Death by Burpee

That is what we will do for fun today.  Sounds fun, right?

First we need to do some strength training.

Back Squat 5-5-5-5-5
Post loads to comments. 

Without squat racks the numbers are going to be dictated for what you can comfortably rack on your body from the ground. 

Then the WOD:

"Death by Burpee"

Do one burpee the first minute.  Two the second.  Three the third.  Four the fourth and so forth and so on until failing to complete that number in a minute. With a continuously running clock up to 20 minutes.  I don't know anyone who can do 20 burpees in a minute so there is no need to go beyond that.

Enjoy!

 The weekend will be welcomed this week.  Two days of rest.  Of course, if you feel like you have the energy, I am telling everyone to Bike 45 minutes for distance this weekend. 

Rocky

I love Rocky.  I like how he overcomes amazing odds.  I love how he trains with raw and basic equipment.  I love how he just wills his way to victory.  I love his stubborness and persistence.  Sure, the 5th movies was kind of a clunker, but you can't deny the brilliance of the overall series.  The two bookend movies, the original Rocky and then Rocky Balboa are just awesome stories that teach a lot of life-lessons.  There are plenty of quotes that I love in the final movie.  The line of "what is wrong with standing toe to toe and saying 'I am'" is great.  My favorite is the "it's not about how hard you can hit, it is about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward.  That's how winning is done."  He goes on about the world will bring you to your knees and keep you there if you let it.  This is all applicable to what we do.  We teach ourselves to do things that we don't like to do or maybe don't think we can do.  We overcome fear.  We improve.  We persist. 

The quote that is resonating with me this morning was from Marie in the final movie:  "tonight you are going to show the world that the last thing to age on someone is their heart."

Great line.  We are never too old to pursue greatness.  We are never too old to do something about our physical shape, educational level, work situation or anything else.  We are our only hurdle between our current selves and our best selves.  Our great selves. 

So don't stand in your own way.

Warmup--  10 Turkish Getups (per side)

WOD

For time

Run 800 meters
10 Pushups
15 Squats
Run 600 meters
20 Pushups
30 Squats
Run 400 meters
30 Pushups
45 Squats

Cashout
25 Back Extensions
15 Knees to Elbows

You are welcome for the back extensions after the squat cleans yesterday!

Squat Cleans

If you do this WOD as Rx'd you will be cursing the squat clean by the end.  Even if you don't, you might be cursing it. 

5 Rounds For Time
Run 400 meters
10 Pullups
15 Squat Cleans (95/65)

Tuesday July 24, 2012

WOD:

In 9 minutes complete 50 Burpees then row as far as you can with what remains of the 9 minutes.  If you don't have access to a rower then run. 

Post distance of row or run to comments.

Begin. . . NOW!

Alright, here it goes.  I am going to fill in all of your weaknesses.  We are going to force ourselves to do all of the things that we don't like to do in order to get better at them.  Unless you don't have access to the necessary equipment.  You will be able to enter the 2013 Crossfit Games Open division!

Skill Work:  Rope Climbs.  Do pullups or "towel pullups" if you don't have rope access.  Towel pullups you drape a towel over the bar and do pullups by alternating your hands up and down to simulate rope climbing.

WOD--  12 Minute AMRAP

7 Sumo Deadlift High Pull (75/45)
14 Crossfit Standard Pushups (hand-release at the bottom)

Cashout-- Run 400 meters, 15 GHD situps, 20 Double Unders

Programming

So next week I will start programming for the affiliate I am working at here 100% of the time.  I had been doing 50%.  So I will also start to sync this page up with the prescribed WODs. 

The question is:  should I tell people there that I am posting them here?  It might be fun to have some more people reading the page.  I need to go through and make sure that I have not written anything that would be offensive or divisive first maybe.  I am not a real controversial guy, but there might be something that I have written that could be taken the wrong way or simply wouldn't be appropriate in the context of the gym.  Perhaps I start at the top and simply ask, "hey, is it okay if I put the WODs here and tell people?" 

What do you think? 

