Affiliate hopping

One of the advantages of having to travel for work (even if it isn't that far) is that I get to bop about New England visiting different affiliates. The travel really only started recently, and I'm just getting caught on to the possibilities for expanding my garage CF perspective. Meetings in Boston and Hartford on consecutive days got me to Revolution CrossFit in Boston and CrossFit Persevere in Glastonbury. These two affiliates couldn't be more different.

RevFit is a globo gym with the shiniest of fitness machines and a CrossFit room. Some marketing guru named it "The Pit" since I was last there, although it only feels that way if you close the garage door to the room and let the sweat build-up. It's got your full array of CF trappings, bars, bumpers, nice pullup bars, rings, KBs, rowers, Dynamax balls, jump boxes, etc. The one thing missing from RevFit - a CrossFit trainer providing feedback. There's just a group of athletes who mostly follow the mainpage WOD, except on Thursdays when a trainer does lead a workout or during an fundamentals class, when all the regulars get kicked out of the pit and exiled to the land of chrome gym furniture to complete their workouts. Last night was just such a night. It's not the gym's fault. We were strength training and happily shooting the shit while we rested between sets and didn't get to our metcon before they began their fundamentals class. Thus, our metcon was done in an open space amidst the chrome-plated furniture of Globoland. We lined up three barbells and did our burpees right in front of the person DLing behind us (watch those fingers, kids).

Most of the RevFit regulars were languishing on the IR. Laura was still recovering from her marathon and limited to upper-body work; Sharon was visibly pained by a neck ailment; and Chris was suffering a nasty cold. Thankfully, Renee was going strong, and Samantha Aurelio was also visiting from out of town, so we got in a good workout together. They did a modified CrossFit Football WOD, and I did most of it plus some ring work.

Sam showed off her one-armed handstand, which got me inspired to try some gymnastics stuff. My press handstand was working well, although I've still got some work to do to hold that freestanding handstand consistently. Apparently the oly work has helped my flexibility, because I sure as heck haven't been doing passive stretching). My front and back lever progressions were suprisingly good, too, given that all I've been working with any regularity is skin the cats, L-hangs, and MU progressions. (It's always good to have your skilz working when it's time to show-off. ) The most impressive showing-off, however, was Sam's ATG squat. She quietly added 5# to her 5RM, while retaining rock solid form throughout. She easily has another 10# in her.

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RevFit Workout - Monday, June 15, 2009

Warmup
Hip and shoulder mobility
10 C2B pullups
5 L-pullups
10 ring dips

Skill work
5 Skin the cat to hollow hang to L-sit
2 failed MUs
1-arm handstands against wall
2 press handstands (first strict straight-arm press HS in a long time )
pike back lever - 5 seconds x2
one-leg-extended front lever - 5 seconds, 3 seconds

Heavy stuff
Press 45x5, 70x5, 95x3, 115x3, 120x3, 125x2+f, 122.5x3, 122.5x1 (burned out from too much ring work between sets)

125 is my prior 3RM, so this isn't bad. Overhead strength still needs attention, given the low numbers overall, but my loss of strength is not as grim as I thought.

Metcon
5 rounds:

5 Deadlift, 275#
10 burpees

7:05

Last time out was 6:26, so this isn't great. I should have checked my log-book before starting, and maybe I could have pushed closer. Metcon probably isn't good enough to take 40 seconds off, but 20 was certainly doable, even though I was thoroughly gassed here.

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In contrast to RevFit, CrossFit Persevere is a spartan setup - no showers (yet), no shiny chrome machinery, no internet/juice-bar cafe, no after-work crowds either on this particular day. They do have a sweet, new pullup bar, on which to do flying pullups, however, climbing one bar to the next four times until you've gone from 8 to 15 feet above the ground. (I stuck to the lower two rungs, thankyouverymuch).

Where RevFit had an array of globogoers gawking at the three of us doing DLs for time (I'm sure the 275# thump helped draw attention), CFP had two coaches there to encourage (i.e., yell at) me to fight through the pain and complete my WOD. Kim Malz, aka fitmom, is co-owner of CFP. She has a tremendous energy that is reflected in her athletes and her performance. Kim qualified for the CF Games in Aromas, less than two years after her cancer diagnosis. As inspiring as that story is, you should have seen her work her way from 24th overall at the Qualifiers to 5th, by charging through the brutal final workout. The kind of fighting spirit she showed in the workout clearly goes a long way in life. It's hard to wimp out on a workout with that kind of example cheering you on.

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CrossFit Persevere Workout - Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Warmup
Pullups
Hip mobility
2 muscle ups (felt good enough that I put them in a metcon for the first time ever)
Burgener clean warmup

Metcon
Nasty girls

3 rounds:

50 squats
7 muscle ups (switched to jumping MUs after one round plus 2 reps & 5 failed reps)
10 hang power cleans, 135#

12:57

Felt good to finally use muscle ups in a metcon. The 11 MUs are by far the most muscle ups I've done in one session. How it is I go from zero MUs one day to 11 the next escapes me entirely. I'll just keep working these and hope they don't go away again.

Overtraining, part 3 - Enough is enough

So far I've covered the easy stuff - describing what over training is. The challenge is to know when you're sneaking up on getting overtrained and what to do about it, so you don't suffer a setback - whether that comes in the form of illness, a protracted plateau or injury - and to do this without being overcautious and not thereby getting in enough training. There's no crystal ball to make this determination, and striking the right balance between overtraining and undertraining is very much an individual thing.

