Originally posted by: SociallyChallenged
When are you gonna start your 100 day burpee challenge? I'd be down
+1
+1
Originally posted by: MotF Bane
Originally posted by: SociallyChallenged
When are you gonna start your 100 day burpee challenge? I'd be down
+1
I guess there's no time like the present
I've created a thread for the 100 day burpee challenge and day 1 is tomorrow, April 3.
Saturday, April 04
Not too happy with my squatting today. I was originally going to go for 5 reps of 305, but my form seemed to break down on 275. Each rep was slower and jerkier than I would've liked and I decided to keep it safe and just go for 3 reps of 305. Even those were miserably slow and lacked good hip drive, which was pretty disappointing. Hopefully next week will be a bit better, as I really want to finally get to squatting 315.
Bench press felt excellent today, but for the second time in a row, I got an idiot spotter who had to put his hands on the bar during the 275x3 set. He was saying "all you" the entire time and probably didn't help any, but I don't know for sure and wish he would've kept his hands to himself if it really was "all me". As for deadlift, no problems there. In fact, I felt better today than last week when I did slightly less weight, a good sign as I plan to keep ramping up the volume. I'm doing the first 3 sets with a normal double overhand grip and the last set with hook grip. This will hopefully let me rebuild the grip strength I had lost by over-using the hook grip.
Not too happy with my squatting today. I was originally going to go for 5 reps of 305, but my form seemed to break down on 275. Each rep was slower and jerkier than I would've liked and I decided to keep it safe and just go for 3 reps of 305. Even those were miserably slow and lacked good hip drive, which was pretty disappointing. Hopefully next week will be a bit better, as I really want to finally get to squatting 315.
Bench press felt excellent today, but for the second time in a row, I got an idiot spotter who had to put his hands on the bar during the 275x3 set. He was saying "all you" the entire time and probably didn't help any, but I don't know for sure and wish he would've kept his hands to himself if it really was "all me". As for deadlift, no problems there. In fact, I felt better today than last week when I did slightly less weight, a good sign as I plan to keep ramping up the volume. I'm doing the first 3 sets with a normal double overhand grip and the last set with hook grip. This will hopefully let me rebuild the grip strength I had lost by over-using the hook grip.
Sunday, April 05
This is the longest run I've done so far in VFFs/POSE and it went very well. I knew I wasn't going to be setting any PR's today and the goal was to just maintain a steady pace. My technique felt great and until my calves started to tire, I got the impression that my running was taking less effort than before. Unfortunately, after ~1.5 miles, my calves were definitely exhausted and although I had plenty left in the tank, I just couldn't get myself to go any faster. Hopefully after another month my calves will be fully adapted to VFFs/POSE and I'll be able to push myself 100%.
This is the longest run I've done so far in VFFs/POSE and it went very well. I knew I wasn't going to be setting any PR's today and the goal was to just maintain a steady pace. My technique felt great and until my calves started to tire, I got the impression that my running was taking less effort than before. Unfortunately, after ~1.5 miles, my calves were definitely exhausted and although I had plenty left in the tank, I just couldn't get myself to go any faster. Hopefully after another month my calves will be fully adapted to VFFs/POSE and I'll be able to push myself 100%.
hahhaha. I wouldn't call the person an idiot, probably just doesn't know any better. That kind of spotting is pretty typical among the "Monday is chest day" crowd, which is most of the males in the gym.
Yea, I guess that's fair. In the past, I've done my own fair share of stupid things I'm not proud of, including not working my legs for a long time because I believed they were "strong enough from sports", doing bicep curls in the squat rack, smith machine squats, smith machine bench, and doing half squats with 365lbs long before my body was ready to handle 225 in a real squat. Still, seeing people treat the bench press as a team exercise - one person doing bench press and one person doing shrugs - didn't make sense to me even in my most clueless gym days.
Monday, April 06
My calves have achieved new heights of soreness. My walking has been reduced to a stupid looking limp.
My calves have achieved new heights of soreness. My walking has been reduced to a stupid looking limp.
Tuesday, April 07
I looked back through my log and realized I've spent the last 2 weeks stuck at 305 and as of the last workout, it started to feel heavier, so I'm pretty sure I'm stalling. I decided to do a 10% deload and switch back to sets across, as I had good success with that earlier. Unfortunately, even 275 felt heavy today, and the bar speed in the third set was slow. I can't imagine my squat suddenly got weaker, so either I'm overtraining (I feel fine otherwise, so not likely) or something is wrong with my form. Hopefully the deload will help.
