CrossFit Training Week 11

Pain

My left shoulder continues to hurt.  I've found that I can usually mobilize it enough so that it doesn't hurt during a workout (which John says is ok), but it doesn't really feel like it's getting any better.  I guess I'll just keep pushing through it, but I'd really like to be pain free by the time the Open starts.

I had a long pull-up/muscle-up session with John and unfortunately ripped my hands pretty bad.  I was using Rogue gloves and thought they were protecting my, but when I took them off I saw this:

Lesson: callus maintenance is non-negotiable.

Diet

I'm getting really lazy on diet.  I've gotten my water and sleep game together, but I keep cheating at night.  I'm concerned that I'm going lose my sweet abs.  I mean, what are we working for here?!  Seriously though, I need to drop as much fat as possible.  My performance will only get better if tighten it up.

PRs

I got a couple PRs this week.  I added 40# to my front squat 1RM.  I hadn't tested it for over a year; so it made sense to have a pretty big jump.  I got up to 245 pounds.

During my session with John, I got a new Clean and Jerk 1RM of 200 pounds!  That's actually a PR for the separate Clean and Jerk movements as well.  John is confident that I can get a lot more gains by fixing some glaring technique issues.

CrossFit Training Week 10

Level 2

I'm now taking Level 2 classes exclusively.  This has been great for me.  All of the athletes are great in Level 2; so, I'm always pushing myself hard.  Additionally, I can learn by watching any of them because they're proficient at just about everything.  It's humbling being toward the back of the pack, but I know that's the fastest way to get better.

Overtraining vs Bad Training

When I tell folks that I'm going to the gym for the second time, they're often concerned that I'm overtraining.  This week, I started having some serious pain in my left shoulder.  It's been messing up my training, because my workouts are weak, and I've had to skip doing extra stuff.  I would not attribute my shoulder issues to overtraining.  I think it was from poor training.  My suspicion is that it has more to do with not focusing on quality positions and movements during the intense workouts.  If it was overtraining, I imagine that my muscles would be fatigued all the time, which is not the case.

In any case, incorporating recovery in all of it's forms needs to be part of my focus going forward so that I can keep my training intensity high.  At this point in my training, I think intensity is more important than volume anyway.  I probably have a number of months until I would maximize the value of additional volume.

Highlights

Last week I redid 13.2.  I got 232 vs 210 last year.  That's pretty good.  I think I could have done a lot better had I been fresh (I just completed a 1 hour session with John), my quads not smoked from the previous day's workout, and in competition.

I also got a chance to find my new back squat 1RM.  I got up to 295 (+20#).

CrossFit Training Weeks 6-9

Conditioning & Strength

The most obvious improvement over the last month has been my increased work capacity and strength.  I'm consistently getting great times in WODs and my chin-ups and dips are noticeably better.  I don't see a much difference in technique to account for this other than having the capacity to maintain better technique for longer and using butterfly pull-ups whenever possible.  The exclamation point on this whole thing is my new Fran time of 4:50.

Eating/Sleeping

My daily recovery has been held back by poor sleep and sub-par eating.  I usually know as soon as I start warming up how the workout is going to go.  If I started getting fatigued on double-unders or something, it's going to be a rough one.  I apparently have a kidney stone that enjoys becoming extremely painful while I'm sleeping so that I wake up all night.  I've also been slacking on eating perfectly the last couple weeks.  Ain't nobody got time for that!

1:1 - Snatching & Muscle-ups

A few weeks ago, I had a 1:1 with John Post on the snatch.  This was largely embarrassing.  I already knew that I wasn't good at snatching, but I performed much worse than what I thought I could do.  Of course, this is all part of the deal.  I got some really great coaching on position, equipment, and what to work on.  At the time it was extremely demotivating, but in retrospect it was exactly what I needed.

I spent a bunch of extra time on snatching in off-class time that I think was useful, but I ended up hurting my hook grip-thumbs and exacerbating my lower back issues.  It has paid off in workouts for the lower weights, but nothing impressive on anything heavy.

My last 1:1 with John was on muscle-ups.  I've tried to do a bar muscle-up before, but didn't get anywhere; so, this was basically my first attempt at muscle-ups.  John lead me through all of the muscle-up progressions which I thought went well.  I could immediately see the benefit of the chin-ups and dips I'd been doing.  Eventually we got to work on the full thing.  I never got one, but I was so close a couple times I just assumed that the next time I worked on them it would happen right away.

