Do, or Do Not. There is No Try

I'm telling you, the older I get, the more I realize that some of the lines and philosophies in the shows and movies I grew up with actually had true merit. I don't know why I wouldn't have thought so in the first place... maybe because I knew Yoda was a puppet, that he had a hand in his head to make him move...maybe just the cool-sounding, but ultimately disappointing (for not existing) teachings about the force made me tune him out in general. For whatever reason, I never really noticed the salience of this rebuttal of Luke's half-hearted "Well alright, I'll try."



"No! Try not. Do. Or do not. There is no 'try.'"

I was reminded of this during a recent podcast with Jon Andersen, a guy I hadn't really heard of, despite his successes in professional wrestling and strongman competitions. (I haven't followed wrestling that closely since being a kid in the 80s, and never really knew most of the strongman competitors on ESPN beyond Bill Kazmeier and Magnus Magnusson...so I might actually have been seeing him compete and just didn't know it.) He recently dove headfirst into bodybuilding (definitely not my cup of tea) and got his IFBB pro card in just two shows. Apparently, that's pretty impressive.

But beyond his professional credentials and experiences, he talked about a philosophy of attacking life and goals that really resonated with me. He talked about making decisions and sticking to them. Letting those decisions actually guide your actions. One of his examples was the decision to go to the gym. You could either say "I'm going to try to start going to the gym more," or "I'm going to the gym more." One has wiggle-room, escape clauses built in. One lets you get away with failing to follow through. The other is just a stated fact. The first, you still set your alarm at night, but when it goes off in the morning, you lie in bed, considering whether you're really going to try to get up and go to the gym or not. You have an out, conveniently built in. The second, the alarm goes off, you get up and go to the gym, because you ALREADY decided to do so.  There's no extra work to do, no thinking or considering needed. Alarm goes off; feet hit the floor.

It borders on splitting hairs, but its become a very obvious difference to me. Since hearing that, and processing it, I find it much easier to get out of bed at 4:50 in the morning and just go. I've made the decision, I've set the goal, its just time to go do it. I'm not making that decision at 4:50am, when the bed is warm and comfy, and the pillow is perfect, and my wife is sleeping soundly, and it would be so nice just to curl up next to her and go back to sleep. My decision has already been made. Its just a matter of following through. Its not a matter of "trying" to go to the gym. Its a matter of doing it.

Do. Or do not. There is no try.

This obviously has affected other areas of life, as well. Rather than putting together a list of things I'll try to get to in a day, I put together a list of things I'm going to do that day. Then I start hacking away at it, finishing up one thing and moving to another. Decisions have already been made, priorities are fairly obvious, and when they're not, doing everything at a certain priority level ought to do the trick. I don't try to get anything done. I just get things done. Simple.

Great summation from DFHobbs.

EDIT: This is what I get for writing this at night. I forgot some of the main points I was going to tie into this.

Whenever you see a kid (or even an adult) who is preposterously excellent at something, its easy to just shake your head in awe and write it off as a fluke. I submit to you that you're seeing someone who decided to be the best at something. Not to try to practice, or to try to improve, or to try to be the best. Just to BE the best. 

Look at the highest level athletes. While the talking heads on TV and the armchair analysts go nuts comparing their performance and discussing who's trying to win, every truly great athlete is just out there doing their best. They're NOT "trying to give it 110%, Coach!" because, at the very least, that implies they were really only giving it about 91% before, and are now nearing 100%.  Nope, you watch Olympic swimmers or sprinters or weight lifters or whatever, they're not doing enough just to try to win... they're digging deep and giving it everything they have. They are just DOING. Not trying. Doing. Trying is easy. Doing is MUCH harder. But ultimately, so much more rewarding. 

So the next time you look at an awful WoD on the board, don't think (you thought positively) "I'll try..."  That's just leaving off the "...if I can, I guess..."  Think "I'm doing this."  EVEN if it DOES chew you up and spit you out, at least you hit it with everything you had, rather than with the mental parking brake on, wondering why its just so damn hard.  Now, it might be hard, and you still might fail. Hey, it happens. Sometimes, someone else is doing their thing a little bit better than you (consider the Olympic example: every athlete who gets a Silver Medal is still better than literally 99.9999999999999...of all other humans in all of history. But not on that day. It happens.)

"Try not. Do. Or do not. There is no try."

Epic Eating Experiment Results Are In!

Well, after 12 weeks of a very strict Paleo diet (with the occasional break), including extremely strict holiday feasts, the results of the Elm City CrossFit Epic Eating Experiment are in: My wife and I found ourselves in a 4-way tie for second place! The other two co-seconders were a couple, too! The guy who took first did an amazing job, trimming down and going full beast mode in his workouts. Huge kudos to him, as well as to all my second-place co-winners!

In the aftermath, we've decided to maintain the changes we made, at least for the vast majority of them. Gluten is completely out, dairy is completely out (though we are maintaining the exception made during the entire EEE: full fat cream for coffee. Mmmmmmm....), grains are out, sugar is out, probably a few more things I'm blanking on.

I've experimented with a few things in the aftermath. The fried calamari at my weekly Monday night gig knocked the crud out of me (but then again, so did a completely paleo-ified bunless, cheeseless burger, so maybe its just the food there. Corn tortilla chips appeared to be perfectly fine. Beer was consumed at the closing party, and I did ok. Not looking to add a ton back in, but good to know its there. Legumes, or at least peanut butter, will probably reappear, since its so dang versatile. I just want the chance to test it before wasting money on a jar of something that I won't be able to eat.  Popcorn was ok. I put a lot of cayenne and Old Bay on it, and if nothing else, the resulting salt content is a bit high, so that'll need to be tweaked.

