Anti-Aging Foods

Anybody seen this food chart recently?

Okay, so the first three I get, but what about 4 and 5? Isn't that anti-paleo? And since when is watermelon anti-aging?

Some food for thought gang. Any comments? Just checking.

Rod

Missing Fran, 100 burpees and how strength=speed

So I DIDN'T get to do Fran on Monday (21-15-9 of thrusters and pull-ups). I was having some "intestinal" issues that day.

I blame the shoyu chicken from last week. Knew I shouldn't have eaten that. Ugh.

But I talked to Bruce the next day who surprised me by saying, "Ho brah Fran was easy. I did all the thrusters unbroken."

I was like, damn. At first I thought this was just another example of Bruce's incredible will to lift beyond pain. Then Bumper pointed out that Bruce probably wasn't in pain to begin with.

"Guy squats 335 pounds 10 times," he explained. "Do you really think 95 pound thrusters were a problem for him?"

True. Then Sir Bumpalot added (yes I'm making more nicknames for him) "Everybody talks about improving their performance during the WOD. You want to do that you gotta hit the strength workouts hard."

Yeah. That's the ticket. Get super strong lifting heavy weights and start shredding during the WOD. I can do that. I'm in.

So, let's review Beezlebump's advice so far:

1) Concentrate on speed during the WOD. Go lighter on the weight if you have to.

2) Lift HEAVY during strength until the weights you lift during the WOD feels like paper mache.

I like this plan. Mostly because it means lifting more and being in pain less if I do it right. I'm down.

So . . . Tuesday we do snatch balances. Sort of a weird squat press thingie. I went up to 105 and that was pretty heavy. I think I could have done 115 or even 135 but it was my first time. I'll try going up next time.

Then for the WOD we did 100 burpees. I. Shit. You. Not.

Were we worried? Hell yes. A bunch of people at the gym said they actually thought about not coming. I would have been one of them but I had already missed Fran so you know, I had to come.

By the way, is it SICK that I was jealous of all the people who were complaining about how sore they were after doing Fran on Monday? I needed therapy and they call it burpees.

So I had a plan and it wasn't bad. There was this Crossfit game WOD that had people try to see how many burpees they could do in 7 minutes. So that was my goal. 7 divided by 100 equaled 14 or so burpees per minute. Not a bad goal.

We started and I did 14 burpees for the first two minutes. Then I went down to 12 reps. Then I did 10 reps per minute till I hit 70 reps. After that was at 6 minutes already and just did the last 30 straight.

It was a surprisingly good pace. I didn't bog at all and I ended up getting a time of 7:57.

Whaddaya know, having a strategy actually worked. What can I say, I'm learning.

THEN . . . today we deadlifted. I went up to 295 and did it 5 times. Or 4. I could have gone for more but my grip sucks.

Our WOD for the day was interesting though. Thirty box jumps, thirty sit-ups and a 50 yard farmer's walk. Then 20 box jumps, 20 sit-ups and a 100 yard farmer's walk, then 10, 10 and a 150 yard walk.

I was almost last today, I need to go faster on those box jumps because everything else was okay.

Workouts have been going well, some back pain but things have been good. Can't wait for the Friday workout.

God I hope I don't regret saying that.

Later folks,

Rod

Fear of Fran

I don't write pre-blogs about workouts often but today is different.

Because today we do Fran.

Fran is 21-15-9 reps of thrusters and pull-ups.

The first round of 21 will suck but the middle round of 15 will suck much worse. 

The last nine reps will take forever. 

Wish me luck.

My Back. Is. Fried.

Yup, it's that time of year again. Time for my back to tighten up like the screws in Frankenstein's head so that I can walk like him too.

See this pic? Looks like I'm flexing my arms huh? Nope. In this picture I'm holding my ass off the ground because sitting down after the WOD strains my back like you wouldn't believe.

Some of you may ask, why not just lie down instead? Well I did that too. At this point I'm experimenting to see which position hurts less. Thanks to Shauna for taking the picture by the way.

