• Lack of sleep increases inflammatory markers in your body, and chronically high inflammation has been linked to autoimmune disease, impaired metabolism and diabetes, and some types of cancer.  Also, lack of sleep weakens the immune system making you more susceptible to illness.
• Through hormonal interactions, lack of sleep can lead to the body feeling hungry more often and craving more carbohydrates oftentimes leading to poorer food choices.
• Sleep improves your recovery from training and improves strength building via secretions of growth hormone and testosterone that only occurs during your slumber.
• Sleep deprivation of 1-2 nights leads to a noticeable deterioration in psychomotor performance, meaning you know that you’re not up to part after not sleeping well after a night or two.  However, when compared to a milder sleep deprivation (only 6 hrs/night), over a sustained period of time, the decrease in motor performance is similar but the athlete’s perception is significantly reduced.  This means they do not recognize their performance is lackluster and less than thriving.
• Our lifts and workouts have a huge neurological component to them and if your central nervous sysem not only from yesterday’s workout but also your lack of sleep, you’re setting yourself up for a rough day at the gym.  It has been shown that athletes perform better on skill based movements after getting “extra”, likely due to the recovery their CNS gets.

Now that many of you have made it a priority to eat better this past month, start moving sleep up towards the top and do yourself a favor.  Not only for the benefits highlighted in Dallas’ article, but also for the improved quality of life.  If you’re looking for another way to help yourself reach your goals, it doesn’t get much easier than improving your sleep habits.  Other Intrepid articles to peruse on sleep are:  Enter Sandman, Siesta Anyone?, When Red Lights are a Good Thing, Jet Lag, Battling the Z-Monster, & Perchance to Dream.

By popular demand we have opened a Friday 7pm Group Class. It’s available now to sign up so get your weekend started on the right track with a great workout!

WOD 1.25.12

Snatch: Work up to a Heavy Double

AMRAP 4:
8 Wall Ball Shots
10 Sit Ups

Rest 2 Minutes

AMRAP 4:
5 Power Cleans
10 Toes to Bar

In a word, maybe. Many of you have heard this from friends when you tell them about CrossFit. Some will talk about articles they’ve read about rhabdo and other such injuries. The truth is that CrossFit’s methodology is incredibly effective in achieving GPP when executed correctly. But, in all athletic activities where the challenge is intense physically and mentally, there is an element of danger.

CrossFit WODs are often referred to as intense. CrossFit defines intensity as going as fast and hard as you physically AND mentally can. Although for some, describing Fran as intense may be a ridiculous understatement, but the definition still applies. There are innumerable factors that factor into a WOD such as:

• the athlete’s current and past fitness level, tenacity, and ego
• the trainers’ experience, knowledge, and ego
• the athlete’s sleep, diet, and recovery
• the wod’s movements, loading, reps, and intensity
• the previous day’s wod’s movements, loading, etc
• the environment’s temperature, humidity, and altitude

Most of the serious injuries that have come out of CrossFit occur with athletes who have an incredible tolerance for pain and have pushed the mental envelope to its limits in the past. Their bodies are in decent shape, but their minds remember how to push as if they are the finely tuned athletes they were a few years back. The mind, then is both a beautiful and dangerous thing. It’s then the coach’s job to scale back this athlete’s reps, weights, and sets until his body catches up with his mind.

Other times injuries occur from weaknesses and inflexibilities that have accumulated over the years that prevent us from performing the functional movements our bodies were meant to. Here, it’s up to the coach to identify the mobility issues, scale back (or sub) necessary movements until the athlete is capable of performing these lifts safely.

I’ve also seen people suffer through a WOD and look like roadkill afterwards (ok, MORE like roadkill than usual) only to tell me they slept two hours or haven’t eaten all day. Here, it’s the athlete’s job to keep the coach informed about their condition. There is merit to training for the unknown and the unknowable, but there is also stupidity in trying to throw heavy weight around when you are not physically OR mentally capable of it. So, embrace the suck but do so intelligently. There is a time and a place for bootcamp style training, but not while snatching your bodyweight.

