“Sugar, sugar, sugar. It’s everywhere. It’s in our drinks, it’s in our foods, and it’s hidden in places we never would think of. Many would call sugar their friend in time of need, but in fact their so-called “good friend” could turn out to be their worst enemy in disguise …”
Getting more out of your training …
Sometimes we turn up to training and see the WOD on the board and the little voice in our head starts talking to us ….. “oh no it’s ….”, “I’m really bad at this”, “I can’t do that many”, “I’m not feeling good”, “I’m not ready for this”, “I’m really sore”, etc, etc. Do these things actually do us any good? Do they make us challenge ourselves? Do they help us be the best we can be? The answer is a pretty resounding NO. So what do we do about it?
There a couple of parts to the answer. Firstly, let’s clarify the problem. The doubts and negative statements listed above cause a decrease in motivation which manifests as a reduced attack on the work-out (compare how you attack a WOD you love, to the fearful one in front of you!). Motivation is strengthened by keeping your focus on your goals. Therefore, your first step is to immediately go to your goals.
So what are they? Do you have any? If you REALLY want those goals, you will have to admit that this feared WOD is certainly going to help you get there. But we can do better than just that. Over and above the specific goals that we set, is a ‘meaning’. What are we doing it for in the first place? It’s not just for the scores. Each of us needs to find our own meaning, our own ‘mission’ to go on. For me it is to be the best I can be. To live up to the community that Matt and Danny are bringing us into. To be included in the cheers that go around the warehouse as someone tries to punch out one more rep. To do this I have to be honest with my effort, and not be afraid of what people think of me.
Dealing with fear is the second part of the answer. You need to clarify what it is that you are afraid of – Scared of the pain? Scared of someone beating you? Scared of not getting a respectable score? Scared of not finishing? – whatever it is, lets have a good look at it and straighten it out! Because the only real failure you will have is ‘backing off’. All of these doubts come from a warped definition of failure. You just need to answer the question “Was that the best I could do?” and if the answer is “yes”, then it doesn’t matter what your score was or where you came. Put your ego on the shelf, and trust that you are getting better. Taking care of the process will take care of the scores. The process is simple – do the best that you can in every given moment – when you are weak, let your coaches and fellow CrossFitters push you through – Don’t hide from them! And if you collapse on the floor, they will be really proud of you, because you gave it everything you had. Now … is that so bad?
- Wendy Swift
This is Mitch and he is one tough kid. I have known Mitch since he was a little tacker. He is one of the local neighbourhood kids and is well known for his sporting achievements and general run at life attitude. Mitch is a die hard surfer, and every year we see him tearing it up on our annual camping holiday. I love watching Mitch and his band of merry men (2 of whom can be seen in the background) throw themselves at anything that is fun.This year, Mitch broke his thumb just before the camping trip playing AFL, one of his 200 favourite sports, and turned up at the beach with his forearm in a cast, and with strict instructions to not get it wet. Not to be deterred by such a minor setback, Mitch used gladwrap, garbage bags and duck tape to make his cast watertight (well almost watertight) and then charged into the surf without a care in the world. The above photo was taken on the fourth day of surfing, and I reckon he had at least three surfs a day over those preceding four days. So, at least 12 times he has wrapped up his hand and headed out for a surf, paddling one-handed through the break. If only I could bottle this tenacity and positiveness.
So the next time I am trying to talk myself out of a workout because I feel a bit tired, or rest because something hurts, or sleep in, or dodge my nutrition plan becuase I can’t be bothered shopping, or any other thing that sucks me into being negative … I am going to ask myself one question … “What would Mitch do??” … because I want to be like Mitch.
A common question that gets kicked about on the www.crossfit.com message board (http://board.crossfit.com) is “Why would I pay to go to an affiliate when I can do CrossFit at my local gym”. It is a fair question … the WOD is available on the internet, there are heaps of instructional videos, and there are certainly plenty of gyms around.
Well, it is day one of our annual camping holiday and already I miss CrossFit Brisbane. We journeyed into town today to find a gym, and well, I think we found one. It has been so long since I have been in a commercial gym that I actually wasn’t sure if I was in one or not when I walked in the front door. I was greeted by a “tanorexic” girl (skinny fat with a very deep artificial tan) who stared blankly at me for about 15 seconds when I asked if they had free weights, before responding that no, I had to pay to use the gym. Bemused, I asked to have a look around.
