Our brains are highly sophisticated computers that are easily programmable. How many of you learned [the hard way] that touching a hot stove meant that you got burned? Some of you more stubborn folks had to do it two or more times to be convinced that it wasn’t a good idea, but eventually, you made the connection that hot stoves meant pain.

In the gym, your brain is working on multiple levels: controlling your motor skills and respiratory functions, amongst other things. It has the ability to evaluate your movement mid-lift, make an adjustment, and execute it all in a fraction of a second. How you program your brain in the gym with regards to successful lifts is critical. If 30% of your lifts end up as fails, your brain recognizes that as a habit. It will expect to fail at least 30% of the time. Don’t make your lifts a game of russian roulette.

This may apply somewhat differently for power lifts vs oly lifts, but idea is the same. When you burn out your back squat, deadlift, bench press, and press lifts, make sure you ‘leave one in the tank.’  This is critical in ensuring proper recovery as well as cementing the habit of making every lift you attempt.

When it come to Olympic lifts, selecting weights for your work sets is crucial.  Cleans and snatches are highly technical and neurological lifts.  If you had a tough day at work or rough training week, you may experience neural fatigue.  You may feel physically capable of moving the weight, but your brain is just not cooperating.  You feel uncoordinated and it’s hard to snatch even 50% of your usual work set.  If this is the case, go only as heavy as you can still keep good form and move the bar with appropriate speed.    On the days we program cleans or snatches and tell you to get a heavy double or triple (2-2-2 or 3-3-3), don’t look at it as an opportunity to chase a PR and go until you fail.  Get to a heavy set for that day and stop while you’re ahead.

Success builds confidence.  Who wants to come into the gym every day just to fail a lift?  You end up beating your head against the wall and dread getting under the bar.  This doesn’t mean you stay in a comfort zone and never push the envelope.  Instead, learn how to assess how well you are moving on a given training day.  Know when to push your limits and when to be more conservative.  Set yourself up for success and it will become a habit.

WOD 06.22.12

Bear Complex
5 sets of the following complex:
Power Clean
Front Squat
Push Press
Back Squat
Push Press

1. Perform 7 reps of the complex without resting on the floor per set. Touch and go only for the Power Clean.
2. You can thruster the push presses from both the squats, but the first movement has to be a power clean…(no squat clean to thruster).
3. Rest as needed between sets.
4. Penalty for a bar touching the ground is 5 burpees per violation post-WOD.

While scanning over articles posted on the CrossFit Games website, one titled, Doug Chapman’s Thoughts on Virtuosity and Coaching, really caught my attention. Doug Chapman is a coach at CrossFit Ann Arbor and coach of CrossFit Games bound athlete Julie Foucher. He shares his experience coaching a Games level athlete as well as his observations while judging at the Regionals and Games levels. Throughout the article he tries to answer why a select few athletes have the work capacity and tools to be successful in any competition and why others fall short.

He first discusses virtuosity vs the no rep. He has seen that the top athletes complete each movement the exact same way every time, almost making it difficult to keep up with the rep count. These athletes train with “uncompromising attention to detail everyday.” Virtuosity is achieved through practically perfect movements even during practice so that great form becomes muscle memory, almost automatic. Athletes consistently getting no reps are a result of not meeting the standard for movements during training. If you do a movement wrong or don’t complete the movement on a regular basis, you sure aren’t going to do it correctly every time in competition.

He then moves on to movement standards. The first part of this segment I don’t entirely agree with. He believes that the low bar back squat does not serve the needs of the CrossFit athlete because it does not encourage complete range of motion and leaves the athlete leaning forward at the bottom of the squat. However, if you and your coach are diligent about getting to full depth using low bar back squat it is extremely useful for strengthening your posterior chain. Again, regardless of whether you do high bar or low bar back squat, it’s still about achieving full range of motion while maintaining the correct body position. However his point in all of this is a good one, push athletes to have good form and achieve full range of motion before adding weights and completing work outs “as RX’d.” This is something that the trainers here are very strict about, and obviously for good reason.