Hopefully this helps you when your friends try to quote numerous articles about the dangers of CrossFit. Long story short (too late), CrossFit is only dangerous if the coach or athlete acts irresponsibly or without regard for the athlete’s long term health and wellness. We as CrossFitters poke fun at ‘globo gyms’ but our culture has sprouted a new breed of “CrossFit globos” where shredded hands are a badge of honor, where Rx’d is a religion, and where form and safety are traded for seconds shaved off their girl WODs.

It is an athlete’s responsibility to find a coach (in CrossFit or any sport) who knows the importance of scaling, recognizes athletes’ limitations and strengths (especially if those strengths become limitations), cares about the athletes’ longevity beyond the immediate future, and maintains an open line of communication with their athletes. Trying to wrench your body through movements or under loads that you’re not prepared for is dangerous and so is a coach that permits and/or encourages it.

WOD 01.17.12

Barbara5rds:

• 20 Pull Ups
• 30 Push Ups
• 40 Sit Ups
• 50 Squats

35 Minute Cap

Shakes can be especially useful after a workout when your body is starving for simple carbohydrates and protein to optimize its recovery. Shakes can also be easy ways to improve your fruit and vegetable intake and serve as great snacks or small meal replacements if better options aren’t readily available which is especially helpful during a Whole 30 Challenge. For those participating in the Whole 30 beginning tomorrow, the challenge is all about learning ways to make eating clean easy, creative, and enjoyable. One different way to get a fast convenient snack or post workout recovery is with a homemade shake using either a blender or the Magic Bullet pictured above. I first learned about the Magic Bullet from here when Invictus coach and nutrition diva Michele Vieux posted on it. The “magic” of the Magic Bullet is that it is powerful enough to crush ice cubes and it works fast while also being really compact so it doesn’t take up a lot of counter space in your kitchen or office. They typically run about $50 or so and I’ve been using mine almost everyday since Marcus blessed us with one as a wedding gift. Ruth and Marcus have both touched on the importance of being prepared during a Whole 30 Challenge because it helps to have an easy way to get sustenance into your body before you go off the deep end and wind up eating something you wish you hadn’t.

Whole 30 approved items that I like to include in my post-workout shakes include but aren’t limited to:

• Simple carbs like sweet potatoes, fresh or frozen berries/pineapple, bananas, carrots, etc.

• Protein like raw eggs or egg protein powder (Michele recommends Rose Acre Farms’ Egg Protein powder
  
  
  becuase it has no additives like most others)

• Liquid to ensure everything blends well together, typically water does just fine

• Anything to improve the flavor like vanilla extract (without sugar), cinnamon, cardamom, mint, etc.

You can include fattier options in your shakes but they typically take longer to digest. Although this isn’t ideal for a post-workout shake, it definitely comes in handy when you are looking for a good snack or something to carry you through to your next real meal if real food isn’t available.

• Fats I like to include in my shakes are avocado, coconut milk, shredded coconut, coconut butter, coconut oil, fish oil,

Here is one of Michele’s favorite shake recipes for a breakfast type of shake taken from the same post linked above:

Ingredients:

• ½ frozen banana

• 1 pear

• ¼ c. egg white protein (I get mine online from Rose Acre Farms
  
  
  )

• 2 ice cubes

• ½ c. coconut milk

• ½ c. water (or cold coffee)

• ½ t. vanilla

Directions:

Put all ingredients into drink cup. Screw on blades. Place drink cup in Magic Bullet, twist to start motor. Wait 10 seconds and voila!

WOD 1.3.12

W30 Challenge Baseline Workout
1 Rep Max Deadlift
Max Strict Pullups (Chinups if necessary)
1 Lap Run for Time

The CrossFit Journal posted a video clip of CrossFit Endurance coach Brian MacKenzie lecturing on the burning sensation felt by athletes during workouts that tends to slow them down.  Many of us equate this pain to the build up of lactic acid (or lactate), but recent research has shown that lactate actually slows the acidosis process (the build up of acid in our cells) and is actually part of a previously undiscovered metabolic pathway that helps fuel our anaerobic activity.  According to Coach MacKenzie, the tingling or burning sensation we feel during exercise is actually caused by the accumulation of potassium in the tissue and that lactate actually helps alleviate that soreness.  Sodium ions are pumped out of cells while potassium is pumped in via the sodium-potassium pump.  The diagram below provides a summary of the process:

What’s interesting is that the sodium-potassium pump becomes more and more efficient as more force is applied…just another benefit of including strength training into our programming.  This also helps explain why many CrossFit Endurance athletes are seeing tremendous results by using CrossFit and shorter, more intense running/swimming/biking/rowing sessions vice traditional training programs.

