World O’ Hurt

It’s the second week since the end of the Spartan 300 Challenge, and quite honestly I’ve never felt better in my life! The results speak for themselves and aside from the physical transformations, I definitely feel like emotional, mental, and attitudinal changes have come with them. I feel more confident, more liable to push my boundaries, and less liable to put up with other peoples’ bullshit just to go along or be “likable”, whatever that even means.

I plan on giving it a week or two more recuperation and normalization time, then I will go through the 6-week program again, but this time I will change it up a little. The supplementary workouts I will do on a 3-on1-off schedule, instead of fitting them in on off days. This means that I will largely be concentrating on form, technique, and correctness rather than going balls out to complete them, since I will often have other workouts on the same day! It’s at least as important to work on form as it is on speed and intensity. Hence, I will not time the workouts, but trust me when I say I won’t dawdle either.

Monday

A Crossfit Central first-of-the-month benchmark! It’s hard to believe that even though I’ve been going to Central for six months, I was sidelined through two benchmarks due to my injured shoulder! Therefore today was my first encounter with the infamous Angie. For time:

• 100 Pull-ups
• 100 Push-ups
• 100 Sit-ups
• 100 Squats

All exercises must be done consecutively, no moving back and forth. There was a 25-minute cut off here. I went in with the goal of finishing the workout under the time limit. The only intimidating part is the 100 pull-ups. That’s a lot of pull-ups, and indeed, although I finished far better than my goal (21:59) this workout revealed my weakness in that particular movement; I finished the other three exercises in almost the same amount of time the pullups took! I started off very strong, with 26 consecutive, and then tapered off to sets of 7, 5 and 3 to finish out.

I taped up my hands, but about halfway through the pull-ups, started feeling that the tape was actually hindering more than it helped, and took it off right around 65 reps. Afterward, I felt I had better control of the bar. Live and learn. My right hand ripped quite badly, leading me to believe that I am gripping the bar differently or moving differently on my right side. I will have to analyze!

After ‘Angie’, Tom, a guy from my class, and I went on a 1.4mi run, which we did in about 14 minutes (slower than usual).

My Monday Kung-Fu class is the opportunity I have to help other students with their skills and katas. I have shifted the format around a bit as of late. In particular, I am experimenting with the concept of putting the onus on the students themselves to set and achieve goals for themselves in class. In the past, it has been incumbent upon the instructor to set goals for the students, leading to much confusion and 10-minute conversations, trying to find that perfect Venn diagram intersection of material that everyone needs.

Instead I have tasked everyone the past few weeks with setting a personal goal for the material portion of class. I trust that everyone has that secret weak point that they want to shore up, or that one technique they want to work on. As I consider both that my Monday class is almost a ’supplement’ of sorts (it is not the only material class for anyone) and that people generally know what they need, I let them set their goals, and I take responsibility for guiding them to the completion of that goal.

I have found that students are often afraid to directly ask for material, or directly ask for help with something. After all, asking for material is considering (well, and it IS) presumptuous. However, I want to root out insecurities and make people comfortable with what they should know. What I want to do is indirectly give them permission to state what they think they need, and help them with it, even if everyone’s need varies from katas, to spinning sidekicks, to needing a pretest after class, to just practicing on one kata without worrying about getting any new material at all.

I will evaluate the efficacy of this approach after a few months. My hope is that students will find it empowering and helpful. If not, we can always go back to top-down command-and-control.

Wednesday

It’s Tuesday as I write this, and I ache all over, terribly. Not in a bad “I’m gonna die” way, but in an almost pleasant, gratifying way. It is satisfying knowing that I gave it my all Monday, and all the soreness is just my body’s maintenance mode, busily repairing itself and making me even stronger and better. It’s satisfying knowing that I worked out hard enough to provoke an acute physiological response and associated adaptation.

Today, I think was almost meant as a rest day after Angie on Monday:

Hang Power Clean: 1 – 1 – 1 – 1 – 1 – 1 – 1

My minimum was 135 and my maximum was 185. I tweaked my shoulder a bit on the 185 attempt, so I stopped. I’m happy enough with a body-weight hang power clean! Ah yes, we also did 25 Burpees during warm-up.

Thursday

We weren’t supposed to have a CrossFit session at Central today, but enough of us bugged JDP so that he agreed to get a group personal training session going today! I think he really wanted to punish us. AMRAP 20 Minutes:

• 10 24gk Kettlebell Snatch (right arm)
• 10 24kg Kettlebell Snatch (left arm)
• 10 35lb Dumbbell Renegade Rows
• 30yd Shuttle Sprint (5, 5, 10, 10)

I did this as RX, despite my trepidation. My hands are pretty ripped up from Angie, and KB snatches are pretty big hand rippers. My plan was to go with a 16kg kettlebell, but I finally sacked up and just wrapped a towel around the handle instead! This was a killer, let me tell you. I know I say that every week, and maybe it’s because no matter what the workout is, I am learning to MAKE it hard. I’ve been saying to students who come to my classes for years now “even short kata 1-10 is a workout, just make it a workout”.

I got 5 full rounds and the 10 right hand snatches.

Friday

The first Friday of the month is a benchmark for the class. I generally use the Beinedammerung, Kung-Fu Fight Gone Bad for benchmarks, but it’s time for some new hotness. Meet “Mister Beast”:

• 100 Pull-ups/Ring Rows
• 100 Push-ups
• 100 Sit-ups
• 100 Squats
• 100 Double-Unders

Bon Apetit….

In our last exciting episode, I related some of the thoughts that I have had on my journey to creating an optimal conditioning class at my Kung-Fu school. In a decade of teaching the class, it has morphed from a pure sparring/material class (similar to what I now teach on Mondays), to a sparring/conditioning/material class, to a sparring/conditioning class, and finally to its current incarnation, a 90-minute festival of sparring and conditioning.

