By now, we’ve probably sufficiently beat into your head the idea that Paleo is about eating unprocessed foods as close to their natural state as possible. In other words, the foods you choose to eat shouldn’t have an ingredient list, and if they do, it should all be words you can actually pronounce. One item I’ve heard people talk about as “healthy” is turkey bacon. This is really a holdover from the “fat is evil, carbs are your friend” mentality which exploded in the 80s. I can’t help but cringe when I hear about one of our athletes eating that or other fake foods like margarine, egg beaters, etc. I recall seeing an article that CrossFit Balboa linked to over a year ago that spoke about real foods vs. fake foods. The original article was on the site Fitness Spotlight and I encourage you to check it out. Here’s a brief teaser:

If you want to know the source of your pork bacon, it’s either the belly, sides, or back (or the cheeks if it’s jowl bacon) of the pig. Close your eyes and you can imagine slicing into a pig and finding some uncured bacon right there for the taking. Now imagine cutting into a turkey and finding anything resembling a strip of bacon. In fact, just try to imagine which part of the turkey your meat is coming from. Yeah, I’m still trying to imagine it too.

Those crafty food scientists in Japan have even tried to make something pseudo-Paleo, although it’s definitely not even close. Check out the caveman on the packaging! They do get an “A” for effort.

WOD 07.29.10

Make Up Day

What’s the best sports drink for during or post-WOD?

Sports drinks are a big business. Advertisers love to feature athletes drinking their beverages so people form a mental connection between the two. Who can forget the iconic “Be Like Mike” campaign?

Then there’s this more recent campaign, featuring my least favorite player:

The funny thing is that most people view the 2nd commercial and shake their heads at the thought of drinking soda after a workout. But aside from the carbonation, there’s not a lot of difference between Sprite and Gatorade. In fact, while they plan to change this year to a glucose-dextrose blend, Gatorade has been using HFCS as their energy source of choice… just like sodas. Further muddying the waters is the fact Gatorade is owned by Pepsi, while Coke owns Powerade. Yet oddly, many people reach for a Gatorade thinking that it’s somehow healthier than a can of soda.

So it should come as no surprise that the recommended drink of choice is plain ol’ water. Your body doesn’t need the extra sweeteners once you train your taste buds accordingly. Oh and the electrolytes? It’s pretty much nothing more than table salt. Unless you come into the gym dehydrated, you would only need electrolytes after three or more hours of extreme exercising. So grab a bottle (hopefully stainless steel) of H₂O, since it’ll get the job done better than anything else. Yes, even more than Brawndo — water is what plants (and humans) crave.

WOD 07.26.10

Back Squat 3×5, 1×15-20

Then, four rounds for time:

• 10 Toes to Bar
• 10 Ground to Overhead

Drank Kool-Aid: April 2009
Favorite Lift/Movement: Backsquat, Pullups, HSPU (with bands for now!)
Least Favorite Movement: Burpees, Double Unders, Toes to Bar
Favorite WOD: BIG NASTY METCONS!  Filthy Fifty, FGB, Murph, etc.
Least Favorite WOD: Annie or anything I cannot YET complete Rx’d
CrossFit Goals: Complete Fran Rx’d Under 10 min, HSPU without bands
Best CrossFit Accomplishment: First ever pullup! Thruster with the bar properly on my chest. Every time I jump on a box without splitting my forehead. 

Today is Scott #1’s birthday. Scott is actually “the” charter member if I recall correctly, as he placed a deposit to hold a spot before we really even got up and going. While he attended our inaugural WOD at Rec Park, he really joined in once we had a roof over our heads. All of you have already read Scott’s story and seen his amazing success so far, so I won’t rehash that here. (Not to mention Anna would complain about the story being repeated again. )

Scott has attributed much of his recent gains to his switching over to a paleo diet, but that wasn’t always his way. In fact, he recently reminded me of how he used to scoff at the thought of giving up his preferred carbs and how he’s now the one defending the paleo ideals to his friends. Scott keeps me on my toes with nutritional questions and I’m glad to see him always seeking more knowledge.

Let’s all wish Scott a very happy birthday and continued success in the weeks to come! Happy birthday Scott!

Oh, and while Viv has a scary story about being bitten by a box jump her first time, Scott’s takes the cake. See below for what Scott meant by one of his best accomplishments.

Also, we at CrossFit Intrepid would like to wish Jake’s girlfriend Ashley a happy 21st birthday!