You may be wondering then what causes soreness over the few days that follow intense workout sessions.  It’s not potassium which only causes that sensation during a workout, but rather the inflammation resulting from the break down of our tissue (just another reason to focus on strength training and minimizing inflammation via the Paleo diet and fish oil supplementation…I’m just saying).

REMINDER: There is no 10AM class today because of the NLI Competition taking place at the Orange County Fairgrounds. The max capacity for 9AM class has been bumped up to 15 athletes, so please sign in if you plan on showing, or you may not have a slot.

For those interested in coming down to Costa Mesa and supporting Jake, Holley, Brian, and I at the NLI CrossFit competition, here are the projected workout times for two of the three workouts.

Holley (Heat 5)-Cleaning Crew at 8:33am and Cyclebel at 1:12pm
Jake & Brian (Heat 10)-Cleaning Crew at 9:33am and Cyclebel at 2:42pm
Sean (Heat 15)-Cleaning Crew at 10:33am and Cyclebel at 4:12pm

The third workout times will vary but will likely take place between the two workouts listed above. Event details can be found here. Once on site, find the Intrepid pop-up tent in the tent city area, and come chill with everyone between WODs.

WOD 11.12.11

In Teams of 2, complete 3 Rounds:
One partner performs
50 Double Unders
20 Situps
while the other performs
8 Pullups
Hill Run
Switch stations when both of you are done and continue switching in that manner until you both finish 3 full rounds

When you hear the words hurt and injured, do they mean the same thing to you? There’s a significant difference between the two — especially in the world of weight training. There are few things more frustrating than being unable to pursue your goals. Unfortunately, some of you in our gym have come across that due to physical setbacks such as broken clavicles or back surgery.

In his book Never Let Go, Dan John talks about this situation:

Passion is a word that doesn’t mean what you think it means. It means “to suffer.” Now, that may not be how we use it today, but that’s what the root of the word means, at least in the dictionary. Let’s define it this way: Passion, to suffer for love.

I think that greatness comes to those willing to go past the sweat. I hear it all the time, “Look, see, I’m working hard. I’m sweating.” Yeah, well, you’ll sweat in a sauna, too. It doesn’t mean nothin’.

You have to go past the hurt, too. The hardest thing to teach young men in football is the difference between being hurt and being injured. Injured means out; you’re done for today, this week, this season. Hurt means that you’ve just moved beyond the pain. Winners learn to live with hurt. In life, you’re going to be hurt a lot. Bosses don’t always care about your inner child when you blow a sale or ram an oil tanker into a dock.

Passion is learning to push beyond all of this in the pursuit of your dreams and goals. Your goals are going to cost you in every nuance of the word: physically, emotionally, financially and any other “-ally” you can find.

The same topic has also been covered by former NFL player and the man behind CrossFit Football, John Welbourn, over on his blog:

Are you hurt or are you injured?

If you are injured you need to go the doctor, get an MRI or x-ray and take some time to lets things calm down. The doc will give you a script for some NSAIDs  or pain killers, tell you to stay away from lifting weights or any training that might aggravate it. The doctor’s job is to manage pain not fix your injury. In layman’s terms, you cannot train or compete.

If you are hurt then you need to assess what is hurting, see if you need to make changes and keep moving forward. If you lift weights long enough you are not going to feel good. Actually, the more you lift the worse you will feel as your body will be beat up. This is a normal part of training. If someone tells you that they have been training for 10 years and has never had an ache, a pain or strain then their “training” consists of sitting on the elliptical machine exercising.

Know the difference between training and exercise.

Exercise is about getting sweaty.

Training is about closing in on a goal.

Both of these guys hit on the same points, emphasizing that there is a clear difference between being injured and just hurt (or sore). You can’t let the occasional “hurt” get in the way of you reaching your goals. Speaking from personal experience, I often have one or more areas that don’t feel 100% at any given time. It’s one of those wonderful things about getting older. Just know that in the course of your training life, you are bound to have bumps and scrapes along the way.