Similarly, I have adapted the conditioning that we do. I started out from a pure skill perspective (lots of kicking, punching, bagwork), and then discovered interval training, high-intensity workouts, and body-weight exercises. Finally, since I’ve started Crossfit, the workouts have strongly resembled Crossfit WODs.

The question in my mind is whether or not I have yet reached the best possible class that I could possibly teach. In my last post on this subject, I discussed the importance of specific skill training in the mastery of a sport. However, specific skill training does not always result in physical performance gains beyond the scope of the sport itself. As commenter P.J. said:

Does a general purpose fitness program help us become better martial artists? ‘better’ in what sense? It will make us able to kick for longer and punch stronger, but probably won’t help our coordination with weapons or knowledge of how to time attacks – unless you add higher-crossover exercises for those skills as well.

It is a good point to define ‘better’ before we talk about whether something makes us ‘better’! In this case, I believe that P.J. hit the nail right on the head. General-purpose conditioning does not make our kicks better or punches stronger, nor does it help us coordinate our weapon skills. However, what general-purpose conditioning does offer is an enhancement of the efficacy and purposefulness of skills that you already have. In other words, having a complete set of physical skills acts as an amplifier to one’s specialized purpose.

While it’s not possible to get worse at a sport or activity with better conditioning, it IS possible for the activities within sports or activities to not generate a complete set of physical skills. I believe that this is the chief benefit that my current conditioning class methodology has offered for the past six months (as well as some other details besides the workouts, such as tracking times and results). For instance, let’s look at some of the benefits of doing Katas, as well as some things that Kata work alone would neglect:

Benefits:

• Necessitates a high level of flexibility (deep stances, high kicks)
• Often requires a high level of static/isometric strength
• Requires an incredibly high level of proprioceptive skill (body coordination, grace, balance, accuracy)
• Movements contain a high level of plyometric  activity (explosiveness, power generation)
• Mentally engaging
• Diversity in movement

However, as a workout, katas are incomplete:

• Does not work on absolute strength
• Individual challenging moves often do not appear enough to exhaust targeted physiological systems (for instance, a one-legged kneebend, a beast of an exercise, might appear once in an entire kata)

Therefore, we can say that while by only doing katas, you will indeed get very, very good at katas, you will also not be as good as if you also included more generalized physical preparedness in your repertoire of training tools! Working on specific skills is, by definition, incomplete, with some sports being more incomplete than others.

I believe that one key idea is what Ben said in his comment in my first post:

Giving your students the tools to reach a new level of overall conditioning is always a good thing, but if you want them to get conditioned for something specific, just make a point of always adding that little element to your classes. Torture the hell out of them, AND make them throw kicks throughout the workout.

This, I think is the right idea. The benefit of the general physical preparedness exercises that I have been featuring in my Friday classes, such as pull-ups, full-depth squats, full-depth push-ups, etc, is that they offer a huge amount of bang for the amount of time they take to do, and work multiple physiological systems in a time and space-efficient manner. While some of the upper-level katas are incredibly taxing as well, it is probably erroneous to assume that any one person has a particular kata, let alone everyone having it. So what’s the answer?

As I formulated in a talk a while back, I think the answer is further variety, and to take the most amount of ‘good’ that everything has to offer. Isolate individual challenging moves from katas and turn them into drills. Alternatively, devote a portion of class to pure skill development.

In the coming months, I plan to find just the right mix. Thanks for your feedback, everyone!

Hello, your humble host here.

My Crossfit affiliate has recently put out a call for testimonials about the positive impact the program has had on the lives of the clients there. A recent photo is part of the process, to show whatever physical transformations the client has gone through.

As my roomate is an accomplished photographer, I thought “why not do this right and get some photos done that convey the physical, mental, and emotional changes that I’ve gone through since starting Crossfit?” To say that I’m pleased with the results is a vast understatement!

At any rate, I wrote this post mainly to say that if you need any photography work done, you should definitiely check out the rest of his work, it speaks for itself.

Apparently this is a “Make Ryon do shit he doesn’t do well” week at Central. Well, bring it on! Not addressing weaknesses is a recipe for incapacity and error.

Monday

Well, not so much a “Make Ryon do shit he doesn’t do well” day here. Maybe more like a “Give Ryon a false sense of confidence the first part of the week then crush him later” week. This turned out to be a quick one. Three rounds for time:

• 7 Thrusters @ 135lb (I did 115)
• 7 Pull-ups
• 7 Burpees

My time: 4:16 and I could have gone faster or heavier, but probably not both! I had one of the quicker times that day. Going heavier is tricky for me because of my shoulder. I’m trying though, and I am looking forward to getting my shoulders in a place where I can RX the workouts again. This workout was a metabolic nightmare, and afterward we did sprints. My times:

• 400m @ 1:28
• 200m @ 37″
• 200m @ 41″
• 35m x 3 @ ?? (not timed)

I ripped a huge hole in the bottom of my toe. We’re talking Rhode Island-sized flap of skin hanging off here. I love my Vibram FiveFingers but I think I might need some toe socks to go with them. it was probably the moisture+friction that caused the blister. Plus my current pair is so messed up and ripped up I’m probably getting cut by rocks poking through them!

Wednesday

Hell on earth. If I was able to rip through Monday’s workout, it’s because I shifted the time I didn’t take to Wednesday. This was a horrible beast of a workout that prodded my weaknesses: Upper body strength, and running. Five rounds for time:

• 20 floor presses @ 55lb
• 400m Run

The floor presses were done with our upper backs on a medicine ball, and active hip (making the dumbbell presses almost a decline press). To compound things for me, I used the 1.5pood kettlebells, which, despite being “only” 53 pounds, are unwieldy and off balance compared to the dumbbells. Pressing them was just “fucked up”, as I was to exclaim after the first set. The runs were done in the relentless TX blast furnace heat, which I’m really starting to not mind all that much.

