The Cortisol Connection by Shawn Talbot. Cortisol is the "stress hormone". Cortisol is good for you, but needs to be kept in check, much like cholesterol or insulin. My knowledge of cortisol is basic, but simply: cortisol is good before an effort, and bad after. The "stress", or anticipation for an event (be it a WOD, a public speaking engagement, etc) prepares you and readies your body. After the effort, elevated cortisol levels can lead to other maladies.
Bob W snatching. Bob is a tall dude, and has to move that bar a long way…
Workout Of The Day
Strength/Skill
Snatch
1-1-1
Build to a heavy single
Snatch Pulls
3-3-3
Metcon
"Randy"
75 Snatches for time
Men - 75, Ladies - 55
Commitment
Monday, July 11, 2011
Yesterday, I had some training notes on our deadlifting plan. For the remainder of the summer, we will alternate between back squats one week, and front squats the next. Each squatting session, (after a warm up with some lighter squatting) will consist of a heavy set of 5, two sets of 3, two sets of 1, and a final set. The final set, which will change every two weeks, is the max effort set. This final set is where you will find your 3RM, 5RM, 10RM, or the dreaded 20RM. To hit this final sets effectively, you will need to know your abilities so you can best maximize your work in the time given. So be prepared and know your abilities and the numbers (within reason) that you want to hit.
Personally, I have a specific plan for each one of these lifts. I chart each set of squats on my training log, and my next session I attempt to improve on my last session.
Total Commitment. Cool post on a Japanese Judo master. It's a coincidence that I just watched a pretty cool film, 13 Assassins, about some committed Samurai. Very similar to The Seven Samurai, or it's American doppleganger, The Magnificent Seven.
I grew up obsessed with warrior cultures and histories. My brother's and I read and watched everything we could get our hands on. This was right in my wheelhouse.
Workout Of The Day
Strength/Skill
Back Squat
5-3-3-1-1-Heavy Single
Metcon
3 RFT
Run 400m
35 Wallball Shots
21 Pullups
Grace, deadlifting and new coconut water prices…
Sunday, July 10, 2011
We had some great Grace times on Friday! We had multiple low 2 minute times, which is awesome. Now improvement becomes the hard part. I probably the same advice to everyone. This is what I would do for the next 6 weeks to improve on Grace.
Build to your big set out of the gate. BUT you may want to be conservative. If you can get 17 straight, but that blows out your engine, maybe you need to stop at 15. Then, take a quick rest, and get back on the bar for 3's (or 5, or another 15, depending on your strategy.
The hardest part of Grace is after you complete your big set. Completing reps in sets of more than 1 becomes very difficult when you've just red-lined your engine. But that's exactly what you need to do. If you can hold to doubles and triples instead of singles, you will go faster. It just takes too much time to allow the bar to settle on singles. Your goal should be to delay the onset of single reps until the mid-20's.
There's a way to train this. Following a WOD, throw your Grace weight on the bar (if you're not interrupting a class). Do 3 sets of 3 C&J, Grace style (touch and go, fast). Or 4 sets of 2. Or whatever meets your strategy. But do it when you're tired, just like you will be after 15 or so clean and jerks. I would try this once or twice a week.
On deadlifting (or lack thereof)
You may have noticed we have not deadlifted for the strength portion in a few weeks. That is by design. First off, many of your are really good at it. Second, we deadlifted every week for 6 months. Guys and gals hit major lifts, now it's time to adjust the focus. On the mens side, we have 2 500# deadlifters, a couple more in the 450 range and close to a dozen that hover around 400. That's strong. In effect, we are still deadlifting every week, but now it's as clean pulls and snatch pulls which are faster and more dynamic.
Deadlifts will still come up in the conditioning (Metcon) portion of the class. But the clean/snatch pulls really emphasize the grip needed for the heavy,fast pulling. The speed and power that you have to generate move the bar on the clean and the snatch will carry over to your deadlift.
So, please fight the urge to "break" your sets of 3 on the pulls. Hang onto the bar, and work the movement.
Raley's just jacked up the price of Amy&Brian's Coconut Water by $0.40! WTF?!?
Workout Of The Day
Strength/Skill
Clean
1-1-1
Quickly build to a heavy single
Clean Pulls
3-3-3
Use your final heavy Clean for your first set of clean pulls.
K-Star points out in this post the difference between mobility work and warming up. Any joint work or rolling done before your work should target focus on prepping the body for the work to done or to relieve muscle stiffness. BUT, this work does not replace a thorough, dynamic warmup. K-Star explains this in the attached video, and also shows how to integrate his drills into your dynamic warmup to recover tissue.
Stretching: The Truth from the New York Times. This article is from 2008, but you can see some of the stretches we use on the left side of the page.
My $.02. I do basically the same dynamic warmup every time I workout. I do different mobility recovery and joint prep every time, depending on the work ahead. I usually roll and do band work before my warmup, to recover muscle tissue and see how tight my joints are. Then I do my dynamic warmup, and go back and usually hit the joints again with band work (or the squat test).
Workout Of The Day
For time:
Run 800m
30 Thrusters
30 Pullups
Run 600m
20 Thrusters
20 Pullups
Run 400m
10 Thrusters
10 Pullups
Men - 95, Ladies - 65
For the 10am Advanced WOD
Part 1 Heavy Jerks and Lateral Burpees (3-10min workout)
Part 2 ???
Grace Challenge
Thursday, July 07, 2011
US Army Cuts Off Five Fingers, Bangs Head. I'm going to beat up the Army a bit here. I found my time in the Army (which was peacetime, pre-9/11) to be incredibly frustrating, for reasons much like the Five Fingers ban. The emphasis on appearance over performance was something that affected over daily lives, almost hour to hour. That's one of the reasons I appreciate Crossfit so much: performance is absolute.
K-Star mobs the lower leg. I don't mob my calves enough (I spend most of my time on back, hips, glutes). But the lower leg is sooo important, probably because that's were we connect to the ground. Over 10 years ago, I had a serious ankle sprain in the Army, and I wasn't able to recover. Everyday we did the same WOD, run fast for 5 miles. This constant exercise, which I wasn't really allowed to deviate from led to serious compensation issues. My ankle pain and decreased mobility led to longer term hip and knee problems, with decreased performance. The only recovery work I did was to trace the alphabet with my toes. In my opinion, this injury, which occurred in '99, took me until '07 to fully recover, when I was doing Crossfit everyday.
