Having completed the qualifiers, I've wondered what I should do next. They were motivational, and certainly, a part of me wanted to raise my firebreather quotient and hit more heavy metcons and see what kind of intensity I could generate on a day-to-day basis. However, the reality of the situation is that I'm lacking in some fundamentals that I think will have more long-term benefit to me than enhancing my ability to suffer more and longer. Certainly, long metcons remain a goat, but my olympic lifting technique and gymnastics skills need to be brought to the next level and I think focusing on them for a while will give me a more functional strength than anything else right now. It's summer, though. I can't be spending 4 or 5 days a week inside a gym while it's gorgeous out, so I decided I better program in some good outdoor activties - certainly flipping tires, dragging sleds, throwing tires, etc.; but also some LSD work, like trail runs, hikes with heavy packs, and biking.
The program is thus a compromise. I'll follow the current Catalyst Athletics strength cycle, which started back in April. However, I'll only do two or three workouts a week, so that I end up completing two weeks of the 10-week cycle each month. On my other two or three days per week, I'll play in the mountains, do those outdoor metcons and get in some much-needed gymnastics work.
I'm sure dragging a 10-week cycle out for five months is dreadfully wrong on some fundamental level, and at some point, I'll post the question to the CA forums, so Greg Everett, Steven Low, and company can tell me in excruiating detail exactly how I'm short-changing myself. However, my priority right now is to enjoy my workouts. They'll be hard - sometimes brutally so, but I got into CrossFit because I wanted to have more capacity for my outdoor pursuits, so I best enjoy the great outdoors while I have the luxury of living in a beautiful rural setting. I promise to bring my camera, when I do.
Now that the qualifiers are over, I'm not sure what form this blog will take or how often I'll update it, but for now, I'll post an abridged version of my most recent workouts, which with commentary will still make this an insanely long post, but until I come up with a better idea, this is still a workout blog, so...
-------------------------------------------------
June 3, 2009
Back squat 255x5, 265x5, 275x5
Press 115x4+f, 115x3+f, 110x5
Was quite pleased with how readily I got within 5# of my 5RM on the squat, but my press remains anemic. My 5RM is 121, so I'm not off by much. However, it's apparent that I need to continue to emphasize overhead work in my supplemental work.
June 4, 2009
Power clean 145x3, 155x2, 165x2, 175x2, 185, 195, 195f
Redid the 195, because my initial catch wasn't pretty. I had the bar plenty high on both reps, but I didn't drop myself into a proper quarter squat to catch it. Instead, I feebly tucked my tail between my legs to receive the bar. This was a problem at the qualifiers, too. Then, I blamed it on my lack of confidence in my quads, which had been thoroughly thrashed by the heavy thrusters, burpees, and rowing the previous day. However, I'm starting to think that I need to train my body to get accustomed to finishing both power cleans and push jerks in a 1/2 to 1/4 squat without dropping to the bottom of the squat. I could definitely lift a lot more weight, once I get that movement pattern down. Sounds like something to throw in my warmup using PVC.
June 10, 2009
Snatch 115x2x2
Snatch Pull 150x3x3
Snatch DL 150x3x3
Front squat 185x3x5
My first Cathletics WOD. Interesting working a bunch of exercises at submaximal loads. I've done mostly ME work for strength training, and while the individual sets were all done fairly comfortably, I could definitely feel the accumulated volume afterwards and can see how the program would develop strength.
June 11, 2009
Muscle snatch - 2 snatch balance couplet 95, 95, 115, 125, 135f, 135
OHS 140, 115x2x2
Power C&J 155, 155x2, 155
8 TGU
C2B Pullups 15x2
Worked up to a muscle snatch PR, after failing on my first attempt at that weight. This was a shoulder intensive workout and is something that will definitely help with overhead strength, perhaps in ways that diligently working the shoulder press with minimal progress might not (although having some fractional plates would probably help in that regard). Shoulders were too toasted to pull off the 30 TGU I had programmed, so I called it a night.
Showing posts with label snatch. Show all posts
Showing posts with label snatch. Show all posts
Thursday, June 11, 2009
Saturday, March 14, 2009
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.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
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:
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.
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.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
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
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.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