In the last section, coach Doug discusses programming. He has noticed that athletes at the top have no glaring weaknesses, they find themselves at the top of the leaderboard regardless of the type of work out (short, long, heavy, body weight focused, etc). It is the job of the trainers to come up with balanced programming to build athletes as evenly as possible in all areas (see Ruth’s post from earlier this week on this exact topic). It’s your job as an athlete to know where you are unbalanced and put in the effort to minimize your weaknesses and expand your strengths with the guidance of your coaches. Overall, an athlete who practices movements with full range of motion, good mechanics and is well rounded with no obvious weaknesses will come out on top.

Doug goes into a lot more detail in his article and has some great words of wisdom that can’t easily be paraphrased. While his advice in this article is primarily directed toward coaching in this article, it is easy to see where the responsibility for virtuosity in training also falls on the athlete. Also, take the time to re-read Ruth’s article on The Pursuit of Virtuosity. It’s an important topic that should be at the front of your mind when you come in to train everyday.

WOD 6.14.12

Skills Day

Happy Birthday Tina B.! Tina has been kicking butt in the morning sessions!

After reading Ruth’s Quality Control post from last Friday, I felt I should go a step further and discuss how we should approach our movement training.  Movement training is something that we stress, especially with beginners, but oftentimes we neglect cleaning up our movements because, honestly it can be kind of boring and slow.  Far less appealing than the allure of lifting a bar loaded with weight or the rush that draws many towards the “sexy met-con.”  In Gray Cook’s book entitled Movement, he discusses trainees’ mindset in the early days of weight training and how squatting was approached, saying that they, “took time to learn to squat properly with full range, balance, and control.  They developed a strength platform built on a good squat pattern,…”(p.192).  Three things stand out to me in his statement:  the elements of time, skill, and strength.  Time is necessary to learn, refine, and perfect a movement pattern.  Skill is required to maintain balance and control through the entire range of motion.  Finally, once one has taken the time to build a consistently good pattern, we start to add more resistance and develop strength.  The sequence is no accident, and is how we pattern our coaching here at Intrepid.  So how can you begin to work on correcting limited movement pattern?  According to Gray Cook here’s how we should address improving our movement:

1. Focus first on mobility.  We can’t expect to squat to full depth or press weight overhead if our mobility restricts us from attaining those positions without using any weight.  Mobilitywod.com is a great resource and I’d recommend searching your mobility issues here for ideas.
2. Second, we need to address stability.  Stability targets postural control of starting and ending positions.  Its focus is on fine-tuned control, not brute force.  For many athletes, poor pelvic stability has as much to do with not squatting to full depth as having tight hip musculature.  These drills require a bit more finesse and often require an extra set of eyes or a mirror so you can see yourself.
3. Finally, after mobility issues have been resolved and stability has been attained, the focus can then shift to movement pattern retraining.  Here we are working the coordination and timing needed to redevelopment the movement pattern.

It’s not a smart use of time or worth the wear and tear you’ll endure if you overlook or ignore the skill of the movement in order to load up and lift heavy.  Whether you’re caressing your ego or claiming ignorance, you’re doing yourself a disservice if you’re indeed serious about your training and development.  Squatting to partial depth or elevating the heels to attain full depth squats are meant to be temporary accommodations, not permanent solutions.  Understand that unless we address the your soft tissue restrictions, joint mobility dysfunction, and/or your stability and motor control issues we’re avoiding the root issues keeping you from enjoying the freedom of full movement.  Respect movement enough to recognize when your limited or when a coach points a limitation out to you.  Work on correcting the issue with the approach outlined above:  mobility, stability, pattern retraining (which often takes time depending on how limited you are).  Very few things in life are given to us, and movement is no different…you’ve gotta earn it.  Some are working to the earn the ability to squat to full depth, while others are earning the opportunity to go heavier in weights by showing they can maintain range of motion, control, and balance at the current weight they’re lifting. Either way the moral of the story is that you have to earn it.