Hmmm … not really anywhere to train. The place was full of machines which were all variations of a leg extension for different parts of your body, a heap of mirrors lining the wall and people standing around not working out, and not talking to each other. As I was standing in the middle of the weights area a patron walked up tanorexic girl and asked where the preacher curl machine was. She struggled with this question as clearly her training didn’t include the king of isolation exercises. In his disgust he turned and asked me if I knew where it was, to which I replied “they have been banned”. OK, so there is not much humour in this gym. Patron man looked mortified, so I suggested that he position the swiss ball in front of the mirror and do his preacher curls on that. He seemed very satisified that he could combine two stupid pieces of equipment and the mirror in a single exercise and trotted off to happily hammer his guns.
Not to be deterred by what I had seen, we turned up at 4pm for a training session. Tanorexic girl had left for the day and had been replaced by Figure Competitor girl who was in the middle of a PT session when we arrived. She was helping some poor soul bench press one and a half times what he could actually lift by curling the weight above his face. I bet she knew where the preacher curl machine was hiding. After finishing the standard 3 x 8 they moved to the lat pulldown for some partner assisted heaving pulldowns so I seized the moment to steal the only 20kg bar in the place from the bench press and setup to do deadlifts. I soon discovered that deadlifting in a commercial gym is really hard. Apart from the fact that there is not much weight in the place (finding enough for a 150 dead is a real challenge), people seem to have absolutely no respect for the fact that you are picking up something really heavy. In the middle of the first set a girl in a mini skirt (??) wandered past the end of the bar coming very close to hitting it mid-lift. During the second set a couple of young lads set up a bench about a foot from where I was lifting. And it just got worse. Before the start of the third set I had to ask a punter to take his foot off the end of the bar where it was resting while he was spotting his mate do quarter range of motion, far too heavy, dumbell press. How do people train in these places? After the fourth warmup set it became very clear that my proposed wod involving heavy deads and pushups was not going to happen because there simply was no space.
As an amusing aside, at one stage during my warmup deads I needed more weight so I pinched a 10kg from the smith machine. When I went back for the other, the girl who had been using the machine (and whom I thought had finished) stepped under the bar and proceeded to knock out a set of some form of lunge. When she had finished I apologised for stealing her weight and gave her back the 10kg plate. The funny thing was that she hadn’t noticed it was gone. You know your training is pushing serious boundaries when subtracting 10kg from the bar makes no difference to the amount of effort required. This pretty much sums up the experience. No-one in the place was raising a sweat.
So being adaptable, I changed to a max dip/max pullup wod. Hmmm … no pullup bar. I asked Figure Competitor girl if there was a pullup bar in the place and she lead me to the gravitron, explaining that I could add as much assistance that I needed. So, being inventive I set the smith machine to the top position and started the WOD. I discovered that knocking out 30+ dips unbroken is a great way to ensure that you have the dip machine to yourself. The two lads doing 3 reps of partner assisted dips decided not to work in with me anymore. Unfortunately by the time I got back to the smith machine, said lads had positioned an incline bench underneath it and were happily benching away in revenge. And so it continued until I had haphazardly completed in just under an hour what should have been a 10 minute workout.
However, as I left, I had a moment of clarity. What we have created at CrossFit Brisbane is an amazing thing. And I had an answer the why pay to train at an affiliate question … affiliates are a great place to do CrossFit, and that is the reason you shouldn’t struggle at your local commercial gym. At CFB, when you walk in people say hello. There are no fake tans, no ipods, no machines and in our case, plenty of space. It is easy to warmup. People respect effort and importantly respect that you need room to breathe. At CFB when I want to do pullups I simply walk to the bar and fire away. When I want to deadlift, there is plenty of weight to play around with, heaps of bars and chalk. There aren’t any 16 year old wannabes wandering around in gangster hats. People know if you take 1kg off the bar that they are using (let alone 10kg) because they are working to the best of their ability all of the time and taking weight off would be obvious. The people who work at CFB know where every piece of equipment is and even know how to use it. At any one time there are more people training than resting. There is an atmoshpere in the place that makes you want to join in, makes you want to try that litle bit harder. I love CFB, the people that train there and everything that it stands for.
So tomorrow, I will wander to the park and crank out Angie and wish that I was doing it with the crew at CFB. When I finish I will post my time up on the comments as a challenge for others to beat it, read the comments from the day, check out crossfit.com and be glad that I found the CrossFit community. Never again will I question the value for money that we provide as an affiliate. We have a great place to train and we have great people to train with. It is that simple, and that good.
Zen Habits is the brainchild blog of Leo Babauta. It is a great blog aimed at de-cluttering your mind and getting things done without stress. This is a great post about how to reclaim time …
…”Take my life, for example: there was a time, not too long ago, when my day was packed from morning to night, when I had meetings and long to-do lists and worked long hours and the rest of my time was filled up with social engagements and meetings for civic responsibilities. I had little time for my family, which ate me up, and little time to do the things I’ve always wanted to do.