I knew I was in trouble yesterday. We had 21, 15 and 9 reps of power cleans and lateral jumps to do.

Power cleans were supposed to be at 50 percent of my one rep max, which as of the clean competition for me was 210 lbs. So 105 bls, no problem right? Easy peasy Japanesey.

Hell I even went 95 lbs just to play it safe. The WOD started and it was like almost doing the bar.

Almost. I think I hit the 13th rep and my back started getting so stiff it felt like a knife in my kidneys every time I bent over.

By the next set I wasn't bending over any more, just dropping the weights on the ground after I got them up.

Man, I was without back pain for a while and loving it. Feeling this familiar pain come back was . . . just bums me out I guess.

I thought that maybe I had progressed beyond the point that I was having back pain, but it's still there.

Not going to stop me though, I'm going to keep stretching and pushing it during the WOD's. Maybe one day I'll be rewarded with a pain free workout.

Or I could just stop doing deadlifts, power cleans and kettle bell swings.

Nah.

Later,

Rod

Small Kine Dirty Lickins

I know everyone that reads this blog has seen me bitch about a workout. It's nothing new.

BUT  . . . yesterday was a whole new level of ass whuppin. Like I couldn't get off the floor for 15 minutes.

It didn't look that terrible on the board. WOD: 30 double unders, 20 kettle bell swings and 10 burpees. You get a minute rest then repeat for four rounds total.

I kinda raised my eyebrows at the 1 minute rest. Something about that worried me.

Later Bump explained that if we're resting for a whole minute he fully expected us to sprint through this workout.

And that's what killed me, the sprint. I was flying on DU's, moving at a decent pace for the dumbell swings and hitting the burpees at the slow but constant pace.

At the end of each round I was super winded. At the end of the fourth round I felt like I was in shock.

I'm not kidding. I was in shock when I tore my pectoral. I remember rolling around on the ground, feeling nauseated and not being able to catch my breath and breathe. That is what yesterday felt like, minus the nausea.

But it was a good workout. Today looks like another one.

On another note, my brother has finally started to get serious about his health. No, he's not joining Crossfit (yet) but he's starting to diet and watch what he eats. He's doing the "Eat to Live" program and has been seeing some results. He doesn't eat any chicken, fish, meat or any other type of flesh.

It sounds boring but his face is getting skinnier. Just to mess with him I brought over some guri guri and Komoda bakery goods. He didn't stand a chance. Ha.

See ya at the box,

Rod

Untold Story from the Clean Competition (Oops)

So this is going to be hard to admit after I just wrote that big "expose" on Crossfit and how form is so important etc, etc, etc.

I might have told Bruce to forget about form during the competition and just concentrate on getting it up.

What? I'm not a coach! This is what happened . . .

So it's time for the men's competition. All the guys are in the back and warming up for 10 minutes then starting with our lifts.

We're all trying to get the bugs out and Bruce comes up to me and says . . .

"Ho what cuz, how my form?"

And then proceeds to do a power clean that looks awful. I know because I was doing awful cleans last year.

Except that Bruce is so freaking strong that he just lifts it. It's off the ground and on his shoulders.

Right there in my mind I start drawing upon everything  that I learned from Bump and Kristi, you know, keep the arms loose, don't pull until you're fully extended, explode and get under the weight as soon as possible.

Except there's no time. We had 10 minutes but that was 6 minutes ago and what the hell am I going to teach Bruce in four minutes? Bump and Kristi are busy running the competition and the rest of the guys are working out.

Soooooo . . . this is what I tell him.

"Screw it brah, forget about technique. You can learn that next year. Just concentrate on getting that weight up doing whatever you have to do."

Immediately after I say this Bruce looks at me, with one eyebrow raised higher than the other, and replies,

"Yeah brah you right, I just going power 'em up. Shoots."

So he resumes warming up and so do I. After that I completely forgot what I had said to him.

