Archive for May, 2009

Alexander Artemev

Agility or nimbleness refers to the ability to move one’s body through space. More specifically, agility is the ability to transition from one movement or direction to another more fluidly and rapidly. Agility is improved through practice.

By practicing movement patterns that require the changing of direction of the body or limbs in direction and through space we become more agile. The classic example of this is gymnastics. Most gymnastics moves require the movement of the body quickly and rapidly from one direction to another. I can’t think of one form of gymnastics apparatus that doesn’t require this agility in its use. I can think of several though that we are exposed to in CrossFit.

One of the major components of CrossFit is gymnastics. The rings are a great way to develop agility exercises such as skin the cat, pass throughs on low rings and even muscle ups require quick movement of the body and rapid fluid changes of direction of the body.  Paralettes are also another example and there as many or even more agility exercises we can use these for. The importance once again though is constant practice.

While agility requires strength, balance, speed and power, it is more than the sum of these things. It is the synergy of these qualities that results in true agility. An athlete can have all of these qualities but with practice they may stay segregated and the athlete may never reach the full potential of their agility. It may be practising things as simple as agility runs like zigzags or more complex running patterns were you are required to change your direction of travel while on the move to more complex exercises such a pommel horse routine. Good luck with that! So remember while we can train and build our strength, balance and power this doesn’t necessarily make us agile. It may all begin with exercises as simple as the push up moving our bodies through space and changing direction and we can build from there. Train agility specifically. If you’d like some more ideas about agility training for yourself or for a specific sport feel free to ask.

TODAY’S WOD

For time:

20,18,16,14,12,10,8,6,4,2.

Pull ups

Push ups

Sit ups

Squats

So that’s 20 pull ups, 20 push ups, 20 sit ups, 20 squats, 18 pull ups, 18 push ups, 18 sit ups, 18 squats and so on to 2 pull ups….2 squats.

Joggle

Coordination: The ability to combine several distinct movement patterns into a singular distinct movement. Dynamax. Wikipedia states coordination can be thought of as each physiological process that must be performed in order to achieve movement. These include muscles, limbs and the nervous system. Just like our ipods which we can oprate at a single touch our bodies work the same with even the most simple of movement being made up of a number of complex physiological and neural processes. Who wants to be coordinated?

Everybody should want to become more coordinated as coordination has an overflow effect on a number of other skills. Most people simply consider coordination an attribute in sports, the classic example is hand eye coordination and catching a ball a distinct asset in many sports. Coordination, however, helps in much broader ways than that and in ways which will help us as athletes, since we’re all athletes, to some degree.

Without developing our coordination, through practice, we would not be able to master many of the complicated movements we use in CrossFit. Remember the practical paralysis we used to feel when we were first learning some of the lifts and moves. The classic example is the Clean and Snatch. Remember how easy it looked when you were shown only to feel completely uncoordinated and unsatisfied the moment the bar was placed in your hands.  Trying to get that bar to land right on the shoulders without curling it, using only the smallest of weight or a broomstick to get the movement pattern right, was frustrating. It wasn’t until we learned the pattern and coordinated our muscles to fire and work in the correct sequence could we then work on speed, strength and eventually power. Coordination comes about through practice.

With a lot of exercises remember the first time you tried and barely managed, like handstands, but the next few times you got much better at getting up against the wall and much more stable. Practice teaches our bodies coordination. So don’t underestimate the benefit of the practice on rest days of our skills or before or after a WOD when we play around with a skill. Practice makes perfect but remember more importantly perfect practice makes perfect. Practice needs to be perfect to teach the coordination to most effectively master these skills.

TODAY’S WOD

Run 6 x 400m

Rest as required between rounds. Record times of each individual run. The track markings are now down atWaitara ovel if you want to gt off the treadmill.

Alsion B, Fast!

Speed the ability to minimize the time cycle of a repeated movement. Dynamax.  There is a simpler understanding of speed though; the time it takes move between two points. Whether this be your hands from over your head to the floor when executing a burpee or the time it takes to move your whole body from the start to the finish of a 5km run. The less time it takes to move between two points the lower the time cycle of any movement. How do we train speed?

 Speed is trained physiologically quite similar to power in that the faster we practice the recruitment of the muscles required the faster they will move our limbs our body weight or the weight we suspend from them. There is also another element to speed and this requires practice.