WOD 07.22.10

Make Up Day

Mexican food is usually pretty easy to make Paleo-compliant. With that in mind, today’s selection is another local El Segundo eatery that features “beach mexican” food. Most of you may already be familiar with greasy spoons such as El Tarasco but this restaurant has a much fresher taste to their offerings. Beach Mex is located on Grand Avenue within walking distance of the gym and features the prerequisite tacos and burritos, but obviously those aren’t Paleo. However, their burritos can be served “unwrapped” to avoid the carb bomb tortilla. I’ve eaten here a number of times and have always found the staff very accommodating to even my level of finickiness.

Aside from tweaking the burritos to make them Paleo-friendly, you can get fajitas sans tortillas or one of their entree plates for a larger serving portion. I’ve noticed their vegetables and salsas to be extremely fresh and good tasting in addition to the note they grill in olive oil (instead of a cheaper soybean or other vegetable oil). Another nice touch is that their meat selection includes some fish choices. Of course the easiest Paleo items are the salads. Pictured above I ordered their Mahi Mahi salad with the dressing on the side:

Mixed greens with shredded red cabbage & carrots, topped with our blackened seasoned mahi-mahi fish, fresh slices of avocado & mango, jack & cheddar cheeses. Served tossed in our Cilantro Vinaigrette dressing

With their combination of convenient location and tasty food, I highly recommend you give Beach Mex a try. They have outdoor seating that is quite pleasant now that we’ve reached full summer weather. Oh… and if you ever go for a cheat day and are a fan of nachos, you MUST give their version a try — it’s absolutely gargantuan.

WOD 07.20.10

Press 3×5, 1×10-15

Then, for time (courtesy of CrossFit Football):

• 30 BW Back Squats
• 1000m Row
• 30 Burpees

Monday night’s class at 7pm was gigantic with what — 10, 11 people? — and got me to reflecting on how far things have come. In comparison, my first 7pm class consisted of 3 people, 2 of which are still with us to this day (Becky and Jake).

Take a look at the photo above (click on it for a larger resolution). On the left was the inaugural WOD at CrossFit Intrepid, back on November 14th, 2009. As you can see, there wasn’t very much equipment in the gym at that time. Heck, we didn’t even have the whiteboards up! Compare that to the photo on the right, taken during the Big Girls Don’t Cry event almost exactly 7 months later on June 12th, 2010. The gym has evolved and is looking quite a bit like Sean’s blueprint he revealed at the beginning of the year.  At the time, we thought it was something nice to dream about but the execution of that plan would be some time in the far future.

Likewise, all of you too have evolved. We see PRs left and right, along with successes such as Scott’s story we read earlier this week. For example, check out the picture of Mike below (again, click it for a larger resolution). Mike first joined us after trying out Fight Gone Bad in the park and he was hooked on CrossFit ever since.

I believe the photo on the left is some of Mike’s very first deadlifts (at least with us), and he was working on 135 lbs. at that time. Comparatively, check him out on the right as he was pulling 275 lbs. while working towards his max effort during the May Challenge. Ruth and Sean have posted before about how proud we trainers are of you athletes and many of you laugh at our excitement over your PRs. I guess you could say we’re somewhat selfish. Your continued evolution drives the same result for the gym itself. Without you all, we’d just have an empty former auto shop with bare walls and a dusty floor.

WOD 07.15.10

Make Up Day

Sadly, "Muscles" frequently goes missing

Drank Kool-Aid: January 2010
Favorite Lift/Movement: Deadlifts
Least Favorite Movement: Clean & Jerks
Favorite WOD: The Bear Complex
Least Favorite WOD: FRAN (emphasis hers)
CrossFit Goals: 10 strict pullups without a band
Best CrossFit Accomplishment: Being able to do strict pullups

Viviana first joined us in January of this year after Becky finally twisted her arm to get her to try out CrossFit. At first, she was a regular and made crazy gains, impressing everyone with her guns and earning the nickname “Muscles”. Sadly, Viv felt she was getting “too buff” and only occasionally graces us with her presence now. (Maybe she should read Ruth’s post on “getting bulky”, or either of Sean’s on the beauty of strength and women lifting heavy.) While she claims to have never done any weightlifting prior to coming to Intrepid, she took to it like a fish to water and has set some quite amazing PRs! When she’s not in the gym disrupting class, Viv can be found crusading for more green parks in the concrete jungle, finding nice scotches, playing with Becky and engaging in environmental justice. You should all be able to wish Viv a happy birthday in person tonight since she said she didn’t have any better plans. Happy birthday Viv!!