“Accumulating injuries are the price we pay for the thrill of not having sat around on our asses.” – Mark Rippetoe

WOD 11.10.11

Gymnastics WOD

Tom is the near unanimous winner for best costume!

After a long day of surfing the last thing you want is for your low back to ache like a mother. Most of Intrepid’s surfers came to us with a host of mobility issues ranging from tight hips, tight shoulders, extremely lordotic low backs, and low back pain. Kelly Starret from CrossFit San Francisco runs the Mobility WOD (MWOD) website and we’ve referenced his information many times before for posts but also for your specific mobility issues, and he recently addressed issues that are common among surfers. Take a look at the video below as he gives tips to improve the positioning of your body on your board, and ways to open up those tight hips. Surfer or not take a look and learn some new variations of hip stretches that can benefit us all.

WOD 11.02.11

Back Squat 3×5 or Wendler

AMRAP 15:
10 Wallball Shots
10 Toes to Bar
10 Box Jumps

At Intrepid we do our best to give you insight on how to optimize health and performance via nutrition and your diet. We post awesome recipes for you to try. We even have our very own nutrition guru in Marcus that routinely answers specific and detailed dietary questions. But it wasn’t until recently that I realized that although we stress hydration, we haven’t really provided solid guidance or recommendations. The first thing that came to mind was the old advice to get your 8 cups a day, but I quickly found that this advice was dated and the 8 cups a day didn’t account for physical activity or individul variation.  I found this post from CrossFit West in Santa Cruz on hydration and provides some interesting facts like:

• Humans are 45%-70% water
• Muscle tissue is 75% water
• Humans can survive 4x longer without food than water
• 1% loss of hydration=elevated core body temp & impaired performance
• 3% loss of hydration=significantly impaired loss of performance
• 5% loss=cardiovascular strain
• 7% loss=decreased ability to regulate heat
• 10% loss=heat stroke or unconsciousness (% based on body weight)

If you didn’t need more reason to drink water, 70sBig.com recently posted on the importance of water in building muscle mass and setting yourself up for success with your training.  Justin has a way of simplifying things saying that, “Water is necessary for almost all reactions and enzymes in the body. If you don’t have plenty of it, then your body won’t be functioning optimally…Your food won’t be digested as well, your energy levels will subside, your training won’t be efficient, your joints, muscles, and fascia will be stiff and sticky, and you’ll generally reduce the quality of everything you do during the day (including trying to lose body fat and grow muscle). It’s all a result of the normal chemical reactions in your body not working as well since they’re scrounging for ingredients. If you’re going to spend all this time giving a shit about your training, then set yourself up to optimally succeed.”  And strength coach Dan John tells all of his athletes that water is the best anabolic in his 10 tips for athletes in this T-Nation post.

The video below was filmed at one of the CrossFit Endurance seminars and the coach goes into detail on hydration to optimize performance, and I am sure that the majority of us can really work on improving our hydration habits.

Big take aways include:

• A 1% loss of hydration reduces performance upwards of 10%
• Regardless of fitness, people should drink half your body weight in ounces of water–This is the very minimum.
• Increase your water intake by 16-24 ounces per hour of training

I’ll use myself an example.  My bodyweight is 205lbs.  That means at the very minimum I should be drinking about 102.5 ounces of water in a day.  On top of that, if I train about an hour and a half I need to add another 24-36 ounces.  My assignment now is to down approximately 130 ounces of water in a day.  If my Klean Kanteen holds 27 ounces, I have to drink about 5 full bottles worth to get my daily allotment of water to optimize my performance.  Also keep in mind that these are general recommendations and should you train in high heat, humidity, or other variables that will cause you to lose more water then simply increase your intake to accommodate for those factors.

Be aware of these signs of dehydration:

• Dark yellow, strong smelling urine
• Decreased urination frequency
• Rapid resting heart rate
• Muscle soreness and cramping
• Thirst (too late)
• Headache and discomfort
• Lethargy and chills

Get yourself a water bottle if you don’t already have one, do your own math to see how much you should be drinking, and set yourself up to get the most out of your training.

WOD 10.05.11

Front Squat 5-5-5

“Gwen”
15-12-9
Clean & Jerk
*May be a power clean. Touch and go at floor only. Even a re-grip off the floor is a foul. No dumping. Use same load for each set. Rest as needed between sets.*

Jake holding up a plane!