OH press went fine and I missed the 3rd rep of 160 by only a tiny bit. I'm sure I'll have it next time. Power clean, however, was crappy. I'm having trouble breaking my dumb habit of doing a split clean stance on heavy reps, so half the power clean reps today were squat cleans. Hopefully thinking of my squat stance will get my brain to plant my feet properly, but it's pretty damn hard to unlearn something.
Finally, GTG push-ups were an absolute breeze today, so I might just bump to 45 for next time. I also think I'll be alternating between dead hang chin-ups and pull-ups for some variety.
I looked back through my log and realized I've spent the last 2 weeks stuck at 305 and as of the last workout, it started to feel heavier, so I'm pretty sure I'm stalling. I decided to do a 10% deload and switch back to sets across, as I had good success with that earlier. Unfortunately, even 275 felt heavy today, and the bar speed in the third set was slow. I can't imagine my squat suddenly got weaker, so either I'm overtraining (I feel fine otherwise, so not likely) or something is wrong with my form. Hopefully the deload will help.
OH press went fine and I missed the 3rd rep of 160 by only a tiny bit. I'm sure I'll have it next time. Power clean, however, was crappy. I'm having trouble breaking my dumb habit of doing a split clean stance on heavy reps, so half the power clean reps today were squat cleans. Hopefully thinking of my squat stance will get my brain to plant my feet properly, but it's pretty damn hard to unlearn something.
Finally, GTG push-ups were an absolute breeze today, so I might just bump to 45 for next time. I also think I'll be alternating between dead hang chin-ups and pull-ups for some variety.
Changing My Routine
As inspired by the Gant Grimes Hybrid Program and the recently released Crossfit Strength Bias (CFSB) article and Crossfit Football website, I've decided to tweak my own CF schedule. For the last few months, I've been doing a MEBB style routine, with two days a week dedicated towards pure strength/power workouts and three days a week towards metcon. It's worked pretty well, but I think a more integrated approach will be even more effective. My goals for 2009 are on the first post of my journal, but the gist is to continue to do Crossfit, and bias it towards strength & power development, as I think that'll give me the biggest bang for the buck in terms of my overall fitness. This is definitely an experiment and something I'll be tweaking quite a bit depending on how my body reacts and the kind of progress I make.
Notes
* Each day includes some strength/power work, a metcon, and some skill or gymnastics training. The strength/power work should take no more than 20 minutes. Except on the weekends, all metcons will also be under 20 minutes. Gymnastics/skill work should take less than 10 minutes. Warm-up and cool-down should take 20 minutes. Therefore, each workout should be under 70 minutes start to finish, or something is wrong.
* For each strength/power exercise, zig zag between rep schemes to avoid stalling. For example, do 3x5 until you stall, then do 5x3, then 3x3, and so on. Always use ascending sets instead of sets across to reduce volume.
* The goal of the power/strength training is to hit a new PR (new 1RM, 3RM, 5RM, 20RM) every week. However, as soon as you do, the strength/power portion of the workout is done. So if you're doing a 5x3 and hit a PR on set 3, don't bother doing sets 4 or 5.
* Feel free to experiment with variations of the strength/power exercises: front or back squats, power snatch, power clean, push jerk, split jerk, push press and so on.
* Use the WoD from the CF mainsite for the metcon whenever possible. Use Crossfit Football as a backup source, especially for short & heavy metcons.
* The weekend is flanked by two rest days and includes lots of sleep, so longer metcons are ok. On weekdays, keep metcons short. However, Tuesday can be a bit longer because I suck at the snatch and at this point, so it's effectively skill work for me.
* The biggest worry is CNS overload and recovery. If this becomes a problem, options for reducing volume are: shorter metcons, remove strength/power work from one day, remove metcon work from one day.
As inspired by the Gant Grimes Hybrid Program and the recently released Crossfit Strength Bias (CFSB) article and Crossfit Football website, I've decided to tweak my own CF schedule. For the last few months, I've been doing a MEBB style routine, with two days a week dedicated towards pure strength/power workouts and three days a week towards metcon. It's worked pretty well, but I think a more integrated approach will be even more effective. My goals for 2009 are on the first post of my journal, but the gist is to continue to do Crossfit, and bias it towards strength & power development, as I think that'll give me the biggest bang for the buck in terms of my overall fitness. This is definitely an experiment and something I'll be tweaking quite a bit depending on how my body reacts and the kind of progress I make.
Notes
* Each day includes some strength/power work, a metcon, and some skill or gymnastics training. The strength/power work should take no more than 20 minutes. Except on the weekends, all metcons will also be under 20 minutes. Gymnastics/skill work should take less than 10 minutes. Warm-up and cool-down should take 20 minutes. Therefore, each workout should be under 70 minutes start to finish, or something is wrong.
