Wrapping up

May has more or less ended, finishing out quite a series of eventful weekends. The Olympic Weightlifting meet was a fair success - I went 6 for 6 on my lifts and PRed both my lifts - Snatch at 87kg and C&J at 107kg. Both of these went up quick and easy, bringing up a few questions about my training program: I already knew that my Bulgarian-esque training was leading me into overreaching, but the fact that a week off (before the meet) lead to very quick and strong gains leads me to wonder if perhaps there shouldn't have been longer breaks during the training cycle as well. On the one hand, one could argue that because I went into steep supercompensation that went clear into the meet I was guaranteed a successful competition, but on the other hand one could also argue that if I had included longer rest periods I might have been able to hit a "mini-peak," hitting these PRs earlier in my cycle and thus opening the door to hitting higher PRs in the meet. In essence, the program I used only provided one peak at the very end - during the entire cycle my strength levels stayed level and I was unable to hit any new strength gains as far as the Olympic lifts were concerned - I did PR my back squat, front squat, and press.

I'll be taking time off to digest the pros and cons of my Bulgarian-style O-lifting program. In the meanwhile, I'll be doing an adjusted Starting Strength program and building running volume - running mainly on my days off, no more than two miles per session. Pulling power may also be a supplemental focus.

Stepping up

The first big weekend has passed, with me landing a gold, silver, and bronze medal in three divisions and placing out of a fourth. My performance was about as I had expected, although my conditioning seemed to be well beyond many of the other competitors. What would have made the biggest difference simply would have been more time on the mats in practice, though there wasn't much I could have done about that. Otherwise, I did much better against the other players than I thought I would, and was very happy with the weekend.

I'll be back on the strength work, coming off a brief taper during the last week and a half leading up to the BJJ tournament, although I did notably hit a front squat and back squat pr (295 and 365, respectively).

Workouts the week before my final tournament taper:

monday snatch 85kg, fail 90kg, tabata shuttle

tuesday c&j 102, fail 107, "amanda" - 100DU, 20 burpees, 3 min rest x 5, 1:56 first round, 2-3 after

wednesday dynamic box squat 205 3x8, good mornings 8x3 95lb

thursday snatch 80kg, snatch 2x3 80kg, 30sec escalating airdyne (>60, 70, 80rpm), 2 min rest x 3

friday c&j 102, tgu 3x3, 70lb, 80lb, 80lb, bodyweight fran - 3:30

For the next few weeks leading up to the O-lifting meet, I'll be on a Bulgarian-style cycle with plenty of food, hoping to come as close as I can to the 185lb mark. I'm hoping to attempt 195lb and 245 for my snatch and c&j at the meet, respectively. Following the meet, I'll be looking to start my running "experiment," which pretty much just means doing it at all.

Competition time

Things are closing in, and it's time to start considering where I really measure up. Less than two weeks till my first competition, and I am reasonably confident in where I stand, though I know I will ultimately be disappointed by my performance(s). My O-lifting is moving along well; some recent revelations in the details of the lifts should be promising, along with a recent front squat PR of 295 (up from 275). My weakness in the clean is still inability to fight T-spine flexion in the receiving position, which has been remedied by lots of front squats and good mornings. I still believe I am capable of more than 185 in the snatch, and hoping to attempt 195 (or maybe 200) at the meet.

As far as my conditioning is going, my capacity has certainly declined - this is to be expected as my training goals have drastically changed, but it is still disappointing to know how much "gas" is out of the tank now. My tournament will be a struggle, but I'm expecting as much. May will be a busy month, with a tournament, job interview, then a meet in consecutive weekends.

I've been working to keep my weight up, still hovering at a fairly consistent 175. Work is escalating and regular eating is becoming somewhat of a struggle.