Order’s for Steve’s Original products are due by Thursday night (June 7th). Grab an order form in the gym or email us what you’d like to purchase.

WOD 6.06.12

Front Squat 4×3

5 Rounds for Time:
6 Jerks
12 Pistols
18 Sit Ups

I recently read an article on Mark’s Daily Apple about the 8 reasons why you act against your own better judgment. In this article, Mark reflects on the old Bob Newhart Mad TV sketch where he would always tell you to just “STOP IT” and how that advice obviously doesn’t work for many people. He covers eight physiological reasons why peole make poor dietary choices regardless of the repercussions that result from eating unhealthy foods. I’ll summarize the eight reasons below, but I highly recommend reading the whole article. Mark does a great job of making scientific explanations seem very simple.

1. You’re missing something from your diet and your ancient genes are misinterpreting the modern cravings.

The example used in this case was a salt craving. Your body is craving salt and instead of turning to shellfish or rock salt like our ancestors would have done, we turn to what our bodies have remembered as salty foods…Cheez-its or chips. So the next time you’re craving a box of  cheez-its, your body is most likely in need of salt, so look for a healthier salty choice.

2. You’re missing something from your diet and your modern self is misinterpreting the ancient cravings.

This example ties sweet cravings to fatty meat cravings. Sweet amino acids are hydrophbic (don’t like water), which means they are found inside cells with fats (which repel water). Hydrophilic (like water/water-soluble) amino acids do not associate with fat and do not taste sweet. So a recent theory suggests that because of our more recent high sugar intake diet we crave sweets when our bodies might actually be craving fat.

3. You’re addicted to wheat.

Wheat contains opioid peptides which may be able to activate our opioid receptors. Other addictive drugs such as opium, morphine and heroin also have the ability to activate our opioid receptors. While there are no scientific studies to back this up, a recent theory is that wheat could potentially be addictive, just like a drug.

4. You’re addicted to sugar.

In rat studies, sugar has been proven to be extremely addictive. Rodents will become addicted to sugar rather quickly and at times even choose it over pharmaceuticl-grade cocaine. Recent studies on humans, as we saw in the 60 minutes episode that Marcus posted about, also suggest that sugar is addictive in humans. So just like with wheat, we’re making bad decisions about our food simply because we’re addicted.

5. You’re stressed out.

This is probably not the first time you’ve heard of stress being tied to poor eating choices. When people are stressed out they secrete lots of cortisol which leads to cravings for and intake of sweets. You also may experience a craving for comfort foods because of an increase of a hunger hormone, ghrelin, as a response to increased stress. Stress can also lead to salt cravings, which ties us back to reason #1.

6. You’re training too much without adequate fueling.

This one is pretty simple. If you’re exercising a lot everyday and have cut out sweet fruits and vegetables like tubers and potatoes, you may be starving your body of the glycogen it needs to survive. So naturally, when you’re exercising a lot and not getting enough carbs from the foods you eat, your body tends to crave easily-digestible, processed carbs such as bread, pizza or ice cream.

7. You’re not getting enough sleep.

Lack of sleep increases insulin resistance which changes how we process macronutrients such as carbohydrates and makes us more prone to fat gain. Recent studies have show that one night of poor sleep causes people to find food more rewarding and reported more hunger than people who had slept well.

8. You fear being socially isolated due to your food choices.

This one is pretty simple, you don’t want to refuse that piece of cake at your office party in fear of offending someone or looking like a crazy “health nut” (like that’s a bad thing). That’s something I think we can all say we battle with and there may be a physiological reason for it. A study showed that during experiences of social exclusion, brain scans registered significant activity in the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC). Physical pain also triggers the ACC, but is not involved in the physical sensation of pain. So when you feel socially excluded for refusing that piece of cake, your body may be associating that with physical pain.

