Core Training

Thursday, December 3rd workout - Remembering the diagnosis.

Warmup

Shoulder mobility - stretching, foam rolling, dislocates

When I attended Kelly Starrett's excellent workshop at CF Boston in September, I was held up as an example of someone with bad shoulder mobility. He had me trying doing an overhead squat, and he kept telling me to stop cheating. I quite simply could not hold the bar overhead without arching my back. His prescription 5-10 minutes of shoulder mobility work before doing any overhead work. Sometimes even that is not enough lately. Hopefully, things will improve as I build a routine incorporating kipping pullups, mobility work, OHS, and the like.

5 rounds:

3 x 25# pullups
3 MU row-transition

3 sets each:

10-second tuck L-sit on rings
3 press to headstand

Even when I'm not getting in a full workout, I've been trying to squeeze in a little gymnastics training. Perhaps it would have been better if I hadn't crammed it between my shoulder mobility work and overhead lifting.

Heavy Stuff
Press 5x3 85-95-105-115-115f

As soon as I finished thee fourth set, I knew I'd commited the classic alignment fault, because I could suddenly feel tenderness in my L1-T12 disc. I know the feeling from injuring it by catching some jerks with a hinge at that L-T joint. (Kelly Starret expands on this here.) This was just enough tenderness that I knew I lost tightness in the core trying to compensate for my limited shoulder mobility.

Metcon
Half Cindy

AMRAP 10:

5 pullups
10 pushups
15 squats

8 rounds -> 9 pullups; 10:20 for 10 rounds

Pushups failed me, like usual, only quicker this time.


Saturaday, December 5th workout - The Start of the Cure

Warmup
10 minutes carrying wood
5 minutes jump rope - no more than 6 consecutive DUs
Shoulder mobility work

5 rounds:

3 HSPU
10-second frog stand

I do the HSPUs with my belly to the wall, so I'm less likely to hinge my spine. If my back is to the wall, I'll arch to keep my center of gravity against the wall. This way I'm encouraged to hollow myself, although you can see that it's not a perfect system. By my fifth set, my form was starting to suffer:



You can see the two problems working against each other here, limited shoulder mobility putting me at a less-than vertical body angle and a softening of the back to make my torso angle even less vertical. This is the classic upstream-downstream mobility issue that Kelly Starrett harped on in his Chasing Performance seminar - a mobility restriction in one part of the body leads to an even worse form issue elsewhere. (This is an amazingly useful analysis tool for a coach.) The solution is even more dedication to shoulder mobility (daily perhaps), and a corresponding effort to strengthen my core, not by situps and back extensions, rather by doing exercises that force me to work to hold my spine straight.

Heavy Stuff
Deadlift 3x5 - 225-275-310

That was harder than I remember, but my form was halfway decent.

Suitcase DL 3x3 each 95-115-135

KB Complex, 12K

One minute each:

One-arm swing, right 31
Figure 8 forward 20
One-arm swing, left 33
Figure 8 backwards, 12 (That was silly.)
Clean and press, right 20
Halo, cross chop, alternate sides 22
Clean and press, left 17

Total reps = 175

Some folks like the pump they get after a day of bench press and curls (guess it looks good in the mirror), but I like the pump after a day of deadlifts. Walking around with a tight trunk just makes me feel strong. I won't be doing heavy deads every week, but I'll mix them in with snatch-grip DLs, unilateral DB/KB work, and the like. I've got hips that even after a few months off can move hundreds of pounds, but I spent those months slouched in front of a computer at work, so my spinal erectors got weak much faster. That's an imbalance I won't allow to get the best of me. The same goes for my mobility work. It's time to stretch.

Bring what you got

Sometimes you've got plenty in the tank and are firing on all cylinders. Sometimes, you just gotta limp on through. There was nothing objectively wrong with me tonight. I just didn't feel it. My timing was off, my strength wasn't there, and I felt all kinds of strange during the metcon. Still, you can't wait for everything to be right; sometimes, it's just time to get after it.

Yesterday I managed a morning workout that didn't even merit a post.

CFWUx2
One mile run 7:23

Was supposed to be 5K, but my back/left glute were attacking me, much like they did during my three-hour drive the previous day, so I bailed on the run. Was short on time anyways, so no big deal. Felt much better today, but didn't get out to the gym until 8:30 pm - not my favorite time of day (unless I'm getting to bed early or grabbing an after-dinner drink). No such luck tonight.

