Farewell 2012.

New Year's Eve. Well, I have made zero progress since my last post although I did hit some workouts and (over)ate like shit. Enough.

I'm starting the "new year" right now. I hit the 630 wod this morning and paid for my culinary indiscretions. The warm up made me feel horrible and it didn't get much better. Hang power cleans went ok, if not uninspiring. The metcon was a near disaster. 

3 rounds of
{
    12 burpee box overs
    9 C2B
    7 Deadlift (315/225)  
}

The DLs should have been easy, instead I couldn't get 315 off the floor for one! I settled on 275 and scaled the C2Bs to ring rows, and box overs to climb overs but at least over a 24 inch box. Took me 12 minutes to finish and I was finished.

I do have one interesting thing to add for now. I got a pair of these for Christmas. They're 10lbs each and came from Ageless Strength

I've used them for a couple of hours now and I really like them. Most likely will post some video when I stop clonking my head.

I also wanted to post some information about my nutrition planning and the food journal my coach has me using. This is from this morning, after breakfast and before lunch. Some of this is scientific and some is an approximation. 

On the right side of today's entry you'll notice "2400 BMR". This was measured by my coach using a CO2 monitor/inspired air flow meter. I can post details another time. I researched the equipment and it is pretty damn accurate. Below that is "200 wod". This is an estimate I made today on the calorie expenditure for today's workout. Today I only did the wod, nothing extra, and the number is based on an estimated maximum of 400 kilocalories. From the sum of those values I decrement 500 to provide a dietary deficit. The balance becomes my food budget for the day.

I am following a plan that calls for 5 meals throughout the day and a 40/30/30 nutrient distribution. I plug my daily budget value into a spreadsheet formula I cooked based on values provided by my coach and I get the following 5 sets of values. I round these off to make meal preparation easier. The 1st value is the total in kilocalories for that meal and is followed by the protein/carbohydrate/fat subtotals. 

Meal 1 is breakfast, 2 is lunch, 3 is a mid-meal snack, 4 is dinner and 5 is a small snack taken an hour or two before bed. The goal is to never go more than 4 hours without eating. Foods are chosen from a list, loosely based on Paleo Diet for Athletes.

I try to weigh all my food, journal all my food choices, and, here's the hard part. Make entries for the unplanned stuff. Like cookies and that piece of cake. That part is harder than weighing and calculating. It just sucks. Which is the point I think. I've slacked some on the journal, but no more. This is all part of my 90 day challenge and beyond.

Another year is drawing to a close and it's time to focus on the upcoming one.  I have a couple of things planned for the new year and I'll use this post to start declaring some others.

My current weight is 232. I'm not happy about this as I've fought over this territory several times before. I'm still working with Judy Torel and I will definitely be continuing. My weight loss goal is to get to 12% body fat then re-evaluate. Judy calculated this at 209 lbs. I want to be at that weight or lower by May. To help get there I will continue to keep a food and exercise journal. I'll try to add interesting benchmarks here as often as I can.

I have committed to doing the Tough Mudder in May. I'll be ready. My two co-conspirators had better be as well! 

I've also entered the ACF/CCP 90 Day Challenge. 
     Benchmark WODs:

•     Fran(95/65)Scaled(55/35)
•     1 RM Snatch
•     7 minute AMRAP Burpees
•     10k Row
•     1 RM Squat

Some other 2013 Crossfit goals:

• Pull ups. I want them. I will have them.
• Rope skipping. I look like a spazz now. I will master this.
• Oly Lifts. Mine suck because I don't practice them. I respect these and I want better numbers. I will dedicate training time and improve them. I want my 1 RM numbers > my body weight for each lift.
• Current rowing PRs are 10k/46:55, 5k/22:10, 2k/8:06. Goals are; under 40/under 20/under 7:30. 
• Improve the quality and frequency of the mobility work I perform.

General fitness:

• 5 hours of cardio/week! 
• Hit certain areas daily as able that may be excluded in wods, accessory work, etc such as...
• triceps, abs, posterior chain.

Powerlifting:

• Please no injuries. Please.
• Bench Press. PR is currently 245 and am ready for at least 250. Goal is 300 for a single.
• Squat. PR is currently 410. Goal is 450 at a body weight < 210.
• Deadlift. PR is currently 440. Goal is 500 for a single, 455 for a triple and no hamstring injuries of any kind. Please.