 Neurologically we can develop speed through practicing and developing more efficient movement patterns. Practicing a more efficient running technique will make you run faster over distance developing a streamlined burpee with no flailing arms will allow you to complete more burpees in a shorter time. Technique is a much more efficient way to increase speed.

 It comes down to two things for us as CrossFitters proper technique will increase our speed in timed WODs but more importantly proper techniques will prevent us from injury what good is a super fast deadlift with a round back is only good for injury. The second issue with technique is it makes our efforts honest and measurable and repeatable. A soft floppy core in a burpee might allow you to peel yourself off the floor and make the burpee easier and faster but is it really a burpee. Doing half depth dips and pushups might be faster but did you honestly set a PB on Cindy? So remember speed is a matter of techniques as well as time. Be honest be safe and you’ll never need to justify or explain your efforts to yourself or others.

TODAY’S WOD

Pain Storm for May

AMRAP (As Many Rounds As Possible) in 30 minutes of:

7 Deadlifts (85kg)

7 KTE (Knees to Elbows)

7 Burpees

Remember scale your weight if you can’t do 85kg safely. Also substitute situps for KTE if you can’t do knees to your elbows. Or have a recordable measure of how high you are getting your knees so you can maintain the same standard throughout and compare it to next time you to KTE.

It's all in the timing.

Some of us would be familiar with the equation for power that coach has mentioned from physics. That is P= W/t, power is equal to the amount of work done divide by the amount of time it took to do that work. For us as athletes this work is in terms of the work our bodies or our muscles can do in a period of time. For us as CrossFitters it’s about increasing our power output and wor capacity across broad time and modal domains.  The  Dynamax definition of Power is “the ability of a muscular unit, or combination of muscular units, to apply maximum force in minimum time.”

We can see then that the faster the time to complete a certain amount of work the higher the power output. Fast is powerful. Time is critical in this formula of power as the we can more significantly increase our power output by decreasing the time than we can by increasing our work. Two classic examples are the Olympic lifts the Snatch and the Clean and Jerk. Now there are innumerable ways to move a weight from the ground to overhead. You could deadlift it, reverse curl it up and then press it overhead. With the Olympics lifts we need speed to execute this lifts to get our bodies underneath the bar, this speed is what increases the power output of our bodies and muscles in these lifts. Now the important thing with developing power is not necessarily the speed of the movement but the speed of the muscle recruitment.

When moving with maximum weights it is quite difficult to move at maximum speed. This, however, does not diminish the power generating capabilities of these exercises. The speed of the muscular recruitment or speed the muscles are contracted is the important factor in power generation. So while the weight may be moving relatively slow we a training a significant neuro-muscular response. So when our muscles are required to generate power at sub-maximal efforts they will be able to fire off in the correct sequence and with maximal speed creating the power we desire.

So don’t get too caught up in the speed of your lifts when you’re working at max. weights just like our 1RM (one rep max) it’s going to be a slow movement despite how fast we’re trying to move that weight.

So remember as CrossFitters  this power training is important to our training and increasing our work capacity and one of the best ways to train this is with Olympic lifts so get under a barbell today if you’re not resting.

TODAY’S WOD

If you’re not going to rest work on some Olympic lifts.

“Grace”

30 reps for time of

Clean and Jerk (60kg)

Or find a weight you can manage.

Flexibility is the range of movement at a given joint. So someone can have poor flexibility or good flexibility depending on the range of motion at anyone of their joints. An individual can be very flexible in one joint and lacking flexibility in another. We as CrossFitters are interested in maximizing that range of motion in all of our joints and increasing our overall flexibility. The most common joints which So we train flexibility, or at least we should!

The most common form of flexibility training is stretching. Most of us are familiar with static stretching, holding a limb in a position for a while to help stretch the muscle and increase the range of motion of that joint over time. There are also a number of methods to increase flexibility. Dynamic stretching or stretching muscles by moving the joint through its range of motion is another common method.

Dynamic stretching can be incorporated into your workouts. As you’ve heard from me over and over in your training it’s all about range of motion and partial reps build partial strength. So taking your lifts and exercises through you full range of motion is a form of dynamic stretching.  Catching your clean in a full depth front squat or catching your snatch in the very bottom of an overhead squat will help to increase the flexibility of your knees, hips, ankles and shoulders. Not bad. Stretching is important.

