Crossfit Chilliwack

Over the Christmas Holidays I spent 3 weeks training at the new box in my hometown. I had a great time at Crossfit Chilliwack with a bunch of great people! I can't wait to get back and see how they've grown.

Crossfit Taranis

Over the holidays I went to Victoria to visit Ben "Famine" Wheeler aka Wheels. We did a lovely 5km row at Crossfit Taranis. This box is huge! Best of luck to Ben and his training endeavors at his new box. I'm sure you'll have a tonne of clients in no time. I look forward to seeing him at the regionals in Calgary.

Workouts

Keep lean and mean over the holidays!

Workouts can now be found at:
www.4horsemenweightlifting.blogspot.com

or alternatively at
www.crossfit.com or www.crossfitfootball.com
www.performancemenu.com
www.optimumperformancetraining.blogspot.com/
www.coachrut.blogspot.com

Training at Powerplay

I have become tired of working out at campus rec. as it is too busy, too crowded and lacks proper equipment. I will now be doing Crossfit, O-lifting and strength workouts at Power Play Training Centre (865 Florence street, London, ON N6G 5W5). They have all the equipment I need to do any workout I wish (2 full O-lift sets/platforms/racks, GHD, Back ext, pullup station, kettlebells dumbbells, barbells and weights a plenty, box jumps, a 40 yrd indoor track, treadmills, bikes, med-balls, etc. and I'm bringing a C2 rower, some rings and a few other goodies that I will leave at the gym for general use). I have a deal setup with the manager Ryan for anyone that is interested it's $50/month and you can come by whenever they are open but they do run training sessions throughout the day so it can be a little busy at times especially 6-8:30pm (though the O-lifting platforms are usually free at this time) . I train at lunch time 12:30-1:30pm since that is their slow time (we had the whole place to ourselves today), so if you want to join me and Brad for a workout drop on by or give us a shout and we can car pool from Western.

*Additional Note* - Winterlift is in Sarnia on February 13th, 2010 and Crossfit Sectionals are in Toronto March 20-21st, 2010. It's never too late to start preparing so get out and work hard!

Killin' it For a Cure!

October is breast cancer awareness month and today I had a chance to participate in the "Killin' it for a Cure" fundraiser at Crossfit Will County. It was a fun event consisting of a team WOD. Teams of two had to complete the following: 3rnds of 20 Clean&Jerk 135#, 40 Kettlebell swings 53#, 30 pullups. My partner Mike (Crossfit Naperville) and I finished the task in 13:25, here's a pic of the two of us post workout.

Crossfit Chicago

I had a few hours off from doing research at the APS so I dropped in to Crossfit Chicago on Friday. Little did I know I would be in for a little treat called "Linda" aka 3 bars of death! Good bunch of guys/gals and a puppy make up this quaint little box. Coach Rudy Tapalla ran the WOD while Coach Bryce Wood motivated and spotted me through out the workout. I had a great time guys and I look forward to sporting my new crossfit chicago t-shirt.

Good Crossfit - Bad Crossfit

There are a lot of crossfits out there, some are good and some are bad!

http://library.crossfit.com/free/pdf/CFJ_Handson_DilutingTheBrand.pdf

The truth is that people who offer great Crossfit or other services will do exceptionally well and people who offer mediocre crossfit will still do ok. The reason being is that even poorly executed crossfit programming and functional movements provide a better workout that 90% of the programs / globo gyms / personal trainers out there. The magic is in the movements, even when those movements are not done exactly as they should be. It seems wierd but it is the truth. There are 1000's of people a month becoming new crossfit trainers and opening up their own affliates who know nothing about how to train people. Some of these will do well as coaches and others not so well but hopefully they will be constantly learning how to be better coaches and that makes all the difference. All good coaches and trainers started off as amateurs before they became all-stars it just takes time. New unqualified trainers will unfortunately injure a client or two but this will hopefully remind them to keep improving their knowledge in exercise physiology, biomechanics, olympic lifting, etc. I have trained at a lot of bad crossfits, some get better everytime I go back and some don't. The only good thing is that eventually there will be 5-10 Crossfits in every big city and 2-4 in every small town and the crappy crossfits will all be weeded out.

