished in 1:52:
Great training day!!! Here's a video of the entire snatch progression I took towards 245lb:
I love God. I love my family. I love life. I love my friends. I love people (even stupid ones). I love CrossFit. I love enhancing athletic performance. I love lamp.
Vitals Stats:
Amanda 4:55,
Fran 2:13,
"Chubby" Fran (115lb Thruster & CTB Pull Ups) 3:22,
Grace 1:22,
Isabel 1:52,
Cindy 26 rds + 5 Pull Ups,
Diane 4:16,
Karen 5:25,
Elizabeth 5:49,
Jackie 5:29,
Linda 27:00 (@ BW of 200lb),
Nate 13 rds,
Randy 3:26,
Helen 7:58,
Pyramid Double Helen 20:18,
Filthy 50 18:24,
FGB 403,
Bench Press 305lb,
Shoulder Press 190lb,
Back Squat 365lb,
Deadlift 550lb,
OHS 305lb,
OHS x 3 275lb,
30 Muscle Ups 4:45,
100 reps 24kg KB Swings 3:26,
Row 1000m 3:16,
Row 500m 1:26,
Run 400m 0:59,
Consecutive Pull Ups 60,
Consecutive Double Unders 158,
Behind the head Jerk 305lb,
Front Rack Split Jerk 300lb,
Clean 320lb,
Clean & Jerk 295lb,
Snatch 250lb,
Snatch Balance 255lb,
5min AMRAP C & J 155lb 41 reps
Let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.
prox·i·mal (adj): Closer to the axis of the body; Nearer to a point of reference such as an origin, a point of attachment, or the midline of the body; Toward the center of the body.
CrossFit Springfield is so much more than a place for elite athletes to become stronger, faster, more powerful, more flexible, more athletic, more agile, and more mentally tough. It's more than a place to gain greater work capacity over broad time and modal domains, and to set PRs and take off your shirt and roll around on the ground gasping for oxygen in a pile of sweat and possibly vomit.
CrossFit Springfield also happens to be a safe place where untrained or deconditioned athletes participate to test and better their strength, their endurance, and their will to become better people and better athletes. Fortunately for them, they receive daily instruction and coaching by the most caring, straight forward, knowledgeable, and motivating strength and conditioning coaching team in SouthWest Missouri.
There are two types of pain in life. The pain of discipline and the pain of regret. Any CrossFitter will tell you "It won't be easy" This is because it shouldn't be easy. You will earn your fitness. And your life will thank you for it.