You never hear anyone bragging about their best stretch down at the pub and you never get to write on the board how many centimeters past your toes you got your fingers past your toes but stretching is important. Limited range of motion in any joint increases your risk of injury in that joint and decreases you strength. For every muscle that moves a joint there’s an antagonist muscle on the opposite side of the joint it’s simple to see that if one muscles antagonist is tight the muscle not only has to fight any weight being moved but also the tightness of this antagonist reducing its overall strength. When we’re interested in performance as we are as CrossFitters flexibility becomes important.

So the next time you’re going to pay off stretching at the end of a WOD because you’re just too tired or you’re cheating on range of motion just to get it over and done with thin again. It’s all about flexibility.

TODAY’S WOD

Daniel Hansen

“Hansen”

5 rounds for time of:

30 dumbbell swing, 32 kgs
30 Burpees
30 Glute-ham sit-ups

Marine Staff Sgt Daniel Hansen died February 14th in Farah Providence, Afghanistan when an IED he was working on detonated. Daniel is survived by his mother Sheryll, his father Delbert, his younger sister Katie, and his twin brother Matthew (also a Marine).

Deadlift, good for what ails you!

Strength is pretty straight forward the ability for someone to apply force to an object using their muscles, the higher the force the stronger the person. There are two determining factors of strength.

 The first is the cross sectional area of muscle fibres recruited by the contraction. That is, the larger the muscle the more muscle fibres it has to contract and apply force to an object. Therefore, the bigger the muscle the stronger the muscle is. You would all know or have seen the smaller person who can move more weight than their larger counter part so there must be another factor that determines strength. 

The second factor determining strength and therefore how much force a person can apply to an object with their muscles is the force of the contraction. So the more intense the contraction combined with the amount of muscle fibres used determines the strength of the muscle. That is why our legs are stronger than our arms, bigger muscles and more forceful contractions. We can see then that training, depending on the individual, will have a bigger impact on strength development than hypertrophy.

We train strength by teaching our nervous system to more forcefully recruit and contract muscle fibres. We train it to do this by lifting heavy weights. The majority of strength when you begin lifting comes from practice and your body learning how to more efficiently move and recruit muscle than form any new muscle growth. So how do we train strength?

We train strength my moving weights which we find heavy. Strength WODs do this most effectively where we choose a weight that we can lift for only 1 or 2 or 3 or 4 or 5 repitions depending on the workout. This forces our body to become more efficient at recruiting muscle fibres contracting them in the right sequence and moving the weight, this makes us stronger. Also the microscopic damage caused to our muscles when we move heavy objects is repaired after a time leading to stronger and larger muscle fibres thus increasing the cross section of our muscles. So by liftng heavy weights we are training both the intensity of the contraction and increasing the size of the muscle.

TODAY’S WOD

5 rounds for time of:

21 Sumo Deadlift High Pull

21 Ring Dips

If you don’t kow SDLHP use the standar deadlift. If you can do ring dips do standard dips or pushups(x3).

CrossFit.com

Stamina: The ability of body systems to process, deliver, store, and utilise energy. Dynamax. What does this mean for us a athletes and CrossFitters?

When we look at how this relates to increasing work capacity pver broad time and modal domains it can be seen that the ability to sustain a certain level of work for a certain amount of time is dependent on the ability to use and provide energy to the body and its units. The more efficient the system for producing and using this energy the higher the level of work and the longer it can be sustained. As discussed in ”What is Fitness?” there are three energy pathways in the body the phosphagen, glycolytic and oxidative. These systems use phosphocreatine, glucose and oxygen respectively.

Training these systems is dependent on time the phsophocreatine pathways are most readily utilised in activities lasting a few seconds, such as lifting a heavy weight. Those activities lasting a few seconds up to around a minute use predominantly the glycolytic system, such as sprinting 200m. Anything longer than a few minutes uses the oxidative system predominantly. This sounds like a lot of training. The good news is none of these systems work independently and that training can to some degree train all these pathways simultaneously.