Alec Hanson from Crossfit Costa Mesa says it best (CFJ article )- "A great trainer is someone who inspires those they train. They create new opportunities for their members. They push them and encourage them and are invested in their lives and their success. If they are bad trainers, their clients will either get hurt, hit plateaus or realize they don’t really know anything and leave."

For all new trainers I think it is important for them to stick with what they know and slowly expand their knowledge. People can get very fit doing 4rnds of 400m run, 50 air squats or 3rnds of 30 pushups, 50 situps. Sometimes less is more (effective and safe)! Use the tools you have and then build from there. As your clients grow so will their needs and your coaching will have to follow suit because if you can't keep up they will leave. If you can't do a clean and jerk or if you don't know the proper way to teach the movement then you can't expect your clients to perform them in the workout. When you have some idea of how the C&J goes you can put it into the programming at low weight for high reps and when you have a solid foundation of the C&J you can start to get your clients lifting heavy singles. (This is the same reason I don't teach people how to do backflips.)

So which is worse, doing crossfit.com by yourself (can't see form) at a Globo Gym or working out at a Crappy Crossfit (doing horrible programming)? The answer is different for everyone for me it's the crappy crossfit but for someone who doesn't know the movements correctly it is the globo gym. Either way both are better than the typical "back and bicept" day followed by 30 min of cardio when trying to get fit.

Keep functional, keep fit!

Trainers - Keep learning you never know enough and keep up to the needs of your clients or lose them!

Athletes - If you are not seeing results or you find yourself getting hurt/injured find a new trainer!

Take your workouts to go!

The following is a list of workouts that can be performed on the road, away from the gym. Look for pieces of the environment that can be used as equipment ie. benches (for box jumps), retaining walls (for box jumps), tree branches (for pullups), big stones (for "kettlebell" swings, press or thrusters) etc.

21-15-9 of Squats and Pushups rest 2-3 min and repeat as necessary.

100 burpees

Max rounds in 20 min of: 5 pushups, 10 situps, 15 squats

400m run x 4-6 (rest 2-5 min in between)

1 mile run, rest 5 min, 1 mile run

4 rnds for time of: 50 squats, 400m Run

3 rnds for time of: 20 burpees, 50 situps

100 pushups, 100 situps, 100 squats

5 rnds of: 15 clapping pushups, 25 hollow rock, 35 jumping squats

400m walking lunges

tabata (20s work, 10s rest) pushups, situps, burpees, squats

5 rnds of: 1 min Handstand, 10 pistols

10 rnds of: 100m sprint, 10 burpees, rest 1 min

3 rnds of: 200m run, 30 squats, 20m bear crawl, 10 burpees, 20m bear crawl

50-40-30-20-10 tuck jumps and situps/V-ups

21-15-9 Handstand pushups and pushups

3 rnds of: 20 squats, 15 burpee broad jumps, rest 2min

3 rnds of: 50 supermans, 50 situps

5 rnds of: 10 pushups, 10 jumps for height, 200 m sprint
2min rest
5rnds of: 10 pushups, 10 broad jumps, 200m sprint

Practise your Gymnastics:
Handsprings
Handstands
Elbow levers
Flags
Tumbles/rolls
L-sits
and all the one arm/leg and straddle/tuck variations

Go Hiking!

Go Swimming!

Go Bike riding!

Go Running!

Rings, or a jump rope are small enough to fit in your suitcase and will add even more variety to your workouts.

Calgary Trip

At the beginning of this month I had a chance to visit two kick ass crossfits - Crossfit Calgary and Crossfit Cowtown both located in Calgary NW and only minutes away from my sisters place. I was able to meet all time Crossfit great James "OPT" FitzGerald and join his morning class for a good butt kick. It is always great to train with great trainers, I always pick up some good tips on training and coaching. I spent most of my time in Calgary at the new Crossfit Cowtown box - owned by my friends Sean and Dani - Sean crushed me with a few killer WODs and we had a good time getting things ready for their grand opening on international bacon day. These new kids on the block are eager, ready and determined to make it big! Trainers with passion like this are hard to come by. I look forward to seeing where they are when I return next summer.

The Warm-up!