We can sometimes sound like a broken record when you come to one of us coaches for advice about an ache or pain. Have you tried a foam roller/lacrosse ball? It’s the proverbial panacea for all CrossFit ailments. It’s our “windex.” But can you overdose on foam rolling? The answer is a resounding YES!

**First of all, for those of you not familiar with the concept of self myofascial release (SMR), read this post.**

If you’re an “A”  student of mobility, you would be regularly rolling your glutes, traps, lats, IT band, quads, calves, and upper back to ensure that the muscles don’t tighten up on you and affect the way you lift or move. However, if you’re like the average CFI member, you only foam roll when something starts to hurt. By the time the area starts to hurt, it may be inflamed. You then try to fix the problem by rolling directly on the part that hurts. Usually it will feel a bit better afterwards. But sometimes the relief is brief and the lingering ache that appears later is brutal and often worse than the initial discomfort. That’s when you know you’ve actually done more damage.  Tissue damage is caused by over-agressive rolling, or rather, digging, into a hurt muscle. This article by John Izzo compares this overzealous rolling to trying to pop a zit before it’s ready only to make it far worse.

However, don’t skim this post and use it to justify your future neglect of restorative habits and avoid the foam roller. Just use common sense. Know the difference between your pre-habilitation rolling (maintaining on a regular basis) and rehabilitation rolling (recovery from overtraining). Sometimes the very pain we’re seeking when rolling may be what we need to avoid in order to heal.

Check out this article from T-Nation for great tips how to foam roll (complete with pictures).  Also Stephanie of Koru Living Wellness, has worked wonders on many of us in the gym using acupuncture and soft tissue work and is a wealth of information.

WOD 09.30.11

Deadlift 1×5 or Wendler
Bench Press 3×5 or Wendler

The Sports Injury Clinic describes symtoms as:

• Pain at the bottom and front of the kneecap especially when pressing in
• Aching and stiffness after exertion.
• Pain when you contract the quadriceps muscles.
• The affected tendon may appear larger than the unaffected side

Possible Causes:

The easy answer is to blame the immediate culprit, usually excessive squatting or box jumping. It’s an easy equation, right? The pain appears after box jump workouts. However, the solution isn’t as simple as a temporary hall pass from box jumps. That solution treats the symptom. To treat the cause, we have to dig a big deeper:

Poor Posture: Athletes who tend to stand with an anterior pelvic tilt (think arched lower back and butt sticking out) tend to use the wrong muscles to stabilize their bodies while jumping or squatting. This can lead to placing more impact on their knees and lower backs.

Muscular Imbalance or Weaknesses: More specifically, the imbalance is between their stronger quads (anterior chain) and their weaker glutes and hamstrings (posterior chain). Weaknesses in the posterior chain make it difficult to stabilize when jumping and landing. Often times we see people preparing to jump and their knees track inwards or we see them landing on the box/ground without staying tight in the glutes and hammies to buffer the landing. Both situations cause stress on the knees, pushing them further over the toes and your poor patellar tendon suffers because of it. Strengthening the hamstrings and glutes will help prevent this. Also imbalanced quads and poor midline stability (think strict crunches and obliques) can lead to knee pain.

Lack of Mobility: Tightness in hips, IT band, quads (rectus femoris and VMO), hammies, quads (specifically the area above the kneecap), and calves can all contribute to jumper’s knee. Check out the video above for a really comprehensive mobility routine to pre-habilitate (prevent) and/or rehabilitate (treat) jumper’s knee. For those that have encountered this problem in the past, remember that a little pre-habilitation can prevent a lot of rehabilitation.

What do you do with all this information then? We don’t expect you to be able to assess muscle imbalances but you can be more cognizant of your posture. Take note of how you move. Do your chest and thighs touch the floor at the same time when you do push ups or do your thighs never seem to make it down?. Do your knees turn in when you begin your box jump or push press? Are your hamstrings and glutes loose when you land on the box as well as when you jump down? Ask a trainer to watch you closely when you warm up. If we notice these things, we’ll be happy to give you some homework to help prevent any injuries down the line.