The upshot of the workout was that my shoulders still aren’t up to snuff. I managed two rounds and some change with the kettlebells, then mercifully switched to 30lb dumbbells about halfway through the workout… and STILL DIDN’T FINISH. I was 5 presses away from being done when time was called.

At least I know what I need to work on.

Thursday

Hell on earth. Again. Is this the first time I’ve had two consecutive days without finishing the workout? I think it might be, which is a good pointer as to what I need to work on!  At least today I have the consolation of knowing that almost no one else finished the workout either!

21-18-15-12-9-6-3:

• Dumbbell Snatch @40lb (I used 25lb). Note the number applies to EACH ARM, and you can’t split the reps. Finish one arm, then the next.
• Ring Dips (I used a dark blue assist band)

Hellish, hellish hellish. You are an elite athlete if you do this RX. The snatch is a soul sucking energy destroying full body movement. I got halfway through the set of 12, and 4 on the second arm when time was called. This really underscores the fact that my upper body isn’t where it needs to be, especially after the injury.

Friday

I’m actually posting this early so that Lucas, who comes to my class, can get an early start on planning to do the workout. This workout will hopefully inspire terror in my students.

The timer will be set to count down from 20 minutes. Starting out with:

• 1 Pull-up (Substitutes: Jumping Pull-up, Ring Row, Bench Dip)
• 1 Goblet Squat with kettlebell or dumbbell (Substitutes: Regular squat)
• 1 1-Arm Situp with kettlebell or dumbbell (Substitutes: Regular Sit-up, Crunch w/ medicine ball behind head)

Every round, add one repetition to each exercise, so on the 5th round, you would be doing five each of the pull-up, squat, and sit-up, for instance. The score is the number of rounds completed (with any partial rounds added as a note). Bon Apetit!

Update: I completed 10 rounds and 2 pull-ups of the 11th, at 55lb for the squats, and 35lb for the sit-ups. If you told me a year ago that I would be doing 58 pull-ups in 20 minutes, let alone the other stuff, I’d have thought it impossible. It just goes to show you how far the class has come, and I have come as well.

If you read this blog and take my class, or even just play along at home, please post your results as a comment!

P.S. Next week is benchmark week.

P.P.S. Please check out Lucas’s website and music. It’s terriffic stuff!

Crossfit: Constantly varied functional movements executed at high intensity

Kata: Relatively varied encoded fighting disciplines executed at high intensity

As I’ve written before, over the past six or so months, I’ve blatantly ripped off many Crossfit conditioning protocols and exercises, adapting them in my own way to fit the unique circumstances of my martial arts class (equipment, scaling concerns, etc. I doubt you will see an RX “Fran” in my class ever), and in the process opening a Pandora’s box of fitness and wellness that I don’t really intend to close, but instead refine its contents into a perfect jewel.

As I have said before, there has been some debate over whether the steps I’ve taken are appropriate or not. Of course I’m always willing to defend against all comers, but there is an important point to be illustrated here, that of conditioning merely for conditioning’s sake, versus conditioning geared towards specific skill improvement.

The protocol that I currently have implemented in my class is similar, and not coincidentally so, to the Crossfit protocol in that they are both currently concentrating on general fitness skills applicable to a wide variety of life circumstances and general wellness. However, one can raise a good question by asking: “to what purpose are we doing these movements?”.

The idea behind a general purpose fitness program such as Crossfit or my conditioning class is to develop the raw strength and conditioning that one can then utilize towards greater skill and efficacy in one’s chosen discipline. In other words, what we do in conditioning classes is dig up more raw material from which to sculpt our skill in martial arts. But is there a different way?

Research has pretty conclusively shown that learning patterns are extremely domain specific (too lazy for cites right now). That is to say, being a world-class rugby player does not automatically make one good at anything except rugby. Such specificity even extends to the circumstances under which one trains: Practicing with a heavier baseball bat, for instance, does not make one swing the regular bat any better during a game, and can in fact hamper the motor learning such that one’s performance DECREASES under such training circumstances.

To give an example relevant to martial arts, training on a soft mat and then implementing during a tournament or demonstration on a hardwood floor, or with shoes on often leads to injury because our brains have come to expect the presence of the mat during practice. Its absence then confounds us, resulting in movement suited for the mat, but not for the floor. Subtle movement patterns ingrained into us to compensate for sinking into the mat now hinder us on an unyielding hard floor.  In the example of barefoot vs. shoes, the presence of the shoe sole (especially thick running shoes designed for a heel strike) completely changes the dynamic of movement and removes the feedback the soles of our feet give us.

If merely the addition of shoes to the movement equation can change the outcome of our training so much, what does that say about the specificity of conditioning programs? In short: does a general purpose fitness program help us become better martial artists, how would a fitness program for that goal be constructed, and for what reasons?

Thoughts to comments greatly appreciated. I will post my own tomorrow.

As some of you know, the past six weeks I have put a little more scrutiny on my diet and workouts, as part of the Spartan 300 Challenge at Crossfit Central. Essentially it was a six-week program beginning and ending with the same workout that acted as a rite of passage for the actors on the movie ‘300′. The interim six weeks we were provided with workouts to perform every week, as well as being held accountable for our diet and so forth.

The mere fact that this was a challenge, a long and winding road with a hell of a destination, meant that I would put myself under increased scrutiny, a bumpy road for me! Truth be told, I was not thrilled with my performance during the six weeks in terms of keeping track of my diet and performing the extra workouts, but I AM thrilled with the results!

As I’ve said, I hurt my shoulder in the beginning of February, and have been somewhat coddling myself to wellness since. The start of the challenge coincided with my shoulder feeling better (a process interesting enough to me to put some thoughts about it in its own post). Not wanting to disturb the process, I opted for a scaled-down version of the initial workout to begin the process. But, knowing that I was at least capable of attempting the full workout, I decided to barnstorm the intermedia level:

• 25 Jumping Pullups
• 50 Deadlifts @ 95lb
• 50 Push-ups
• 50 Box-jumps (24″)
• 50 Floor wipers @ 95lb
• 50 12kg Kettlebell clean and press
• 25 Jumping pullups

My time was (as I recall) 14:45, the fastest L2 time recorded that day. I knew that I would have to make up to myself the fact that I did not compete at the “elite level”, so I did intermediate as fast as I could.