Workouts the past week:

Monday:

Snatch 1RM (80kg)

C&J 1RM (102kg)

Tuesday:

Max rep back squats @ 80kg - 31 reps

Max rep supine strict pull-ups - 12, 11, 10, 7, 7

Good mornings 3x5 (43kg)

Wednesday:

8x3 Band box squats, speed emphasis (60kg + green and blue bands)

3x5 Push Press (70kg))

Thursday:

Front Squat 1RM (133kg - PR)

3x2 Dead stop Front Squats (60kg)

Max rep pronated pull-ups - 12, 10, 9, 9, 9

Tabata Airdyne (8 rounds)

Friday:

Snatch 1RM (80kg, after 15 fails)

C&J (97.5kg)

Failure and success

My brief experiment with the linear progression is over - the workout done April 2nd was the last one, in which I completed a 3x5 at 285 and 145 on the squat and press, respectively. Every rep of the workout managed to feel like a 1RM, where in previous workouts it was only the last two sets that felt that way - I'm positive that I will fail the next workout (5x5 @ 295), and given my goals, two competitions in may, one of them being a weightlifting meet, I would rather get the extra day to start the next phase of training rather than spend it possibly failing and having to rest for two days before I come back. I believe this decision to skip my "fail" on the progression is sound, as I am definitely nearing the limits of my gains on this current cycle of linear progression - the last workout was done at 90% of my old 1RM.

I'm going to start monday with something I've been thinking about for a while - doing the double from the 1st day of the VA sectionals - weighted cindy followed by AMRAP C&J at 185. My reasoning is that if I'm going to do a workout that could possibly trash my mechanics it would be better to do it sooner rather than later, during a transition from pure slow lifts to Olympic ones.

I'll be starting the coaching of a new client saturday as well - he's scheduled for 3 workouts per week, fit in for tuesdays, thursdays, and saturdays. This should mesh perfectly as my heavy lift days are monday, wednesday, and friday, and the other days were originally going to be reserved for metcons - still workable given the short amount of time I'll need for them.

Strength days will be o-lift focused, with slow lifts (primarily push presses and front squats) added in as supplements. Rep schemes will be roughly bulgarian style, though this will all likely be moderated as wear is assessed. Metcons will consciously avoid o-lifts to preserve mechanics and work on bodyweight movements with strength endurance as an overall focus over explosiveness. Likely lots of cherry picking as far as workout specifics.

The linear progression diet has been interesting - by my estimates I'm eating at least 30oz of protein a day, coming to around 200g of protein and 1800 calories a day from the protein alone. Interestingly enough, my weight has not gone up and is still hovering at 175.

Changes

With sectionals over and the OPT programming (at least for me) over, it's time to get in gear for competition season. Upcoming comps are:

5/8 - Copa Nova Grappling Championships (BJJ)

5/22 - Blue Ridge Open (WL)

Thankfully the weight classes are similar - cruiserweight at Copa Nova is 165-179.9, which would put me in the middle of the -85kg USAW class. At a current weight of 173 I have room to maneuver and gain weight. Unfortunately, the training could barely be more opposed: single effort, explosive strength vs relative strength and aerobic capacity, and with the notion that focusing on one would have relatively less damage than the opposite, I'll continue a strength focus with supplementary GPP workouts. I suppose in a basic sense I'll be hoping to maintain the capacity I created with OPT's program while improving my strength.

The primary workouts thus far have been a linear progression 3 days a week solely of squats (low bar) and presses. Monday and Wednesday are a 5x5 while Fridays are a 3x5. The weights increase by 10 and 5lb for the squat and press, respectively. Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays will be strength days, eventually focusing on O-lifts over slow lifts, while Tuesdays and Thursday will be metcon/gymnastic days, staying away from the heavy weights. Last workouts:

3/25

OPT:

6 rounds:

15 pull-ups (chin over bar)

20 push-ups (chest to deck)

25 sit-ups (anchored)

30 squats

2 min rest

All rounds less than 3 min, first three under 2 min.