Cycling:

• 20 minute average power > 240 watts.
• Sub 5 minute ascent of Lainhart Rd.
• 9 lap TT at NYS Campus < 60 minutes.

That ought to do it for now. If you were here and read this, please leave a comment. 

I need to get caught up here between workouts. To recap:

Last Thursday's kb amrap. I was smoked from the morning wod and I barely got 12 rounds in. 20kg for 5/5/5/5: R/L press,R/L snatch. Previously I got 13 + 10 and 13 + 16. Although I claimed to have gotten 15 rounds with Amir one night, I suspect that represents an off-by-one error.

Tuesday's strength session at Cutting Edge; I worked only on my bench as I got some impromptu coaching. I warmed up with:

95 x 5 x 2

115 x 5 x 1

135 x 5 x 1

Work sets:

144 x 3

163.5 x 3

185 x 5

Singles:

205

220

230 (PR)

240 - miss, blown bar path.

Worked on high arch, foot position closer to bar end of bench to support the arch, bend bar down/up during eccentric (down)/concentric (up) phases, lowering bar slowly to the solar plexus. 

This week we've been doing a sequence of wods with opposite gender partners. Today we 15 minutes to get to 1RMs of DL/Squat/O-head press (5 minutes each). Short version: get sweaty,partner up,grab plates and...it didn't go too bad. Ran out of time on the DL & squat, getting 365/345 with seconds left. So, bonus points for me for going 365 and not ripping anything and also, the squat felt super. Went very deep, no bounce and came up out of the hole quick and strong. Today makes me very optimistic for a 400lb+ squat very soon.

Tonight the kb amrap went better than it has in a while, 14 rounds + 5. No idea what day 4 of the throwdown is yet, not posted. As long as it doesn't have a run, I'm good.

Sumo is King

It's been 2 weeks since I tore my right hamstring while deadlifting. The bruise is fading and the swelling and tightness is greatly diminished. After the injury I continued to train but babied the leg quite a bit. What I found pleasantly surprising is that I could squat decently even on day 1 after the injury. Swinging kettlebells has been a bit dodgy though, as well as anything that causes my leg to straighten fully. So this morning when I looked at the WOD I felt some hesitancy as we were scheduled to work up to a 2RM on the DL. 

After the warmup (500m row/spidermans/inchworms), Chris W and I partnered up as usual. The idea was to take a few minutes to warm up the movement, then the balance of the time to hit 3 sets of heavy doubles. If I was uninjured I would have targeted 345/365 but I had no idea what to aim for and try not to tear this again. I decided to follow Chris as I guessed he'd be a bit under where I'd normally be. We pulled 135 and 225 for warm ups, then began adding weight. Doubles at 255 & 275 felt like nothing. Work sets at 295/305 also felt very light and that's where I packed it in.

The next part of the WOD was a 6 minute amrap of 3 hang cleans/9 kb swings. I would have preferred to use the prescribed 32kg kb, but I couldn't find one so I used a 24kg. Prescribed weight on the cleans was 155 but I went light at 115 and that was heavy enough by my last 2 or 3 sets. I finished with 6 full + 10 and I definitely should have pushed harder with the selected weights or sucked it up and gone heavier.

Last set was 3 minutes in plank position on the rings which felt pretty good. (60/60/30/30).  

While Chris was pulling I watched from the front and side as he tried to assimilate the coaching from Dean. First, I think Dean is great and I liked what he had to say and second, I think Chris was doing a good job putting the input into practice. In light of all the above, I think most people, maybe everyone, should spend some time learning to pull from a sumo stance. The plus side is that it is easier (I believe anyways, and it certainly is for me) to get the back more erect. This is more efficient and safer. Everyone I see pulling conventionally (although I do need to pay attention to the more seasoned lifters) has a deficit where their hips rise several inches before their shoulders do. Often the lifter's back comes close to parallel before the bar begins moving. Some video work and self-review would likely help here as well. 

For me, the sumo stance is King during the DL and squat and anyone in Crossfit aspiring to lift 1.5x body weight or more should give it some attention in favor of the conventional stance.

For reference, here are 2 images of Julia Ladewski. These are screencaps from a video on YouTube (Ultra-wide deadlift 225x5). 

Monday 6/25.


Missed out on 3 days of perfect riding weather doing prep work for a home improvement project. Strangely enough I felt like shit over the weekend, following feeling like shit on Thursday and barely surviving kettlebell class. 


