Ch-ch-ch-changes

When I look back over my workout logs over the past year, I realize that I've been stagnating. I've had ups and downs and vacations and injuries that leave me pretty much exactly where I was a year ago in terms of loads on the major lifts. My running is certainly no better, and I feel like my metcon ability may even be worse. I continue to TALK about all of the lifts and movements I need to learn and work on, but I don't do them. I'm not making any progress at all. It's time to do something different.

I've been reluctant to take the complete plunge into Crossfit, for fear that I will give up strength gains. I want both strength and metcon ability. I've been poking around a number of the Crossfit affiliate sites, and I think I found the one that fits the bill for me: http://centralbuckscrossfit.typepad.com/central_bucks_crossfit/.

Their workouts generally have a strength portion followed by a metcon portion. This is exactly what I was looking for. They wrote on their blog:

M.E = Max Effort; you will start seeing this format routinely throughout our programming. You’ll notice rep schemes of 5,5,5,3,3,3 one week and 3,3,3,1,1,1 the following week. This programming, mixed with essential and smart metcons and skill work, will ensure optimum strength and power gains along with progress in all the other parameters of fitness.

My plan is to follow these workouts on Monday thru Wednesday, take Thursday off, and do my own Strength workout on Friday, and my own metcon on Saturday. The following Monday, I'll pick up on their workouts where I left off. Because I'll be able to see what's coming ahead of time, I can add something to the strength workouts if I feel like something is being neglected without it conflicting with an upcoming workout. If the workout calls for a movement I can't do, I'll substitute and make sure I set aside time to work on the movement, so I can begin using it in the future.

I really think this will take my fitness to the next level. My first workout was today.

You're fooling yourself

One of my pet peeves at the gym is when I see people using poor form on exercises. I am particularly irritated by those people that use a very short range of motion (partial reps) on squats, bench presses, and overhead presses. There is a part of me that wants to tell them they're doing it wrong....what with me being an expert on everything and all.

I was wondering why. Why do I care? What difference does it make to me? I think it's about competition. People, more specifically men, are competitive in nature. If someone is loading up a bar with weight they can't handle for a full ROM rep, they aren't playing fair. In comparison, I'm using less weight but going ass to the grass. I'm at a disadvantage in the amount of weight being used. Yes, we all need to check the ego at the door and focus on our own goals. Blah, blah. The truth is that we all want to be the baddest badass in the gym.

I can take solace in the fact that I am, in fact, more badass then they are. They are afraid to go full ROM; I'm not. Their ego won't let them, and their performance will suffer because of it. I'm going to just snicker when they do their lame workouts, knowing they are fooling themselves and will eventually fall way behind.

Confession

I think I subconsciously choose my metcon workouts by selecting those things that I can most easily handle. Human nature, I guess, but I'll never fix my weaknesses like this. It's why I'm going onto a modified Crossfit program in January. I'll have no choice but to follow the WOD and not leave my workouts to personal choice.

Chocolate Decadence

A cake, Ice cream, raspberry sauce and whipped cream dessert that is shared...and is like the size of a shoebox. Does that sound primal to you? Holy crap. That wasn't a really great idea in the least! Hey. At least I didn't eat any bread or pasta, right?

Gone Primal

I've gone primal...with the horrific exception of the July 4th weekend...but I won't talk about that debacle. What I will say is that I feel very good, and I've shaved almost five pounds of fat in a couple of weeks effortlessly...even with the unspoken debacle stuck in the middle of it.

I've been trying to eat like this:

Eat lots of animals, insects and plants.


This is the basic description of everything our ancestors ate to get the protein, fats, carbohydrates, vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, phenols, fiber, water and other nutrients necessary to sustain life. But it was a huge list of individual foods – some anthropologists say it may have been 200 or 300 food choices at a time depending upon the geographic area. The net result was a dietary “breakdown” of fat, protein and carbohydrate that was far different from what Conventional Wisdom considers optimum today. This diet provided all the necessary fuel and building blocks that, along with specific exercise, prompted their genes to create strong muscles, enabled them to expend lots of energy each day moving about, to maintain healthy immune systems, to evolve larger brains and to raise healthy children. They ate sporadically, too. When food was plentiful, they ate more than they needed (and stored the excess as fat). When times were scarce, they survived on fat stores. This random or “non-linear” eating pattern kept their bodies in a constant state of preparedness. Source-Marks Daily Apple. Check it out!

My workouts are essentially the same, although I have added walking/low level aerobic activity, which is the solid base of the primal blueprint. In fact, I took a day off and hiked up a mountain by myself the other day. Just me and a bottle of water. I need more hill work. I liked it a lot, and it was good to be alone by myself for a while.

Two cool things

Yesterday at the gym, I was working my strength program. When I hit the third group of sets, the guy at the rack next to me looks over and says "Ripptoe, huh"?

"Yup".

I knew he knew what he was doing, because he was doing textbook full squats. Sad to say, I don't see many people doing those in the gym I go to. It turns out he works out at the the Crossfit Black Box here in the city, and is taking the summer off from CF to work on a strength program.

Other cool thing...

I've been tracking my workouts on Evernote these days. I mentioned it to my 22 year old son, and he asked if I could share with him. I was happy to. Now he's created a notebook too, and he's sharing with me. Yesterday he wrote:

Metco
Timed 4 Rounds of

400m Run
500m Row Machine

My time was 19:42 I'm pretty sure I beat Dads time, I'm happy about that.


I just looked back at dads time i did beat him, but the machine he was working on gave him so trouble so i did not really beat his time. I also realized that this was dads workout for one day and i mixed strength training into this. no surprise to me my endurance will be higher than his i am 30 years younger

So...it seems as if we have the challenge of the old guy vs. the young guy. I think we'll both be better off for it!

We're also looking to see if we can coordinate working out together some time. It makes me happy that he's actually looking to do some stuff with me! :)

Changes

Just after the previous post, I started tracking my workouts and nutrition on an online notebook site. It has all of the benefits of this place, but without the public forum. I guess the public forum isn't really necessary since I have no readers anyway! It's unlikely I'll write here any more.