Unfortunately that was not the case.  I've begun to take only Level 2 classes.  In the last class, I had a pretty embarrassing session working on muscle-up stuff.  This was demotivating, but it is what it is.  It's definitely just technique, but that doesn't mean I'm going to have them tomorrow.

Mental

As the CrossFit Games Open approaches, my mental game has been suffering.  I'm realizing more and more athletes that are as good or better than me in any number of areas.  The time left to improve gets shorter and shorter.  The easy gains seem to be slipping away.  I worry that I'm wasting my time, money, focus, etc on a goal that becomes less attainable every day.

This coupled with my focus being pulled in every direction by work, friends, side projects, real estate, life...  The determination to stay the course is difficult to find when it seems like I'm making the wrong decisions.

I've been in this situation before.  Doubts lead to poor diet, work ethic, focus, bad attitude etc. which just leads to lower likelihood of success.  I've decided not to do that.  Here comes a big speech about motivation and self-confidence or other such hippy crap.  Instead I'll just say, I need to stop being a pussy and get to work.

CrossFit Training Weeks 4-5

WellnessFX Physical Challenge: Max Christine Push-Ups

1:1 Coaching

After constantly questioning myself about my training choices and talking to others, I finally decided to start 1:1 coaching with John Post.  He actually seems excited about my goals.  I need someone who at least thinks it's possible for me to make the team.

My first session was part discussion, diagnostic, skill work, and a short HIIT workout.  The result of our first session was a training scheduled, my first set of butterfly pull-ups, sore abs, and a ripped hand (NEVER AGAIN!).

New schedule: 
5 Level 1 days a week
1:1 once a week
25 chin-ups and dips on work days
continue mobility and skill work

This all makes sense to me, although I worry that it isn't aggressive enough.  The key will be to work hard and focus during regular classes.  Eventually, the intention (I believe) is to keep the rest days, but make work days 2-a-days.

Mobility Rx

These last two weeks have been great here.  I've gotten two fantastic ah-ha moments with my overhead position and hamstrings.  The problem with my left hamstring was that I would have increasing pain as I did stretchy mobilizations.  The simple fix for that is to be completely warm.  I finally messed around with my first-rib stuff based on what Roop and Becoming a Supple Leopard said.  After jamming a pvc pipe in there and working my overhead position, I grabbed at least an extra 5 degrees of motion.  I obviously need a lot more than that, but it's for this mobility crap to actually show some results.

Bergener Olympic Lifting

Coach Mike Bergener is a pretty big deal in the CrossFit community for teaching olympic lifting.  I've been watching a ton of his videos.  I'm trying to internalize his lessons, and I'm adding the Bergener warmup to my pre-workout routine.  One encouraging thing I learned was the emphasis on footwork.  This is encouraging because I can work on footwork as much as I want without fatiguing myself.  

Although not from Bergener, I started taking a huge breath before going for a heavy lift to help stabilize my core.  This along with committing to the hook grip really helped when I was working on the Clean & Jerk.  I felt really stable and had not grip fatigue.

1 RMs

Clean & Jerk - 185 (12/9/13) 
Snatch - 135 (9/7/13) 
Back Squat - 275 (11/29/13) 
Front Squat - 205 (1/7/13)
DL - 315 (7/9/13)

I made a few PRs recently, and I'm confident that I'll be able to add to these every time I retest.

CrossFit Training Week 3

Snatch, Clean & Jerk, Pull-ups

I've seen definite improvement in my snatch.  I've given this the most extra time, and I'm starting to get more comfortable with the positions.  I'm getting better at identifying my weak points (hips, catch).  This should help me spend my time more effectively.

The clean is a bit better.  The pain in my right elbow area has gone away; so, I think I'm keeping my arm position more consistently.  I got to spend the whole olympic skills class on jerk, which was really great.  I haven't given it that much focus for a long time.  I need to improve my overhead mobility, but I'm starting to realize that I need to stop using that as an excuse for getting overextended.  I just need to keep everything tight.

I haven't gotten anywhere with pull-ups.  I have decided that I'm going to do them every day instead of 3 times a week.  Hopefully that extra work coupled with losing some body fat will accelerate progress here.

Mobility Rx

I've been monkeying around with the mobility rx Roop gave me.  Everything he said made sense, but I'm not seeing any immediate improvements.  I think I just need to dedicate a little more time each day and another week or two.  The thing that is definitely not working for me is the hamstring mobility.  The only one of the 1000 exercises that doesn't make it feel worse is smashing.  It's likely nervous system related; so, I just need to relax more.

