WOD 11/1/08

“Lynne”

5 Rounds – Max Reps

Bodyweight Bench Press

Pull Ups

Rest precisely 2 minutes between each round.

 

This is a good primer to start our week. Use good bench press form and any style of pull ups you like. Make sure you rest between rounds. The rest period is important as that brief respite allows for more work in the succesive rounds. Don’t dally around between the exercises, bang out the bench, then hit the pull ups, then rest. Record your max reps in each exercise.

Afterwards, I want you to do some core work. This will come in the form of “Waiter Walks” with a DB. Go as heavy as you can, so long as the shoulder does not collapse and become passive (I will go to about 45-55 Lbs). A “Waiter Walk” is done by holding a DB in one hand, locked out overhead. I like to do these in a square, since the corners add a stability challenge. Walk for approximately 50 yards or so total, however you choose to do it. Switch hands and do it on the other side. Do a total of 4 walks per side, so combined total of 8 walks. Lock it out, tighten up, take small smooth steps and keep that DB balanced nicely overhead. If you are losing the shoulder, go down a tad in weight, but going too light will defeat the purpose of this exercise.

When you are all done, stretch out for a few minutes. Hit the hams, quads, glutes and flexors primarily then go onto other parts that may need it.

GO!

WOD 10/31/08

REST DAY!!

Happy Halloween! Enojy the day off and maybe indulge a bit, just not too much or you’ll end up in a insulin crashing coma and pass out in the middle of the living room.

I have been stricken with a heinous stomach flu, thanks to my oldest son who made sure everyone in the house got a piece of it – I was the last in line. I am wrecked and feel like hell, so tomorrow I will be simply trying to get my feet back under me. Kids seems to mutate a normal virus or bacteria into something so wicked, Satan himself would be scared. I don’t get it.

OK, I am going to pop some pills to ease my screaming headache and go to sleep. You all enjoy your rest day and holiday! See you on the next go ’round!

WOD 10/30/08

“Jacobs Ladder”

20 OHS (M:95/W:65)

15 Pull Ups

10 Ring Push ups

5 Swings (M:55/W:35)

20 Pull ups

15 Ring Push ups

10 Swings

5 OHS

20 Ring Push Ups

15 Swings

10 OHS

5 Pull Ups

20 Swings

15 OHS

10 Pull ups

5 Ring Push Ups

I dug this one out of my archives, courtesy of Eugene Allen at CrossFit Pierce County. I have not done this in quite some time, but I remember it being pretty fun. I figured this would be a good one before we punched out for the rest day. Do yourself a favor though, and write down the rep scheme. Unless you are Rainman, there is no way you are going to remember this.

Overhead Squats are more of a core exercise than a leg exercise. Make sure you lock the core in nice and tight and get nice active shoulders with the bar locked out overhead. Active shoulders means your shoulders are shrugged into your ears and you should be imagining yourself pulling the bar in half. Go lighter than RX’d if you have not done these too often. The Ring push ups were covered a couple days back. Do them if you can, otherwise do regular ones. With the push ups and OHS, your core gets a double punch that is sure to make the mid-section tired, but stronger.

Afterwards, sit down and stretch for a bit 90-120 seconds on each body part. Concentrate on the hamstrings, the hip flexors, quads and glutes. Call it a day after that.

Get some!

WOD 10/29/08

“Deus ex Machina”

400m Run

30 Wall Ball (M:20/W:15)

15 Pull ups

400m Run

30 Box Jumps

15 KB Swings (M:55/W:35)

400m Run

30 Wall Ball

15 Pull Ups

400m Run

30 Box Jumps

15 KB Swings

 

OK, I hope yesterday’s WOD warmed you up, because this one is going to kick you in the nards (ladies, feel free to insert a painful bodypart to be kicked). I made this one up a while back and have only done it once since it kicked my butt nicely! It is very metabolic with some minor strength components in it.

By now you should all be pretty squared away on the movements. Subs can be a 500m row for the run, thrusters (45 Lbs bar or 20 Lb DBs) for Wall ball and if you don’t have a kettlebell, use a correspondingly weighted DB held in a hammer grip. Box jumps can be done as step ups and your pull ups may be done in a jumping fashion or with assist bands if needed. Do what you can on your own though, it is the only was to gaining ground on your difficult exercises.

Lastly, I want someone out there to tell me what the title of the WOD means, without Googling it or looking it up. I’ll give you this much – “The Police” titled one of their albums this.  If you get totally stumped, go to Wikipedia and look it up. I can get lost in Wikipedia – it’s like a trip down the rabbit hole with a neverending array of knowledge available. What does all this have to do with fitness? Not much, but the way you feel at the end of the WOD makes the title fit and I probably made you learn something you did not know before you entered “The Land of Ian”.