Well, fast forward six weeks, and we come to this past Saturday, the finale of the challenge. I decided to make the leap and do Level 1. After all, what more was there for me to do at Level 2? Complete it in 10 minutes? I felt that I would rather not complete Level 1 than do Level 2 again. After all, completing Level 1 had been one of my goals for the program, which were:

• <9% Body Fat (I got 9.1 that day. Close enough!)
• 400lb deadlift (gotten)
• 30 consecutive pull-ups (more on this..)
• < 20:00 Level 1 300 challenge time

In order to meet that last goal, I’d have to attempt Level 1! I am still not accustomed to “putting myself out there”, sticking my neck out and risking failure. On a personal level, I think that’s one of the things that Crossfit has taught me that’s most valuable. You have to seek failure, to some extent, to succeed. Anyway, fast forward from my initial attempt to this past Saturday:

• 25 Kipping Pullups
• 50 Deadlifts at 135lb
• 50 Pushups
• 50 Box-jumps (24″)
• 50 Floor Wipers @135
• 50 16kg Kettlebell clean n’ press
• 25 Kipping pullups

What a difference six weeks makes. I believe up until the point I got to the pullup bar the second time, I was making better time than on the easier attempt! I did get off to a shakey start on the first set of pullups (my kip timing was atrocious!) The worst part for me was the floor wipers (everyone says that), followed closely by the clean/press. The deadlifts, pushups, box jumps went as smoothly as they possibly could. I do, in fact, take pride in my box jumps!

I did hit a wall at the second set of pull-ups. I believe I might have been sub-15 minutes at the time I hit the pullup bar the second time. I gritted out 5 reps immediately, and then fought a war of attrition against myself, eking out 1 and 2-rep sets, with an anticlimactic 1-rep set to bridge the gap between the 49th and 50th pullup of the morning! My time: 17:50 RX. For me, an amzing achivement!

I don’t recall pondering the ramifications of the exercises as I did them, as I usually do. I remember only being more or less completely focussed on the task at hand, the way that things should be. It was one of the first times that that voice of doubt, that roving critical third eye of introspection had ever been absent, and it felt great.

What I did well:

• Sticking to a healthy diet during the week
• Being consistent on doing the extra workouts
• Keeping excellent form on almost all the exercises, especially the floor wipers (tried to keep my legs straight)
• Keeping my eye on the prize
• Pacing myself intelligently on the deadlifts, trying to use slow-twitch muscles as much as possible
• 25 straight kipping pullups on the first set (a personal record. I never got to 30, but I think I could do it)

Things I could do better

• Upper body strength. My pullups are still rather weak and not where I want them to be
• Not go as hog wild with food on the weekends
• Worked in the 6-weeks of workouts intelligently. I didn’t know how I should approach them viz. my normal Crossfit workouts, so I ended up doing at most two of the workouts a week. I believe I should have done them slowly with good form and control, instead of treating them as balls-out WODs. I think these might have meant to be ‘greasing the groove’ workouts.

Over the next six weeks, I plan to try the challenge workouts again, in the manner I describe above. Anyone wanna join me?

An important week for me! Saturday is the Spartan 300 Challenge finale. I’ve made some huge leaps and hit many of the goals for which I was aiming. The 400lb deadlift felt really good to hit. Not only was it a 30lb PR, but it was a specific goal of mine for the 6-week period! I also wanted 30 consecutive pullups, and I did get 20 last week, so I do believe that with a concerted effort, I could get 30! We’ll see if I reached my <8% body fat goal (which isn’t incredibly important to me, just a “let’s see if I can do it” sort of thing) during the weigh ins and measurements.

This week I really have to keep the diet under control and get adequate sleep and rest/recovery. I am signed up for the Level 1 challenge on Saturday (10:30, if anyone wants to watch…). I did sub-15 minutes on the level 2 during the beginning of the challenge, so I just don’t have too much more to prove there. I am going to enter the level 1 challenge with a little trepidation. I feel that it’s MUCH more difficult than the level 2, and I am going to take JDP’s advice and pretend like I already have it. I can’t afford to second-guess myself!

Monday

Crossfit workout. Brutality defined and refined. Three rounds for time:

• 100ft Lunge with Kettlebell (24kg)
• 15 Burpees
• 25 Kettlebell swings (24kg)

I finished in 13:45 I believe, maybe a minute quicker. Better to assume slower than faster, and try harder next time! This was a brutal workout. Kettlebell swings leech the life and vitality from you like nothing else.

Tuesday

Spartan 300 Challenge Workout:

• 50 Squats 2 Pull-ups
• 40 Squats 4 Pull-ups
• 30 Squats 6 Pull-ups
• 20 Squats 8 Pull-ups
• 10 Squats 10 Pull-ups

More difficult than it looks but also quick. I finished in 6:35, with all pull-ups on rings. My time was too slow for my liking but I have an unfortunate penchant for not pushing myself as hard when I’m solo. I must overcome this. I wanted 5 minutes on this workout. I saw several areas for improvement. Over the 6 weeks after this challenge, I will be going through all the workouts again, to try and get more out of them than I did this time around. This was my first Crossfit challenge, so I’ll do better on my next one. Fight Gone Bad IV, anyone???