3/29:

Low bar Squat 5x5 - 265lb

Press 5x5 - 135lb

Supinated fat-bar strict pull-up, AMRAP until form breakdown - 12, 9, 8, 9

This is day 5 of the linear progression, and weight has continued to go on the bar. I'll stop at either failure or until I hit a 5x5 at 315, which is my old 1RM, and then make the swap over to O-lifts and front squats (primarily to build t-spine strength, which I'm starting to believe is a weakness of mine. Every strength day includes 20 minutes with the technique plates and 30 minutes of soft tissue work. The metcons will be a mix of "classic" crossfit workouts, games workouts, and specific items that I want to work, mostly likely with a skew towards pulling. Planned metcons:

Tuesday:

5 rounds:

40m shuttle run

AMRAP pull-ups

40m shuttle run

2 min rest

Thursday:

KB snatches and sandbag cleans. Specifics to be decided.

Hopefully keeping to a cellular/neural damage split will permit sufficient recovery day-to-day. Using the weekend for a full recovery will be important, as will be monitoring performance on Fridays. Supplements are now Vit D, Fish Oil, and ZMA. Diet is paleo/warrior diet with additional carbs and raw milk for mass gain.

So many toys, so little time

Training thoughts, notes, and new directions

Lots of reading/new knowledge in the last couple months, and their synthesis into new training models are still to be fleshed out in the next couple months. For now, there are just a jumble of ideas, and figuring out an approach, or even where to start, will be tricky. Some thoughts:

- Each weight produces a different mechanical rep based on its relation to the individual's bodyweight - from Simmons and Pendlay, and especially relevant in the olympic lifts, as the momentary weightlessness in which lifter and barbell are moving solely in relation to each other derives its characteristics from the weight ratio: when the lifter weights more, their COG will remain more stable relative to the bar, as the COG of the entire lifter/bar system biases towards the individual. In lifts where the weight is greater than the lifter, the opposite happens, and new mechanics and timing must be learned. I'm starting to believe this is why so many people hit the bodyweight snatch as a barrier - they haven't taken the time to learned a new set of mechanics required for the new movement patterns. Put simply, I wonder if this can be fixed by hanging out in the 1RM realm with assistance exercises - snatch balances, pulls, etc.

- Without proper starts, powerful, smooth lifts will never be achieved (Kono)

- Without proper flexibility, proper starts can never be made - Potential Potential (Kono/Starrett)

- Without proper starts, then heavy lifts will inevitably induce injury (Starrett)

- For proper lifts, there must be proper starts. For proper starts, there must be a capacity for proper biomechanics. If those biomechanics are not possible, then they must be achieved first.

- It is unreasonable to ask an individual to sideline workouts because of these issues, but at the same time it is irresponsible to allow them to derange themselves incrementally simply for their own. While working on mobility, is it preferable to reduce weights with the same movements, or simply find new movements that can be loaded heavily without possible damage? This would be most difficult with the basic lifts (deadlift, squat, press, etc).

- The base strength > strength endurance > work capacity > short time domain work model for developing success in CF is currently most successful - it out GPP's CF's own GPP model. Is there a way to produce a programming model that produces Westside-type constant readiness without the randomness of CF main site? Many boxes and programs aim towards this goal, but few seem to pay much attention to the body's recovery/adaptation needs - very few programs consider the adaptation abilities of the novice (70% of CFers), intermediate (25%), and advanced (5%) individuals. The numbers are my own guesses, but the actual numbers can only be more skewed. More trained individuals need more than different load and rep schemes, they need different exercise frequency and loading patterns (undulating, wave, etc).

- Are microcycles that move from pure strength to pure short-term work capacity effective in producing adaptations? Theory would say yes given proper recovery, but would these gains be too incremental compared to traditional periodization? Simmons says that his program creates GPP, but is his method successful because of a relatively narrow pursuit within the full realm of athletics?

