When And Where... Whatever

Here we are on the night of preferential with the lovely ladies of Alpha Phi. I found out the other day that I gave my rose to a senior, but that does not phase me. I take on Fran everyday and come out on top so a senior will not phase me. She does CrossFit too so that is an instant bond! Anyways I am a nerd at chemistry as I destroyed my test but let us get to fitness and CrossFit.

Some people feel as if they cannot get a good workout if they are out of a routine. Say yo go to the 6am class everyday, but this morning you just could not get up. That certainly does not mean you cannot workout for the day. Who cares if it is in between classes or during your lunch break, CrossFit can happen anywhere and anytime. Doing some simple tabata push ups or squats will suffice if they are in a CrossFit Gym or in the corner of your office, it is still a workout.

That leads me to my next topic that is strayed away from this post but very important. The deadlift. DO NOT DO IT WRONG! This lift will turn your back into the devil if done incorrectly. So I just want to go over this real fast because today in the gym on campus I saw some frat meat head body builder doing deadlifts. or at least his excuse for them. Sure it was 315 and he looked good for the ladies but he was wincing in pain with every rep.

1- Grab the bar a little bit outside your knees and use whatever grip you feel comfortable.
2-Make sure your hips are back, hamstrings are tight.
3-Ensure that your back is in a tight lumbar curve. You need to imagine that no matter what happens, even if I were to come at you and pounce on you, that your back will keep your lumbar curve nice and tight!)
4-Start the lift with your legs.
5- After the legs comes the hips. Open them up.
6- The back should stay in a tight lumbar curve and end straight up as you open your hips
7- Stop when straight, don't do that globo gym douche over extension of the back. It is worthless and looks funny. We all can tell that you just want to demonstrate a pelvic thrust.

With that being said. Hit the squats, grow those legs and stay paleo.

Strength


Every Minute on the Minute for 15 minutes
2 Deadlifts 225#
2 HSPU

WODs

5 rounds
15 sit ups
10 ab thrusts
100 bicycle cash out


20-15-10
Wallballs 20#
Push ups
Squats

Short metcons but I had to get something in

Nobody Is Perfect

Ladies and gents, nobody is perfect. That is excluding Katie Hogan, Stacie Tovar, a few girls I have seen lately and of course Carrie Underwood. So other than them nobody is perfect at all.

Let's say we got Mr. Hotshot doing a workout today. He is a 4 minute Fran guy trying to get a pr. He does it, pukes his guts out and ends with a 5:15. Did he pick the weight wrong? No. He has a bad workout. THEY HAPPEN! So instead of cussing yourself out for not getting that new pr, or not getting that extra rep. JUst chill bro.

Do you think Chris Spealler Snatches over 200lbs on every attempt? Hell no he does not! For all we know one day he may not even get 185. But he knows that not every day can be a great day for working out. He accepts it and does not let it phase him the next workout he does.

Just because we are athletes of various levels does not mean we cannot hold ourselves to the standards of the games' athletes. We also need to learn to accept our own failure and off days. Sure we may not train 5 times a day like they do (though it may feel like it) it does not mean that we should let one bad workout judge us for the rest of the day.

Just a little food for thought (paleo of course). And actually about paleo, being a paleo man full time with the exception of two cheat days a month, I decided to try something out starting monday. Paleo in the zone. Yes you heard it right. Zone meal plan blocks all of paleo food. I will give it 4 weeks to see how my numbers look and see if any changes occur with the portion control of zone blocks. From what I heard when I talked with Josh Everrett in person (yes he is amazing) zone is the way to go.

Workout

         NFEC Training
7 mile run @ 9:00 min/mile

                 Strength

Press- 2reps every minute for 12 minutes at 65%

Bench Press- 3-3-3-3-3 @ 65%

     WOD
4 straight tabata's

push ups
squats
sit ups
pull ups

College Has Not Killed Me....yet

Back to the blog! Yeah that's right! This guy is not done telling the world of his fitness epiphanies! But I do not blog here as an 18 year old high school student now..... I blog to you as



A LEVEL ONE CERTIFIED CROSSFIT TRAINER!

Dig it.

A lot has happened since my last post. College has happened.Pr's have happened. Ladies appear out of nowhere in gaggles. New gym has been joined. So let us get to the good stuff.

Sure she is 28 and her bicep is the size of mine, but she is still in my league right????