I was hoping to feel better today but it wasn't great and I didn't have much energy. Bummed too because I went to bed at 1030. My arms and shoulders still feel beat up from last week, but I managed to squat snatch 135 x 1 x 3.
During the AMRAP part of the WOD I dropped down to 95 for power snatches but only got 6 to 7 reps/minute.


Upper body felt pretty sore afterward but it passed quickly. Skipping Monday night spin to work on the house and sleep. 


Hopefully I'll have some energy post-WOD tomorrow to bench or do some lower body work. The weather is supposed to suck so it seems unlikely I'll be hitting the campus in the evening.

Jim and I took a nice ride yesterday and enjoyed some of the best weather we've had this year. There was quite a bit of wind but it was sunny and mild. We were both a bit sore and tired going into it so we poked along easy and only did about 32 miles. Saturday I rode over at the campus before hitting the gym to work shoulders for a little while. I'd planned on riding < 90 minutes and keeping the effort hard. The warm up felt crappy, no power, no speed and sore legs. On lap 5 I started pushing harder up the climb, all out of the saddle, 10 - 15 pedal strokes at a time. After that my power came up and speed increased steadily. I managed to finish out the workout with an avg speed of 17.1, which while not impressive was the best I've delivered in a while.  




WODs


Monday 6-18. Overhead squats! EMOM (20) x 3. This was fantastic. Partnered with John, went with 75#. Got the lockout dialed, got the depth dialed dropping onto a medicine ball.


Tuesday. Ring rows, row hard for 20s, jump rope. Meh.


Wednesday. Burgener warm up. Work up to 3 tough sets of 1x hang squat snatch, 3 x OHS. For 6 minutes, EMOM, 2 x 90% front squat from the floor racks. 3 x 50 unbroken wall balls. This is how it went down. Partnered with Chris Williams on 1 and 2. For the FSs we picked up a 3rd guy. Started at 65# and went up by 5s, ended with last 2 sets at 85 & 90. PR. Worked up to 2 sets at 155# in the front squat. Front rack position getting better.




Creatine. Been using this pre- and post-workout. No verdict yet but I am cautiously optimistic.


Weight loss. Slow. 

Interesting week so far. The weather has been cold and rainy so I'm not getting much extra time on the bike. Last Sunday Jim and I rode ~32 miles and had to wait for an icy T-storm to pass. Luckily we were still in the lot because there was a bunch of hail as well. I've still felt very slow on the bike with no real power. Towards the end of the last ride my upper back was hurting a bit too. 

It was a really shitty looking day, very cloudy and little sun. Amazing how amber lenses can change your entire perspective.


Off the bike I've had some great WODs. With Dean Leber's help today I managed to get a good front rack position and was able to front squat for real for the first time. The last 2 days have really tired me out though and I need extra sleep and better recovery. Going to try hitting the rack at 10 and also going to pick up some creatine monohydrate and try supplementing my post-workout shakes with it. Maybe it will help lighten my mood as well. 

I really enjoyed this morning's WOD.


1. Push Press, 4 x 6
2. 10 rounds for time
    5 handstand push ups, scaled to a. get upside down, b. 8 hand-release push ups
    10 American KB swings (24kg)


I held back just a bit on the push presses as I want to have good shoulders for tomorrow's bench session.


I've met with Jim R. and Chris D twice and really had great workouts.
Week 1: 5x5 @180, finishing with board presses and db presses.
Week 2: 5x3 @185, finishing with floor presses (?) and tricep ext/rows. 
I need to write down the content of the works sets! Jim is working up a schedule to build towards some big singles. I'm looking to top out over 250 at the end of the next couple of cycles and hit 300 in the early fall.


I went over 300# doing triples and doubles in the back squat last Thursday and felt very good. I could use more depth and I should set up the GoPro to analyze my depth and posture coming out of the hole. Based on how I felt after a good warm up and topping out at 335, I think a 1 rep max around 400 is possible.


All continues to go well with the diet. last Friday's check in with Judy went like this, down a total of 10 lbs, but lean muscle mass is up 10 lbs. So I've shed 20 lbs of fat. 