Wednesday

“Heavy, Running Grace”. This was a beastly workout. It was a “Heavy” (20lb extra on the bar) “Running” (phases punctuated by a 400m run) “Grace” (30 Squat Clean and Jerk) for time. This challenged both my metabolism and strength to the extreme. On a side note, we had the priviledge of having Crossfit Central Affiliate Team member Kris Kepler work out with us. It’s humbling seeing a master at work. He finished the workout 4.5 minutes faster and 40lbs heavier than I did. Pretty amazing stuff. Three Rounds for Time:

• 10 Squat Clean and Jerk @ 155lb (I did 115lb, a 20lb personal best on the movement. I am moving cautiously forward due to my shoulders)
• 400m Run

I finished in 15:43, completely exhausted.

There was an interesting question posed to the class over whether it is better to do a workout lighter and with perfect form, or heavier with compromised form. I responded on Central’s blog entry like this:

It seems to me that the optimal weight is just enough to finish the workout in time.

I think there was an article about scaling in Crossfit Journal a week or so ago. As it turns out, if you go with a lighter weight and complete the workout faster, your energy expenditure is actually more than if you had done full or RX weight and taken a longer time to finish the workout.

In terms of form vs. Weight, I consider proper form to be very important. If you constantly increase your weight without considering your form and technique, you are not only reinforcing bad habits, but as above, you might not even be getting as good a workout.

I think the correct answer is to increase weight just until the point your form begins to break down, then remove a little. At some point it becomes impossible to increase weight without compromising form and correctness. I don’t think that is a bad thing, but it should be an informed decision: “You have to know the rules well enough to break them”.

To elaborate on my thoughts there, I believe there is a point where adding more weight is a long-term detrement in exchange for short-term gains.  as we see in this Crossfit Journal article, it is often a faustian bargain to always go RX weight, as this can compromise both the safety and efficacy of a workout. There is no question that for those capable of getting the most out of an RX workout, those persons should do an RX workout, but for many, including myself, the greater gains are made from scaling down the weight and concentrating on form and maximal energy output per unit of time.

I believe that since my shoulder injury, I have been just a touch too conservative with the weight, but I am still new at this, and exploring my boundaries.

Thursday

I will let this workout speak for itself:

• 50 Chest-to-bar pull-ups
• 50 Burpees

Gross! This workout was a nightmare. I have been working on my pullups, but chest-to-bar is a whole other ballgame. I stalled out rather early, dissappointingly enough (much to my chagrin, I was the last off of the pull-up bar), but I made up a lot of time on the burpees, finishing a close second or third with 10:10 RX. For a comparison, this was a workout at the “Hell’s Half Acre” qualifiers, and I believe that the best time was a stunning 3.5 or so minutes. Amazing.

This workout examplified some of the great things about CrossFit for me, it scales to fit all fitness levels, and there’s always room for improvement. In my case, 7 minutes worth, and that’s just for this workout.

Friday

I sat out this conditioning class workout, since I wanted a rest day before the Spartan 300 Challenge workout on Saturday. I’m pretty proud of this workout, and I think it’s very representative of what kung-fu conditioning workouts should be. It’s very metabolic but has a good strength component, and was easily scaled for different skill/conditioning levels. The after workout was one of my favorite stand-bys. The strategy was to exhaust the core during the main workout, and then finish the job after a little rest.

AMRAP 20 Minutes:

• 10 Knees-to-Elbows
• 15 Push-ups
• 20 Lunges

I gave the option of stationary or walking lunges. I was pleased to note everyone mixed it up, and received the feedback that the walking ones were easier on peoples’ knees. Interesting.

After workout. Three Rounds:

• 1 minute front plank (on elbows)
• 1 minute front plank (high push-up position)
• 1 minute side plank (each side)
• 1 minute max reps sit-ups

This is an instant classic. I will have to tell my Crossfit coach about it . It does take more time than we usually have for Crossfit after workouts, but might be idea for a shorter WOD day.

A good day today, surprisingly. I was less than kind to my body, diet-wise this weekend. I hope that this week’s workouts go a long way towards burning off the whole carton of Ben and Jerry’s “Chubby Hubby” that I devoured on Saturday. I think the reason I’m not up on my food log right now is that my weekends are just garbage, health-wise. I don’t want to be completely ascetic, but I think I’m stretching the concept of a “cheat day” a little too far!

Since I’m in the Spartan 300 Challenge, I’m going to try and wrap it up with exceptionally good eating for the remainder of the time. I want to produce a food log I can be proud of!

I have said it before, but because I love food so much, I always feel compelled to test the hypothesis on my cheat days: I just don’t enjoy rich, filling restaurant food much anymore. It tastes good going down, but immediately upon hitting my stomach, the joy is drained from me as the food sits in my belly like a lead brick.

In contrast, eating paleo generally leaves me energetic and ready for more challenges, even when I eat my fill.

Monday

GREAT workout. I felt teriffic all the way through and finished as strong as I started. I did use 24kg kettlebells for the Farmer’s Walk, but it was honestly because I thought they were heavier than 55lb dumbbells I was off by a few pounds per hand. Right now I’m telling myself that the kettlebells are are harder to hold on to due to the much thicker, untextured handles, so I’m gonna say it’s a wash… Five rounds for time:

• 10 Knees-to-Elbows
• 30 Walking Lunges
• 30 Sit-Ups (butterfly-style, on the AbMat for extra “ouch”)
• 100m Farmer Walk (RX 55lb Dumbbell. As I said above, I used 24kg Kettlebells)

I finished this in 17:45 or so, the fastest time that day up until my class. I was really quite happy with my performance. I believe I only dropped from the bar on the K2E’s once or at most, twice, and I did not drop the kettlebells on the farmer walk at all (which would have incurred a 5 burpee penalty, on molten-lava-hot pavement).

I think I’ve finally hit a stride again.

Tuesday

Spartan 300 Challenge Workout. Four Rounds for Time:

• 50 Double-Unders
• 25 Push-Ups

My time: 7:45. I think I did 10 extra push-ups somewhere along the line, but lost count and figured better a few too many than a few too few. This workout was tailored for me. I take pride in my Double-Unders.

