RX THE WOD

Ski WOD

Posted on March 27, 2014 by

On weeklong ski trips there is extra thinking necessary to adjust to the WOD. Especially during Open weeks. High speed or mogul skiing will put a lot of strain on the legs but will be strangely helpful for the core.

This week being guests of both Snowbird and CrossFit Sandy and pacing ourselves between 14.4 and 14.5 we learned a couple of good lessons:

– quad and hamstring mobility is especially important before and after skiing
– your PR on leg movements, like squats will suffer. Get over it
– if you are not used to mountain air, metcons will feel like doing it underwater
– running as warmup is an awesome way to clear lactic acid from the legs

CrossFit Sandy is one of our favorite drop-in spots because of their especially structured 4-step WODs combining warmup, mobility, strength and metcon each day.

And yes, the backsquats after the ski day did make us walk funny.

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CrossFit Life Lesson 28 – Know Your Score Every Day

Posted on February 3, 2014 by

In CrossFit how you show up every day is visible on the scoreboard. Having a great day with ton of energy is reflected in your daily standing as much as feeling tired or just feeling like slacking off. In the end it is all on me and you. The scoreboard really does not care about who we are. While it is great to see how much I pushed in my home box along with my peers, it is also magical to get a daily standing on where I stand worldwide against others doing the same workout. It happens in the Open but also if you use tools like Beyond the Whiteboard. Knowing where you stand every day helps you prepare, learn from your peers, get much better than any pep-talking I can do to myself. I may sugarcoat the truth but the scoreboard will not.

In some professions there is a daily scoreboard. Whether you are in sales, on the assembly line or in a job where the results are immediately visible, it could be a blessing for your career and growth. You know where your peers, your competitors stand and you can course-correct and excel. Unfortunately in too many office and service jobs the only time people get feedback is in their annual reviews and mostly on subjective criteria. It is like saying, I’m not sure how much you lifted but I think your form was cool. That will not win the Olympics or even post a PR.
Make sure you know where you stand every day. Ask for or make up measurements you can track. Find out where others stand. Whether they are in the next cubicle or in Brazil or China. Do not believe there is no score. There always is. And there is also always a job market for winners. We all want to make sure we are one of them. And it all starts with keeping and improving your score. Every day.

Keep a score

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Shoulder Fry London Style

Posted on November 7, 2013 by

We had 3 days of back to back shoulder and overhead work between CF Central London and CF Thames. Normally this would be lunacy, but I found that your body starts getting really efficient with the movements when fatigue sets in and you still have to finish the rounds.
In no particular order we had the following movements these 3 days across various WODs:
– 20 overhead squats
– 20 front squats
– 20 SDHP
– 20 push presses
– 20 thrusters
– 21-15-9 of OHS and ring dips
– 18 minutes of handstand pushup, clean and run
– 8 minutes EMOTM 3 muscle-ups, max free handstand hold

Now shoulders will rest and USAIR takes over the next few hours…

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London Town and the Art of the Long Recovery

Posted on November 5, 2013 by

In Crossfit, soreness and injuries come and go. As we get better, our bodies heal much faster. With the clear focus on mobility the scheduled rest days for me are typically enough for proper recovery.

I had two exceptions to that rule in my 2.5 years with the sport. Both involved tendons and not muscles. In the early days of CF I had nagging Achilles tendonitis that slowed down my box jumps, running and delayed my learning of double unders. The doctors suggested a lifetime challenge with the pain and was told I should not be running much. Then I did what CFers do. MobilityWOD, rollers, hip, ankle and calf mobility. Then all of a sudden the pain was gone. I can’t remember when it happened but it is all over this blog mid-last year as the unbroken double unders went from 3-4 to 30-40.

The second challenge happened with a tendon in my shoulder that forced me to drop the weight on my cleans, snatches and struggled with all overhead movements. Back to the prescription. A daily regimen of heat pads, static stretches and shoulder mobility put me on a rapid recovery path once more.

The point of all this is what Kelly Starett told us many times. We have the basic ability to repair our bodies even from the so called chronic injuries. This is an observation and not medical advice of course so make your own experiment and learn from it.

In London today CrossFit Central London dished out a great dose of shoulder work: front levers, back levers, ring l-sits, overhead squats and ring dips. Maybe hard work is the best pain medicine after all…

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Blogging in the Era of Mainstream Crossfit

Posted on October 22, 2013 by

When I started Crossfit 2.5 years ago there were only 4 boxes in the Philly area (now 41), the way to log your workout was a spiral notebook (no Wodify or BTWB yet) and noone I knew ever heard of CF (wow, how much that changed).
Today my whole family is in CrossFit, working out in 3 different boxes. Half my team at work already set out to the world of Fran, Cindy and Murph. CrossFit is now mainstream.

I decided to change the focus of this blog slightly to reflect this reality.

This blog started for 4 reasons
– as a way to keep my workout log – (I moved that to Beyond the Whiteboard)
– serve as my global travel journal (I will continue to do so)
– share my learnings from dozens of box owners I visit (best part of my CF life)
– draw lessons from CrossFit’s discipline to apply to my life (we’re never done)

Looking forward to seeing you on the next 2.5 years of my CF sports journey.