* For each strength/power exercise, zig zag between rep schemes to avoid stalling. For example, do 3x5 until you stall, then do 5x3, then 3x3, and so on. Always use ascending sets instead of sets across to reduce volume.
* The goal of the power/strength training is to hit a new PR (new 1RM, 3RM, 5RM, 20RM) every week. However, as soon as you do, the strength/power portion of the workout is done. So if you're doing a 5x3 and hit a PR on set 3, don't bother doing sets 4 or 5.
* Feel free to experiment with variations of the strength/power exercises: front or back squats, power snatch, power clean, push jerk, split jerk, push press and so on.
* Use the WoD from the CF mainsite for the metcon whenever possible. Use Crossfit Football as a backup source, especially for short & heavy metcons.
* The weekend is flanked by two rest days and includes lots of sleep, so longer metcons are ok. On weekdays, keep metcons short. However, Tuesday can be a bit longer because I suck at the snatch and at this point, so it's effectively skill work for me.
* The biggest worry is CNS overload and recovery. If this becomes a problem, options for reducing volume are: shorter metcons, remove strength/power work from one day, remove metcon work from one day.
Wednesday, April 8
Gah, I forgot to bring a long sleeved shirt today for the ring dips. I tried doing the workout without it, but the straps from the rings burned up the outside of my elbows pretty bad. They are all red and raw now. I had to put on my heavy sweatshirt halfway through the workout, as it was getting too painful to continue. This made me sweat like a bastard, but at least I was able to finish. Lesson learned for next time.
Gah, I forgot to bring a long sleeved shirt today for the ring dips. I tried doing the workout without it, but the straps from the rings burned up the outside of my elbows pretty bad. They are all red and raw now. I had to put on my heavy sweatshirt halfway through the workout, as it was getting too painful to continue. This made me sweat like a bastard, but at least I was able to finish. Lesson learned for next time.
Thursday, April 9
And yet another injury for me. Sigh. I started with a 400m run on the treadmill at 10mph, which felt surprisingly difficult, but I didn't feel any pain. I moved onto the box jumps and noticed after a few jumps a sharp pain in my right calf. It would happen during the jump, just as my feet left the ground, but felt ok during the landing. I thought at first it might have been a cramp (my calves cramp quite often), and (probably foolishly) push through it. However, I then went to do a thruster, went into a squat, and almost collapsed from the sharp pain in my calf as I started to drive back up.
I stopped the workout immediately, rested a few minutes and analyzed the injury. It did not hurt to stand on my toes or flex the calf. However, if I kept my heel on the ground and pushed my knees forward (as happens in a squat) the stretching of the calf was mildly painful. I also tried running in place and noticed that motion of landing on the ball of my foot and then lowering the heel to the ground would cause the same pain. The pain seems to be primary along the achilles tendon, just below the bottom of the Gastrocnemius. On this diagram of the calf, it's roughly at the height where the lines for "Soleus" are pointing on the left image. However, the pain seems to be towards the middle/inner part of the leg, as I can't feel the injured area with my fingers on the outside at all.
In retrospect, my calves definitely felt tight during the warm-up and the first 400m was unexpectedly difficult, but these were hardly clear signs of an impending injury. Anyways, I have no clue how severe it is - it's sore now and I'm walking with a bit of a limp - and I'm just hoping this doesn't screw up all my workouts for a while.
And yet another injury for me. Sigh. I started with a 400m run on the treadmill at 10mph, which felt surprisingly difficult, but I didn't feel any pain. I moved onto the box jumps and noticed after a few jumps a sharp pain in my right calf. It would happen during the jump, just as my feet left the ground, but felt ok during the landing. I thought at first it might have been a cramp (my calves cramp quite often), and (probably foolishly) push through it. However, I then went to do a thruster, went into a squat, and almost collapsed from the sharp pain in my calf as I started to drive back up.
I stopped the workout immediately, rested a few minutes and analyzed the injury. It did not hurt to stand on my toes or flex the calf. However, if I kept my heel on the ground and pushed my knees forward (as happens in a squat) the stretching of the calf was mildly painful. I also tried running in place and noticed that motion of landing on the ball of my foot and then lowering the heel to the ground would cause the same pain. The pain seems to be primary along the achilles tendon, just below the bottom of the Gastrocnemius. On this diagram of the calf, it's roughly at the height where the lines for "Soleus" are pointing on the left image. However, the pain seems to be towards the middle/inner part of the leg, as I can't feel the injured area with my fingers on the outside at all.
