Day 170 - Committed to CrossFit

Well, today, I signed off on the cheques that'll have me going to my local CrossFit affiliate 2x/week. The rest of the time will be spent at my University gym. It'll be nice to have that bit of coaching, as well as a facility that is specifically geared to being able to do the crazy workouts.

Here's today's workout (it's a CrossFit.com rest day, but not a rest day for me!)
CFWUx3

5RM Back Squat:
45, 95, 135, 165, 195

mini G.I. Jane (L'il G.I. Janie?):
for time
50 Burpee Pullups
6:16

Get your game face on!

Cheers,
Raiden

M2 Day 52

Day 169 - Caveman

The workout posted on CrossFit.com today was:
Five rounds for time of:
400 meter Run
50 Squats
30 Back extensions

The treadmill and back extension machine apparatus are in separate areas, so to save running back and forth, I substituted dumbbell swings. I also scaled it back since I'm just starting at this.

So I did:

CFWUx3

4 rounds for time:
25 db swings (30#)
25 squats
15 back extensions

10:04

Probably would have been faster, but a guy stopped me in the middle of my last set of squats to ask me if I was doing CrossFit. He must have noticed my crazy non-stop db swings and huge puddle of sweat developing on the floor. He said he knew some people on his rugby team that did it (he was wearing a University Rugby team shirt). He asked me how it was, what I thought of it, and how I was finding it. I could only come back with winded caveman answers.

".....yeah.....just starting.....good......hard.....crazy"

I had originally planned for 5 rounds, but my form was suffering really bad on the last set of db swings, so I figured it was time to stop. Not too bad for my first WOD with a bit of weight.

Splits were:

db swings: 25, 15/10, 15/10, 10/10/5
squats: 25, 20/5, 15/10, 15/10
back extensions: 15, 9/6, 10/5, 15

Get your game face on!

Cheers,
Raiden

M2 Day 51

Day 168 - Catch up

Yesterday I ended my current strength program and am switching to following the CrossFit WOD's. I figured the best way to end my strength program was to do the CFT!

Squat:
Warmup - 45x10, 135x6, 185x3, 205x2
-----
3 tries: 225, 255 (+30 PR), 265 (f)

Press:
Warmup - 45x8, 65x6, 95x3
-----
3 tries: 120, 130 (+15 PR), 135 (f)

Deadlift:
Warmup - 135x7, 185x3, 225x2
-----
3 tries: 295, 305 (+30 PR), 315 (f)

Total: 690

Notes: The 135 press was going up slowly, but it was so uneven and wonky that I just dumped it given it was so ugly looking. I think I could have gotten the 315 deadlift up if I took a few less warmup sets. The total amount of time I was taking was really long and I think I just gassed myself. I wanted those "3 wheels" so bad! Definitely topping 700 next time.

Today, well, the day I decide to come off a strength program and start following the WOD's, a strength workout is posted. Since I maxed on the press yesterday, I didn't think it was too wise to do a big workout of presses, push presses, and push jerks.

Thought I'd do a light day and work on my POSE running.

CFWUx3 (The modified CrossFit WarmUp is 10 reps each of Good Mornings, Overhead Squats, Pull-ups, Dips, Pushups, and Knees to Elbows)

7 min warmup run/walk
Tabata Treadmill Run 11.5, 11.5, 11.5, 11.5, 11, 11, 11.5, 11.5 (km/h @ 7 incline)
5 min cooldown run/walk

Had a bit of time to kill so I thought a couple push jerks @ 115 wouldn't hurt. Wasn't really feeling it, dropped down to 95, banged out a set of 5 and called it a day.

Here's this weeks stats:
M2 Week 7: 2008-02-18 to 2008-02-25
Weight: 140.29 (+0.62)
Suprailiac: 10 mm -> 11.6% (no change)
Jackson/Pollock chest/ab/thigh: 7/15/10 -> 9.13% (-0.31)
Avg BF: 10.4% (-0.1%)
Lean Mass: 125.70 (+0.70)
Fat Mass: 14.59 (-0.08)

Get your game face on!

