NOV 07 2009 - Bear Crawl? Are You Kidding Me?

I had no idea what effect the bear crawl in today's workout would have. I'm still new to the CrossFit Football programming, so I had not encountered it before. Since I live on a poison-ivy covered hill with no sidewalks, I elected to take my barbell and kettlebell down to the park and crawl around on level grass. I'm sure the passers-by thought I was nuts.

5 Rounds for Time:
9 Rack Thrusters (45kg barbell)
20m Bear Crawl
7 Ball Slams (24kg kettlebell)
20m Sprint

Here's some explanations of the above terms:
1 Rack thruster = 1 Back Squat + 1 Push-Press at the top. A Push-Press is like a shoulder press with a little knee bend and hip drive to add momentum to the bar. The key to the Rack Thruster seems to be driving hard at the end of the squat to launch the bar up as much as possible before your arms take over. I found that these were much less painful on my wrist than front thrusters (which require a front squat, and mean I have less grip on the bar). Rack thrusters are most easily done by stepping under a bar in a power rack to get the bar in position on the back. I have no rack, so I clean & jerked the weight overhead and lowered to my back before starting each set.
Bear Crawl = Crawl on all fours with only hands and feet touching the ground. Don't crawl on your knees. This turns out to require a lot of accessory muscle work in the shoulders to keep on course and keep one's face out of the dirt. Hand turnover speed was my limiter during the bear crawl. The rack thrusters took it out of me; it was all I could do to keep from face-planting.
Ball Slam = Pick up something heavy, hold it fully extended overhead, then slam it into the ground. Very primal. Very satisfying. Releases all manner of inner turmoil/ angst/ demons. It'll cure what ails you. Not having a heavy enough medicine ball, I settled for aerating the park's mulch by slamming my 24kg kettlebell into the ground. It left craters!

Overall - great workout for me! It hit one of my weaknesses (overhead lifting) from two angles by requiring strength and power for the rack thrusters, then agility and stabilization for the bear crawl and ball slams. I took 16:04 to finish; I had to break the last two rounds of thrusters into two sets. Next time this workout comes around my goal is to keep going through the whole round.

NOV 06 2009 - Sprints

I haven't sprinted in a while. I found it mentally challenging to work on balance, explosive hip extension, fast cadence, and breathing all at once. Next time sprints show up in the workout I'll warm up with some Pose running drills. I learned about the Pose method at a CrossFit Endurance Certification in 2007 - it's helped me run my last few triathlons faster and with much less joint pain. Check out the CrossFit Endurance website for videos of their drills.


Power Clean 5 sets of 3 reps
Rest
10x 40m Sprints, Rest as needed


I rested one minute between each sprint. Tried to remember my pose form. Tried to start explosively. Balancing the forward lean with the hip drive at the start was the most challenging.

NOV 05 2009 - Correcting My Press

Here's a side view of my press lockout position. Note that the bar is NOT directly over my head. There is a vertical line between the bar (where I'm gripping it), my shoulders, and my feet. As viewed from the side, at least some of the lifter's ear should be visible in front of the arm. Locking out fully in the press means pinching your shoulder blades together and shruging your shoulders up to your ears. However, I'd like my head in a more neutral position: head in line with the spine. I have a tendency to tilt my head forward when I pinch my shoulder blades together in back. Avoid that, but get the bar shrugged all the way up. That last 1/4 inch of height on the bar provides a lot of benefit for your shoulder health by balancing the strength around your shoulder girdle. You can prevent a lot of rotator cuff issues and postural problems by pressing all the way to a full, shrugged-shoulder lockout.

Apparently the heavy set of five deadlifts and seven weighted pullups a couple days ago wasn't enough for the guys at CF Football. Today there were more waiting for me in the conditioning set.