Get some!

WOD 10/28/08

Row 1000m

20 GHD Sit ups/Push Ups

18 GHD sit ups/Push Ups

16 GHD Sit ups/Push Ups

Cont’d

2 GHD Sit ups/Push Ups

Row 1000m

 

I test drove this one for all of you. It was good – not too easy, not too hard. This will be a good warm up to get back into the week.

If you do not have access to a rower, go to Craigslist.com and buy a used Concept 2 or similar erg rower, for Christ’s sake! OK, in all reality most of you don’t have a rower, so guess what, you get to run 800m! Yay!

Come back in and hit your sit ups. If you can do GHD sit ups, go for it. I want full ROM to the back with a slight bend in the knee going back, a strong snap of the legs on the way up to activate the rectus femoris, and a reach to the toes with the hands. Go back a couple weeks into the archives for a GHD sit up primer that I posted. If you don’t have a Roman Chair machine or GHD machine, do regular sit ups. Again, nice full ROM. Put a rolled up towel or AbMat under your lower back to really activate the core. Make sure shoulder blades touch the ground at the back end and you come all the way up at the front end. No crunches – we don’t do crunches in CrossFit. If you want Swiss balls and crunches, go to Curves…. ‘ nuff said.

Push ups are full plank, chest to the deck each time. If you can’t hold full plank, knees are fine, but work the plank position as much as you can in each set. That is the only was to get better at them. If you are a tough guy/gal, use rings for your push ups (hang the ring so it is a couple inches off the ground and have at it-hard!) or elevate your feet on a bench, place your hands on the floor like normal and do push ups that way. If you are super hardcore, do ring push ups with your feet on a box, so your whole body is elevated and your are fighting to keep that plank position. Then take a deep breath and go for a nice relaxing 800m run or 1000m row at breakneck pace to clear the head… or pass out, whichever comes first.

Lather, rinse, repeat…. Get on it!

Hardcore ladies doing ring push ups! Photo courtesy of CF Houma.

Ring push ups off the deck - sunglasses optional. Photo courtesy of CF Troy.

MSN on CrossFit

This is sure to be all over the place in the next couple days, so check out this article about CF being the “big craze”. It’s not a bad article. It’s by MSN, whose articles about fitness and diet are the usual junk we are all accustomed to hearing and knowing are relatively worthless. This time they are getting closer to the mark. They interviewed Jake Platt who runs a CF affiliate in Bellevue, Washington. Rick and I met him at the Nutrition Cert we were at - good dude. There is of course the naysayer who talks about injury becuase CF is so intense, but again this is a person who has no friggin’ clue of how an affiliate and good coach runs his box. That should not be happening at any affiliate gym. I would suspect most cases of Rhabdo or injury from CrossFit are home CF’ers or buddys hitting up WOD’s at work or the gym and going head to head with no real clue. A good CF trainer will make sure you get there, in one piece, and in due time. With that approach, we can guarantee a better, fitter, more well rounded and less injury prone athlete. That’s our philosophy here at CFC and many other affiliates. Take a read of the article and let me know what you think about it or CF training in general. There is also another article here from a CF skeptic who became a convert.  Drinking the Kool-Aid!

As a final note, I did Helen the other day as I planned, however, I did a 500m row instead of the run this time. The evening prior I had managed to seriously tweak one of my toes while struggling with a robbery suspect my dog had found, bit and was fighting with. It hurts like hell to walk, so I sure as hell wasn’t going to run. Nonetheless, the row is damn hard since the back and arms are being used in every movement of that triplet. If you get a chance to do it on the rower, go for it. I ended up a 8′30″, which wasn’t bad all things considered.

WOD 10/27/08

Rest Day

It would be horribly remiss of me not to remember this date for what it represents to my co-workers and I. Two years ago, at 0330 Hours, 10/27/06, Sacramento County Sheriff’s Deputy Jeff Mitchell (84G1) was killed in the line of duty. Jeff came upon a suspicious occuppied vehicle in a remote part of the South Division. There he encountered an uknown suspect, a massive struggle ensued, and he was shot and killed. The suspect fled the scene and to this day has not been caught. It is salt in the wounds for all of us and I can’t imagine how his family must feel. I was shocked as I had been on that exact same stretch of road only 24 hours prior looking for people up to no good, just as Jeff was doing in his effort to keep our community safe.