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Warmup
Jump rope practice 4:40 (max 3 DUs)
Shoulder mobility triplet

Heavy stuff
Shoulder press 45x5, 95x5, 115x3, 125x1, 130x1, 135x1, 137f (141 is my PR)

Had hoped for a better showing after my CFSB work, but no matter what I do with my programming, I'll be keeping the shoulder press and other overhead work in a regular rotation. One of these days, I'll see some strength gains there.

Metcon
Filthy 50

30:11 (PR by almost 3:00)

Box jump, jumping PUs, swings, lunges, PPs unbroken, but
DUs took 5.5 minutes
Got to burpees at 18 minutes (previous best was to wall ball by then)
Burpees took 5.5 minutes
DUs took almost 7 minutes (in 1s, 2s, 3s & 4s)

Felt like puking after the wall ball. (Yes, Jenna, I walked away twice. Even tried to walk away from the burpees, at which point I just dropped and did three more.) Sat down after the burpees at the hands of a metcon demon. Felt pukie close at hand and had weird muscle spasms that made it feel like somebody had placed a heavy hand on the side of my neck. Very strange. Got some evil calf cramps as I was finishing up the DUs and hobbled inside feeling Angry Hungry. I swear, if I found a person in the fridge, I would have ripped off their arm and eaten it. Thankfully, I was able to take out my primal aggression on some leftover London Broil and fruit. Good to get in a solid midweek session.

Heavy thrusters suck

Those are my words of wisdom for the day. There really isn't much more to say. I chose a metcon I hadn't done in a year and a half, and while I went heavier and faster today, it was still a gruesome struggle. On that note, perhaps I should start with the workout today.

Warmup
Agility drills (dot drill, triangle drill x3, W-drill x3)
Air squats
Shoulder mobility drills
Boz OHS Drill

Heavy Stuff
Shoulder press 45x5, 75x3, 95x2, 110x1, 110x5, 115x5, 120x5 (New 5RM)
Skipped the CFSB endurance sets in favor of:

Metcon
Fat Fran on a diet

15-12-9

135# Thruster
25# Pullup (should be 45#, but I left my brain at home)

11:17

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Not a great showing; not horrible either. I started out strong. Did the first 10 thrusters unbroken, which left me gasping for the pullups. Managed the first round in 2:30, but things went steeply downhill from there. The next 12 thrusters took three minutes.

There's just something about picking up a heavy barbell when you're gassed that is perfectly humbling. You grab the bar, you've got the wind to move around, maybe even the strength to do a rep or two, but your body wants nothing to do with lifting the weight. You start talking to yourself. Pains appear out of nowhere.

Body: My forearm aches.

Brain Your forearm?! What? You're doing thrusters. Pick up the bar.

I grab the bar and don't do anything with it.

Brain: Hello! Pick up the fucking bar.

I pick it up; I can barely manage three reps. I shorten my rest; I can only manage two reps. I try an extra rep - spectacular fail. I missed my last rep, too, and had to rest and try again. That was disheartening, but maybe it was a sign that my body knew what it was doing when it refused to pick up the bar.

At least the last round of pullups were unbroken. The lighter than Rx'd pullups were too easy, given the nature of the workout. Didn't figure that out early enough, however, because I was suffering metabolic meltdown after the first 15 thrusters. Guess I need to go back and try this again in a couple of months.

There are brutal metcons, and then there are brutal metcons with thrusters. In a class of their own are metcons with heavy thrusters. Overhead lifting may be a goat of mine, but those are from one of the circles of hell. I clearly need to do more thrusters - light, heavy, in-between. They are Evil, but the fires of hell will make me stronger.

Overtraining, part 1 - How much is too much?

I've been meaning to write about for a while. In fact, I started writing a blog post over Christmas. My recent schedule of undertrained weekdays and full-bore weekends was the nudge I needed to start putting my unfinished thoughts out there. Today's workout, where I combined elements of two day's training, seemed as good a point as any to start the series.

I guess I should start with an explanation of what I'm talking about. Put simply, overtraining is what happens when you push yourself beyond your physiological capacity to recover. Give this a little thought, and you’ll realize that there are some fuzzy edges to this definition. If you do Diane today, you’ll probably do fine with shoulder presses tomorrow, but you might struggle with 400m sprints, because you won’t have fully recovered from the DLs and won’t perform optimally. Does this mean you’re overtrained? If you’ve got a track meet it does. If you’re hitting the next WOD, it’s just overload by design.