The other part of re-adding food is this: It will be in strict moderation. Even if popcorn and peanut butter are ok, I don't want them to become staples of my diet. Those would be my once a month (or so) treats, not something to "cheat" with on EVERY meal (not really a cheat then...).

The before and after pictures are pretty revealing (unable to get a copy of the worst before picture... the front view...):
Before: (Official weigh-in = 220#)

After: (207#, down 13 pounds in 12 weeks!)

External Validation (or "Why Are We Here?")

Sometimes, both as coaches and parents, I find it helps to have some external validation for why we do what we do. Sometimes, just the sight of obvious improvements is its own reward. Other times, when the going gets tough, its awesome to hear that other people see movement and health through the same lens we do.

"All this conversation is going on about cognitive development, but we've forgotten the child's body... The amount of physical activity since the turn of the century has declined seventy-five percent; children are not playing, and through play a great deal of active learning takes place. Children used to play in natural ways, with kids of different ages, outside, basically unsupervised by adults.  Visual and auditory attention, bodily coordination--all were gained through that kind of play. This physical learning must take place before children start dealing with abstractions; it doesn't happen if children don't have those experiences."
- Phyllis Weikart, 1987, 'Round the Circle: Key Experiences in Movement for Children'

"The ability to perform gross motor skills is related directly to physical fitness. A competent mover will gladly keep moving; he or she will engage in such activities as dancing, jumping rope, and hanging and swinging on the playground equipment. A child who feels physically awkward and uncoordinated is going to avoid movement. Such a child isn't likely to take part in an after-school game of tag  or hopscotch or to climb the monkey bars during recess. Since poor movement habits tend to remain from childhood into adulthood, a physically inactive child is likely to grow up to be an inactive adult. Considering the health risks for the unfit - obesity, heart disease, diabetes and other risks - teaching children motor skills is indeed just as important as teaching language skills...The most important thing you can do is to give children the time, space, and opportunity to move."
- Rae Pica, 2008, "Learning by Leaps and Bounds: Why Motor Skills Matter," Beyond the Journal, Young Children on the Web

(Source: crossfitkids.com)

Elm City CrossFit's Epic Eating Experiment

90 days. Full paleo. No sugar, no grains, no breads, no legumes. No beer. Nothing.

One hour in:

This was basically me the day before the Epic Eating Experiment started:

But replace the (not horribly unhealthy) butter with beer, ice cream cake, more beer, and some chips and pretzels.

Woke up feeling like death, and ready to actually try to tackle this thing like a boss. First challenge? My weekly gig at a seafood and burger place, where we get free drinks and food (under a certain price). My go-to meal for over two years is a burger platter (sweet potato fries and cole slaw) and a couple beers. This week? Turns out the only option (with protein) under the $10 limit was a crappy salad with some chicken on it. Ugh. May have to go for the bun-less burger next time. Replace the fries with... even more cole slaw?! No, it probably has sugar in the sauce. Damn. I tried a NorCal marguerita, which is just tequila (silver, since it has less sugar) with seltzer and lime juice. Damn... that's a tasty beverage. Not a great choice, but not a terrible one either (compared to my usual gluten-bomb beers, at least.)

So, the upshot of an eating challenge? First of all, I have team-mates to not let down. I have coaches keeping an eye on my food choices. In all, it feels like this:

But in a really nice kind of way. Alons-y!

13-06-15: Increasing the Solution Set

CrossFit Kids: How getting fitter increases your "solution set"

It's easy to break life into separate categories, "work," "family," "gym," "sleep." It's easy to forget that skills gained in one area can easily transfer over into another. Improving negotiation skills at work can have surprising impacts on our family life. Improving our attitudes at the gym can have impressive carry-over into our work and family life, most likely improving sleep, too! All of this takes place in our younger athletes, too.

However, there is another more immediate benefit to be granted by having children participate in CrossFit Kids: while increasing the number of options physically available when presented with an obstacle, we are also augmenting mental problem solving skills, as now there are multiple solutions to choose from. Improved body control, upgraded mental toughness, increased experience in varied environments... all of these serve to enhance a child's (or grown adult's) ability to cope with whatever life manages to throw at them.

When first encountering a new obstacle, there are those elements that are fixed: usually the environment (classroom, park, playing field) and the nature of the obstacle itself (tests, jungle gyms, coaches/teammates). The variables are mostly contained in the person facing that obstacle, their strengths, their experiences: their innate possible solutions to the problem to be overcome. A stronger child, with more experiences, more awareness, more capabilities will obviously have an easier time dealing with the obstacle than a child lacking those improvements. Whether those obstacles are artificial (rope climbs in gym class), recreational (climbing a tree with friends), or serious/real world (climbing down a rope ladder in a home fire drill) in nature, extra skills, extra strength, extra mental fortitude will ALL come into play.