A good warm up is the key to a successful workout. In general, the shorter the workout the longer the warm-up! The quicker or more explosive you are while doing something under load the higher the potential for disaster/injury. High acceleration = High Force (F=m*a) especially at high mass/weight. So if you are going for a slow jog you probably don't need to warm up the muscles because the jogging is such a low stress/shock on the system that it will essentially be your warm-up. However if you are going to hit 6x50m sprints then you are probably going to want to do some amount of warm-up - like a light jog, then a faster jog, then a slow run, then a fast run and finally a sprint at ~90%. The same goes for heavy lifting do a few reps at 45% (5reps), 65% (3reps), 85% (2reps) before attempting your first lift (100%). The warm-up should not be too hard and essentially just there to get your muscles full of blood and loose, allowing you to move all your joints/limbs through the full ranges of motion needed in the exercises you will be doing. Do the warm-up at a comfortable pace but don't take to long, save some time for the actual workout!

My favourite way to warm-up is as follows:
1.) 2 minutes skipping - singles (so easy to do, very little range of motion, very low effort but get the heart pumping)
2.) dynamic movement (arm and leg circles, toe touches etc. just get those limbs moving in a full range of motion)
3.) basic body movements (air squats, pushups, situps, pullups, back extensions - pretty basic stuff, nothing fancy but it warms up the muscles in a large range of motion)
4.) the sticking points. I only use static stretching on anything that is super tight - hips, and ankles are the big ones here. The preferred method to loosening up the hamstrings, glutes and quads and pretty much everything else is PNF. *Note* most static stretching should be done post-workout as it can have a detrimental effect on performance if done pre-workout (hips are usually only exception to the rule).
5.) If needed foam roller on the sore areas
6.) raise the heart rate a bit (all that stretching can lower the heart rate and you start to get cold, you should have a slight sweat on before you start the workout) I like to do skipping -Double Unders.
7.) Practise - go through any movements which you are unsure of or rusty that are in your workout. If it is a lift do reps with the bar and then 45%, 65%, 85%.
8.) Mentally focus on the task at hand - take a minute or two to rest and think about how you will complete the workout, close your eyes and image yourself doing each exercise to completion until you are finished
9.) Grab some water to rehydrate, and chalk up.
10.) Kick butt on the workout.

Foolin' around with the big fat pink lady - A visit to Crossfit Saskatoon

TGU with the big fat pink lady (2.5 pood) & Crossfit Saskatoon

Today I managed to fit in a WOD at Crossfit Saskatoon. It was a 5x5 Thruster rest 3-5min and then work up to a max Turkish Get-up. It was a great experience, I love visiting all the different Crossfit affiliates they are always so welcoming. Crossfit Saskatoon is no exception to the rule, I was welcomed with open arms and got a great workout in. If you are in the area do drop by and check them out, the head trainer is Chad Benko a very knowledgeable and great guy.

Scale-ability

Monika doing some Overhead squats with a PVC pipe

The scalability of exercises is key when following a program not specifically tailored for one individual. It is exactly as it sounds - the scaling of an exercise to the abilities of that individual. It is a necessary part of any program involving complex movements over a full range of motion

"The question regularly arises as to the applicability of a regimen like CrossFit’s to older and deconditioned or detrained populations. The needs of an Olympic athlete and our grandparents differ by degree not kind. One is looking for functional dominance the other for functional competence. Competence and dominance manifest through identical physiological mechanisms. We’ve used our same routines for elderly individuals with heart disease and cage fighters one month out from televised bouts. We scale load and intensity; we don’t change programs. We get requests from athletes from every sport looking for a strength and conditioning program for their sport. Firemen, soccer players, triathletes, boxers, and surfers all want programs that conform to the specificity of their needs. While admitting that there are surely needs specific to any sport, the bulk of sport specific training has been ridiculously ineffective. The need for specificity is nearly completely met by regular practice and training within the sport not in the strength and conditioning environment. Our terrorist hunters, skiers, mountain bikers and housewives have found their best fitness from the same regimen."
Greg Glass - From the "What is Fitness" article, CFJ.