Squat 3 sets of 5 reps

Press 3 sets of 5 reps

Rest

As Quickly As Possible:

10 Deadlifts, 10 Pullups,

9 Deadlifts, 9 Pullups,

8 Deadlifts, 8 Pullups,

7 Deadlifts, 7 Pullups,

6 Deadlifts, 6 Pullups,

5 Deadlifts, 5 Pullups,

4 Deadlifts, 4 Pullups,

3 Deadlifts, 3 Pullups,

2 Deadlifts, 2 Pullups,

1 Deadlift, 1 Pullup.

I squatted 66 kg because I forgot to put a 1 kg plate on the right side. It felt a little unbalanced, but I thought it was because I had not centered the bar on my back. Oops. I pressed 37 kg. For the deadlifts in the conditioning sets I lifted 75 kg, which is less than the 150% of my bodyweight (I'm 70 kg) that CFFB prescribed. But it seemed about right - it was heavy enough that I had to break up the set of 9 and take two breaths, but light enough that I kept good form on all but two of the 55 reps. I'd really like to do this workout again in a few weeks. Pullups were definitely my limiting factor. Again. I broke them into sets of three on the first set. Then singles by the third set. ARRRRRGH!

Well, that's why I'm training. I'll get my set of 33 unbroken pullups on my birthday.

NOV 04 2009 - Creatine

Today I rested. And bought creatine. It has a myriad of health benefits, just some of which apply to lifting heavy things. You can start by checking out these articles:

www.alive.com/4701a12a2.php?Subject_bread_cramb=7

http://ezinearticles.com/?The-Top-5-Strangest-Benefits-Of-Creatine&id=956143

or Google it. I'm sure there are even more reputable articles.

Of course, I'm interested in it primarily to aid in lifting heavy things and sprinting fast. I get the unflavored variety and mix 5 grams (1 teaspoon) in my post-workout protien shake. I paid $24 for 1000 grams, or about twelve cents a serving. You can probably find it cheaper on the internet, if you're inclined.

NOV 03 2009 - Weighted Pullups

Today was a heavy lifting day; no conditioning work.

Snatch: work up to a heavy single rep
Clean & Jerk: work up to a heavy single rep
Deadlift: work up to your 5 Rep Max
Weighted Pullups: seven attempts to work up to a 1 Rep Max

I snatched 55kg, C&J'd 65kg, deadlifted 115 kg, and got a 20kg + body weight pullup.

NOV 02 2009 - My Experiment With CF Football Begins

After looking over the past few months of programming on the CrossFit Football website (http://www.crossfitfootball.com/), I think it's exactly what I need. They program for strength, power, and speed - all limiters for me right now. The site offers a lot of options, to tailor your programming to your needs, and the "New to CF Football?" link does a good job of describing how to get started.

Each day's workout is composed of a strength workout, where the goal is to lift heavy, and a conditioning workout (they call it the daily wod), which is usually performed for time, or max number of reps. Since I'm not competing in a sport right now, I'll be using the off-season workouts. CFFB offers three levels of strength workouts, for people at different percentages of their strength potential. I feel pretty far from mine, so I'm going to begin with the amateur strength workout, in order to make the fastest progress. Once I stop making progress on the amateur level, it'll be time to move up.

Since I'm relatively small and weak compared to football players, I'll be scaling the workouts - using lighter weights, and sometimes fewer reps. I'll post only the workout that I actually do. If you want to see the posted workout instead of my scaled-down version, check it out on their website. Here goes.

Squat 3 sets of 5 reps
Press 3 sets of 5 reps
Rest 5 minutes
As Many Rounds As Possible in 12 minutes:
5 Hang Power Cleans (55kg)
7 Ring Rows
9 Box Jumps (20" box)

I squatted 65kg, pressed 35kg, and got 7 complete rounds plus 3 hang power cleans. My right wrist is still unhappy with overhead pressing.

NOV 01 2009 - Squattin' Heavy

After two rest days, it was time to hit it hard with a one rep max squat attempt. I followed it up with a scaled-down Crossfit Football conditioning workout.

1RM Back Squat
Rest 4 minutes
For time:
4x100m Sprints (on 30 sec rest)
30 Push-Press (35kg)
4x100m Sprints (on 30 sec rest)

Here's video of my heaviest squat. I'm doing a low bar back squat, so I have a more horizontal back angle than you may expect. You can see that my hips go just below parallel with my knees. (Sorry for the camera not being level.) That's the good news. I'd like to see less delay between when I drive my hips up and when the bar starts up. What's going on is that my back muscles are not set tight enough, so I'm losing power transfer. The increased back angle makes for more torque (and thus more work) on my back muscles. Back strength was the limiter for my heavy squatting. Also, those are bumper plates, not metal - the total bar weight is 95kg. The conditioning took me just under 9 minutes, including rests after each sprint.