After only a few months of working with us, our athletes MORE than held their own at a CrossFit Kids Throwdown at a neighboring box. With family and coaches supporting them, they dug deep and showed what they were truly made of, and it was EPIC. (crossfit.com and superclearyphoto.com)

Like everything in CrossFit, everything is infinitely scale-able. Regardless of the size of the 'Original Solution Set,' improvements can always be made. The smaller the original skill set, the greater the gains to be made. Factor in an atmosphere where those who complete a task first immediately start helping everyone else, through support, cheering, or even tips, and we end up with the ultimate win-win situation. Everyone improves, and everyone has a great time. As the solution set grows... so too does the enjoyment of trying to tackle new obstacles, or old obstacles in new ways. Body weight exercises, gymnastics, external weights, running, jumping: These are just a few of tools at our disposal as we work to increase the solution set of every athlete who enters into our gym.

13-02-06: Why CrossFit Kids?

13-02-06: Why CrossFit Kids?

In February of 2013, Elm City CrossFit joined the ranks of CrossFit gyms providing Kids courses to children of all ages. Given the reputation CrossFit has for extreme intensity and, occasionally, poor decision-making skills (google "Drywall CrossFit" or "overhead squat baby" and have a great read...), is it really smart to try to introduce children to this? Alternatively, is a CrossFit box really the best place to run a day-care? The answer to both questions is actually a resounding "no."

The goal is NOT to try to make children into mouth-frothing psychopaths, nor to baby-sit them. Like a lot of people, I came to CrossFit as a broken-down adult. (See an entire blog post basically called "Everything I've  Ever Done Wrong"). One of the main goals of a CrossFit Kids course has to be helping children (and the adults they will grow into) to avoid going down this path. What if, rather than hitting their 30s, and wondering what they did wrong, they hit their thirties and just kept improving? What if, to play the sport of their dreams, or to do any activity they wanted, no extra work was needed, because it had already been done?  

With the PreSchool age group ("Elements"), we have the chance to slowly and safely start introducing not just the basic skill set, but also the idea that "fitness" can be fun. Instead of going to the gym to "workout," they're going to that place where they get to run around, play dodgeball, and oh yeah, spend a few minutes each session learning how to perform the various squats, deadlifts, push-ups, etc. We have YEARS of encouraging sound mechanics and discipline before we ever consider loading them up with weights, and years of encouraging consistency of movement before we ever consider upping the intensity to anything that looks like "stereo-typical CrossFit." And the best part? At this age, we'll still actually see huge gains in strength, not because of increased resistance or anything like that, but because their brains are building the neural pathways, and reinforcing them, and recruiting muscle groups with increased efficiency... and all while they're just having fun.

In the Elementary school age group ("Foundations"), we can start adding in either unweighted or very low-weighted implements. Those overhead squats where the kids used to pretend to push up the sky? Yup, they've graduated to pvc pipes or 1# dumbbells. As they master the ability so show perfect form while being coached, we begin to emphasize their ability to replicate that movement every time. Remember those strength gains from when they were in the Elements/PreSchool class? Same thing applies, and we will still see huge gains from low-weight resistance. The games get more complex and competitive, and if anything, we'll see ourselves having to start reining the kids in. (Side-note: In one of our first days, we did team shuttle runs, boys vs. girls. We started seeing them fatiguing as they neared the finish line... then instantly perk back up and return to the line to wait their next turn. When adults would have been pulverized, they just kept going, and we ended up cutting it short, with them asking if they could do more running. Read that again, and compare it to the last time you did sprint work in an adult class. Not very likely.)

In the Teens classes, it finally becomes time to start adding weight and resistance. If the athlete started with us in the Elements/Preschool class, they'll have been doing these movements and slowly refining them for somewhere between 2-*10* years. Squats? Like clockwork. Really efficient, safe clockwork. And the weights will definitely be the carrot we use to continue to get perfect form out of them. You want an Olympic bar? Your squat better bring tears to my eye about how good a coach I am (or how gifted an athlete you are in spite of me!) if you want me to let you start adding weight. It's also the stick: Improper form under weight will result in a warning to improve on the next rep, with the result being a stripping of weight if form doesn't improve. Why?

At this age (and even in the younger age groups), the child's body is going through massive changes, some good, some downright confusing. Say you've got a 14 year old boy, been in the box for 8 years. He knows his movements in and out. Squats like a champ, deadlifts like a budding power-lifter. Suddenly, over week or so, he has a growth spurt, and now his legs are an inch longer than they were (I might be overstating the difference, but since it feels like you grew a foot, I'll allow it), while his arms haven't changed the same amount. Every angle in the deadlift and squat has changed. What felt like simplicity itself a week ago is suddenly a mystery. For both safety's sake, and for the athlete's, the only proper call is to back off on the weight, re-grease the grooves, relearn the movements in the new and improved body, and continue working from there.  There is NO expectation of steady, perfect strength gains, just an understanding that a changing body is like adding in random accessory work, requiring time to learn and perfect form... again and again.

Eventually, when enough maturity and skill has been demonstrated, the teen may be invited to join the Teens Weightlifting Class, and start moving some serious iron. However, this is not to be mistaken for a "male body-part" measuring contest. As with all things CrossFit, the real competition isn't fostered between athletes, but between the athlete today and what she was doing yesterday, and what she wants to accomplish tomorrow. Gains will always be incremental, in the smallest jumps possible. How much more awesome to have a teen who PRs *every time* shee walks into the gym, than one who (like me, more than once) added 35# to a lift, only to find herself getting crushed every time she needs to move a percentage of that weight for reps. By this point, it's assumed these athletes will be finding sports to participate in, if not the Sport of CrossFit, and our job will be to complement what their coaches and trainers ask of them. Even in a "they're wrong, we're right" scenario, we're not making the final choice on who gets cut and who starts: Our job is just to help, and to stay out of the way, provided there are no safety issues with what the school/local team is asking of the athlete.