Physiologic overload is necessary to produce adaptation. In the simplest setting, you put more weight on the bar or perform a greater number of reps than you have previously to stimulate your muscles to get stronger. You rest, and then you do it again.

CFers as a group are driven. As such, we’re prone to believe that a little extra work after a WOD or an extra session in the gym is what we need. But mainpage Crossfit as Rx’d is powerful medicine. Many of the top athletes at the Games do nothing other than warmup, practice some light skill work, and hit the WOD as hard as they can every day. They get their rest, they eat well, and they come back and do it again. They are as dedicated to their recovery as they are to their workouts. It’s not as glamorous, but it is just as important, especially when you start pushing your limits.

Don’t underestimate that middle step in the process – rest. Adequate rest and nutrition is essential to getting the most out of your training. To paraphrase Rip in a way that I've said so many times, I could put it to music, we don’t get fit from training hard, we get fit by recovering from training hard.

I have some experience with overtraining. Last fall, I had a series of injuries trying to fit just about everything into my hybrid training program each day. I've gotten smarter about it, and I've been glad to have the benefit of the resarch that Jeff Martin put into the CrossFit Strength Bias program to get a sense what a reasonable hybrid workload looks like. I've been making reasonable progress on the program, but haven't been at it long enough to get everything dialed in right. This past week, I've put up some strong numbers, but I think that has to do with working too much to train properly. Essentially, I've had an involuntary deload period, like I might use before a competition to maximize performance at that competition.

My goal, however, is to maximize my performance in late May. I honestly don't know if my off week was good or bad for me. We all need rest once in a while. However, some pretty sharp coaches (Greg Glassman, Bill Starr, John Gilson) believe that the best gains are made when you're in a slightly overtrained state. You won't win any competitions that way unless you have a deload period, but by being continually overtrained, you force your body to adapt. The trick, of course, is figuring out how to balance that equation of necessary overload versus necessary rest. That I'll leave for another day.

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Warmup
Row 500m 1:52 (took it slow this cold morning)
Air squats, goblet squats, lunge & hip flexor stretches
Shoulder mobility drills
Burgener warmup

Heavy stuff
Back squat 45x5
Box squat 45x5, 135x3, 155x2, 175x1, 175x2x5, 180x2x5 (work sets done on the minute)
Shoulder press 45x5, 95x3, 105x3, 115x3, 125x3, 130x2, 90x10-7-4 (1:00 rest b/w sets for 10-7-4)

Skill work
Snatch 65x5, 95x2, 115x2

Metcon
5 rounds:

Snatch 115x3
Squat clean & thruster 115x3
Hang power clean 115x3
2:00 rest between rounds

?, 0:52, 1:12, 0;54, 0:47

Core work
30 abmat situps

This workout left me positively smoked. That's a good thing. Tomorrow's deadlifts probably won't go as well as last Sunday, but I think, I think that it was the right way to attack the weekend. I'll probably know by midweek. I'm my own guinea pig.

The weekend warrior

Two days in a row in the gym; it must be the weekend. Still no time to tarry. Deep thoughts will have to wait for another day. Had fun watching an intro-to-globo gym session while I did my workout. This 250#+ guy was being introduced to the various ways to use the furniture, er, pieces of equipment to work out. He was doing a 95# bench press, and his trainer was all over the bar. Enough with the inappropriate touching already. It was downright disturbing. It's bad enough he's got the guy doing seated "military" presses and three kinds of bench press. Let the guy lift the damn weight.

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Warmup
Agility drills (dot drill, triangle drill x3 x2, W-drill x3 x2)
Shoulder mobility drills (CFCC shoulder triplet and wall slides)
TGU 45x3 each, 60x2 each

Skill work
Push press 45x6, 95x5

Heavy stuff
Shoulder press 45x5, 95x3, 110x3, 120x3, 130x3, 90 x 13 + fail (could not lock out left arm)

Metcon
6 rounds (21-18-15-12-9-6)

100-foot walking lunge
Ring pushups
Slantboard situps

16:59

Ring work
STC to dislocate pike to L-hang 3x3

Cut short my sets on the shoulder press, deciding to settle for matching my 3RM. I'm looking to be in PR territory all next week. We'll see how that goes. Shouldn't have pushed for that 14th rep, as I let my core go all wonky and could feel it in my L1-T13 afterwards. Not bad, since it was light weight and I wasn't grossly hinged, but it's still bad form.