WOD 07.12.10

Front Squat 3×3, 1×15-20

Then, 7 rounds for time:

• 7 Ring Dips
• 7 SDHP

Today I’d like to kick off a new weekly feature in which I’ll attempt to tackle any nutritional questions you may have. Personally I love digging up information and sadly am also a bottomless well of semi-useless factoids, so please feel free to ask away. Onto the first question:

My wife is concerned about my egg intake. I mix three eggs into my daily morning shake and she has heard that eating eggs can lead to Alzheimer’s Disease. Is this true?

A great first question, as it always seems there’s another news article telling us that something is alternately good or bad for us. I did find some articles which mentioned a study linking high methionine levels with greater risk of Alzheimer’s (AD). So what foods contain this amino acid? Methionine is found in red meats, fish, beans, eggs, garlic, lentils, onions, yogurt and seeds. I think we can all agree that avoiding AD is a worthwhile goal, so let’s take a look at the bigger picture.

Methionine is used by the body in a process called (creatively enough) the methionine cycle. One of the things created by this cycle is called SAM-e for short. SAM-e is available in health food stores as a supplement as it has been shown in multiple studies to have benefits regarding depression, some liver conditions and osteoarthritis. Aside from these benefits, unusually low levels of SAM-e have been observed in AD patients so it has also been suggested that higher SAM-e levels may help with AD.

After the use of SAM-e, it eventually converts to homocysteine. Now at this point is where things get scary. High levels of homocysteine have been shown to be present in those with AD. Additionally, elevated homocysteine has been linked to heart disease, stroke and even bone weakness in the elderly. It would then appear that lowering homocysteine would be the goal and not necessarily elimination of methionine sources. Ironically, some of the foods that contain high levels of methionine, such as meats and eggs, also contain the key to lowering homocysteine levels.

The B vitamins (folic acid, B₆ and B₁₂) are important in the methionine cycle to convert homocysteine back to methionine. Meats and eggs are high in these B vitamins, which is why it is typically recommended for vegetarians/vegans to supplement to avoid deficiencies. Recent studies have indicated that a vitamin B₁₂ deficiency and high levels of homocysteine may be associated with both the onset and course of AD.

Coming back to eggs themselves, their yolks contain both omega-3 and omega-6 essential fatty acids (EFAs). These EFAs are very necessary for those with degenerative diseases involving oxidative stress, especially those involving the nervous system such as AD. The takeaway from all this is that eggs have a number of benefits regarding AD and if we want to be on the safe side, we might consider supplementing with a good B vitamin complex.

Please feel free to ask any additional nutrition questions in the comments, or if you’d prefer to remain anonymous, shoot me an email at marcus [at] crossfitintrepid.com. I look forward to hearing from you!

WOD 07.08.10

Make Up Day

Our own resident troublemaker (and koala bear) Anna introduced me to this great lunch spot. While similar in concept to Chicken Dijon, the execution and price are quite different. Not to be confused with the expensive fondue place called The Melting Pot, this is a Mediterranean-themed rotisserie chicken restaurant. They offer a pretty wide variety of dishes, but all I have tried and can recommend is the chicken.

For the half-chicken meal, you get a choice of a couple of sides. Paleo-friendly options would be the fruit salad, steamed vegetables or the green salad. This is also accompanied by a fried pita and sides of garlic sauce, hummus and salsa. Outside of the salsa, I would have to recommend skipping those extras if you’re trying to keep it clean. But the greatest difference from the other chicken restaurants is the special garlic and herb paste that they add to the outside of the chicken before serving it. The friendly owner jokingly calls it his “marijuana sauce” with how popular it has spread via word-of-mouth in the El Segundo community. Best of all, the half-chicken meal runs about two dollars less than a comparable meal over at Chicken Dijon. If you are really pinching pennies, you can get the half-chicken à la carte for another two dollars less than the meal. If you do decide to give it a try, keep in mind parking is scarce and there is no seating — orders are take out only.