Cheers,
Raiden

M2 Day 50

Day 164 - First time to CrossFit

Tonight I used up my freebie visit at my local CrossFit affiliate. A common saying among the CrossFit community is "Your workout is our warm-up". Well, I thought I had been doing reasonably well following the CrossFit warm-up on my own, but I had been leaving out the pull-ups and dips since I do weighted ones of those as part of my strength program. They also had us do ring dips which are waaaaay harder, chest to deck push-ups, and "knees to elbows" instead of crunches/sit-ups. That made a world of difference. I was already feeling it by the end of that. I only had enough courage to attempt a very scaled down version of the workout of the day that they did, and it was plenty.

I was planning on doing my CrossFit total (1RM testing of Squat, Press, Deadlift) again tomorrow, but I think after today's workout I'm going to have to push that to Saturday to give me proper rest. Today's workout was like a bonus workout anyway, so I don't feel bad about moving tomorrow's planned workout back. I just know I'm going to be sore tomorrow!

Anyway, I think the workouts are great and I want to jump right in. So I'm changing my plan and I'm going to start doing (scaled versions of) the CrossFit workouts starting next Monday.

Get your game face on!

Cheers,
Raiden

M2 Day 46

Day 163 - Pics

Quick post, just pics today.

Get your game face on!

Cheers,
Raiden

M2 Day 45

Day 161 - Oops

Well, it looks like I let the blogging slack off a bit. My workouts have stayed on schedule though, so I haven't missed out on any exercise yet, except for the last Wednesday weight session that was replaced with a CrossFit style workout.

My nutrition feels like its been a bit off, as Valentine's day added in an extra reward meal. My relaxed schedule on the weekend led to a few too many snacks. Healthy snacks, but a bit too much. I think my measurements show that I went a little bit past the gains that I was making before and ended up picking up a bit more fat. Overall though, I'm still satisfied with my progress, but I'm starting to feel like I might want to stop my bulk a little early. Oh, but a few more pounds of muscle won't hurt me :D

M2 Week 6: 2008-02-11 to 2008-02-18
Weight: 139.67 (+0.95)
Suprailiac: 10 mm -> 11.6% (no change)
Jackson/Pollock chest/ab/thigh: 7/15/11 -> 9.44% (+0.31)
Avg BF: 10.5% (+0.1%)
Lean Mass: 125.00 (+0.71)
Fat Mass: 14.67 (+0.24)

Get your game face on!

Cheers,
Raiden

M2 Day 43

Day 156 - 3/4 Tabata Something Else

University gym was closed due to the snow storm, so I had to miss my scheduled strength workout. Decided to do an abbreviated "Tabata Something Else" without pull-ups within the comforts of the living room since it requires no equipment as our first CrossFit styled workout. "Tabata" is a specific type of high intensity interval training using a strict 20s/10s work/rest scheme. Each exercise was completed for 8 rounds with no rest between exercises. The official CrossFit "Tabata Something Else" calls for 8 rounds of pull ups before the push ups.

Pushups 21/17/15/14/10/8/8/7 = 100
Situps 8/11/11/12/10/10/9/7 = 78
Squats 18/18/18/17/17/17/16/18 = 139
Total: 317

This works out to an incredible amount of work done in only 12 minutes. I ran out of gas on the pushups due to working them hard last night I think. The squats felt pretty good until the last 2 rounds. My quads were burning by the end and I collapsed on the floor. Had to force myself to get up off the floor to stretch them out and walk it off! I can't imagine adding 8 rounds of pull ups ahead of that workout.

Oh, I thought I would throw in a comparison pic to show how much snow came in the last 24 hours.



It just keeps piling on. It almost makes me want to go out and do a Rocky training montage running in the knee deep snow.



Get your game face on!

Cheers,
Raiden

M2 Day 38

Day 155 - Feeling Lazy

Feeling pretty lazy today. Don't feel so much like writing. But thought I would get today's pic up anyway. Today is an off day, but I might do my push-up training later on tonight rather than tomorrow morning.

Get your game face on!

Cheers,
Raiden

M2 Day 37

Day 154 - Numbers and Pushups

Went for the "all out, as many pushups as possible, with rest, but not breaking form in one set" count. I'll use this new counting scheme as my measuring stick from now on.