Of course, I did notice during the competition that he had no form whatsoever. Check it out:

Basically Bruce did three really heavy sets of reverse curls from the floor. But he got all three of his lifts, I only got two.

Fast forward to today and we're warming up at the gym. I'm minding my own business when I hear Kristi say,

"Wait, WHAT did Rod tell you?"

Uh oh.

Okay, so YES, form is super important and YES if you don't do it right you can get injured and YES I know I'm not a coach.

I was just giving out advice to a friend that I thought best suited the situation. Kristi wasn't buying it though.

"I'm telling Bump what you said," she threatened.

Awww, come on. Sheesh.

No good deed goes unpunished.

Anyway, let's talk workout.

We had to run a 200 meter, do 10 overhead squats and end with as many toes to bar as possible before 2 minutes and 30 seconds ran out.

These sort of WOD's are kinda cool because it's up to you how hard you want to push it at the end. Plus we get like a minute to rest between sets so it's easier to go all out.

In fact, my 200 today was was better than yesterday. My back wasn't hurting at all and I was ahead of the pack for the first 100 meters. The second 100 was not as good but I still felt good coming back into the gym.

The overhead squats were a little tough because we had just done heavy back squats earlier. And the toes to the bar at the end were challenging to say the least.

But three rounds is better than six any day and we all pushed it pretty hard knowing it would all be over soon. I got a total of 36 toes to bar, Bruce got 50. I don't know where he gets it from, he seems to just ignore pain and exhaustion.

Wish I could do the same, but I'll take 36 reps for now.

Good WOD today folks, nice to have a rest day tomorrow. I'll be on Oahu Friday so no RFM for me.

But maybe I might just make it down to Hardass Fitness . . . maybe.

Later guys,

Rod

It's What I do

So, once upon a time it was my job to ask questions and get answers.

I'd like to think that I was good at it. Certainly I was better at it during my last seven years as a newspaper reporter than my first five years as a TV reporter.

Because let's face it, I was too busy partying in the beginning. No other way to put it.

Anyway, I'm bringing this up because I realize, with all my journalism experience I have never taken a critical look at Crossfit. This blog has been all about how great it is and how it's helped me, how much I love it, etc etc etc.

Hey, what can I say? I've had mostly nothing but good experiences and it has changed myself and my body for the better. I'm happier because of Crossfit.

Actually, strike that, I'm happier because of Raw Fitness Maui. It's not just a gym, it's friends and family. It's a good place to be.

But I'd be remiss if I didn't at least TRY to look for some negative commentary about Crossfit. I mean, geez, it's been two years. I can have ONE post where I attempt to be critical.

Plus I love setting Beezlebump off. Who knows, Kehau may even chime in too. So here goes.

Here is one of the earliest critical articles about Crossfit, written back in 2005 in the New York Times of all places. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/22/fashion/thursdaystyles/22Fitness.html?_r=1

In my eyes this reporter had an agenda. Find something insidious about this new workout craze. There's a paragraph in that story that reads like this:

---The emphasis is on speed and weight hoisted, not technique. And the importance placed on quantifiable results has attracted hard-charging people like hedge fund managers, former Olympians and scientists. But some exercise experts are troubled by the lack of guidance for beginners, who may dive into stressful workouts as Mr. Anderson did. (He had not worked out regularly for two years.) "There's no way inexperienced people doing this are not going to hurt themselves," said Wayne Winnick, a sports medicine specialist in private practice in Manhattan, who also works for the New York City Marathon.---

Did you read that first sentence? "The emphasis is on speed and weight hoisted, not technique." According to who? The reporter? How about some attribution buddy? Like, "Sports therapists say . . " or "My mom says . . ." Guess he's too smart to quote anyone. Genius. This is what passes for journalism at the NYT? I should have sent in a resume.

Read it though, it's a good, bad article. Kind of like looking back in time and shaking your head and thinking, "How much they did not understand back then. Tsk, tsk."