The WOD:

For time:
30 GHD Situps
30 Deadlifts
30 Double Unders
30 Overhead Squats
30 Pullups

The Road to the Games

So lately I have been thinking about the 2013 Crossfit Games.  The 2012 just concluded and there are rumblings around the gym of entering an affiliate team for next year.  Initially I found myself thinking "man we have a lot of work to do to be ready for that."  I was thinking of pistol squats, muscle ups, handstand pushups and lifting loads that are higher than what most are putting up right now.  I found this to be negative self-talk in the sense that I was listing all the reasons that it would not be enjoyable.  Then I realized that working hard and with focus to overcome the weaknesses, work the margins and truly improve overall work capacity is exactly why we are there and why I am employed as a trainer.  Instead of a daunting task, I recognized it as a rewarding one.  Every gain that is made, every second that is shave, every new movement that is mastered will be cause for celebration.  It will move us closer to the goal of truly competing in the games rather than just signing up for them.  Of course anyone is free to register in the open.  In my mind however, if you are going to sign up then you are going to compete.  So we have until next March to try and train our weaknesses.  The focus will be good.  I already know that it will drive me to become a better athlete myself.  I will work out the bugs on my muscle ups and pistol squats and work to build up my rep count on handstand pushups.  Even if we lose, we win.  We will be stronger, healthier and more capable and by measuring ourselves against the world we will know exactly what we need to do in order to beat them the next year. 

My conclusion is a simple one.  Competition is good. 

Warmup:  20 Overhead Squats, 20 Pushups, 20 Situps

The WOD:
Run 800 meters for time
then
TABATA (8 minutes of 20 seconds work/10 seconds rest)
Push Press (75/45) (2 minutes)
Situps (2 minutes)
Pushups (2 minutes)
Air Squats (2 minutes)
then
Run 800 meters for time and try to go faster than the first 800 meters

Cashout:  15 Pullups, 15 Ring Dips

Sharing

I realized this morning that being married is good for helping you learn how to share.  You share your bed, your closet, your bathroom, your kitchen, your cars, your children, bank accounts and your computer.  The computer.  I went to post on here this morning and it was logged in as Lisa.  So rather than try to figure out how to "not lose" my post and get it to my profile, I just fired away.  It made me realize that it is good to share.  The sharing of the computer was noteworthy to me however.  For a while I think I functioned on "my own" computer.  Whether it was just my own self-imposed barrier or some unspoken agreement I didn't do much, if anything, on Lisa's computer. 

This isn't really about the computer though.  It is more about how sharing a life with someone can help to make you better.  Lisa shared Body-for-Life with me years ago.  I lost a lot of weight.  I started to run Marathons and enjoyed sharing the experience of travelling to them with Lisa and the kids.  It was easier to go alone, and I slept better in the hotels but it was BETTER when we were all together.  So this fall and winter I hope they travel with me to Tucson and Las Vegas.  I started Crossfit.  I became a Crossfit trainer and shared Crossfit with Lisa.  When she started to enjoy it, I needed a way to share it with her more instantaneously.  Enter Beerbells.  Now I can share it with everyone.  When we share ourselves and our talents we make the world better.  Last night at Ione's talent show the children shared their talents and it was wonderful to see what some 5 and 6 year olds are capable of.  Similarly there were recognitions for parent volunteers who shared their time.  I share a fair amount of my time as well and realized that what enables me to share so freely is the fact that Lisa shares her life with me.  Together we function as a team and are able to get more done and be the parents we want to be even if we aren't always the parent we want to be. 

So why wouldn't you share?  In a family you share hopes, dreams, laughter and love.  Sharing all the rest of the stuff is pretty easy after that.

The WOD:
10, 9, 8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1
Thrusters
Pullups
GHD Situps
Kettlebell Swings

Scaling and Adapting

In Crossfit we find a broad spectrum of athletes.  Rich Froning and Annie Thorisdotir won the 2012 Crossfit Games this past weekend, but they are among an extremely small group of elite among the elite among the extremely fit.  Most of us who have adopted the Crossfit prescription are fit.  Sure, we would like to be more so, but we are far ahead of the 67% of Americans who are obese and sedentary.  I know that isn't really a comparison that boosts our Crossfitting ego, but we are already among the minority by simply caring about our health and fitness. 