Loving the agility drills as part of the warmup. Really get the blood flowing and my bad ankle could use the extra footwork drilling. Played around with some little parkour jumps between two bollards this afternoon. Something I used to be decent at (by happenstance, not as a traceur) and would like to be again.

Not the fastest metcon. I might have pushed harder to to make the lunges faster, but I was focusing on driving through the heel and getting a good ROM vertically with every step. Anyways, more time was lost managing muscular fatigue on the ring pushups. Not every metcon need be a blazing, heart-pounder. This was a stamina sessionb, but I need a short, intense wind-sucking metcon to get me really going.

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Morning update:

DOMS is kicking in. Felt the abs as soon as I climbed on the rings at the end fo the workout. Today, my ass is trying to convince me that DLs should wait until tomorrow.

It's Supposed to Hurt

"Are you alright?"

I get the question occasionally at the end of a brutal metcon, as I make myself comfortable on the floor of the Y. The looks that you get doing CrossFit workouts are priceless. Nobody knows quite why you would punish yourself that way on a daily basis, but they know that you're obviously training hard. Then, there are those whose world view is simply too challenged to accept the fact that intense CF workouts are a good thing. While I was doing a bunch of DB swings in a short metcon the other day (a great time to talk, I might add), I was engaged in conversation the other day by a women taking a break from her tricep kickbacks to say, "I'm a paramedic, and that's a good way to hurt your back."

"Not if you do it with good form," I grunted.

She wasn't done. As I was finishing up, she decided that my concern for my fellow man might be a better avenue to my conversion to her enlightened path. Referring to my workout partner, she flatly stated that "He's going to hurt his back doing that." The best diplomacy I could manage was "You don't know what you're talking about," and the conversation went nowhere. Clearly, she wasn't about to accept the radical notion that back injuries are prevented by making backs stronger. She obviously thought her routine of 20 minutes of cardio followed by moving some light weights around was a better path to fitness. She wasn't interested in challenging herself. We know better. We know fitness only comes through hard work.

It's easy for us as CrossFitters to accept the basic principle that exercise consists in challenging our bodies to do things to which it's not accustomed, that we need to push ourselves past our current limits to get stronger. But getting stronger does not mean things will get easier for us. The truth of the matter is that improving at CrossFit fundamentally means you have to be willing to suffer more. In fact, the better you get the more it hurts. We see superstar athletes and assume they have it easy when they succeed, but there's no denying the suffering of elite CrossFitters when they finish first in a workout. This is something I understand when thinking about a workout, but the concept isn't quite as clear when I'm in the midst of a gruelling metcon and my instincts are screaming at me to stop and breathe. Today's metcon was a reminder of that. I did roughly as well at it as the last time out - not bad, but no apparent improvement and I did stop and breathe and grab a drink in the middle. If I want to do better, I simply have to be willing to accept more pain. This is not a reassuring thought.

Warmup
Jump rope 6:00 (never got my DU rhythm going, after my rope exploded and needed repair)
Shoulder mobility (dislocates, wall slides)

Heavy stuff
Shoulder press 45x5, 95x3, 115x1, 115x5, 120x4x2
Push press 3 x (95, 100, 105, 110, 115)* 115x3, 45x8, 95x3, 95x3, 75x5

* Density style - reps on the minute until form breaks down. By 115, it was clear my form was awful. I've got a fairly fundamental fault here of driving off the ball of foot that needs corrrection, which means practice, practice, practice. Even 95# may be too heavy for this practice, as that's where things seemed to start to slip.

I've lost quite a bit on the shoulder press since this summer. It's on the list to work on a weekly basis, thanks to the CFSB article. Now, I'm sure that's a good idea.

Metcon
5 rounds:

5 burpee box jumps, 20"
5 DB snatch, each arm, 55#

6:19

This was 16 seconds slower than the last time I did this. However, I did squat snatches in the first round, which really put the hurt on. My work capacity for this is probably improved from last time. However (and this is the kicker), I didn't push this as hard as I should have. I was again asked if I was alright, but laying there I knew that I shouldn't be able to get up and so convincingly say that I was.

Core work
3 rounds:

10 KTE
10 hip & back extensions
5 cable cross-chops each side, 60#

The gym mercifully closed before I could get in the last round of hip extensions and cross-chops. I was done anyways and ready for my rest day.