Also, if you start to feel the above symptoms, make sure you let the coach know to substitute out any necessary movements (ie today’s box jumps). It’s much better to go easy for a week or two than be laid out for a month or more!

Check out Steven Low’s segment on patellar tendonitis, as well as a collection of other articles about knee injuries for more info. Also Mike Robertson’s Knee Pain Basics Parts 1, 2, and 3 are excellent sources of info.

WOD 09.27.11

Press 3×5 or Wendler

5 rds:
12 Pull Ups
12 Kettlebell Snatches
12 Box Jumps

Happy Birthday to Matt W., a.k.a Date Nite! Matt is a regular in the 6:30 and 7:30 AM classes and has been an integral part of the Intrepid family since Aug 2010.  Matt’s dedication has been unparalleled coming in to workout regularly despite many days where he’s had very little sleep.  But his progress is also evident as Matt regularly sets the pace for the rest of the athletes that come in each day.  Matt’s ability to shred any workout with body weight movements coupled with his strength gains have made him a rabbit for many of us.  Hopefully we’ll be able to get him into an upcoming CF competition one of these days.  Have a great birthday Date Nite, and we hope you get your b-day wish!

On several occasions over the past few months, folks have engaged me in conversation about what’s the big deal with compression clothing? Is there something behind the rise in CrossFit and professional athletes wearing compression clothing like spandex arm sleeves, shin sleeves, compression pants, or compression shirts, or is it purely a fashion statement? I’ve heard a number of different responses from athletes who wear compression gear and they all tend to be different.  Whether to help prevent shin splints, prevent chaffing of the thighs, keep the legs or arms warm, help the legs recover after a workout, have a great jump shot like Ray Allen, or to just help keep a man’s goods in place, everyone seems to have their own reasons for wearing compression gear.  These are great questions and I’ll do my best to pull together some research to help you make your own decision on where you stand with respect to compression clothing on performance and recovery.

Compression clothing has its roots in the medical field, and compression stockings have been used for over 50 years to treat poor venous return in the lower extremities like the lower leg and foot.  First of all, the definition of performance and recovery vary greatly from one research article to the next so it’s kind of difficult to come to a firm stance one way or the other. The bottom line up front is that research is mixed on topic, but what I haven’t found is an article that shows a negative impact of compression clothing on performance and recovery. In the studies I’ve come across, results have shown either no significant difference, a slight improvement in some measure of performance or recovery (or both), or a significant improvement in some measure of performance or recovery (or both). Interestingly enough, subjects wearing compression clothing in many articles noted a qualitative reduction in muscle soreness despite what the researcher found. Also, a good deal of articles show benefit during the post-workout recovery phase similar to those of contrast baths. So what that means to us is that there doesn’t appear to be much downside to using compression clothing outside of the price, especially if you find ice baths a bit daunting.

I’ll recap some of the research below for those interested.

• A blog post by Joe Friel hits many of the major research articles from the PubMed research database.  This post seemed to be the most thorough and unbiased in terms of considering both supporting and non-supporting research that has been conducted on compression clothing.  The only caveat is that his website is geared primarily towards endurance athletes, so parts of his summary might be a bit focused for issues commonly experienced by endurance athletes.
• This article on the Peak Performance website hits on many of the positive aspects of compression clothing.  I read it and kept hoping to see a rebuttal or a section to at least acknowledge compression gear might not be all that producers claim, but it never materialized leaving me questioning if the author really did their due diligence researching the topic at hand or if they had a hidden agenda by writing such a one-sided article.
• SKINS, a popular producer of compression clothing, makes many claims about their products and posted some research that support their claims here.  Take these findings and claims with a grain of salt considering the source might be a bit biased, but good food for thought or for further investigation.
• This article on the Australian Sports Conditioning website also reviews similar literature on the topic.  The author does a good job breaking down the claims made by compression clothing producers and seeing if research really supports those claims.

So for those of you who regularly wear compression clothing, or have worn it in the past, what have your experiences been like?  I’ve heard Scott talk about how he wears compression pants overnight after tough workouts and his legs feel more recovered then next morning than if he had simply passively recovered (done nothing).  Please share your thoughts and stories in the comments section for those interested in compression gear.

WOD 09.14.11

Back Squat 3×5 or Wendler

10,8,6,4,2 of
Pistols
Jerk
Kettlebell Swings