M2 Week 5: 2008-02-04 to 2008-02-11
Weight: 138.72 (+0.74)
Suprailiac: 10 mm -> 11.6% (no change)
Jackson/Pollock chest/ab/thigh: 7/14/11 -> 9.13% (no change)
Avg BF: 10.4% (no change)
Lean Mass: 124.29 (+0.66)
Fat Mass: 14.43 (+0.08)

Still slowly putting on muscle. Hasn't seemed to slow down yet. How much longer can I go?

Oh, and here's a pic (not my car) for Adam showing off the snowfall we got over the weekend. It wasn't as much as was expected though, but it's been blowing around a lot.



Get your game face on!

Cheers,
Raiden

M2 Day 36

Day 153 - Quiet Weekend

Well, I missed a few days of blogging, but I don't really have too much to report. Had a decent workout on Friday. Got my regular workout in and then did some "skill" work. I'm trying to get my "kipping" pull-up technique down as well as doing some other work towards developing a muscle-up. The rest of the weekend was quiet.

Today I did however buy myself a workout watch on eBay in preparation for CrossFit workouts. It's the Timex Ironman OVA, which is worn on the side of the wrist, not the top. In this position, it's easy to see the face at all times without having to turn your wrist over. Also in this position, you can avoid inadvertent button presses from a flexed wrist (important when doing certain barbell lifts). It's highly recommended among the CrossFit crowd because it has all the timing functions one needs. The best feature is you can set work/rest intervals on it to do a Tabatas (20/10 work/rest interval training) and has a counter for rounds (I tend to lose track of these things).

I'm also thinking of starting some trail running once the snow melts around here. That might be a while though, but I'm going to try again to build up my running. I haven't had much success in the past due to my back pain, but I've been researching some stuff on technique and am going to try to build up and develop the POSE method. I think this might be the answer for me. I've always done well running on grass in soccer cleats, but could never run on pavement with regular runners. I was probably more likely to heel strike on pavement than I was on grass in cleats. The POSE method is more or less concentrating on landing on the balls of your feet and pulling yourself through the stride rather than heel-striking and trying to push your feet forward. At least that's what I've got out of it so far. They say it can take a while to really build up your calf and feet muscles to handle it, but once you do, the impact on your knees and lower back is significantly reduced.

Get your game face on!

Cheers,
Raiden

M2 Day 35

Day 150 - Strong enough? Big enough?

I did a lot of thinking today, and wondered if my current mission goals/plan aren't quite moving me towards my ultimate goals in the best way possible. I might just dive right into CrossFit. My strength and muscle gains might slow down, but every other aspect of my fitness should increase. We are making lifestyle changes, and CrossFit is a lifestyle that just seems like the perfect fit for me. As I mentioned, boredom is starting to settle in on my current program, and CrossFit is a different workout everyday, so it's always fresh and new.

I'm contemplating doing 2 more weeks of Stronglifts Beginner 5x5 setting up for a max effort at the end. Then I'll jump into the CrossFit workout of the day.

I can still eat my way to muscle gain, but it might be slower with CrossFit, but it should definitely be lean the way those workouts tax your entire system!

Did pushups training tonight instead of tomorrow morning. Didn't want to put it too close to my regular workout tomorrow which I have to move forward to the afternoon since my girlfriend and I have plans for the evening. They felt good and I'm sure I can bang out a bunch now. I actually did some "youtube" pushup standard searching for what constitutes a set, and the consensus seems to be that you are allowed to rest and crank out more, as long as you don't break your plank form i.e. no resting on knees or bending of the body or you know, collapsing in a heap. If you count that way, my goal is to crank out 65 with a max effort on Sunday night.

Get your game face on!

Cheers,
Raiden

M2 Day 32

Day 149 - Foolin' Around

Today I switched out my regular back squats for some overhead squats with much lighter weight to give my legs some "active" rest and really to just work on the overhead squat as I slowly learn many of the other lifts that are used in CrossFit workouts. The overhead squat is a great exercise for increasing your stability and it also has skill transfer in that it will "clean up" your other squats. With the weight overhead, any glitch in your form is emphasized as your core has to try a lot harder to stabilize it.