I came down here going terminator on this hizzouse! In other words I was slightly "bionic" as my new nickname goes for my gym, Outlier Crossfit! I had a torn MCL in which I have no clue how I tore it. So what did I do? Workout of course! Destroy every and any WOD in my way of success and establish myself as a strong presence in the gym.

But now I am sick. A long weekend comprised of many long nights has lead this guy to illness. SO here the topic begins.

DO NOT WORKOUT WHILE YOU ARE SICK. Sure you may want to, yeah if you do not want to get better! It has been proven that you are six times more likely to get sick after running a marathon than before. So I know that is an extreme case right there because not everybody runs a marathon, but if exercise puts you at that much more of a risk, imagine what being sick already and exercising can do. Not good stuff. What happens is your immune system gets compromised and your body becomes the France of the world wars. Easy to invade. So in essence if you are slightly sick, your workout will be sub par, you will get angry and sicker. That is how the cookie crumbles.

WOD

Sick day

68 days until the North Face Endurance Challenge

The Games

Long time no blog eh? Well let's fix that. Over the past few days I have had some great experiences. I went to the Crossfit Games, and dropped in to two different boxes in San Diego.

Let us start out with the games. It was the single greatest event that I have ever been too. I have never such such athleticism or strength in my life. Those people truly are the fittest people on earth. They top any other sport on this planet. Hands down. I don;t want to waste too much time on this but it was amazing and you should watch the highlights on the HQ website.

Next, I dropped into two different boxes to begin my journey of finding the right box for me in San Diego. The first was CrossFit Socal which I really liked. Short ceiling so there are no true 15 foot rope climbs, but the trainer and facility was awesome. The next one was Crossfit San Diego. Didnt really care for the trainer but what I did care for was the pr I got on the Filthy Fifty. 21:03!!!!

But onto working out! I have not ran for about a week and a half due to knee and hip flexor injuries. It is difficult to rest from something like that but I know the only way I will get better is to rest. Now my knee problem is runner's knee. Whats the solution? Deeper squats!!!

Yes I said it, the way to the healthiest knee possible is to go deep on everything. I developed runner's knee from running a lot and my leg muscles were becoming imbalanced causing my patella to slide side ways. You can re balance the knee muscles out with deep squats. Each position on a squat hits a certain muscle, and when you go deep you hit those muscles that never get hit while running or doing a box squat. It seems counter intuitive but it is the truth I promise.

As for today's workout, there is none. I have a competition tomorrow that I want to be fresh for. I know I can destroy all the gymnastics and metcon in it, rope climbs, push ups, double unders, squats, dead lifts, pull ups, sit ups, box jumps are all a piece of cake. But ground to shoulder atlas stone of 115# could be interesting and the max lift is the snatch my favorite..... I am shooting for a good snatch of 135. I can get down in the squat with the qeight overhead, but I can never lock it out, I need to really throw my hips to catch it behind my head so I can lock it out because the weight always falls forward. We will see how the competition goes tomorrow!!!

Go Big or Go Home

I have not saved the world from obesity for quite some time. My excuse? I don't really have one. I get back from an intense WOD and the last thing I want to do is write about it. I am still a teenager and like to have some fun time so pardon my adolescence.

The CrossFit Games are coming up soon and I cannot wait one bit. I get top see the fittest people on earth and the love of my life Stacie Tovar! Now I know she is married and to her husband I say teach me your ways. But she is really a top 5 hopeful and with her snatch and HSPUs she is a real competitor.

Now for the life of fitness. I am a runner. As much as I do not want to admit it, my strength in CrossFit is running and metcon not strength. Don't get me wrong, I still move decent weight but it is not my greatest thing. So to fix it I have been trying to add on as much strength as possible using a Russian Squat Program Generator and it is amazing! Two weeks in and I added 20 pounds to my back squat. It works and you should try it.

There is some real science behind it. Now don't think too hard on this all you reluctant scholars. Too bad for you I cant type slow for you. It is a mental, physical conditioning program. Your body trains to support heavy weight by adding the number of mitochondria in each muscle fiber versus adding more muscle fibers. You are becoming more efficient. Sure you get more fibers but when you do lots of low rep sets you are conditioning mainly and growing secondly. As your body gets used to handling heavy weight the sheer fact of holding and controlling heavy weight becomes less of an issue allowing you to focus on the lift.

How do you add size? After your strength program throw in a few kill sets to failure or some higher reps and you will spark some real anabolism there.