Wednesday

A real horrible sufferfest at Crossfit for me. A combination of my three worst excercises and not feeling 100% in the first place! The good news is that I turned in a performance that was good enough to surprise me (in a pleasant way!). After several months of Crossfit, I think I’ve come to the unpleasant realization that even physically, as in so many things in life in which I have accomplished less, I just don’t push myself to my limits. I gemerally go away from a Crossfit workout thinking “I did OK, even a little better than last time, but I could have done better”.

Perhaps that’s the power of Crossfit. Crossfit doesn’t  promulgate a “I’m OK, you’re OK just how you are” ethic, where clients can build their own mental and emotional fortress, and feel safe and sound, sequestered away from any thought that they are anything but already as good as they ever will be.

Crossfit will strip away from you any delusions of adequacy or competence, or any cloak of illusion you have drawn around yourself that you are “fit”. The WODs will break you down into your component parts. The reassembly and what comes after that is up to you. It is an important decision.

Three Rounds for Time:

• 500m Row (I believe my splits were under 2 minutes, with the exception of the third, which was slightly over)
• 21 Overhead Squats (RX 95lb, I did 65lb, which felt right to me as my shoulder asymptotically nears wellness again)
• 15 Pull-ups

My time: 18:54. These were three of my worst movements.

Thursday

A good one: Crossfit Benchmark “Nicole”. AMRAP 20 Minutes:

• 400m Run
• Max pull-ups without dropping from the bar

This is a toughie. The more you drop from the bar, the more you run. I tried pretty hard on this one, shattering my previous consecutive pull-up record (29 from 10, on the first round). I managed a total of 6 runs and 74 pull-ups in 5 sets, distributed as follows:

20-12-15-15-12

Friday

I took a page from the Thursday Crossfit workout. AMRAP 20 Minutes:

• 50 Double-Unders
• Max Reps Ring Rows

I got 11 rounds and 93 ring rows. Not bad! 550 double unders is a good haul!

Not the culmination of a journey, but the beginning of one.

Knowledge as the Opportunity to Improve

The inconsistencies in my childhood ended up leading to one of the constants in my life, an island of stability in the chaos: I’ve always been a martial artist, and it does in fact form a major part of my self-identity, my vision of who I am as a person. Although I work for a large software company, I don’t see myself as a “computer programmer”. It is something I do, one more thread in my life’s tapestry.  That doesn’t, however, mean I don’t bring the peripheral skills of that job to bear in many other facets of my life. The skills and thought processes necessary to be a successful computer programmer are  as embedded in my DNA as bowing in doorways, or making a correct fist.

400lbs. Also not the culmination of a journey, but the beginning of what I now know I am capable of.

To me, the interconnectedness and universal application of knowledge have always been apparent to me; If you know a lot about something, chances are that at least some of the principles are applicable everywhere in life, if not the specifics.

My college career was as diverse as my childhood. My meandering through different majors led me to Computer Science, where, in a very theory-heavy program, I learned the intellectual rigor required for proofs and discrete mathematics.  It is this same intellectual rigor and training that I use to determinine my how best to train, and to methodically tackle problems I face while teaching, to chip away at students’ problems and barriers bit by bit.

It’s my natural inclination to use all of the tools at my disposal to increase my skill at doing what I love, teaching what I love, and being able to see a wider vista of the things that are possible. To limit my vision only to a subset of what I’ve been taught is impossible for me. It’s true to some extent that I’m always looking for “the next best thing”, and to improve on my current processes and abilities, not only for myself, but for the students that I teach, so that I can better help them reach their dreams and goals.

In some ways, failure is as important as success. It’s impossible to know if a road leads to a dead end unless one travels down it first. As the old saw goes, the worst that can happen is that you discover one more way to do things that just doesn’t work. We should all seek failure to some extent. It’s an important marker of where our barriers lie, and gives us the first inkling of a strategy to hurdle them. If we do not expand our horizons of knowledge though both new triumphs and crushing defeat, we don’t know what type of person we are now, much less the type of person we could possibly become.

For that reason, I’ve dedicated myself to trying all sorts of new things, particularly those in the physical and martial arts realm, areas of knowledge to which I am drawn like a moth to a flame. As I extinct inferior behavior, and hone my imperfect knowledge to an ever finer edge, I am irrevocably changed as a person, something that is always reflected in the way that I perform and the way that I teach.

I’m not perfect, I never will be perfect, and in many things I’m not even adequate. But I’m dedicated to never being complacent with that.

On Open Mindedness

We should always prepare to be wrong. In fact, to some extent we should hope for it. We shouldn’t look to be wrong about anything in particular, but we should accept that invariably, in some way, we are completely, undeniably, ego-crushingly, unequivocally, unambiguously wrong about SOMETHING, right now. We should seek it out, to some extent, an easy task if we are committed to studying things about which we are passionate.

Finding this chink in our armor represents an opportunity to see our knowledge fail us, and to correct ourselves to become better. We should always be ready to consider new ideas and how they impact us, and we should always be prepared to raise our heads, admit we were wrong, and do better henceforth.

The easiest thing in the world is to justify our current worldviews, to huddle in the warmth of our familiar notions and ideas, to concoct rationalizations for not accepting new data. It’s harmful. If we do this, we risk stagnating, stunting our personal growth, killing off countless opportunities for improvement and personal growth.

We should not automatically assume we’re wrong about everything. Nor should we adopt any new idea that comes along, with no critical though process in the way. We should always simply give contradicting ideas their fair time in our mental courthouse, before dismissing them out of hand.

On Talking Trash

I have often found that people are afraid of change and newness. It is threatening to one’s ego to be faced with an idea that challenges preconceived notions that may have been in place for years or even decades. As I stated above, we have some critical choices in these matters. We can either evaluate whatever the new information is, or we can choose to ignore it.