So imagine a workout that requires that requires short efforts of moving a heavy weight continuously for up to a minute. Then imagine a number of these efforts combined one after the other for longer than a few minutes. Sound familiar? CrossFit provides a neat solution to training all three pathways simultaneously. Other forms of training don’t seem to compare in their impact on the human energy systems.

Conventional weight training while moving a heavy weight is not conducted continuously enough to illicit a significant response in anything other than the phosphagen pathways. I’m sure everyone knows the guy who can bench press a building but couldn’t run fast or long enough to get out of said building if it were on fire. Then there’s the polar opposite the marathon runner who can cover a kilometer faster than road runner but has barely enough strength to move his own body weight if required to more than a few push ups. So rather than spend hours in the gym training these pathways separately in the conventional protocol of fitness training combine them all together and get more bang from you buck from your gym time.

Imagine a workout where you’re moving heavy weights, including your body weight, for short durations, medium durations and long durations. Would this have an impact on your work capacity over broad time and modal domains. I think so and this is the beauty of CrossFit. Moving a heavy weight from the ground to overhead as fast as possible 30 times fits the bill aka “Grace” 30 Clean and Jerks for Time and “Isabel” 30 Snatches for time. There are a number of other WODs (Workout of the Day) that achieve the same goal of increasing the body’s ability to process, deliver, store, and utilise energy.

TODAY’S WOD

For Time:
21-15-9
Snatch
Pull ups

So that’s 21 snatches, 21 pull ups, 15 snatches, 15 pull ups, 9 snatches, 9 pull ups.

Use a weight you can snatch for ten reps. If you don’t know how to snatch, clean and jerk the weight. If you don’t know how to snatch or clean and jerk, LEARN! These are two extremely valuable and effective exercises

Use jumping pull ups or gravitron pull ups if you can’t do full pull ups.

Endurance

 
The most common and familiar form of training undertaken is steady state training. The usual staple of running, cycling, swimming or rowing, or whatever, continuously for a prolonged period of time is generally regarded as the best way to train. While this form of training does work very well for most unconditioned athletes there are other form of training which require less time and increase your aerobic capacity a lot more significantly. One such example is the “Tabata” interval used in CrossFit.

 
Dr Tabata found in a study that by using his protocol of work to rest (20 seconds Work: 10 seconds Rest) he could significantly increase the aerobic capacity, or cardiovascular and respiratory endurance, of his test subjects with just three sessions of 16 minutes per week. These increases was even greater than that seen in another group using more traditional and time consuming methods of continuous training. Of course the intensity of the training is much higher and demonstrates that intensity is the key in improving performance. If you’re coming to the gym and reading on the treadmill or bike, I’ve got news for you you’re not reading while you exercise, you’re just reading. Intensity is the key!

 
TODAY’S WOD

If you’re not going to rest then:

 
Deadlift

 
3-3-3-3-3reps

 
This means, after a warm up and working up gradually in a number of sets get to a weight where you can only do three reps of the weight. Do this five times resting as required to regain your strength in between sets but not get cold.
If you haven’t done this heavy work with a trainer yet come and see Tommy about it.

Over the coming days we’ll look at each of the ten recognised physical skills. These are:

cardiovascular/respiratory endurance,

stamina,

strength,

flexibility,

power,

speed,

coordination,

agility,

balance,

and accuracy.

 Everybody would look at this list and pick at least one if not more of these skills they would like to improve.

Remember “…improvements in endurance, stamina, strength, and flexibility come about through training. Training refers to activity that improves performance through a measurable organic change in the body. By contrast improvements in coordination, agility, balance, and accuracy come about through practice. Practice refers to activity that improves performance through changes in the nervous system. Power and speed are adaptations of both training and practice.” “What is Fitness?” Greg Glassman

So tomorrow we’ll start with a look at the first physical skill cardiovascular and respiratory endurance.

Stay tuned.

Todays WOD

5k Row

Go continuously, don’t stop, slow down if you have to take a rest but the timer on the rowing machine should not stop!

Saturday WOD, wtf!?

There’s no need to be like that just because you’re working out on a Saturday.

Enjoy!

Complete seven rounds of the following for time:

10 Overhead Squats (M:35kg/W:25kg)

10 Jumping pull-ups

WOD courtesy of Freddy C. at CrossFit One World