- Sport vs training vs athletic base - CF posits itself as all three simultaneously, though its different implementations have had defined and clear differences within the three realms. Each one has its own appropriateness and best method for use, but how do you sell this to the client? People either want everything or are simply disinterested in the nuances, so can this even be addressed in a group setting, and more importantly to the satisfaction of the client? Programming CF and doing CF workouts have dramatically different attitudes and goals if someone does them for health or as sport. Furthermore, many who want to do it as sport are likely not ready and should be doing it as training instead. CF's draw is as sport, but to train its athletes for it as sport requires a sport approach, not a CF one.

And then there are the nutrition questions....

Playing around

The recent snow has thrown definite problems into workout programming - I missed the last two days of OPT and as a result did an amalgam today of three different workouts:

A1 Power snatch 2.2.2 x 3 (Started at 135, dropped 10lb per drop set)

A2 Close grip bench 30x0 4.4 x 3 (Started at 145, dropped 10lb per drop set)

B1 Jump squat 10x3 (195 - 225)

B2 CTB Pull-up 20x3

C Airdyne (18 sec all out, easy spin recover for 1:42)x5, 5 min rest, repeat

The original workout was the airdyne portion only, 5 sets with a rest, repeated 3 times - I originally wanted to supplement this by doing the first portion of the workout from the day before (the power snatch and bench couplet), but realized quickly that the structure and loading of both workouts were recovery workouts. Since I essentially had the last three days off, starting off with a recovery workout would do me no good at all, hence the insertion of a couplet from yet another workout.

This highlights one of the problems I have been having with following the programming - OPT eschews a weekly schedule. While most of his followers are able to keep up with a "workout anywhere, anytime" format, I'm having difficulty keeping up any type of regular schedule - I can make them up eventually, but I'm still missing out of any sort of overtraining/supercompensation effect that his workouts might have. I'm going to have to be smarter about missing and making up workouts - adding and editing as I can in order to keep a good fatigue/recovery cycle. I believe I will continue to do his metcons, as I'm enjoying his formats and regulations for some of his workouts, but I will probably supplement the strength portion with strength and strength-endurance work. I'm less than two months away, and need to get to work.

Starting off 2010

The end of another week, and finishing out a "cycle" of OPT, culminating in the Big Dawg challenge, which I was a partial participant in. The scheduling difficulties are making it hard for me to keep up with all the workouts - I'm missing a good part of his conditioning workouts. First off, the last four workouts:

Wednesday:

A. Back Squat 30X0, 1x4 (255, 265)

B. Tabata push-up - (4 rounds - 20, 15, 8, 8)

C. Amrap DU 2min - 77

D. GHD sit up 2 x 20

Thursday:

A. Split Jerk 1x3 (185, 195, 205)

B. Hang Power Clean 1x3 (135, 155, 165)

C. CTB Pull-up, 3x10, 60 sec rest

D. Airdyne 30/30, 70%, 80%, 90%

Friday:

A. DL 3x6 (195lb), 30 sec rest

B. 20" Box Jump, 20 reps unbroken x 3, 30 sec rest

C. HSPU, 5 perfect reps x 3, 30 sec rest

D. Muscle-ups 3x5, 30 sec rest, in doubles and singles

Saturday:

A. OHS 15x3 - unbroken set of 15, 3 attempts for max weight (Failed 155 in 3rd set at rep 10, scored at 135)

B. 2k row then AMRAP DU in 10 min (8:06, 34)

The Big Dawg Challenge was on Saturday; the unfinished third workout (5 hours to do all 3 workouts) was 50 CTB pull-ups then 50 burpees. I would have liked to attempt the last part, but ran out of time. OPT's programming is interesting as it develops certain CF-specific skills and tendencies that are not necessarily part of other S&C strategies - frequently enough he asks that certain exercises be performed without breaks or that form be perfect at the expense of time (you're expected to rest longer if you know you'll need it). These conditions are useful in that they push people to do certain tasks they may not normally attempt by setting clear limits and penalties while at the same time helping prep for CF-style competitions (frequently specifying different forms of pull-ups, for instance). I'm debating whether or not to stick with this programming, find something else, or set out on my own to bring me into the tournament in April. Still debating on that.