One way to justify ignoring something is to lower its status, to discredit it in ways that are not true or not relevant. Using these ad hominem attacks has a good amount of utility for the insecure. It lowers the challenging data’s status without having to risk evaluating it. It allows the challenging data to be the object of ridicule. No one would adopt something ridiculous. It raises therefore raises one’s own status such that the offending data is too low in importance to consider.

I have found that most who do this tend to do so in tightly-knit groups, with no dissenting voice. This phenomenon just makes it that much easier, as the group’s members take their respective potshots. Such echo chambers act as a feedback loop, such that the volume and intensity of attacks can continue without any interruption.

The sad part about this is that the considerable intellectual or emotional time it takes to attack new ideas could have been used to practice or get better, or hone the edge of the knowledge one already has. If you are talking trash, you’re not practicing and not getting better. You’re debasing yourself. You’re attacking others to feel better about yourself.

And you’re most definitely not improving.

As a side note, I’ve been guilty of this as well, on far too many topics to name. Lately though, I’ve tried to do a lot less of it, as it doesn’t help me, and most definitely hurts me. I guess I am sad to say that I have too much intimacy with this topic. I guess that’s why I can write with authority.

I fell off the blogging wagon again. I never really have had a lot of confidence in my ability to think up interesting things to write about, so instead, here’s some workouts and quick thoughts to fill up the space. Oh yeah, I guess I should get back on that food log too.

I’ve decided to cut some time wasters out of my life – Facebook, Twitter, IM – at least temporarily. It’s worked well for me when I’ve done it in the past. I accomplish more, and bad things that seem so immediate when I have information at my fingertips drastically reduce in importance. It’s almost magical. I can concentrate on myself and improving at things that I love and need, instead of frittering away time, reading things that concern me or that I obsess over, but are of no value to my life.

I saw the movie Up this weekend. It is a beautiful, multi-layered masterpiece. At it’s heart, I believe it is about letting go of things that weigh our lives down, that are no longer relevant to us. There is a scene in the movie where the main character jettisons from his house various flotsam and jetsam he has accumulated over his life, so that he can once again take to the skies.

I think all of our lives are a lot like that. We misplace our concerns and put so much value on things that are well past their sell-by date. I couldn’t help but feel very strongly connected in that way to Carl (the movie’s character). I become very strongly attached to people, friendships, relationships, and things that are no longer beneficial to me, merely because of how much prior emotional investment I’ve had in them. They are a comfort to me at the same time they are a consternation. Well, as we know, it’s easy to throw good money after bad in that way, and look up and years have passed.

There was a quote I read a while back. Now that I do a web search, I realize it’s apparently from a graphic designer named Milton Glaser:

…And the important thing that I can tell you is that there is a test to determine whether someone is toxic or nourishing in your relationship with them. Here is the test: You have spent some time with this person, either you have a drink or go for dinner or you go to a ball game. It doesn’t matter very much but at the end of that time you observe whether you are more energized or less energized. Whether you are tired or whether you are exhilarated. If you are more tired then you have been poisoned. If you have more energy you have been nourished. The test is almost infallible and I suggest that you use it for the rest of your life.

I decided to take that advice to heart, and really think about what energizes me and what drains me, and I’ve spent the last few days pondering this very subject, and agonizing over this thought and that. The sad fact of the matter is that there are quite a few draining influences in my life, and they’re mostly people.

I think that for me, the toxic people who Glaser refers to are energy vampires, the ones who greet my enthusiasm with a tempered scorn, or deflect what positive energy I can muster up with a frown, or some strategically placed skepticism. They would rather be “right” than happy, and revel in their misery, as though it makes them more virtuous. To try and share in their happiness is impossible, for they have little of their own. To try and help them find the happiness they deserve is impossible, it is like filling a sieve. It stays empty and exhausts the person who pours out their positive energy.

Due to some events in my life and childhood, I’ve always had a difficult time being positive. For the first time in my life (due to a combination of factors), I feel like those dark clouds are being blown away from my life by some fairly strong winds of change. It is by the sun shining – at last- through these clouds that I’ve come to see some of the people in my life under the light of the day. Their hard edges are accentuated by the light, not softened by shadows, and worse, they seem to squint and despise the same light that is finally washing over my life. These days, my friendliness is met with nods and head shakes, as if my words and concern merit not even words in return. My positive feelings and loving concern met with indifference, scorn, and a disrespectful brush-off. Apparently I don’t merit an explanation. Your contempt for me is manifest. Did you think I would put up with it? I’m sick of your shit, at long last.

A group of people who I once felt (ah, alright, still feel) close to have taken it upon themselves to start a pity-party circle jerk about me. Whispering about my dedication and my loyalty, but too cowardly to say it to my face. Are these the same people around whom I once felt invigorated? Now merely thinking about the bile coming out of their mouths just drains me. One good measure of a person is how resilient they are when faced with adversity and changing circumstances. I can recall a time when even one of those things would have crushed me and occupied my waking thoughts for days. Now I just feel sorry for them. I know that I deserve better, and I know that I am doing better right now. Maybe that’s why they’re angry. Perhaps they should get angry at themselves instead.

I have a lot to offer as a friend and a resource. I devote so much energy to finding out new and creative ways to do what I do more skillfully and efficiently. I love nothing more than to teach others and toss ideas back and forth. Unfortunately, some people have made it clear they want nothing to do with who I am becoming. Apparently they’d rather talk in high flying theoreticals about skill and practice and the way that things should be, instead of actually doing anything. Well. I’m sick of your shit.

But I can’t worry about what other people do and what other people say about me. I firmly believe that I deserve better, and I’m getting better. So why keep intimacy with those who poison me?

Now, on to the work outs!

Monday 05/25

A good one! 21-15-9 Reps:

• Row 500m
• Handstand Pushups

No, not 21-15-9 reps of Row 500m! It was four 500m rows: one to start, one between each HSPU round, and one to finish. I did well on this one, I think. 10:51 or so. I had my feet up on a squat rack for support, as my HSPU skills have declined since my shoulder injury. This was a great workout that was right up my alley!