Do Work

Up until last weekend, I've been hitting crossfit everyday with additional before and after work.  I was going hard at a Startup Weekend EDU event.  Because of the time constraints, I didn't workout Saturday or Sunday, and then I wanted to get extra sleep on Monday.  One day would have been fine, but I can't really afford missing that many days again.  I did have the benefit of no soreness for once, but I'm still sleep deprived.

Diet/Supplements

A quick overview of my current diet.  I'm shooting for Paleo at around a 500 calorie deficit each day.  Additionally, I'm shooting for less than 20% calories from carbs; which works out to no fruit (except avocado) and no starches.  My body fat is not low; so, any fat I can lose will allow me to perform better.  Again last weekend was an unfortunate departure, and diet continues to be a key factor in my success/failure.

I started my supplements this week:

• 5g BCAA + 5g Creatine + 1 AlphaBrain when I wake up (I'm currently not eating before my morning workout)
• 30g Protein + 15g L-Glutamine shake immediately after workout
• 5g Creatine before bed
• My normal assortment of vitamin supplements at breakfast and dinner: Multi, C, E, Fish Oil, Potassium, Calcium/Magnesium/Zink

Encouragement

Since I declared my goals, I've gotten some really positive feedback.  I've been getting some extra support from a few of the coaches too, which is awesome and intimidating.  Angela has been fantastic.  She's really helping me in all the ways she can.

Writing Take 2 Week 3

More of the same.  Writing about every other day.  I did write a pretty beefy post about crossfit - which took forever, because I was worried about what people would think, and I kept getting distracted by Heroes (I'm glad Sylar's a bad guy again).  

Most of the time, I've been using a 15 minute timer when I started writing (like during this post), but I found I didn't while doing a lot of the crossfit writing.  That writing was more about wanting to get it out there and less about me developing a writing habit.

Not so great on food this week.  Next week I'll kill it though.

Didn't really do most of my habits.  I need to sleep more.

San Francisco CrossFit Regionals

I want to make the San Francisco CrossFit Regionals Team in 2014.  I am not trying to make it to Regionals as an individual competitor.  I've made this goal to see how far I can push myself physically.  It's an aggressive and slightly arrogant goal.  Very few that understand this level of performance have been overly supportive.  Although this was initially discouraging, it's now made achieving this goal even more exciting.  This goal can loosely be thought of as being one of the top four competitors in the CrossFit Open at San Francisco CrossFit.  This alternate goal is what I'm specifically targeting.  Open performance is not the only criteria, but it should be a decent proxy for all other criteria.

I did some number crunching, comparing my performance in the CrossFit Open 2013 to the SFCF Regionals Team.  Although the math is crude and inaccurate for a number of reasons, the numbers are useful as a gauge of improvement needed and as a guide towards specific movements that need to be prioritized in training.  Generally, I need to improve 10-40% on my 2013 performance to be at the same level as the worst team member from 2013.  I'd likely perform better now, but not 10-40% better.

Anders Larson put together another excellent post breaking down all the movements from past CrossFit Opens.  Jim Kean also wrote a great post on his training.  Based on that information, my CrossFit Open 2013 performance, and my own knowledge of my skills, I will be focusing on improving these movements in this order:
t = Technique
e = Metabolic Conditioning
s = Strength

1. Pull-up - st
2. Snatch - ts
3. Clean - ts
4. Jerk - ts
5. Burpee - te
6. Thruster - e
7. Toes-to-bar - st
8. Double Unders - t

Along with daily crossfit classes and 20-40 minutes of mobility, I will add this additional skill/strength work:
Mon/Wed/Fri - Pull-ups
Tue/Sat - Clean & Jerk
Thu/Sun - Snatch

I have a lot more to write about the specifics of what I'm planning for workouts, mobility, recovery, diet, supplements, mental preparation, etc. I'll write more about those as well as my progress in future posts.

Ultimately, I want to achieve my goal, but the experiment is really about how much I can improve.  How good can I get if I put all of my attention towards this one goal?  I worry about failing.  There are two ways I can fail: I can miss my goal, or I can fail to execute my plans.  The first is acceptable, and I'm not worried about that.  The second is the part I'm worried about.  I've rationalized my way out of self-imposed challenges before, but I'm hoping that being publicly accountable about my goals, plans, and progress will help me accomplish what might not be otherwise possible.