Now this is just a brief(ish) summary of what’s in the article. There is a lot more interesting information in the article, so I highly recommend you read it if this topic is interesting to you. Personally I find it interesting to learn about why our body acts the way it does and how much what we eat influences that both physiologically and psychologically.

REST DAY 05.06.12

Ruth and I fell in love with coaching because in small groups we witnessed the amazing progress of every athlete and the bonds built between classmates as they struggled through heavy lifts, grueling met-cons, and the thrill of coming out on top every time with each other’s support.  As coaches we prioritize and divide our attention on a lot of things depending on the class size, the workout of the day, and the athletes in attendance.  We do our best to encourage and push you but oftentimes it really hits home when we hear it from our peers. There’s nothing like an encouraging word from the person next to you between stations, as you pass one another on a run, when you see each other struggling, when you see other hitting their “wall”. This is where we rely on our peers, those busting their asses to our right and left, to help us get the spark we need to grind through the next 5 burpees, the next set of back squats, the next 400m run, or whatever it is that lies ahead of you when you fell like you’ve hit your wall.  We all reach that point sometime where we fall vulnerable to the voice in the back of our heads questioning what the hell we’re doing to ourselves, holding us back, and keeping us from our true potential.  It is important that everyone have another voice, the voice of a classmate or coach to encourage, support, and help one another push through, keep moving, and challenge their mental and physical limits.

It’s this supportive atmosphere that often characterizes “small gyms” since everyone has a familiarity with one another and with the coaching staff. New faces come through our doors everyday but one of the first things they notice is our “small gym” vibe where everyone is friendly and supportive, and let’s do our best to keep it that way. As our gym family continues to grow, it ultimately comes down to everyone doing their part to maintain our “small gym” vibe that can only be described as the X-factor that separates Intrepid from “globo” gyms and other run-of-the-mill CrossFit boxes to make this a fun and inspiring place to be.

WOD 4.11.12

Back Squat 3×5/Wendler

3 Rounds for Time:
20 Goblet Lunges
5 Handstand Pushups (HSPU)
40 Double Unders
5 HSPUs

An overwhelming majority of Intrepids, and prospective Intrepids, put weight loss as a health goal on their initial waivers, but the longer you’re with us you come to find that we rarely focus on what the scale reads, instead putting much more of emphasis on how you look, feel, eat, and lift.  Our friends over at Whole 9 just have a way of putting things so they just make sense, and their latest post entitled “5 Reasons to Break Up with Your Scale” discusses the unhealthy relationship most of us have with our scales, our fixation with body weight as an indicator of health, and the strong case for ridding your life of the scale completely! Dallas and Melissa aren’t strangers for going against the mainstream grain, but ditching the scale altogether is a strong proposition for a society that has come to idolize 90′s small men and skinny-fat women.  But I think their message is not only long overdue, but applicable for everyone to keep the focus on more relevant indicators of health like your relationship with food, hormones, digestive health or inflammatory status (not to mention your sanity).  Here’s 5 reasons why Whole 9 says you should part ways with your scale:

1. Scale weight fluctuates wildly.  This is especially true over the course of a day or the span of a few days.
2. Scale weight says nothing of health.  As I mentioned earlier the number on the scale speaks nothing to what we consider to be more important indicators of health.
3. The scale blinds you to real results.  Fixating on what your scale reads more often than not leads you to miss all the other benefits to your new eating and lifestyle changes.  It’s not uncommon to experience better sleep, be more energetic during your day, find yourself less moody and having less cravings.  Things that can often go overlooked if you lock in on your body weight as your primary measure of success.
4. The scale keeps you stuck on food.  The number on the scale typically gets associated with the food we ate and to a lesser degree the amount of exercise we did.  By locking in on your weight, you’re often oblivious to other factors that can be impacting your health like your recovery (or lack thereof), stress, and sleep amount/quality.
5. The scale maintains control of your self-esteem.  Last but certainly not least, it’s psychologically unhealthy to allow a number – any number – to determine your worth, your value or your self-image.  Nothing is more mentally draining than not seeing the progress you had hoped in terms of weight loss if you’re primary seeing your body weight as your measure of success.  Nevermind the fact that you’ve come into your own with your strength training and you can visibly see that your waistline is trimmer, your pants size has gone down by 1 to 2 sizes, and you feel stronger and more energetic in your workouts… but I think you see where I’m going with this.  This relates back to point #3 where fixating on your weight can blind you to other results.  Strength training is particularly effective at increasing muscle mass (which many of us conveniently forget weighs more than fat) and bone density, all of which tend to offset the body fat you’ve lost making your scale even more unnecessary as a reliable measure of health.

Again, please read the entire Whole 9 post here.  In the words of Whole 9, “the sooner you ditch the idea that the scale is your ultimate measure of success, the healthier and happier you’ll be.”  Body weight is definitely one metric to help you see if you’re on the right track but weighing yourself every day or every few days leads one into obsessive territory pretty quick.  If this is the case with you, you’re better off donating your scale to your local Goodwill or Salvation Army, or if you have a turmoiled history with your scale take Dallas and Melissa’s advice and take it out to an isolated area where you can go use this Office Space scene as your inspiration.

WOD 3.07.12

Deadlift 1×5/Wendeler

5 Rounds:
100m Sprint
5 Power Cleans
10 V-ups
Rest 30 seconds

Every journey has a beginning, everyone has their own baggage they have to deal with along the way, and everyone starts their journey at a different point.  Take it one day at a time, set goals, and keep chipping away.  Before you know it, you’ll look back in your notebooks and realize how far you’ve come and at the same time how much lies ahead.  It’s a cool, yet humbling, feeling and it opens your eyes to what hard work, a positive attitude, and perseverance can accomplish.

WOD 1.28.12

Anna's daily work on wall ball shots

I’ve gotten a few questions lately about how to set goals for personal performance gain. People want to know what to pick, how high to reach, and how soon they should check it off their list. The beauty (and bane) of CrossFit is that there are so many damn movements to learn, much less master, it can feel overwhelming no matter how long you’ve been at it. CrossFit pulls from many specialties: gymnastics, olympic weightlifting, power lifting, kettlebells, strongman, rowing, running, and now even swimming. Add that to the necessary regimen you need to recover and adapt to rigorous training: recovery, mobility, rest, and nutrition.

Even if you can make it your full-time job to master all of the movements, it would take a lifetime to do it. We often see a bit of A.D.D. when it comes to athletes and goal setting. For example, an athlete sets out to work on double unders only to see someone in class working on snatches. The next shiny thing catches his eyes, he drops the rope, and wanders over to work on snatches instead. Focus on your goal, attain it, and then move on.

A few tips when setting goals:

1. If you don’t set a goal, you’ll never reach it: don’t get overwhelmed by all the things you want to be better at.  Commit to your goals.  Work on them.
2. Pick ONE skill you want to improve: Certain movements are skill based and require repetition to learn such as double unders, handstands, rope climbs, and muscle ups.
3. Also, set one short term goal:  This goal can be the same OR different from the skill you want to improve.  The difference is that there is a time limit to achieving it.  Pick one thing you want to do by the end of the month.  100 push ups in a row, a sub-1:30 time on a 500m row, 15 strict pull ups, push ups off-knees, better shoulder mobility,  etc.  Work on them at home, before/after class, and on Skills Days.
4. Then, set one long term goal:  This goal is something you give yourself 6 months to a year to achieve.  It can be a sub 40 minute 10k, a strict pull up, a 2x bodyweight deadlift, body weight snatch, 300# clean, a triathlon, etc.  With this goal, you still have to check in and assess the status of your progress at least once each month.  Work on it when you can.  Focus on improving any form, weakness, or mobility issues that may stand  in your way of the goal.