The pyramid above actually illustrates a concept that interests me greatly as a coach: The idea that, in order to have an impressive pyramid, you have to have an equally impressive foundation. The human body is much more like a pyramid than a sky-scraper (though top-level athletes successfully hide that fact). In order to perform at a pinnacle of success, a massive base of experience, strength, heart, and determination has to support it. CrossFit Kids is not about the pinnacle, but about laying the foundation. What the athlete does with it down the road? Only time will tell.

So "Why CrossFit Kids?" Instead, the question is actually "Why NOT CrossFit Kids?!"

12-07-31: Manmaker or man-breaker

Elm City CrossFit WoD for Tuesday, July 31st

---

WoD: 3 Rounds For Time

• 10 Dumbell Man-Makers @ 35#
• 20 Toes to Bar
• 1 Gym Loop of Crab Walk

3 Minutes after completion of the above, athletes will complete:
2 Rounds For Time

• 20 Wallball with Pushup
• GHD Hip and Back Extension 

Notes:

• Dumbell Man-Maker is initiated from the standing position. Athlete hits the deck with dumbells in hand, similar to a strict burpee. Athlete performs a pushup on the dumbells, dumbell row with each arm, another pushup on the dumbells, then returns to the standing position. Dumbells are then cleaned to shoulders and pressed or push pressed overhead. This cycle counts as 1 rep.
• Wallball with Pushup is initiated with a standard Wallball shot. After athletes receive rebound, they will put ball on the ground, and perform a pushup on the unstable ball. After the pushup, athlete will reset and initiate the next rep with a Wallball shot.
• Setup for GHD Hip and Back Extension is with athletes hips in front of the GHD pad. Athletes will then complete a standard Back Extension ["cat back"], with the movement finishing in full extension of the spine.

This one ended up being a war of attrition. I came into the workout with insanely sore and tight triceps, which were making my elbows and upper forearms ache too. I tried to roll and SMR some life back into them, but it didn't really seem to do too much. Then it was time to work.

The man-makers were ok for the first few, then became awful (picture burpees with even more work...), the toes to bar were bad when I was on the bar, but tolerable once I went over to pike sit-ups to avoid tears on my hands, and the crab walks were absolute torture. The worst part? Even after slowly slogging through all of that, there was MORE work to do. 

This was my first time attempting wallball push-ups. Because of the size of the ball, they end up being very tricep-centric. Seeing as how I was already 60 push-ups into the workout as a result of the first couplet, this just became slow and painful. After grinding through 20 reps, it was time for the GHD machine Hip/Back extensions. Comparatively, these were pretty easy, though as usual, I ended up feeling like my head was going to explode about 10 reps in, so I had to break these up, too.  Then it was back to the wallball push-ups, as the next class was coming in and starting to get warmed up. This set took longer than ever... but eventually... finally... it was done. Just a few more hip/back extensions more I would finally be done. 

I seriously thought I was going to DNF on this one, and it turns out the Coach nearly offered to cap me at 30 minutes, but because I just kept gutting through, he let me keep going. I think that's a good thing. I think. :S I ended up taking nearly a week off after this workout, because the additional stress on my triceps led to my elbows and forearms becoming even more sore.

12-07-28: ECC Throwdown Part 2

Elm City CrossFit Throwdown Part II WoDs

Shoulder to overhead, in this case using a shallow split jerk to drop a little under the bar.

Another shallow split jerk. Hard to tell from the picture, but his back leg doesn't seem "soft" enough, but the picture may not be from the actual catch, but when he was starting to transition to the full standing position in the third frame. If he can lift those weights... I assume he's got good form.

Ground to overhead with Sage Burgener. The final final frame would be with the weight held overhead, legs and hips fully extended. For the purposes of the throw-down, there was no requirement to ever get into a full squat position. For that matter, it didn't have to be a snatch, as pictured, but could have started with a clean to the shoulders, and then any form of shoulder-to-overhead. Anything goes...

Buck furpees.

Kettlebells with CrossFit Games former Champion Kris Clever and two time Champion Annie Thorisdottir. (CrossFit Games)

Box jumps. woot! (happilives.com)

How to do a wall ball. My only tweak would be in the final frame: It would be way more efficient to catch the ball with the forearms closer to vertical and the elbows bent a little more (more like the position in the first frame.) Cushion the catch by bending the knees, cycling straight into the next rep. The more you can maintain that form, the faster you can go. (CrossFit 714)

A scaled version of handstand push-ups. I opted for this scaling, knowing I wouldn't have 45 reps of band-assist in me, even with the stiffest bands. If these look easy, you've apparently never tried them. (Unless you do have unassisted handstand push-ups, in which case these probably are pretty easy. Shut up.) Note the nearly vertical torso. A common error is to have the hands out too far, turning it into an elevated regular push-up. Still a nice exercise, but not targeting the shoulder girdle or core in quite the same way. (Snoridge CrossFit)

---

WoD I

• 21-15-9
  
  • Deadlift @ 185#
  • Handstand Push-Ups (scaled to knees on the box)
• 10-8-6
  
  • Shoulders-to-Overhead @ 95#
  • Burpees

WoD II

• Wallballs til broken
• 3 minutes after last finisher
  5 rounds for time
  
  • 7 box jumps 30"
  • 5 Ground-to-overhead @ 95#

If I had written this two weeks ago... I might remember details other than ARGH! Owwie! It hurts!! I do remember my decisions on the scalings. Knowing that we were starting out with a workout named Diane (21-15-9 of 225# deadlifts and handstand push-ups), followed by another couplet involving the same bar (with a weight change), I decided to scale both weights by 40#, which would allow me to just slide the 45# plates off both sides of the bar between couplets. I also scaled the handstand push-ups to box handstand push-ups, knees on the box. For 45 reps, there was no chance of being in the bands and EVER finishing this workout! Our score on the WoD would be affected by the number of scalings, in my case, three.