WOD 07.06.10

Deadlift 1×5

Then, for time:
2010 Online Qualifier WOD #2

• 150 Double Unders
• 30 Thrusters (135/85#)
• 30 C2B PU

This workout must be completed in order. You must complete the DUs before doing all the thrusters. And no pullups until the thrusters are complete. For the double-unders, the rope must past twice under the feet each rep. Missed attempts do not count. For the thruster, take the barbell from the floor, not a rack. The hips must pass below the level of the knees, and at the top, there must be full lockout of the knees, hips, and elbows with the barbell over the head (arm blocking the ear). For the pullup, this is not just a height requirement. The chest (somewhere from the clavicle down) must come into contact with the bar every rep.

Today’s medical establishment is in a sad state of affairs. As Ruth posted about previously, it’s hard to find a good doctor who isn’t in bed with big pharma. Allow me to relate my recent trip to the doctor and how it could have gone much worse.

I went in for a regular annual checkup and once the nurse took my weight, temperature, pulse and blood pressure, I was shown to a room to see my doctor. After the normal exchange of pleasantries, my doctor opened with a borderline insulting speech:

“You know, you’re now closer to 40 than you are to 30. It might be time to put you on a cholesterol medication. Some guys want to try to control things with a change in diet, but really it’s easier with the help of statins. Hey, even I’m on statins.”

What was especially shocking is that at this point, we had had zero discussion about my diet, my exercise and he hadn’t even seen my blood work yet! Now if you haven’t heard, statins aren’t exactly a good thing. They come with the “minor” side effects of muscle and joint pain, erectile dysfunction, lowered testosterone, nausea, diarrhea and/or constipation! If those weren’t enough, the “serious” side effects are potential liver damage and muscle pain — up to and including rhabdomyolysis — among many other less than desirable effects. Sadly, many doctors are either in denial about the side effects or some even speculate they may be financially encouraged to look the other way. Even worse, statins are a lifetime prescription — once you start, you’re supposed to stay on for the rest of your life.

Needless to say, that was the last time I will visit that doctor and have changed physicians. I shudder to think how many patients he has already rubber stamped with a statin prescription. Undoubtedly if they come in with some of those side effects, he’ll be likely to just add another prescription — erectile dysfunction and he’ll write viagra, joint pain and he’ll write a muscle relaxer, etc. Let my own poor experience be a lesson for you to never take your doctor’s word as gospel. We need to consider our doctor as a consultant where we may accept or reject their advice because ultimately we are responsible for our own bodies and health.

WOD 07.01.10

Overhead Squats 3×3

Then, AMRAP 12:

• 100m dash
• 5 Hang Power Cleans
• 7 Wallball Shots

This Wednesday will be our June Challenge. You may be a bit more tentative going into this challenge as we haven’t had any practice runs prior to now, but rest assured your daily workouts were designed to get you prepared. We will hold make up sessions on Thursday for those who cannot make it. Plan accordingly as we’d like all of you to participate! Just to refresh your memory, here’s what the challenge will consist of:

June’s Cup Challenge:
Max Reps Back Squat, Bench Press, Deadlift

The concept is simple.
1) One set of squats for max reps. Rest.
2) One set of bench for max reps. Rest.
3) One set of deadlifts for max reps.

Men: 225# or 185#
Women- 135# for squats and deads, 95# for bench or 95#/65#

Rules
* Squats are to depth (crease of hip below top of knee). Bounce is encouraged. Must be locked at out at top.
* Bench presses must touch the chest and be locked out at top. No alligator arms.
* Deadlifts. No straps. No bouncing. No hitching. Weight must be lowered, not dropped. Weight must come to a dead stop. Set ends when you let go of the bar.

All sets are over when rest exceeds 5 seconds between reps.

Some people have come to me with concerns about the challenge, namely the bench press. For many of you, the deadlifts and even the squats at a particular weight category look easy but when it comes to the bench, you’re nervous. Don’t be. For example, if you’re able to deadlift and squat 225 lbs, I am pretty certain you can get at least ONE rep of bench at that amount. It might be a 1RM for you, but that’s all it will take to qualify in that weight class. Just plan to knock it out of the park on the deadlifting and squats. Likewise, there’s no shame if you choose to drop down a weight class. Again using the example of 225 lbs, if that still appears just too daunting, you can go with the 185 lbs class and kill it. While we would discourage sandbagging to purposely inflate your score, we want everyone to have fun with the challenge. At least this one’s an open field unlike the sleep contest that Anna seems to have sewn up!

WOD 06.28.10

Snatch

“Elizabeth”
21-15-9

• Cleans
• Ring Dips

**WOD for those who did Murph Saturday TBD.**