Every athlete’s goals will be different, so sit down, write down a list of things you suck at.  Write down a list of things you’re good at.  Be honest and realistic.   Prioritize the list and get to work.  Grab a coach or seasoned athlete whenever you get a chance and get some tips.  Be persistent.

Other posts on goal setting:  Jack of All Trades

WOD 01.24.12

Deadlift 1×5 or Wendler

800m Run
21 Push Ups
21 Box Jumps
400m Run
15 Push Ups
15 Box Jumps
200m Run
9 Push Ups
9 Box Jumps

Despite all of the bad form we saw while watching the NLI competition last weekend, I saw something in a couple of advanced female athletes during the hang snatch portion of the competition at a level that I haven’t seen since watching Sean perform the clean ladder at the last NLI competition, FOCUS. It hit me again at that moment, the level of focus an athlete must have to become elite. It’s a trait we’re all aware of and a trait we’d all like to have, but mastering focus throughout an entire lift, from set up to finish, or an entire WOD, takes practice. With everything that happens in a day, it’s easy to get distracted and let your mind wander in the middle of a lift or workout. Maintaining good form throughout an entire lift or entire WOD requires focus and is important for hitting those PRs, improving efficiency and preventing injury. I decided to go searching for tips on how to stay focused and I found an article about cue statements on the Applied Sport Psychology website. In the article, a cue statement is defined as a short statement said to yourself to refocus your concentration. Below is a summary of how to create your cue statement:

1. Personal – You need to find a cue statement that works for you! This could be a single word such as “tough” or “dominate” or a short series of words. One way to develop a personal cue statement is to ask the question, “If I were the best athlete I could be, how would I look and act?” Often times, as athletes are answering this question certain words and images emerge. Take time to think about how you would answer the above question because a statement that is believable and personal to you will be the most effective.
2. Positive – To be effective in refocusing after mistakes, a cue statement should be positive. Negative self-talk has been linked to performance detriments and anxiety. Focus on what makes you the best you can be; do not spend time criticizing yourself.
3. Short – The ideal cue statement allows you to quickly refocus but does not interfere with the necessary thoughts during performance. As mentioned earlier, some athletes prefer a single word such as “focus” while others use a short personal statement such as “strong, focused, in the game.”

A few months down the line, those same athletes have gained ‘enough’ proficiency to complete 30 clean and jerks in a WOD and the pursuit shifts from technical proficiency to beating their friends’ WOD times. The lure of the Stopwatch Siren is hard to resist and it’s all too tempting to just get ‘er done. The problem with this mentality (besides really ugly lifts and the huge potential for injury) is the Stopwatch Siren will fail you. If you are complacent and stop improving your movements, you will have capped your potential. Your PRs will plateau and eventually decline.

I won’t lie. It’s hard when you’ve done the lifts hundreds of times and your muscle memory tells you to go through the motions. Your warm up sets are just extra work and you don’t even turn your brain on to do them. In fact, they’re sloppy most of the time because ‘it doesn’t count’ until the work set, right? However, your warm up sets are the perfect time to make sure your form is perfect. An Olympic level lifter can snatch an empty bar and his 1RM and the form would look exactly the same. He doesn’t ‘need the weight’ to have perfect form.

However long you have been CrossFitting, whatever your level as an athlete (or coach), however heavy your deadlift is, do not lose that determination you had as a beginner. Make each lift better than your last. Call a trainer over to watch your lift and give you feedback. Come in on Thursdays and use those last 15 minutes of class to work on it. Never stop pursuing virtuosity, and I promise your results will show for it.

WOD 12.13.11

Box Squat 8×3

4 rounds of:

• 12 Pistols
• Broad Jump 20m
• 6 Handstand Push Ups (or Sub heavy presses)
• Bear Crawl 20m