For the second WoD, I went completely RXed, with my only nod to not killing myself being the decision to only complete 10 wallballs, rather than trying to do a ton of them, then finding my legs too crushed to actually complete the couplet. So, whatever time I got had ten seconds taken off (the number of wallballs completed counted as seconds to be subtracted from your total time... so if you did 90 wallballs and did the workout in 2 minutes, your total time would be only 30 seconds. Pretty sweet, if you have the motor to crank through a ton of wallballs, then recover enough to perform the workout well!

Comparatively, I don't remember details like my times and whatnot. All in all, it was an awesome showing from the ECC community, and great fun.  Even better was the barbeque afterwards, and showing off the newest member of our family, little baby Abby. It was also a nice opportunity to try some great paleo fair. Turns out that a burger without a bun, but cradled in a romaine leaf is *really freaking good.* A burger without a bun sticking to the back of your teeth is kind of a revelation! (Yup, I remember the food better than the workout. Go figure...)

12-07-24: Olympic clean and running couplet

Elm City CrossFit WoD For Tuesday, July 24th, 2012

The olympic clean. Performed perfectly.

Natalie Burgener performs a perfect clean and jerk. For today's workout, we were really only concerned with the first 3-4 frames (well, standing up to full extension with the bar on our shoulders, so past frame 4, but not launching the bar and dropping under it as in frame 5)

 

Again, we're only focusing on the first 5 frames of Sage Burgener demonstrating a great clean and jerk. 

I believe I just need a bit more inspiration to be an awesome runner. Perhaps not this much, though/?

---

WoD: 10 Rounds, each round begins every 75 seconds

• 3 Cleans [full squat] @ 75% of one rep max
• Crack Dash

A new round will begin every 75 seconds. Athletes rest will be remaining time in each round after they complete the work above.

After some good warm-up and oly lifting tips from Coach Greg, dealing especially with my starting position (adjusting to bring my weight further back on my heels, getting my shins more vertical from the starting position) and just trying to get past my tendency to still do the lift in two very separate parts (powering the bar up up vs. dropping under the weight), it was time to do some work.

For most of the rounds, I managed to get all the work done in about 45-50 seconds. I had just ONE goal: mechanics. I wasn't too overly concerned with my actual speed or making it through each round. Mechanics. Consistency. THEN Intensity. This is the bit that so many CrossFitters miss: They try for the intensity LONG before they can safely crank up the effort, performing a series of shitty reps, practicing shitty reps. Hardwiring themselves to always perform shitty reps. The difference between that approach (aka all intensity, all the time) and taking your time and seriously improving the mechanics as much as possible, so that even under pressure, the mechanics stay consistent, is the difference between a simple CrossFit kool-aid drinker and a CrossFit Games-caliber athlete. For a perfect example, the clean ladder from the men's and women's competitions. The only crappy reps were when people were shooting for PRs and at weights far beyond their capabilities...

So, fatigue started setting in, and I started taking longer and longer to complete my reps. Finally, I finished the run for the 8th round, and had just made it back to the bar when the buzzer went to start the 9th round. I took a few seconds to collect my breath and self-control, then did a rep. Again, the pause to gather myself. Another rep. All the other athletes had already headed out for the run. I still had some more work to do. Another pause. Another rep. Finally, it was time to run. I had just barely made the turn back from the endpoint of the run when I heard the timer go off again. I slogged back, the rest of the class running back out of the gym as I stumbled in. I could quit right now... I hadn't completed the 9th round before the 10th began. Ah, screw it. Where's the fun in that?

After spending a little bit of time staring at the bar, willing it to become lighter, I again fought through three reps, trying like hell to keep form and mechanics solid, trying to let the proper muscles actually lift the bar, and not resort to craptastic form instead. In all, despite the fatigue and gasping-for-breath bit, those felt like the best reps, because they HAD to be. Crappy form would have just resulted in failed reps, but all three of them (actually all 30 reps) landed solidly on my delts, I was pretty well under the bar, only riding the elevator down (ie, getting lower after already racking the weight... a waste of energy, but a requirement for practicing squat cleans, rather than accidentally practicing power cleans...).

One more run. Well, run is probably putting it a little strongly. Joggers could go faster than me. A good Manhattan commuter could easily have walked faster than me... but I was going to finish the freaking WoD, no matter how long it took me. And... eventually... I did.

12-07-26: Running, box jumps and pull-ups

Elm City CrossFit WoD for Thursday, July 26th, 2012

Camille LeBlanc-Bazinet makes running look easy. (CrossFir Games)

The box jump. Make that box twice as tall and you're onto something...

