Monday 3.21.11

Back Squat 5-5-5-5

5 Rounds

10 Wall Balls

20 Ball Slams

Click Icon above to Register

*They extended the deadline for registering and  the first wod. We currently have 16 people on our team, how awesome is that? If you still are on the fence about it, you have another week to decide when and if you would like to do the wod. I will be posting the times that you can come in to be judged on monday!

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I have to address something. Your Progress. Bear with me here…

“intensity is the independent variable most commonly associated with maximizing favorable adaptation to exercise.”

Intensity isn’t the end all be all of Crossfit. I’m not asking you to be doubled over on your hands and knees after every workout…But if you aren’t there flat on your back in at least 1 workout a week…We are going to have some problems at some point. That being said. Intensity is the issue with some of our athletes. Here is an example.

Lets say I want to get better abdominal strength, or just to get better at sit ups.

I start by intoducing sit ups at the end of my workout, lets say 100 sit ups, every other day, you don’t time them, you just lay down and do them at your own pace.

For the first month (give or take a few weeks) I will notice the results and changes from those 100 sit ups. I have introduced a stimulus that my body will attempt to adapt to, and our bodies are very good at adapting to stimulus, hence the great progress everyone gets in the first 1-3 months here at crossfit. Because you just got whacked in the face with a broad amount of stimulus. This is the point where “Just coming in and doing the work at your own pace” does just fine for everyone.

At some point.. I will hit that dreaded Plateu, the point of no progress. It will then begin to give you diminishing returns on your 100 sit up investment, as once it’s achieved a semi comfortable balance, it has no need to adjust at a rapid rate.

I will get this at some point….”I do 100 sit ups every other day, I saw some results, why am I not seeing any more changes?”

Why? Because your body has adapted to that stimulus. You need to now make a change, you need a more complex stimulus for your body to adapt to. Either, more sit ups, and more..and more…and more…, or make them harder, weighted, GHD… OR the more efficient route. The same amount of sit ups. But faster, and faster, and faster. The way we can mix this up is as much as creativity will allow. Just as long as you are challenging yourself. This gives me a more complex stimulus to adapt to with each and every bout of sit ups, thus providing faster-further results.

Your numbers…

This is why your freakin’ numbers are important to me, and they should be important to you as well. They push that intensity by giving you a personalized challenge. You will make more progress paying attention to YOUR OWN numbers than you do other peoples. DONT get fixated on how nick is stronger than you, or zaki is faster, or that Evan is better looking than all of us. there will be a point where challenging others will push you past what you thought even you were capable of.  But for now, pay attention to you, and be better than you were yesterday.

So Pardon my french…but How in the f*ck do you know if you are getting faster or stronger if you aren’t tracking the numbers. I’m not asking you to write every single workout down on paper, the time you did it, what you ate before and after, the weather, wind direction and speed, what boxers you were wearing…. but the important named wods, strength (back squat, overhead squat, deadlift…etc..) speed markers(200m time, 400m time, etc) gymnastics markers (pull ups with Green band, ring dips..etc etc) are crucial if you care about your progress. Some are more crucial than others depending on where your focus is. If I ask abby what her overhead squat is and she has a vague idea, thats understandable, its not her main focus. but since she is working on pull ups, when I ask her how many she has with a green band for max reps she should tell me immediately 10 3/4 pull up. Because its important enough to her to track. That is where the shifting focus on goal setting comes into play.

Unless you know every benchmark by heart, you need to be tracking them. This gives you that “Measurable, Observable, Repeatable” result that I am looking for. The numbers, they do not lie. That way I can see if we are making progress, not making progress, hitting a plateau, and what we should do about it.

This same concept holds true for your nutrition as well. Lets say I have a bad diet and I need to take diet coke and grains out of my diet. BAM instant awesome results…then, a couple months. a Plateau. My body has adapted to the healthier lifestyle, but in order to make a further change..I need something slightly more complex, No bread, no dairy, no pop…then take out artificial sweeteners, then perhaps make a jump to cleaner meats, local foods, Im not saying you need to be a Paleo zombie and never eat ice cream, but you need to understand that the things you are shoving in your mouth have a direct correlation to your progress in here. Experiment, see how I can tinker with my diet for performance. Im not saying everything needs to be down to the macronutrient, weighed and measured, grass fed organic blah blah blah…but you have to ask yourself, if what I am doing isnt working…maybe its time to be open to something different.

I digress

Im not asking you to puke, or collapse after every workout. I am not gung ho on that type of stuff. But there will be a time when your progress will depend on that kind of intensity more and more often, and you are going to have to push through it.

At that point you have to ask yourself a question, am I comfortable where I am at? If the answer is yes, that is perfectly okay with me! If you come in and just want to have fun and  throw weights around at your own pace, that is fine. I have fun with you guys no matter what.

I will constantly give people “homework” to do, you ask me… “how do I do this?” I say “do this”, if it doesnt work, lets try something else, if THAT doesnt work, then lets try something else, There is a lot of trial and error involved in training and nutrition because everyone adapts and changes to everything a little differently.  I won’t give up if you wont. I understand that as we get more and more members here I get busier. But there will never be a time where I cannot make time for you all individually, you just have to come to me and say, hey, lets talk, or lets set a time when we can talk. 10 minutes after the workout or before when I am mob deep in stuff to do isn’t always the best time

But if you come to me and say “that didnt work,” and you didn’t do what I told you to do, and you didn’t have a good reason not to do what I told you to do. how do you expect to make results?

The results you get will be in direct proportion to the effort you put into all of this. You need to decide what an agreeable amount of effort is for you. Balancing work, home life, kids, relationships, training, nutrition, etc etc is hard. Some of us don’t have the option to be able to get advanced with it based on these things. But you may need to make some sacrifices to find that happy balance between your health, performance, and the shit that is bad for you that you wont give up.

I completely understand if you work 18 hours a day, and you never get sleep, which hurts your training, which doesn’t give you the best performance. But YOU need to make the choice, either change your life and get more sleep, or come  to terms with the progress you can make at the level of effort you are putting in to this.

If you want to be better with each passing month. You have to push yourself. Im not saying be stupid and push past an injury or soreness. or kill yourself when you are low on sleep, or if you are sick. But when you are having a good day, go f*ckin’ nuts, kill the workout, lay on the floor. get up, brush yourself off, and do it again the next day. Eat cleaner, go faster, lift bigger, recover smarter, get better sleep, and don’t bitch. I genuinely do care about all of your progress, I take it seriously. I take it to heart when someone comes to me saying they are concerned that they aren’t making any progress.

-B