So sometimes when a WOD is posted at your gym of choice or on your blog of choice (whether it is this one, Crossfit.com or one of the myriad others) you will find that you simply don't have the capacity to do it as "Rx'd."  Let's take for example today's Crossfit.com WOD.  It is one of the "girls."  Today's WOD is "Elizabeth."  Elizabeth follows the 21-15-9 rep scheme for its three rounds.  The movements are the clean at 135 pounds and ring dips.  Now, at the gym I might give this a go as Rx'd.  I would suffer through the cleans at the Rx'd weight and welcome the punishment of the rings as a rest.  Not so when I am at home.  Our home gym is not outfitted with rings.  So I knew that I would have to scale the ring dips to static dips.  When I realized that, I decided that I wanted to add something to replace the core stability training of ring work.  When I recognized that this was no longer a "couplet" (two movements) but a "triplet" (three movements) I decided to reduce the weight for the cleans.  I wasn't sure where I wanted to go though.  I knew that 95# was not enough as I do cleans at 95 in my warmup sets often.  I put 105 on the bar and gave it a pull.  It seemed easy enough so went to move to 115.  Then I decided to not try 115 first but rather 125 to see if I could push myself closer to the 135 Rx.  So 125 it was. 

My point for all of this is that there is no right or wrong way to scale your workouts and adjust your weights as long as you are doing your best to follow the program that one trainer or another is putting out there.  The program is not random.  We  target different movements, weights, times and intensities to try to maximize the impact that they have on your overall health.  Most of the time the WOD will simply need adjustment for the weight, but on occasion you won't have rings or plyometric boxes or some other piece of gear.  If you would ever like me to scale or sub something for you, just ask.  After you practice and learn you will figure out for yourself when you need to modify and also begin to recognize your weaknesses and hopefully move to address them.  The key is not to "go rogue" and just start doing random movements with no trainer input.  Stick to a program and you will achieve the desired results.  We can bias the training for weight loss, endurance, strength and virtually whatever other goal you have.  So come workout with us.  We are pretty strong.

The WOD:
21-15-9
Cleans @125#
Dips
GHD situps

Happy Birthday Ione

Friday the 13th.  Historically I don't care for Friday the 13th, but I am using my mind to overcome that.  It is Ione's birthday and things have to go well on your child's birthday. 

This morning I spent time working on the snatch.  Power snatch, squat snatch and split snatch.  Then I did 30 of them at 75# just to practice technique.  Mostly I stuck with squat snatch but a few weren't deep enough so they were power snatches.  It is a good skill to work on for all of us as it is very technical and fast.  I mixed in some ring rows for good measure, but still we need an actual WOD to do.

3 Rounds for Time
5 Handstand Pushups
15 Double Unders
25 Situps

This will be a fast and furious workout.  If you can't do HSPU then do "pike" pushups with your feet on something and your hips bent in a manner to put your upper body in HSPU position.  If you can't do DUs then feel free to do 3 single rope turn for each DU or 45 rope skips per round.

Enjoy!

Don't get hurt!

Why do I say that?  Because today I am prescribing two moves that can easily lead to injury if they are not done properly. 

Clean.  Lisa went for an MRI last night and has been battling an injury to her radial nerve due to improper execution of a clean.  Just to protect my own credibility, and not to pass the buch, I will declare that she was not being trained by me when the injury happened.  I was providing workouts, but not hands-on coaching.  Hopefully this gives everyone reason to pause.  If you don't know how to execute the move properly and don't have a coach or trainer available at least make sure you watch some video tutorials.  There is no substitute for a trainer who can bark "drop it" if you are doing it wrong however.  Ideally, we train you to do it properly before we ever load the movement with weight.  Plenty of people will revert to some demented form of a clean once the workout begins however.  In any even, Lisa is your cautionary tale.  You can get seriously hurt if you do this wrong. 

Our strength training for today is:

Clean 1-1-1-1-1

We are searching for your 1 rep max (1RM) for this particular lift/movement.