The general idea is to start with a light load and work on technique, once the technique is sound then and only then start increasing the (intensity) speed and load. Everyone has to master the basic movement patterns before they can increase the difficulty. We modify our workouts to fit the abilities of each individual trainee. Getting the most out of each client is the key to their success and by allowing them to achieve the highest output they are capable of by scaling the weights and exercises is only logical. Anyone can do "Crossfit" or any other strength and conditioning program provided you don't make them do more than they are capable of doing. If they can't run make them jog, if they can jog make them walk etc. If 200lbs is too much let them do 80#, if 80# is still to much scale them down to a PVC pipe or a weight they can handle. I put my mother through a workout with just a broom stick. Getting her to just practice doing deadlifts, press and overhead squats for 5-10 reps was a good start for someone who has not moved that way for years. It wasn't a huge task for her to complete but she felt it the next day and it was a great place to start. Now she has been doing it for a while and has better range of motion and flexibility throughout these movements, soon I will have her try it while holding soup cans. Once the basic movements are sound we can increase the load and eventually the intensity.

Below is a small list of subs. From hardest to easiest
Handstand Pushups - Handstand holds - declined pushups - pushups - inclined pushups - knee pushups.
Strict pullups - kipping pullups - jumping pullups - ring rows
GHD situps - V-ups - situps
Knees to elbows - knees to chest - knees to parallel

By decreasing the range of motion or by creating more favorable levers with our body we can simplify the exercise while still getting the desired muscular stimulus. Just start at a point where you are able to safely complete the movement and go up slowly from there. It's called scalability and it will eventually get you to where you want to be - the ability to do things unscaled.

It's a Fran off!!!

The main event of the evening was a battle of two heavy weights - Murph vs. Wheels in an all out Fran off!




After round 1 it was neck and neck, but the second round seemed to be the deciding factor. There is nothing like a bit of competition to bring out the top performances.

A visit to Crossfit Scotland

At the beginning of March I had the opportunity to visit my cousin Eryn and rest of the McFee clan in my motherland of Scotland. After hitting the big cities of Glasgow and Edinburgh, and a whiskey tour/tasting, I was in need for a major ass whooping. Fortunately, only 15 min from the McFee's house in the neighbouring town of Irvine (Ayrshire) is Crossfit Scotland. I called them up the day before, to ask if I could join the noon class for the WOD. I got there about 30 min early excited to hit the workout hard. I had been in Italy for the entire month of February limited to bodyweight only workouts (I was also on a gelato heavy diet and about 10lbs heavier than normal - definitely needed some intense CFit). As soon as I walked in the door I was treated like family, this is truely the best part about the whole Crossfit community, every box/gym I have had the priviledge to workout at has been very welcoming, and friendly but CFit Scotland takes the cake. My cousin Eryn accompanied me and although she wasn't there to workout the head trainer Neil Foley (a CFIT level 2 trainer) made sure she had a good seat to view my butt kicking and a warm cup of coffee. Neil gave me the tour of his box, explained to me their approach to CFit, the ups and downs of doing CFit in Scotland ie. it rains all the time and then he discussed the WOD with me. I told him I wanted a real ass kick so he let me go "super" heavy for the Overhead Squats (OHS). The WOD was 400m row 21 pullups, 15 OHS (135# for me 95# for the others), 9 boxjumps, 800m row, 21 OHS, 15 boxjumps, 9pullups, 400m row, 21 boxjumps, 15 pullups, 9 OHS. I was expecting the OHS to be hard and they were but what got me was the pullups. Now I do kipping pullups pretty well but I have never done them on swinging pullup bars (trapez style), they were so difficult to connect on they almost crushed me on their own. As you can see from the pic I finished (a little of 20min later) absolutely destroyed leaving a nice big sweat angel behind. My trip to Crossfit Scotland was an amazing experience and Neil being such a nice guy wouldn't even let me pay for my workout, now I couldn't leave without contributing so I bought a shirt off them, which is hanging in the garage as a reminder of my great time there.

Chin, Chest, Thighs

                                                (Brad showing us the ROM we like to see)

As discussed earlier, range of motion (ROM) is key. Anything less then full ROM doesn't count in our minds. Only with proper ROM do you elicit maximal power out-put, and in Crossfit, Power is King! Many people do not complete exercises through the full ROM for many reasons. It hurts, it takes more effort, it takes more time and they can't lift as much weight. Some people have flexibility problems and some lack the kinesthetic awareness, not knowing that they are high on their squat or their hip isn't reaching full extension.

"Power is the independent variable most commonly associated with the rate of return on favourable adaptation." -Greg Glassman

If you're not giving us full ROM, you're doing less work, you're producing less power, and we are NOT going to count your reps.

Met-con Medicine?