Tuesday

Crossfit Spartan 300 Workout. Done with my pal Elliot at my kung-fu school. This was a brutal workout that would make a great WOD anytime. Five Rounds for Time:

• 20 Double-unders
• 10 Dumbbell Thrusters
• 10 Pull-ups

This was a beast. I’m a pro at double-unders, but this combination of movements makes everything hurt. I managed 9:47 or so with 30lb dumbbells.

Wednesday

Pure agony. Four rounds:

• 800m Run
• 15 Ring Dips
• 10 Burpees

Running is my mortal foe so far, although my times are improving. The ring dips I did with a dark blue band because of my shoulder, although just like the power clean workout, I tried to do them straight through with intensity (I did drop off once or twice!) Burpees, well those are burpees. I finished at about 23 minutes and some change, which impressed me. The runs are just brutal, especially under the hot May sun.

Thursday

A GREAT workout! I really dug this one to the max, as after so many running WODs, this one offered a brief respite. Although my power cleans aren’t great, I actually really like doing the movement. It’s almost like an ie chin ching for me, and it’s very technically challenging as well. My deadlifts remain my best and favorite lift. My pullups have been improving steadily over the last month as well.

AMRAP 20 Minutes:

• 5 Hang Power Cleans
• 10 Deadlifts
• 15 Pullups

I managed six rounds and two of the pullups on the seventh. This was a tough workout that was again, right up my alley. I had 85lb on the bar (up 10lb from my previous power clean best). The deadlifts were clean and smooth as I could do it, as I take pride in them (I can’t wait to blow away my previous best (370)). Pullups remain not my strong suit, but I’m sure working on them. I felt great after this workout!

Friday

Friday class time! I had a bright idea: Let’s do “Barbara”! Five Rounds for Time:

• 20 Pull-ups
• 30 Push-ups
• 40 Sit-ups
• 50 Squats

Horrible. I gave it a 30 minute cut off and still didn’t finish (I was on the last set of squats). I tried to do mostly pull-ups on the rings, but devolved to jumping pull-ups and ring rows more than a few times! Kudos to the finishers, You guys are warriors.

Monday, 06/01

A new month, a new benchmark. This month it’s Crossfit Total! The last time Total came around, it was just when I had hurt my shoulders, so I didn’t get to register a back squat, only a deadlift (370). My shoulder press was an experimental attempt at 95, so that was my official score. Well, this time I wanted to blow that out of the water. One Rep Max:

• Back Squat
• Shoulder Press

My five rep max on the Back Squat is 255 (I expect that to also go up), so I knew that my ORM would be significantly higher. I nailed attempts at 255, 275, and 285, and ended up at 295. Wow not bad!! I failed on a 305 attempt that I will most definitely conquer next time. I’m more than satisfied with my performance!

The shoulder press is another matter entirely. I’m not sure how this exercise can be so difficult, as conceptually, it’s not so bad! Just lift the weight over your head. Easy! Well, with locked knees and no inertia generation, no it ain’t so easy! I nailed attempts at 65 and 85, and BARELY got 95 over my head. The last attempt I nailed was a 115, and then failed on 125. Yikes. Still though, besting my previous injured best by 20lbs results in a thumbs up! Come on shouders, I’m pullin’ for you!

Tuesday

Spartan 300 Challenge Workout! I have a number of options, and I choose the one with double-unders! For Time:

50-40-30-20-10 reps of:

• Double-Unders
• Sit-Ups

I did this one in about 6:43 or so. I did this on my back porch and jumped in my pool immediately afterwards. By all indications of my health and happiness, this is how humans should live their lives! I didn’t feel incredibly exhausted afterwards. I think I left my abmat at my kung-fu school, so the sit-ups weren’t nearly as challenging as they usually are. So, I decided to do another workout. For Time:

50-40-30-20-10 reps of:

• Double-Unders
• Push-Ups

This gassed me utterly. I’m not sure if it was the push presses on Monday, but my arms had nothing in them. This workout took me about 16 minutes to complete. Although I feel could have done it much faster, the negative thoughts I outlined above kept intruding into my head and paralyzing me. I eventually shook it off and knocked off the workout, taking a nice refreshing cold shower afterward 300 Double-Unders, 150 Sit-Ups, 150 Push-Ups, in the bag!.

Wednesday

A great day. We finished up total today and had a little fun afterwards. One Rep Max:

• Deadlift

I made numerous attempts: 135, 225, 315 for a warm up, then hit the attempts in earnest. My previous best was 370, so I made my first attempt at that, and hit it fairly easily. My second attempt, 385 sent my previous PR out the window as well. Unfortunately, I dropped the bar instead of controlling it on the way down, voiding the attempt. I had one more. Mike A, My parter, and I stuck 395 on the bar, prompting a little good natured ridiculing from my coach. I sheepishly stuck a 2.5lb on each side to make it an even 400. My legs were shaking, but I made it all the way up and controlled it on the way down for a major PR! That brings my Total to 810. Not bad, and I will eventually join the milennium club…

We had a fun little work out afterward in the little remaining time. Taking 70% of our press PR (I put this at 70lb for myself, due to my shoulder), do 5 – 4 – 3 – 2 – 1 reps of:

• Back Squat
• Shoulder Press
• Deadlift

I finished this in 1:15. Not too shabby, and I lost count at one point so I think I repeated one of the sets. Overall a great day.

Thursday

A smoker! It took me 16:06 to finish seven rounds of:

• 200m Run
• 3 Push-Jerk
• 6 Pull-Ups
• 9 Push-Ups

Despite the running (hehe) I really loved this workout. It seemed to tax all my body’s systems and modalities and all the muscle groups. Weights, pulling, pushing, metcon, check, check, check and check! Now to just start upping the weight. My shoulder is telling me to do that gradually though.

Ah I forgot to mention: I got my first “real” muscle-up today! Truly a week of shattering barriers.