I’ve always wanted to write, but never had the time. I’ve always wanted to exercise, but was too busy. I always wanted to travel, but who can get away? I’ve always wanted to spend time with my kids, but work comes first, right?
Wrong. I finally got smart and decided that my life is my own, to do with as I wished, and so I took a time out to decide what I really wanted my life to be like. Then I designed my life, and made a series of decisions and steps to get my life to what I wanted it to be.
Today, I wake early and exercise or spend some quiet time reading and writing. I’ve written a novel and a non-fiction book. I write this blog. I run and have finally run a marathon (two actually) and completed a triathlon. I spend afternoons and evenings and all weekends with my kids and wife.
My life is what I’ve always wanted it to be, because I designed it to be that way and worked to make that design come true.
It can be that way for you, to the extent that you’re willing to make changes. Even if you just want to free up a little time for a hobby or for doing something relaxing, you can do that.” read more …
Want to commit health suicide? Mark Sisson tells you how …
http://www.marksdailyapple.com/health-suicide-10-easy-steps/
One of the most common questions that I asked is “how do I lose weight?” Well, losing weight is less important than reducing body fat. In fact, due to the fact that muscle weighs a lot more than fat, it is possible to drop significant amounts of body fat without changing weight on the scales. This happens do to an exchange of fat for muscle that occurs when you start training. So reduction in weight is not a very good measure of progress, but reduction in body fat is.
There are some really easy ways to measure reductions in body fat. The simplest one is to take girth measurements using a tape measure and note reductions in key areas as you reduce body fat. Measure your waistline at your belly button, your hips at the widest part, your thighs 9cms above your knee cap, bicep at the widest part, and chest at the highest point under your armpits (above your nipple line). Use these as benchmark measures and periodically re-measure to see improvements. Ideally you will see waist and hips reduce, while biceps, thighs and chest increase or stay the same. In reality, what you are measuring is how much you have changed where it really matters … the fit of your clothes. Dropping sizes is the clearest indicator that you are dropping body fat.
So now that you know how to measure your progress, how do you actually bring about a change? Here are 5 steps for fat loss that we know work, providing you are consistent and put in the effort:-
Giving up things on the NO list is hard. It requires a sacrifice and effort on your part. But it is worth it to have a healthy body and to be able fit into clothes that you want to wear. If you already have your body composition under control, well done, BUT there is still no excuse. Adopting the above formula will push your body to the next level.
No doubt there are plenty of things on your BUT list … “but, I really enjoy a beer at the end of the day” … “but I don’t like eating vegetables” … ” but … but … but”. The reality is that if the BUTs are powerful enough to stop you, then you are not serious anyway. That is a choice for you to make. All I am asking you to do is be honest with yourself.
Still not sold? Here is a challenge … take your measurements and follow the above 5 steps for 3 weeks. Be disciplined and don’t cheat. After 3 weeks, re-measure and see what has happened. 3 weeks is not long. If you want more info about how to implement the above changes feel free to drop me an email or see me at training. Once you have given the basic 5 steps a red hot poke, I will provide more info on how to properly tune your diet.
Cheers,
Matt
Crossfitters seem to be very aware of what they feed themselves to fuel their bodies. But what do you feed your mind? The WOD is always written on the board when we walk into training, and our trainers are always there to correct form, so it is easy to make the focus of training ‘physical’. But what you allow yourself to think has a massive effect on your physical performance. The strongest man will under-perform when filled with doubt or fear.
The training of the mind is not often formally instructed. People become mentally stronger through experience. But there is a way to fast track your mental performance. First of all, you have to be aware of what you allow yourself to think. You cannot change anything if you are not aware of it. Once you develop that awareness, ask yourself – “is what I am thinking doing me any good? Is it helping me achieve my goal?” – if the answers to these questions is NO, then change what you are thinking.
There are some simple guidelines to help you construct better thoughts. First, make your thoughts about NOW, not about the past or the future. Second, make them task focussed. A technical cue would be a good example. Third, keep the language of your thinking in positive terms (e.g. instead of “this wont kill me” think “this will make me stronger”). And finally, make sure that what you put in your head is believable.
Once you know how to construct good thinking, go out and think ‘ON PURPOSE’. Don’t just accept whatever happens to pop into your head. Take responsibility for what is in your mind. In this way you are feeding your mind positives and it will grow strong.
- Wendy Swift
It is time to lift our standards. In general our pullups are not up to the standard set by the CrossFit community. It is becoming too common to see forehead to the bar, or bent arms at the bottom of the hang being counted as a rep completed.