I'm a person of extremes and habit. When I first hopped on the CrossFit train, I didn't want to get off. If I missed a day, I'd do two a days to catch up. That didn't last long, but in the same vein, sometimes I'll program myself a week of workouts that looks great on paper, but turns out to be a bit much when coupled with the demands of life, and it's very hard for me to let go and dial back the workload midstream. On the flip side, when I need an couple days off and decide to kick back and watch a little TV instead of hitting the gym, my motivation to get back in there and abuse myself CF-style quickly wanes. That shouldn't be a suprise. The body seeks stasis, and the couch is a good deal more comfortable than the second round of Fran.

The general population obviously prefers the couch, but there are lots of CFers who err on the side of overtraining. We want to push as hard as we can, and that's a good thing. So, how do we figure out when to back off?

The science of overtraining is much better developed for endurance athletes - folks who pile on a training volume that dwarfs the output of, say, a Fight Gone Bad, even if it's performed with an intensity that doesn't come close to a sub-20-minute CrossFit WOD. The science for resistance training or hybrid CF-style training is relatively new, but here's a good article that discusses some of the science of resistance-exercise overtraining that I found researching the subject.

Symptoms of overtraining that seem to apply to CF athletes include (and this is based on my limited experience):

• Decreased performance;
  
• Sleep problems;
  
• Decreased coordination (including technical faults in your lifts);
  
• Elevated resting heart rate;
  
• Moodiness;
  
• Increased susceptibility to colds;
  
• Lack of energy;
  
• Decreased appetite;
  
• Random pains (as opposed to workout-related soreness);
  
• Decreased confidence and motivation in the gym; and
  
• Occurrence of nagging little injuries - muscle strains, sprains, joint tenderness.

Which symptoms affect different people will vary, of course. Performance will suffer for just about anyone, but that can happen for plenty of reasons besides overtraining. I never have problems eating, but if I'm getting overtrained, I'll wake up at 3:30 a.m. every day, get irritable, catch colds, and develop random joint pains. How much the latter three symptoms are related to lack of sleep and how much to overtraining is sort of a moot point. As I said a couple of days ago, overtraining and underrecovery are two sides of the same coin.

I've gotten much better about identifying overtraining. I have an autoimmune disorder that gives me arthritic symptoms when I'm close to catching a cold, and while this has gotten much better since I went to a paleoish diet without as many inflammatory nightshades, I've learned to tune into my joints as an indicator of overtraining the way an old farmer might predict the weather with his rheumatism.

Not everyone is so fortunate as to have a built-in warning system. Of course, mine comes with a price. When the immune system goes haywire, I can get real sick. Last March, after fighting off a cold for over a week and having had a less-than-dedicated winter of training, I decided it was time to hit it again and do the MainPage WOD - Fight Gone Bad. This wasn't a case of overtraining, but it was one of underrecovery, and I paid for my stupidity in the form of a three-week bout with the flu. I've been much smarter this winter, backing off a little when my stress level is way up and some of the warning signs of overtraining are there, especially when my kids are clearly incubating opportunistic viruses for me. It's not so much that I take days off (although that has happened, too), but I tweak my programming to do things that I know don't stress my system too much. Wednesday, I decided against the Filthy 50 I had planned in favor of squats and a short metcon - an intense workout, no doubt - but one with much lower volume and of the type to which my body was more accustomed.

You'll need to develop your own experience with what workouts you can get away with while flirting with overtraining. Workouts that crush you with volume or intensity, like a chipper, a Fran or a Fight Gone Bad are clearly ones to avoid. Likewise, avoiding intense sessions with the types of exercises that brought you to the point of overtraining is obvious. However, a Cindy for you might be like a heavy squat day for me - something that you can do without over-stressing your system and still get in some decent training, even if your performance isn't at it's best.

The question remains, however, how do you know when you're getting overtrained. Getting sick or injured is really too late to figure it out. Beyond self-awareness, there are some tests you can do to see if you might be overtrained. I started trying two of these today, so I have no personal experience upon which to evaluate these yet, but I'll put them out there for you to try.

For volume-related overtraining, track your resting heart rate before you get out of bed in the morning. Elevated metabolic rates are associated with high-volume overtraining, at least among endurance athletes. If your heart rate goes up and stays up for several days in a row, even after a rest day, you might be getting overtrained.

For intensity-related overtraining, do a test to see how many dots you can put on a page in 10 seconds. Again do this first thing in the morning. This one comes from Dan John, who found that for his strength-focused training program, this test worked much better than the resting heart-rate test. The idea behind this is that as instense work overloads the central nervous system, fine-motor skills are the first to go. If you start putting fewer dots on the page, even after a rest day, again you might be getting overtrained.

I tried to establish a baseline for these this morning, but given that I took a 12-hour decongestant to help fight off a head cold and got only 6.5 hours of sleep, my numbers might not be indicative of baseline conditions. My results:

49 bpm
51 dots

I'll try to keep this up for the next few months and see what I learn.

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OK, that was lengthy. I'll keep the workout post short and sweet. Another great day in the sun, this time with some finely aged PRs matched and broken.

Warmup
Cross-country hopscotch
Triangle drill
Hip mobility drills

Skill work
MU progressions - 3 consecutive MUs
Back lever progressions

Heavy stuff
Back squat 45x5, 95x5, 135x5, 185x3, 235x2, 255x5, 265x5, 275x5 (new 5RM)

Metcon
50 in the clip

50 burpee C&Js, 95#

8:43

Core work
5:00 rolling planks

(Photo from early in the metcon. Form didn't look this good as it went on and even here it looks like I didn't give it a good shrug.)