Nutrition is good - I'm right at 170, while the weight class I compete in goes from 165-182. This is weight with the gi, however, which means that I'll need to add 5 pounds to whatever weight I'm at. Energy and diet are appropriate for where I want to be. Carrying on for now.

January 18, 2010

Past three workouts:

Thursday:

A1 Front Squat@20X1, 3x4 @ 225lb, 3 min rest

A2 PU (3 strict, 6 kip, 9 CTB) x 5, 3 min rest

B DL@12X1, 8x3 @ 225lb, 45 sec rest

C1 Toes to Bar 10x3

C2 GHD Raise 10x3

Friday:

5 rounds:

15 PP @ 95lb unbroken

10 burpees

25 box jumps @ 20" unbroken

2 min rest

1:30-2:30 per round, broke up PP in 4th round and added 10 reps as penalty

Monday:

Isabel as rx'd: 5:33 (with 5 failed reps, starting around rep 22)

rest 10 min

Tabata Airdyne (use up everything left)

Keeping up with OPT programming has been tough, as he doesn't follow a set 7-day schedule - doing doubles and moving around workouts has been tricky, and as a result I have missed the last two doubles (several very potent metcons in those days). Hopefully I'll be able to work things out eventually. The OPT programming has been interesting, although I feel that progress has been slow. I've only been only for about a month or so, so I'm willing to give it more time.

Nutrition has overall been good; my weight is very comfortably right where it needs to be for Pan-Ams. At this point I just need to be concerned about proper fueling for recovery.

A New Year

Things are starting off tough in 2010. Fully committed to OPT programming now, although my schedule isn't permitting me to keep up (2 days behind) or finish all the workouts (can't workout on Sundays, and fairly difficult to get in on Saturdays. I'm trying to supplement and shuffle workouts as best I can in order to get the sufficient stimulus, but it's still a bit of a jumble for now. Appetite and weight have gone down, although I'm already comfortably in my weight class. I may contemplate holding onto a higher bodyweight to stay anabolic, but we'll have to see about that.

Monday Double:

AMSAP 1-5 BS ladder @ 225lb in 10 minutes: 3 ladders completed

BB Jump squat @ 95lb, 6x6 with 60 sec rest in between, minimal amortization time

GHD sit up 3x20, 45 sec rest

rest 6 hours

AMRAP Double unders in 45 sec, rest 75 sec, 5 rounds: 35-45 reps all rounds

Tuesday:

A. Clean grip power snatch 3x5 @ 95lb, 105, 115-

B1. Snatch DL 30x0, 4x3 @ 195lb, rest 10 sec

B2. KBS 10x3 @ 2pd, rest 10 sec

B3. GHD raise 2010, 12x3, rest 180 sec

C. Tabata push-ups

The BS ladder dug me into a deep, deep hole; one that I'm still feeling now. 45 reps in 10 minutes at a load of 225lb is far more than I thought I'd be able to do - the volume came out to over 10,000 pounds over the course of the workout, and as a result I felt more or less useless doing the jump squats afterwards, as my legs had turned to jelly by then. Since the previous week I've found a slight variation on the GHD sit-up that's eliminated the pain I would get from spinal compression, and the exercise itself has become much more effective since.

The clean grip power snatch turned out to be a very pleasant movement; it stressed good o-lifting mechanics throughout in order to complete each rep. Small mistakes or distractions made themselves readily apparent with very little weight - There had to be powerful extension to propel the weight about 6 inches higher than for a power snatch, a quick and tight 3rd pull (and punch) were required to move the bar through its extremely long path of travel, and a strong, firm "stick" of the feet in the power squat position ensured that the weight didn't land in front or behind.

I still don't like push-ups.

An increasing issue for me with the opt workouts is how to do the doubles; on my days off this isn't much of a problem, but figuring something out during the workweek will be challenging; most workouts are difficult enough that I won't be able to simply do them together, although I may end up just trying.f