Lets make no bones about it. Pullups are hard. That is why you rarely see them being done in commercial gyms. CrossFit does a lot of pullups. That is one of the reasons why CrossFitters are strong. But really, the main reason why get strong is because we do things poperly. Full range of motion, correct movement patterns, accurate form and technique are essential components of the program, not optional extras that can be conveniently discarded as soon as the WOD has a lot of reps.
Let’s have some pride and set the standard where it should be.
A pullup is only a valid rep if it starts from full hang with arms extended, moves through full range of motion until the CHIN is above the bar (not the eyes) and then returns to a full hang.
Ultimately, if you are cheating form, you are only cheating yourself out of improvement.
Here are some things that suck …
Don’t train to suck! One of the truisms in life is how we practice is how we perform. If you are not strong enough to get your chin consistently over the bar, then continuing to perform half reps will not magically make you strong enough, it will just make you very good at half reps. Do it long enough and you will actually start believing that half reps are all you can do, ie, you are somehow special. Pullups are hard for everyone. If you are not strong enough, then that is the problem not the excuse. Get stronger and fix the problem. How? slow descends, band pullups, partner assisted pullups, quality kipping practice, deadlifts, cleans, ring rows, high pulls, hanging. How else? ask your trainer. How else? practice the suckers EVERY warmup.
As trainers we see very few people do the specified pullups in the warmup and very many people do dodgy pullups in the workout. One day, I hope to see everybody doing pullups in the warmup and nobody doing dodgy form in the workout.
Here is some homework reading …
http://www.crossfit.com/journal/library/pullup_Apr03.pdf
http://stronglifts.com/how-to-do-pull-ups-and-chin-ups-with-proper-technique/
http://www.stumptuous.com/cms/displayarticle.php?aid=51
Let’s lift the standard! If your rep sucks, don’t count it. If you are counting reps for someone and they don’t get over the bar, don’t count it. If you are doing pullups and the trainer tells you to get your chin over the bar, that means your last rep sucked. If getting told that your form is not good enough gets up your nose and makes you want to tell the person to “get f*****” then maybe you should take a step back and remember that you are here to get better, and that person is trying to help you get better. Let’s not shoot the messenger. Also, If you think trying hard somehow justifies bad form, I would like you to have a rethink. Everyone is trying hard.
“Don’t paint a dirty car”
This is a quote from Greg Glassman, founder of CrossFit. In relation to CrossFit it refers to people trying to disguise poor form by increasing speed or weight. In the immortal words of Mark Rippetoe, “shitty form is shitty form”. It doesn’t matter how much we try to deny it, sooner or later, limitations in form and technique magnify to become limitations in performance. We all want to go fast and lift heavier. CrossFitters are typically competitive people by nature. The irony is that we don’t get to go faster or heavier in the WODs by using faster movements, or struggling with heavier loads.
Speed and strength are borne from movement and technique. If the underlying movement is not correct, improvement will be limited to only the first 3-6 months when corresponding improvements in basic metabolic conditioning allow us to perform better than when we first walked in the door. However, this is just the “newbie” phenomenom and without constant improvements in the underlying CrossFit movement patterns, progress will stagnate. If you have been doing CrossFit for more that 3 months and your progress has slowed, it will be for one of three reasons …. you are not consistent, you are not working hard enough, or (most likely if you have lasted 3 months) you are placing a higher emphasis on effort over form improvement.
Improving form takes time, patience and dedication. It is also dependent upon corresponding improvements in flexibility, neurological awareness, stability, core strength, balance and coordination. It takes time for your body to adapt and make improvements in these areas. You need to attempt to do the movement correctly, replicating the pattern as closely as your body will allow and then perform precise reps to provide the stimulus for your body to adapt. This is a process of chipping away at the problem each day with a conscious effort to improve. Importantly, form improvement requires ongoing honest evaluation. How honest is your attitude to training?
A great way to improve form is to use your warmup/warmdown time wisely to work on your body. Be dilligent in the warmup and focus on movements that you have trouble with. If Overhead Squat form is a problem, make sure that every session has some Overhead Squat practice. You have to work on your problem areas. Speed and strength are the rewards of paying attention to addressing weaknesses in form.
Why wouldn’t we paint a dirty car? The results don’t last and it is an expensive fix in the long run.
If ever you walk past a skate bowl, stop and watch the kids on their boards. They practice their tricks over and over and over again. The practice is the fun bit, not the actual trick. The trick is just a mechanism to facilitate improvement. This is also the secret to improvements at CrossFit. Practice your tricks and get your tricks down before trying to make them harder.
