RX THE WOD

Quarter End mini-WODs

Posted on December 6, 2012 by

Another very long day at work got me creative on how to better schedule shorter WODs. I know I’m in a company of thousands of Crossfitters with quarter end pressures and demanding whiteboards… If you are at a corporation with a decent gym, the challenge becomes breaking up the 1-hour WOD into smaller segments. I found 30-minute breaks are actually quote manageable mini-WOD times. Like Tabatas. 20 minutes work, 10 minutes to change… Repeat twice.
Strength Wendler W1D3
Bench press 5 x 65%, 5 x 75%, 5 x 85%
MetCon
AMRAP in 7 minutes
– Power Snatch 95lbs
– 10 pushups
– 15 GHD Situps
[4 rounds]

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Miami Beach Mobility

Posted on December 5, 2012 by

Today is active rest and preparation for heading down to the Mobility Cert weekend in Miami Beach. There are few better places to pick to work on fixing the joints, muscles, tendons and whatever else is broken. Oh, I know, overhead squats…
My expectations are high for K Star‘s magic and I’m sure I won’t be disappointed.

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It’s a Commit

Posted on December 4, 2012 by

In sales many times we have to commit to a goal, even though we have no idea how we’ll reach it. Then we make a plan and work it with the best of our abilities. When we exceed the goal, we commit again and again, with more confidence. This, I believe is the very definition of high performance and not ever settling for what is comfortable.
Some days when work finishes late evening and the WOD is still on the whiteboard, we have to do the same. Commit. Because noone else will finish the task for us.
Like tonight…
Strength – Wendler W1D2
Deadlift – 5 x 65%, 5 x 75%, 7 x 85%
MetCon
4 rounds for time:
– 5 power cleans 135lbs
– 500m row
[12:12]

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Wendler Off Season Training

Posted on December 3, 2012 by

The first 2 of the 3 months of the off-season strength training was with Catalyst olympic lifting. The last month will shift back to the effective yet brutal Wendler 5/3/1 protocol…
My daughters joined me in the late evening WOD and after a little scaling and substitutions, successfully beat me.. There is simply nothing better that an intense WOD with the family.
Strength – Wendler W1D1
– Squat – warmup + 5 x 65% + 5 x 75% + 10 x 85%
MetCon
30-20-10-5
– kettlebell swings 40lb (kids: air squats)
– double unders (kids: knee raises or single jumps)
– situps
[5:58]
Endurance
– 10 minute row

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Paleo, Zone, Fasting and Performance

Posted on December 2, 2012 by

The recent waves of videos by Matt Chan in the CrossFit Journal brought the focus back to a key part of the CF prescription – proper nutrition. Matt’s videos cover Zone fueling techniques for competitive athletes. Most importantly, it focuses on the amount of food to eat. The many Paleo blogs and CF sites also address the quality of food.
Then, as athletes, we need to decide what works best for ourselves.

I think the Paleo/Zone movement covers the quantity and quality of nutrition well, like Pat Sherwood’s many videos. I believe the third critical component of eating is the timing of food.
1) Quality: Paleo
Paleo advocates that we should eat food we were designed to eat, which are unprocessed meat, veggies, some fruit, nuts and seed and no sugar. Endless sources cover Paleo diet nowadays and no scaling is needed for CrossFitters except maybe some Zone adjustments:
2) Quantity: Zone
While Paleo says eat all you want of the approved categories, Zone’s prescription on measuring food can help maximize performance in and outside the gym. Plenty of articles on the topic, most important for CF is Glassman’s original summary and Barry Sears’ 8-part video for Crossfitters.
3) Timing: Intermittent Fasting (IF)
You can eat 3-5 times a day prescribed in the Zone diet. There is also a step beyond that which takes us to fasting. Beyond the increasing evidence of improvements in biomarkers and athletic performance due to IF, it is likely that our paleo ancestors rarely had a full breakfast before some movement, hunting or chasing a game. Let’s just say breakfast can happen at noon instead of 6am. It still should be the biggest meal of the day, but hopefully after our first WOD.