I was one of the first officers on scene. I had been working a K9 search when I overheard the brief, garbled radio traffic come across channel 3. As with the other officer involved deaths I have been present on, I knew deep down inside and immediately that this was very bad. A few minutes later we arrived on scene to find Jeff mortally wounded. Our entire K9 detail and SED worked tirelessly for neverending hours and days afterwards to find Jeff’s killer. We were helped by outside agencies and speciality units from all jurisdictions, yet we came up cold. I drive by the place where Jeff was killed every night on my way into work, and it still burns me to know we haven’t reciftified this incident, for Jeff, his family and our Law Enforcement family.

Line of duty deaths are what unfortunately happens to soldiers and public safety personnel. We know that going into the job, yet we still come back day after day, to lay our lives on the line for the lives of complete strangers. Still, it is painful to think of “what could be” if things went awry one night – how would my kids be, my wife, their memories. You almost don’t want to think about it, yet we must.

We must think about it, because on days like today – a rest day – we must truly take the time off and appreciate what we have in our lives. Don’t put it off, instead relish the madness and happiness that makes up your time away from work or CrossFit, even though they are part of our lives. There is more to it than that, and our family is most important. We CrossFit to survive our stresses and our jobs to come back to this point – the point of enjoying our families for as long as possible.

 Jeff was not a CrossFitter (although he would have been awesome at it!), but he was a standout person, kick ass cop who loved calling my dog to find bad guys, wonderful father and husband and a stellar athlete, and he was one of my partners who deserves some of our time to remember him. So, today I request you take the day off from CF and whatever else you are not beholden to and take the time to laugh at your kids or significant other. Remember Jeff and our fallen soldiers, cops and firefighters and that they can’t do this - we are so very lucky.

Jeff, I have said it before as I have stopped by your memorial, and I say it again – we will find the person who did this. Rest in peace and God speed, we will take care of the rest.

Deputy Jeffrey Mitchell – 84G1

EOW: 10/27/06; 0330 Hours

Deputy Jeffrey Mitchell

Jeff Mitchell, his wife Crsytal and their son, Jake.

 

The back of Jeff Mitchell's badge - Jeff knew what was truly important.

WOD 10/26/08

“Helen”

3 Rounds

400m Run

21 KB Swings (M:55/W:35)

12 Pull ups

A benchmark WOD for sure. Anything under 7 minutes is the Elite Standard – I hit 7′43″ a year ago and that is the best so far. I damn near died too.

Use a 55 or 35 Lb KB or DB and get good swings from the hip, not the back or arms. The triple extension of the ankles, knees and hips will cause the KB to swing nicely without a ton of arm muscling. This also alleviated a ton of strain on the lower back by not making it a massive lower back fling-the-KB movement.

Heres a cool video of James Fitzgerald, Aka: OPT, who is a friggin’ physical monster and amazing athlete doing a sub 7 Helen – good stuff. Video courtesy of CrossFit HQ.

This is a hard, lung burner, but it’s one of my favorites. Get it!

WOD 10/25/08

10 Rounds

10 Pull Ups

20 Push Ups

30 Squats

Boo-yah! Here you go. All body weight and loads of fun! Don’t do the math, just go out and do the workout. It may start to take a bit longer than expected about halfway through, so don’t blow up too early and pace yourself to get through in one piece. Squats are air squats – no external weight. Get some!

Endurance Training – Short/Fast vs Long/Slow

I should have posted this video link with the WOD for 10/24, but I spaced it. This vid features Brian MacKenzie talking about endurance training and the benefits of shorter, high intensity training instead of the LSD stuff we were used to for so long. Brian is an ulra-marathon guy who runs CF Endurance, CF Newport Beach and does all of the CF Endurance Seminars. A great dude with a ton of knowledge….and great tatts! Brian is considered the Anti-Christ of the endurance training world, but his methods work and he is proving them over and over in all kinds of endurance disciplines and modalities.

For all of you out there who think you have to run/ride/swim for long times and distances so you can be good at those disciplines, I am here to tell you that you are DEAD WRONG! I have been my own guinea pig and I have proven it on myself and others. Rick and Amy Anglemoyer are another testament to this whole concept. Shorter, high intensity training has more benefit to overall performance and ability than LSD training. It lessens injuries from overuse, physical and mental burnout, and it is less stressful on the body as it reduces training time and oxidative damage. If yuo want to run, longer harder faster, you need to train, shorter, harder faster – no joke!

Video courtesy of CrossFit HQ and Again Faster.