Deadlift.  If you don't deadlift properly two things happen.  One:  you don't lift nearly as much.  When I finally learned to deadlift properly a couple years ago my max load jumped by over 100 pounds.  Two:  you hurt your back.  Thankfully I never did this because I had kept that weight manageable.  I used to max my deadlift around 185 pounds when I was just doing the "gym circuit" method of training.  Now that I have learned proper movements and adopted the Crossfit training scheme I have maxed my deadlift at 330 pounds.  I have a ways to go before I am where I want to be, but with proper mechanics I don't worry about injury anymore.  When I line up to lift a max load I know that I am either going to lift it or I am not going to lift it, but I am never going to get hurt.

The WOD:
21-18-15-12-9
Lunges
Deadlift (whatever your max load for Cleans was)
Pushups

Beginner/Bodyweight WOD:
21-18-15-12-9
Lunges
Hop on one foot (complete the number of reps per side)
Pushups

The scheme, for those who aren't familiar is to complete 21 reps for all three movements.  Then 18 reps, 15 reps, so forth and so on so that the last round you complete 9 reps for each of the movements.

99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall

Without planning.  Without intention.  I bottled the peanut butter cup beer a couple weeks ago.  I had 50 bottles total and set it along the wall in the dining room.  Lisa was a good sport about it.  While I am sure she wanted it out of the way, she understands that with bottled beer you need to leave it for a while to make sure it isn't going to explode.  We had a steam beer blow up in our basement in Kansas and it made a horrible mess.  Of course, messes in that house, and the basement in particular were commonplace.  Whether it was Tessie smashing eggs, emptying baby powder bottles, shampoo bottles or the sewer pipes backing up in the basement there was always a mess there.  In any event, the 50 bottles of peanut butter cup beer were still there when it came time to bottle the India Pale Weizen or what some would call a "white IPA."  So I bottled it up on Sunday afternoon and have been using some large bottles as I have nearly filled all of my available 12 ounce bottles.  All said and done I had 49 bottles of IPW.  I set the cases along the wall next to the peanut butter cup beer.  Wait for it, wait for it. . . did you do the math?  99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall!

I noticed this yesterday afternoon.

The WOD:

3 Rounds for Time

10 Pullups
15 Dips
20 Overhead Squats
25 Back Extensions

Beginner/Body Weight WOD

3 Rounds for Time
10 Pushups
20 Squats
30 Situps

Post time to Comments.

Loving It

So, I am one month in (plus a couple days) to my gig coaching/training at the local Crossfit affiliate.  I love it.  I find that I am pushing myself harder, eating better and spending more time developing my skills than I have since I was at IMCF.  I have had spells of working hard and eating well here in California and my Beerbells posting certainly helped with that.  The accountability of telling others about what you do is motivating for me.  What I find to be even more motivating is the responsibility of coaching and training others.  When I was just filling in or just working with the Crossfit Kids program it didn't have the same punch.  Now I find myself wanting to push people to develop their own "arc of improvement" and I find that my default personality is to try to lead people to do that by showing them that I am willing to do it myself.  I do difficult WODs with them if the group is small and the movements are less technical.  If there is a risk of injury or serious mechanical flaw I spend the whole time watching.  I have found a rhythm in coaching technique.  Gentle reminders.  One word cues.  Standing in front of the person and doing what I want them to do as a way for them to think about the movement.  If you aren't squatting deep enough I will squat in front of you.  If you aren't going down far enough on the pushups I will do those in front of you.  After I remind them a few times I start to feel like a nag using verbal cues, so I just do it.  It seems to be working and makes me feel better because there is no doubt that I am willing to do what I am telling you to do if I am doing it with you.  Follow? 

Anyway, this whole Crossfit thing is a remarkable journey for me.  It has truly changed my life and continues to do so.  If asked, I will suggest trying it to ANYONE.  Yesterday, a guy walked in and said "I need to lose 40 pounds, can you help me do that?"  Absolutely.  If you want to lose 40 then we will help you lose 60 and make you stronger, faster, healthier and able to jump higher then you ever thought possible.  He said, "I don't think I can do even one pullup."  I assured him that many of us can't when we first begin.  One of the women stopped her workout to come over and extol the virtues of Crossfit to him.  I hope he joins us.  Each person who joins a community and improves their own life also improves the lives of those in that community.  We all get stronger when one of us gets stronger.  We find motivation.  We find discipline.  We find the best version of ourselves. 

The WOD:
For Time
75 Thrusters