                                     (What was left of me after my first Met-con in a month)

After a little over a month of no met-cons (only Starting Strength), I gave one a shot. It was not pretty. The workout was: 5 rounds of 5 squat cleans @ 135# and 10 KB swings with the 2 pood. My first round went well, it took me easily under a minute moving the weight in both exercises without a problem . Then it was all down hill from there. The finished product was a time of 10:52. I was gasping for air after the first round and barely could push through the pain and finish all 5 rounds. What was my reasoning for doing this? Why not stick with SS?

I did SS in the beginning because I had lost significant strength in the past few months and wanted to improve in that area. It is common knowledge that a good strength base is essential for reaching a high level of performance in Crossfit. But why was I sacrificing my overall fitness to improve in one area? Crossfit looks to optimize physical competence in each of the 10 recognized fitness domains; cardiovascular and respiratory endurance, stamina, strength, flexibility, power, speed, coordination, balance and agility. I was optimizing one. I knew what I was doing before I began Starting Strength, but I wanted a change and I was interested in what kind of results I could achieve from it. 

One night I was deciding whether or not I should continue with SS or should I start crossfitting again while adding some strength work on top. My question was answered when I opened up the Crossfit Journal and a new article had been posted, "Strong Medicine".  The article covered a program called Crossfit Strength Bias. It is exactly as it sounds, Crossfit with a bias around strength. Basically the schedule runs 2 on 1 off, 3 on 1 off. Four out of the five days you are lifting, while also doing met-cons and skill work.  This way I am achieving my goal of getting stronger without sacrificing competency in the other 9 fitness domains. My overall goal has always been to become the best Crossfit athlete I can possibly be. 

Bottom line, to get better at Crossfit you have to do Crossfit.

The article can be found here:  http://journal.crossfit.com/

The journal costs $25/year and is more then worth it.

What is Crossfit?

Crossfit (noun): General fitness program which uses Constantly Varied Functional Movements done at High Intensity!

But what does all that really mean? ... To answer this question I have summarized a lecture by Pat Sherwood given my Level 1 cert. in Toronto.

Basically, Crossfit is a program that is designed to provide an individual with a broad general and inclusive fitness level. At Crossfit their specialty is not specializing, crossfitters are generalists because frankly, life requires the skills of the generalist (good at many tasks) not the specialist (good at only a single/few tasks), specialization is for insects! Crossfit works to extend ones exposure to as many stimuli as possible because most often you fail at the margins of your experience. By continually pushing those margins or boundaries with new experiences or constantly varied stimuli we can better prepare ourselves for whatever life may throw at us. The way to push these boundaries is through the use of the most basic movements such as the squat(standing up with something), deadlift(picking up something) and overhead press(putting away something), which are essential to independent living. These are safe, prehistoric, biomechanically sound movements for which the human body was designed to do. Nobody had to teach you how to stand up out of a chair, you just knew how to do it. These movements use the universal motor recruitment patterns found in almost every movement we do. They are truely unavoidable excercises. They are compound movements working mulitple muscle groups with multiple joints and by their very nature can not be reduced into simpler, more beneficial movements. However, they can be combined and made more complex in order to become increasingly useful and generate more power. Their greatest effect is how the muscles must all work in symphony for the action to occur. Additionally, these are all core to extremity movements in that the midline must remain stable for the power to be transferred from the ground by our legs, through the trunk and into our arms which are holding the object we wish to lift. Thus, all these movements will improve core strength and contribute greatly to overall strength, that is why they are functional movements. With these Functional movements we are capable of moving large loads a long distance in a short amount of time and that means we can generate more power. This is important because Intensity is directly equal to Power (Power = [Force x Distance] / Time). For all intents and purposes all one needs to know is that intensity is almost always the independent variable most commonly associated with favourable adaptations in fitness. Heart rate is only a correlate to intensity, true measureable intensity is all about power - how much you lifted, how far you lifted it and how long it took you to do it. Basically, all the good stuff comes through high intensity. How high? It is relatively high to each individuals abilities, so by maximizing individual intensity we are maximizing our individual results. Therefore, high Intensity is our shortcut to both fitness and results, which we will notice almost immediately in the improvements to our everyday life.

Stay tuned for What is Fitness?

"The Magic is in the Movements, the Art is in the Programming and the Science is in the Explanation." - Pat Sherwood quoting Greg Glassman.