Anyway, going lighter on the overhead squats got me through my regular workout quicker. My girlfriend wasn't quite done her workout, so it gave me some extra time to fool around with some other exercises from the CrossFit repotoire. I did a few one armed dumbbell snatches, and then some dumbbell swings. Then I tried a few dumbbell pushup rows. I don't know how to explain these well, but you take a set of dumbbells (hex) in your hands, set them on the ground, then do a push up. Then you pick up one of the dumbbells while in a plank position and then rotate your torso and raise the dumbbell up in the air. My girlfriend said I got a few funny looks when I was doing all of these! I think she thought I was going to hurt someone with my dumbbell swings.

Then I finished up with some "Durka Durka's", more commonly known as Turkish Get-ups.

I think boredom might be starting to settle in on my current strength training program as evidenced by my bipolar workout today. I almost want to just dive into the CrossFit workouts immediately but it kind of goes against my current muscle building and strength focus at the moment. CrossFit is definitely the better overall program as far as general fitness is concerned, and I know it's the program I want to follow in the end, but it might take longer for me to hit the muscle and strength goals that I set out if I were to start it tomorrow.

Get your game face on!

Cheers,
Raiden

M2 Day 31

Day 148 - Bring the Pain

Today I had a wicked case of the DOMS, especially in my legs. What did I do to give myself this world of hurt? Believe it or not, I lowered the weight on my squat in yesterday's workout, and still followed the same set-rep scheme.

So how did lifting 30lbs less weight than last week give me a greater stimulus?

Quite simple. I wasn't squatting deep enough.

As I increased my weight each session lately, I've been also slowly reducing my range of motion. I figured rather than cheat myself out of the whole movement, I'd lower the weight and really get an ATA (arse to ankle) squat.

I now have confidence that I can go that low without hurting myself. So from now on, I'm squatting deep into the pocket!

Get your game face on!

Cheers,
Raiden

M2 Day 30

Day 147 - Feeling the Push

4 weeks down. Sorry for the abscence over the weekend. The ideas I mentioned in my last post are going to have to wait again. Today I'm focusing on my progress again with my weekly stat update.

M2 Week 4: 2008-01-28 to 2008-02-04
Weight: 137.98 (+0.75)
Suprailiac: 10 mm -> 11.6% (no change)
Jackson/Pollock chest/ab/thigh: 7/14/11 -> 9.13% (-0.31%)
Avg BF: 10.4% (-0.12%)
Lean Mass: 123.63 (+0.84)
Fat Mass: 14.35 (-0.09)

So it seems as though my BF isn't really moving too much (actually went back down this week), and my weight is slowly creeping up. I wonder how long I can keep this up?

Anyway, I also tested my pushups today and thought I would up the accountability and put my progress up on YouTube instead of just the blogger video.



I decided that the proper way to count is the number of pushups that can be done continuously, without pausing. That would put my first effort at 47. Therefore, I've made little progress, but have not been doing any real formal pushup training since it seemed to interfere with my other training. In order to build up my endurance rather than strength, I'm going to have to train for it if I want to hit my goal. From now on, I'm committing to doing the formal 100pushups training first thing in the morning, since it really doesn't take long, and then gives me enough time over the rest of the day to rest up for my normal workout which I do in the evening.

Get your game face on!

Cheers,
Raiden

M2 Day 29

Day 144 - Gross!

Gross! Yup, that's a dozen dozen, 144. Post is late since last night was Friday night and my gf and I entertained a friend. Just thought I would get yesterday's pic up.

Had a good workout yesterday, mixing things up a bit. I did the full CrossFit Warmup 3x which included 10 kipping pull-ups and 10 dips each round. This replaced my scheduled weighted dips. I conentrated on speed this since I didn't have any weight slowing me down. I also substitued some power clean work instead of the scheduled bent over barbell rows.

I'll make a longer post later today with today's pic and hopefully if I have time, it'll be a nice article type post. I've got a couple things in my mind that I want to talk about, I just have to get enough time to devote to them to do justice.

Get your game face on!

Cheers,
Raiden

M2 Day 26