In retrospect, my calves definitely felt tight during the warm-up and the first 400m was unexpectedly difficult, but these were hardly clear signs of an impending injury. Anyways, I have no clue how severe it is - it's sore now and I'm walking with a bit of a limp - and I'm just hoping this doesn't screw up all my workouts for a while.
Saturday, April 11
Today was my first day of my new strength/power CF hybrid and it was pretty damn successful. I really enjoyed having to do only one strength exercise, rather than 3 as I used to do on strength days, as you can apply yourself to it 100% and don't feel it grinding you down quite as much. I was supposed to squat today, but I wanted to give my injured calf another day of rest, so I did deadlift today and will squat tomorrow instead. My back stamina is still not great, as 345 went up easily for all 5 reps, but I had trouble keeping a flat/neutral back arch for reps 3-5. Hopefully the higher rep sets will help improve the muscular endurance of my spinal erectors. In particular, these 20 rep sets should be interesting. I decided to start real light on them with 225, but still found it to be a highly unpleasant experience. My hamstrings and thighs were burning and my back was exhausted. 20 rep squats this Wednesday should be a hell of an experience.
Due to the calf injury, I also had to change my metcon from a workout including lots of sprinting to a simple one with burpees. My calf still bothered me a bit on the jumps, and I was definitely a bit fatigued from the deadlifts, but I still handily beat my old PR of 3:45 on this workout. I have no doubt that fresh & injury free, I would've been well under 3 minutes, but I'm still pretty happy with this time.
Finally, I worked a bit on my tuck planche at the end. The goal is to hold it for one minute total using as few sets as possible. Eventually, I'll hopefully be able to do a full minute in just a single set, at which point I'll move on to the advanced tuck planche. Seems like a long way off now, but hopefully by doing this exercise more consistently, I'll get there soon enough.
Today was my first day of my new strength/power CF hybrid and it was pretty damn successful. I really enjoyed having to do only one strength exercise, rather than 3 as I used to do on strength days, as you can apply yourself to it 100% and don't feel it grinding you down quite as much. I was supposed to squat today, but I wanted to give my injured calf another day of rest, so I did deadlift today and will squat tomorrow instead. My back stamina is still not great, as 345 went up easily for all 5 reps, but I had trouble keeping a flat/neutral back arch for reps 3-5. Hopefully the higher rep sets will help improve the muscular endurance of my spinal erectors. In particular, these 20 rep sets should be interesting. I decided to start real light on them with 225, but still found it to be a highly unpleasant experience. My hamstrings and thighs were burning and my back was exhausted. 20 rep squats this Wednesday should be a hell of an experience.
Due to the calf injury, I also had to change my metcon from a workout including lots of sprinting to a simple one with burpees. My calf still bothered me a bit on the jumps, and I was definitely a bit fatigued from the deadlifts, but I still handily beat my old PR of 3:45 on this workout. I have no doubt that fresh & injury free, I would've been well under 3 minutes, but I'm still pretty happy with this time.
Finally, I worked a bit on my tuck planche at the end. The goal is to hold it for one minute total using as few sets as possible. Eventually, I'll hopefully be able to do a full minute in just a single set, at which point I'll move on to the advanced tuck planche. Seems like a long way off now, but hopefully by doing this exercise more consistently, I'll get there soon enough.
Thanks. I still haven't had a chance to run on it since the injury, but it's felt fine for everything else, so I'm hoping it's healed.
L-pull-ups are pull-ups done with your feet held in an l-sit. Similar to what the guy in this video is doing, except you use a pull-up grip instead of a chin-up grip.
155lbs thrusters? Nasty, those reps would take me forever, nice time I say. One thing that helped me on my jerks (although they still suck) is to warm-up by doing a few standing vertical jumps. The dip portion of the jerk should be the same depth/speed as you use for a verticle jump (slight knee bend, hips move straight down, torso upright). I picked this up in a CF journal vid recently. Prior to that I had been dipping too low/hips back which made my torso lean forward a bit and cause less power transmission to the bar.
You are doing CFSB right? Looks interesting, might try it after another few months of mainsite (I'm in Oct-08 right now) since metcon is by far my weakness.
You are doing CFSB right? Looks interesting, might try it after another few months of mainsite (I'm in Oct-08 right now) since metcon is by far my weakness.
Ooh, that's a good way to look at it. I'll definitely try that out next time, thanks.
Sort of. I wrote it out in detail in a post on April 8th. It's heavily inspired by CFSB, but also takes elements from Gant Grimes' Hybrid program (mostly by adding o-lifts). This is my first week and I'm trying it out to see how my body responds. After another week or two, I'll post my thoughts.
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