Workouts


From the past

"Filthy Fifty" 24:44

"Annie" 7:48 ewwwww

CrossFit Football Squat Cluster 235#

Don't Be Shy!!!

Another 1Rm today. Failed this morning, but I returned in the evening to get it and I was stoked! Best feeling in the world. But it was horrible weather so my sprint workout was cut short. And not to mention the crazy old man who tried to say a prowler would ruin asphalt. If he thinks that is the case then he has a lot to learn because we will prove to him that it is not bad for the asphalt via massive amounts of prowling. Benicia PD we have a 1074! Haha

Well this topic is something that I can talk about shortly because there is not much to it! Why shy away from any weight that is a 2RM or 1RM. People achieve a 5RM and then call it quits. WHY!!!!! Are you scared of hurting yourself? Well simple keep proper form and do less reps. Hence why when you increase the weight you find a 3RM because you will not be able to do as many with proper form. Secondly, just drop it. If it is heavy drop it where you are. We use bumper plates for a reason. You get stuck at the bottom of a clean. Drop it. You fail on a jerk, drop it. You lose your balance on an OH squat, drop it. It is a simple concept.

Not only can you gain large muscle and strength finding low rep maxes at high weight, you get an overwhelming sense of confidence. When you clean that weight and you are holding it up after a hard squat, stand there and take in your accomplishment. You deserve it. You are seeing results, which we all like to see!
Now don't be a complete douche about it and rub it in to people's faces or run around in circles yelling. Take a deep breath and pat yourself on the back. Remember half of being a true athlete is being humble at ALL times.

Workout

Clean Practice 1 RM 175lbs

Prowler sprints
 2 high bar, 2 low bar
4@90lbs
4@160lbs
4@210lbs

WOD

25-50-75

squats
sit ups with mat
pushups

time of 14:51

loved this WOD!

The World Over Your Head (or so it seems it)

Well I sure got my butt kicked today. Not only was it a tough workout, but it was a Monday, so of course every other breath was a yawn. But hey! I mean I got to enjoy a last workout with the beast Taylor before she leaves to kick butt and take names at the USNA!!! You go girl!

....................yes, the periods are necessary because I have to talk about Overhead squats which I completely hate!!!!! This is one of the workouts where flexibility is strength, so sure my legs can be as strong as they want, but if my shoulders are not flexible then I will not move much weight.

So let us take a look into the mechanics of an OH squat. So. Push press or strict press or snatch, any move you want to get the bar in the overhead position. Once up, Lock the shoulders and imagine that you are trying to pull the bar in two. It really helps you stabilize the bar. The bar should be right behind your head if brought straight down to ensure the weight goes straight up and down so you can perform a proper squat. If it is too far forward,directly over your head for example, you will squat on your toes. NO NO! It is awkward. I get it. But just do it right!

At the bottom of your squat for it to count you need to go past parallel with your legs. It sucks, and then bring it back up remaining locked out the whole time. Now this is really where flexibility turns into strength. Sure you can deadlift 300s but you may only be able to OH 115lbs because you cant get max power. Lack of flexibility leads to effort be put into the bar to hold it into position meaning that there is that much less power directed to the squat. So if you are flexible, you don't need to divert any power to the bar position so it can all be directed to the squat....lucky people...

So ways to help this out, do pass throughs before to open up the shoulder. This will help greatly. And the next best thing I already mentioned is really try to pull that bar apart when overhead. It will really help stabilize it.

Workout

Rode bike to everything today so the rides are short but tiring as they are right after workouts

4.5 mile bike ride

CrossFit

OH squat Max  120 (didn't do pass throughs, will retry for 130 soon) Shoulder flexibility sucks!

60 burpee bar jumps
30 OH Squats 75lbs
10 ring pushups

time : 10:31         Burpee bar jumps were long and tiring but not terrible. OH squats sucked after the burpees and the max. Had to do sets of 3.  Ring pushups were a joke for me because I love my push ups

6 mile bike ride to gym

3x10 Squats at 150lbs (should have been 15 reps but tired from bike ride)
back extensions 4x15,12,8,6 at 10lbs,25lbs,35,45
dips 1x60 Broke up into sets of 10 with 10 seconds rest in between
sit ups 1x60 Broke up into 30,10,20 no more than 10 seconds rest

3.5 mile bike ride home (including up rose drive)