Heather Bergeron shows exactly why non-strong people struggle with pull-ups: They really do require almost every muscle in your body to be working. (crossfit.com)

---

WoD: 8 Rounds For Time

• 200 Meter Run
• 3 Box Jumps 30"
• 3 Dead Hang Pullups

Another workout that looked sort of easy on paper, but quickly degraded into a battle to the finish. We had the option of rowing 100m rather than running, and started out the session with a nice tutorial and quick coaching from Coach Larry, a varsity crew rower during his days at Syracuse U. (Can I say "our days" if I was somewhere on campus at the same time, even though I didn't know him then?) As always, for someone like me who taught himself for a few years before finally joining a gym and getting real coaching, there were plenty of cues and pointers to pick up, and the brief coaching/trouble-shooting he provided definitely highlighted and fixed a few problems I hadn't yet sorted out... or realized were problems. Tight shoulders? Who'd have thought?

After that, we set-up our boxes and pull-up stations, and then got to work. For the first few rounds, I felt pretty good, but it was definitely warm and muggy out, and I started having trouble controlling my breathing on the runs, meaning I was gasping by the time I got back for the box jumps, and 30" is a pretty tall jump to try to hit completely fatigued out. I tried to keep all the jumps more or less chained together (the standard was to stand up tall on top of the box, then step/hop down.), which I was fairly successful at. Then came the pull-ups. Each round, I alternated between pull-ups (palms facing away) and chin-ups (palms facing me), for the dual benefits of giving different muscles a break, and helping me keep track of what round I was on (pull-ups on the odd rounds, chins on the even ones).

As the rounds wore on, my prep time before the pull-ups/chins started to get longer, and after only a few rounds, I was down to grinding out singles anyways. The average time per round, which had started at a little over a minute, started to creep up, and by the final few rounds, the pull-ups alone were taking me that long. Still, drenched in sweat, I finally finished somewhere around the 13 minute mark, having done the entire workout RX'ed, even to the point of not using any bands for the pull-ups (though perhaps I should have.)  I had figured that it was just three at a time with enough time in between sets to rest... forgetting that between the running and pull-ups, there would be no rest. Silly dumbass.

12-07-17: That time I thought I was gonna die

Elm City CrossFit WoD for Tuesday, July 17th, 2012

Annie Sakamoto showing fantastic form on the long-stride version of the walking lunge. Note the knee lightly touching the ground, to truly light her quads on fire. (CrossFit)

How I felt about 2 rounds into this beast... (DeckTheHolidays.blogspot.com)

You'd better believe I was hallucinating through most of the crabwalks... (Designstuffdaily.com)

---

WoD: 5 Rounds for Time

• 20 Walking Lunges [un-weighted, each time your knee touches the ground = 1 rep]
• 200 meter run
• 1 Bear Crawl Loop [marked off inside gym]

How hard could it be... 5 rounds, some running, some lunges, a few bear crawls... How hard could it be?

Um. Very hard. I'm not writing this until a little over a week later, and I still remember the feeling that I was going to die round about the 3rd bear crawl. The feeling of utter suffocation was unbearable. The lunges were bad, the runs were terrible... but the bear crawls... deadly.

Total time: An eternity - a few minutes.

12-07-13: Friday the 13th Triplet

Elm City CrossFit WoD for Friday the 13th, July 2012

The overhead squat (shown to not-quite full-depth, though as always, it could just be a timing artifact, and she's .1 seconds before or after hitting full depth). As always, the hip crease should be BELOW the top of the knee. Way easier said than typed...

Former CrossFit-trainer and Paleo-guru Robb Wolf coaches the proper bottom position of the OHS. (crossfit)

This is how we got the bar into position, with the addition of getting the bar behind our heads BEFORE jerking it overhead, so that it would go straight up into the right position. We also didn't drop it and celebrate as soon as we got it up there... Natalie Burgener was really just doing a classic clean & jerk. 

Sage Burgener demos more proper clean & jerk technique. The other difference to note is that, when using this as the set-up for the OHS, the hand position ends up quite a bit wider, and the final foot stance stays closer to that in the 4th frame (top right), rather than closing up after the jerk to get the bar overhead. (crossfit)

Camille Leblanc-Bazinet showing awesome overhead squat positioning down in the bottom.  (CrossFit Games)

Original Firebreather Greg Amundson shows off perfect form coming out of the hole. (CrossFit)

CrossFit HQ's trainer Nicole Carroll looks way too comfortable in the bottom position. (CrossFit)

Proper box jumping, though I'd say the trunk lean in the very first frame might be a bit excessive. Still, going into and out of the slight squat, his trunk is kept mostly upright (as compared to having that much lean in the 4th frame), which saves considerable energy and wear-n-tear on the back.

Banded pull-ups. A necessary evil, I guess... Must get stronger, dammit! 

Camille LeBlanc-Bazinet mid-muscle-up, proving exactly why ring dips are so obviously crucial to the movement! (CrossFit Games)

---

WoD: 3 Rounds for Time

• 2 Overhead Squats @ 75% of Bodyweight or 1RM OHS = 95#
• 5 Box Jumps 30"
• 7 Dead Hang Pullups (blue band)

As I'm writing this, I'm also watching the 2012 Reebok Crossfit Games. It's refreshing to remind myself just how far I have to go if I ever want to pretend to compete on that stage (having paid my $20 get immediately eliminated in this year's Open leading up to the Games.) Damn impressive, even if, as usual, the chuckleheads posting on the live stream are (at least some of them) among the very worst that CrossFit has to offer. (As a side note, this week saw the shutting down of Beast Modal Domains, aka the Conscience of HQ, and the epic ignoring of CrossFit Mean Streets proving themselves to be the biggest d-bags on the planet...) I may yet end up writing a full opinion-piece on all of that... with the reminder to my few readers that, though I'm affiliated with a gym, I'm not an employee and my views are my own. (In other words, HQ can piss up a rope if they think they can shut me down by pressuring my affiliate or by sending anonymous packages to my employers. That post will actually be called "In Defense of CrossFit," but it will NOT be a kool-ade zombie defense...)