Last Friday I met with Judy for a 2/3 week weigh-in. The final number was actually a net loss of 7 lbs, with an increase in lean muscle mass of ~2.5 lbs. I'll take that. One of the important topics we talked about at this meeting was pre-/during and post- workout nutrition. The plan is to not alter the 2400 cal/5 meal per day template, but feed each workout. At the moment I don't have a strict plan for pre-workout fueling, but for workouts lasting longer than 90 minutes I will shoot for around 300 calories per hour (total food & drink), plus 30 ounces of water** (water/energy drink) and 600 mg of sodium. I'll post more here about the products once I've picked them up and tried them. for post-workout, I'll either make my own or use a commercial product. For post-cycling I may pick up a container of Accelerade or Endurox, but for WODs, lifting, etc I've been experimenting with Myoplex and a shake made from water, almond milk, ON whey protein and fruit. Time will tell if I feel strong from one workout to the next.    


The eating plan continues to be easy to follow although sometimes still hard to get all my calories in. I also continue to be relatively free from the desire to go out to the kitchen and binge.


I inadvertently got 2 heavy deadlift sessions on successive days. Yesterday's WOD had 5x2 heavies between a warmup and the AMRAP and I'd already worked a few sets of speed pulls into 3 singles on Monday before going to spin. Still, after going easy for a few I pulled 385 on the last set and missed rep 2. 


Today I finished a 3-3-3 set of push jerks with 2 shaky reps at 175 and missed #3. Something to look forward to ;)


Tomorrow ought to be very interesting. Jim R invited me to join he and Chris D at his garage to start bench press sessions.  

I finished up with OnRamp last Friday and my impressions were really positive. I like the workout structure. I like most of the content. I'll save any commentary on philosophical differences for later after I have some time logged.


I signed up for 3 months on Monday and am looking forward to seeing what I can do. I hit the 7 am WODs on Tuesday and Wednesday then Viv's kettlebell class tonight. So many thoughts.


Some early positive reactions.


I've spoken to several coaches now and I feel really good about having so many sources of information right there. I know I'm going to have questions about fitting in WODs/extras into a week, especially around cycling, and it'll be great to have other ideas rather than coming up with all that on my own.


There is an emerging focus to include powerlifting techniques into the Crossfit gyms. Since that is already familiar to me and something I like doing it should provide some enjoyable stimulus. I also I'm excited to learn and work on the olympic lifts. Had a great time on Tuesday with the split jerk.


There's a really good energy in the place with a bunch of faces I already know. 


The paleo diet focus coincides nicely with Judy's input. 


Some self examination:


My core is really weak. My aerobic power is only ok, not as good as it was, but I feel like I'm improving. I'm really going to need to be serious about recovery work because I was very stiff and sore this morning and I know I can do something about that.


I should keep a list of things I really suck at and work up a schedule to spend extra time on those. 


My strength is off in the snatch and C&P. Presumably detraining effect. Maybe I'll do some low reps with bigger bells and see what happens.


-----


Other business. 


Paleo eating plan is going well. Daily weight bounces a bit, but I'm down ~13lbs  
in 2 weeks. That's not the whole story though. I feel pretty damn good. I think I'm drinking too much coffee, but the fatigue is largely gone (may be from working out too...) and I haven't felt dizzy/spacey. Blood sugar? I dont know but I'm obviously to keep on doing the same thing.


Jim and I finally got out for a 25 miler on Sunday. The weather was great and I felt pretty decent. Fat, but decent. I'll have to make a decision soon about the MDD ride in August.

Started Crossfit on-ramp Monday night and attended the second session tonight. Monday we reviewed ring rows, push ups, air squats and burpees. Tonight we went over wall balls, the back squat, using the foam roller and some fitness stuff. No real hard workout yet. Toughest part of tonight was 30 wall balls. I did mine in about a minute but my form sucks. 


One of the instructors wanted me to go with a narrower stance when squatting but I'm sticking with my wide(ish) sumo stance.


I could not believe how effective the foam roller is! Holy crap it made me gasp for breath it hurt so bad. Gotta get me one of those.


I'm thinking I'll try going back to Viv's kettlebell class tomorrow. 

Well, I've been back in New York since March 7th. While it feels great to be back and working at Genius Industrial Solutions, I managed to pack on ~35 lbs since the 1st of the year. Dear God.


I haven't been back to kettlebell class yet, but I anticipate doing that soon. I had my first session this past Friday with a trainer and she is going to help me me with diet and workout planning. Here is her website. Judy would like to see me on the paleo diet, which is a nice coincidence because I am starting the crossfit on-ramp session on Monday.


Judy measured my RMR at ~ 3100 kCal/day which surprised the hell out of me. Just goes to show how badly I was overeating to pack on that much weight so quickly. 


Not much else to report. Will check back in soon.