OK, back on topic. After a few days off, it was time for my first quick burner in some time. Overhead squats, limited more by my 1RM than my bodyweight, box jumps, and pull-ups. The only scaling I opted for was a band on the pull-ups. 7 rounds of 3 I would have done unbanded. 3 rounds of 7 is just too many at once. (Have I mentioned lately that I really need to tighten way up on my diet? It'll make things like pull-ups MUCH easier...) My overhead form on the OHS is getting much better, and I felt pretty solid warming up to my game weight of 95# (75% of my 1RM of 125#).  For this workout, we had to clean it from the bar, get it behind the head, then jerk it up overhead into the OHS squat position... more on that later.  Box jumps were no sweat. Banded pull-ups... well, they'll always annoy me.

First round went pretty much to plan. Annoyingly, in the second and third rounds, I struggled to keep the weight overhead on the 2nd OHS rep of each round. Though I didn't get no-repped, I decided then and there I would be doing some extra work after the WoD to make up for it. I finished with a total time of 3:58, with at least a minute of that coming while dealing with the barbell. I was usually able to get it cleaned up to the shoulders pretty quickly, and then behind the neck. After that, there was usually a (seemingly eternal) struggle to figure out hand placement and foot position. I kept trying to put my feet too wide or angled too far out, but then knowing that from that position, I'd set myself up for some severe knee caving action. So then the feet would have to come back in prior to starting a rep. All in all, it left me really distracted for the actual lifts, so in that light, its not surprising I was dumping to the front coming out of the second rep.

After the workout, I worked with Coach Greg for a bit on hand and foot positioning, and then banged out a set of 5 reps at 95#, all of which felt better than ANY of the reps in the workout. Hm, in hindsight, that does actually raise a complaint for me: I truly believe in the CrossFit approach of Mechanics -> Consistency -> Intensity. Given that, at the first moment I started struggling with form, I probably should have shit-canned the WoD for myself, and just focused on putting in solid work on the OHS all by itself. Dammit...

After my remedial OHS work, I set up some rings, which I haven't been on in a fairly long time, and put in some time working ring dips and ring rows. At some point (again, after finally getting food and diet stuff locked in, and some gut-padding shedded), I'd really like to start working towards a muscle-up. Finally. ;)  One thing I can't wait for is this: Finally buying a house (cleared for closing and mortgage stuff) in August. I'll finally be able to set-up the garage gym, and *this* time I'm planning on making full use of it. Rings, olympic bar and all. w00t!

12-07-10: Kettlebell swings and running

Elm City CrossFit WoD for Tuesday, July 10th, 2012

Kris Clever faces off against Annie Thorisdottir at the CrossFit Games. Both have been champions, and will be trying to either defend or reclaim their title this weekend. 

Graham Holmberg, 2010 CrossFit Games Men's Division champion, shows perfect extension (the slight bend in the elbows actually signals that the weight has started coming back down a fraction of a second before the shot was taken).

No less inspiring than games champions, everyday folk like you and me can perform full extension, overhead kettlebell swings. It just takes a little practice and confidence to know that for the most part you won't drop it on your own head...

Camille Leblanc-Bazinet runs in the CrossFit Games.

---

WoD: 18 minutes - As Many Rounds As Possible [AMRAP]

• 10 Kettlebell Swings [55#]
• 200 Meter run
• 1 Minute rest

Athletes will track their own minute of rest starting from when you first re-enter the garage door after your 200 meter run. Each couplet of KBS and Run is followed by rest.

Just keep up with the endurance specialists. Try to monitor breathing, especially while running.  Try to keep breathing slow and deep, through the nose as much as possible. Try to keep the intervals about the same. Don't over sprint on one round and drag-ass on the next. Just keep working.

With all of those mantras floating through my head, and a good distribution of athletes ahead of me to try to keep with, and behind, to try to stay ahead of, this was a pretty damn good workout. I was definitely reduced to sucking wind occasionally, but I really tried to keep my pacing and breathing under control, ending with an average round time (not including the rest minute) of around 1:10. There were out-lyers of 1:05 and 1:25, but they were the exceptions.

I opted for a fairly heavy kettlebell, not the Rx'd 70#, but the next one down, 55#. While not a heavy weight by itself, I'm still new enough at doing the standard overhead swing with a heavy kettlebell that going any heavier would probably have been a death sentence... if not for me, then for everyone in my immediate vicinity!  In all, I was glad I managed to stay unbroken on both the kettlebells and the running. With only 10 reps at a time, stopping on the kettlebells would have been unthinkable, but on the runs... even for such a short distance... well, it occurs to you, or at least to me, about 150m in, how nice it would be to just stop and walk for a bit... maybe breathe a bit too, while I'm at it. So, to ignore those voices and just keep working, that felt pretty good.

8 rounds @ 1:05 - 1:25 per round.

12-07-09: Deadlifts, Wallballs and Push-Ups

Elm City CrossFit WoD for July 9th, 2012

The deadlift. See a heavy weight, squat down, and pick it up. Done.

Heather Bergeron right before or after locking out the deadlift at the CrossFit Games. 

Camille Leblanc-Bazinet prepares to deadlift. Or clean. Rotten freeze-frame photography!

---

• WoD: Strength
  • 5x5 Deadlift @ 85% = 340# 315#

  Rest as needed between work sets.
• 3 Minutes after your last work set:
  • 1 Minute of Max Rep Wallballs 20#
  • 1 Minute of Max Rep Pushups
  No Rest between Wallballs and Pushups.

Post number 300!  Ah, the joys of a big, round number! Ah, the joys of heavy deadlifts.  Having somewhat recently increased my 1RM to 400#, I was (rightly) concerned about my ability to do reps at a substantial percentage of that weight. During the warm-up, 315# felt damned heavy, and I wasn't too psyched about adding another 25# to it, feeling that the first point of failure would actually be my grip. Thankfully Coach Wheels was there to keep me completely distracted from my grip by working with me to increase (and maintain) my lumbar back arch, as I'm prone to letting it release, especially on the eccentric/negative part of the movement. Not such a problem on a 1RM attempt with no negative, but VERY bad when doing heavy reps.

After working my way through all five sets, resting between 3-4 minutes between each, it was time to rest before hitting the wall-balls and push-ups. I spent the 3 minutes rest unloading my bar and keeping moving, hoping the "active rest" would do me well. When it was time to hit the wall-balls, I managed to keep moving for the first 40 seconds unbroken, then finished up the final 15 seconds (a few to breathe, ya know), and managed 24 reps.

Then it was on to the push-ups. I was hoping for at least 10 in the first shot, more if I was lucky. However, I faceplanted after the fifth rep. Turns out deadlifts and wall-balls actually tax a lot of the same muscles, and the aerobic fatigue from the wall-balls certainly took their toll on the push-ups, too. Total reps = 16.

12-07-04: July 4th Team WoD

Elm City CrossFit WoD for July 4th, 2012

Precisely the disaster we tried to avoid by having a staggered start. If this WAS us, I'd be the jerk in the back waving. For sure.

Burpees defined. (Lean Primal Fit)

Truth.

Plate carries. These always suck, but as a bigger guy, they aren't the absolute worst... until someone passes me at a dead run with a plate. Jerk. (River North CrossFit)

   

I can't tell if she's resting, but *this* is the standard full contraction position: shoulders in FRONT of the hips. Crunches and other crap will NOT fly. (CrossFit 817)

NNNNNNNNOOOOOOooooooooooo........! (CrossFit Battlefield)

Push-ups. Keep your junk off the ground, but your chest should touch. Repeat until you crash face first into the ground. Repeat THAT. (BaseOps)

---

Team WoD:
Every member of the team must complete the following:

• 200m run
• 30 burpees
• 400m plate carry 45#
• 40 sit-ups
• 100m overhead walking lunges 25#
• 50 push-ups

For Independence Day, Elm City CrossFit celebrated our Independence Together with a team WoD. 8 teams of 4 athletes tackled this one, with the only curve-ball being that only one member at a time could run the 200m, tagging in the next person as they finished it, to stagger the start, and not have a crowd of 32 people running around the parking lot.  As designated "burpees will crush me guy," I lobbied hard to go first. After all, my teammates (two coaches and a distance monster) would easily pass me later on, while if I went last, I would NEVER catch up!

The run felt pretty good, as I managed to pace off of one of our faster athletes, allowing me to come in second (not that anything was being counted that early on), and hit the burpees. I felt good to match that athlete coming out of the burpees, too. (Bear in mind, she's a few months post-pregnancy and VERY well rested what with raising a few-month-old...AND she still kept ahead of me!) 

The weighted carry was ok, though I started it steady and slow, and by the end was trotting to keep from falling to the back of the pack. The sit-ups were fine. My turn-over is a lot slower than a lot of other people, mostly on the relaxation part of it... I'm not sure why, but its something to look into as far as tweaking how I do movements to both maximize efficiency and speed. There's almost no way a slow relaxation/eccentric phase in the sit-up is helping me.

Then the wheels fell off.

Walking lunges suck on the best of days. But a hot day, with a 25# plate overhead with arms locked out, is just that much more awful. Talking about it after the fact, it was funny how my mental negotiations kept falling apart: "OK, first 'round' was 12 lunges... rest, then do 12 more. Ok, go... Ok, that was only 3 more. OK, let's do sets of three. Fine. Crap, that was only 2. Why can't I breathe!?"  For a while, I just tried to keep up with the pack... then to keep ahead of the pack behind me... then to keep up with the pack that HAD BEEN behind me.

After that struggle, it was time yet again to face the fact that I have a few push-ups in me, but not a lot. With 50 of them to knock out, I hit the first set as hard as I could, coming up with 14. Six more got me to 20. A few sets of 5 got me to 40... then it was singles and doubles the rest of the way out. Meanwhile, almost every other team had finished, while I faced a puddle of my own sweat and dared my arms and pecs to do another rep. Finally, we finished (when I finally finished) with a time of 24:22 (or maybe 22:24?)  Either way, it felt like it took a LOT longer than that, mostly because of the hell of walking lunges.

Overall, I felt pretty good, performance-wise, but there's no doubt that if my lunges or push-ups were better, I'd have done better (der!), but my team would have done a lot better, too.