Now this guy wrote this last year, and I have to say I don't know if he has a point or not but he seems to make more sense than the first guy.

http://freakstrength.com/2011/12/16/why-is-crossfit-bad/

He starts off his blog like this:

--- I like CrossFit. I hate it too.

I like that it gets you doing some worthwhile things. You’ll squat, pull, press, and all of that good stuff. You’ll do body weight stuff, which I’m a huge fan of. In that regard, it’s better than a lot of “fitness” regimens out there.

But there are two huge downsides. The first is that form doesn’t matter. Really, it doesn’t. The rules state that you have to get from point A to point B, but how you get there is arbitrary. This is why people are doing power cleans that look horrible. I remember tuning into ESPN to watch the games (out of curiosity), and there were guys falling to their knees on cleans due to fatigue. ---

Okay, so, this guy also says form doesn't matter in Crossfit and attributes this to what he's seen at the Crossfit Games.

Wellll . . . yeah, I fall down on my knees with fatigue all the time. Is that bad? I'm pushing myself. I know this, I'm stronger today for doing what I did yesterday at RFM.

As far as form, well, shoot. My fellow WODmates and I start off with decent form but once you get to round six . . . well yeah, we get fatigued.

Again, is this bad? I'm going to defer to Beezlebump and the Camacho Man if he would like to chime in from CrossfitOneWorld. That is if my blog allows him to comment. Damn the blogger gods if they don't. Sorry in advance Freddy but try to post if you can.

Okay, so the next guy says he actually attended a Crossfit certification and thinks it's great. But he had some critiques about it as he came from a non-Crossfit fitness background of some sort. It's definitely worth a read: http://www.stupidgymshit.com/2011/01/18/good-or-bad-crossfit/

His main concerns are quality of instructors, physical capabilities, program variability and complexity of movements. This guy actually makes a lot of sense, and not because he likes Crossfit. I just like the way he already wasn't a Crossfitter but went through the certification. I think his different background helps him look at everything more objectively.

Now this last one is from some fitness forum. If you click on the link it goes to some video about Lulu Lemon day at Crossfit LA. It just looks wrong and makes me want to never workout at this gym ever.

http://forum.bodybuilding.com/showthread.php?t=120204311&page=1

Anyway, that's it. If you know how to Google you can find much more but the gist of it is, Crossfit can really mess you up if you don't have the right instructors who teach you the right technique and have the right attitude. Which is why when a friend of mine said he wanted to check out Crossfit in his hometown I said check out every gym until you find the right one.

I just got lucky because Beezle is my classmate. (SABERS!!!)

Oh yeah, the workout. Three snatches, six box jumps and a 200 meter run, AMRAP for 12 minutes.

I did six rounds and my back was fatigued. But guess what, it's fine now.

And tomorrow I'll be stronger. Suck it NYT.

Later,

Rod

Competition and the WOD After

Haven't been blogging for a while because of work, but I sure as hell made it to the competition.

That's right, the RFM Spring Cleaning competition. My first official Olympic Weightlifting competition.

We each had three tries to put up our best weight. The girls did faaaaaaaaaaantanstic. Lori and Patty won first and third place respectively.

Here they are in the winner's photo.

Ikaika did awesome, pulled up 260 bls or rather he got under 260. Damn it I was jealous. Here's a good pic of him getting under the bar.

See, when the weight gets too heavy you gotta get underneath it because you can't just pull that damn thing all the way up. Get under it and lift just like Ikaika's doing.

For some reason I have a mental block. It's damn scary. So I'm trying to pull the weight up as high as possible and squat as LEAST as possible. Like so:

Yeah, that technique works up to a certain weight. This is 185. Check out the struggle on my face for 210.

Yeah, got harder. Can you guess what happened when I tried 220? Let's just say I'm glad there's no picture for it.

I failed. AND IT SUCKEDDDDDDD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I dropped the weight and did like a funky karate kick jump and yelled ARGHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!! In front of everybody. I couldn't help it, I was so disappointed.

Man, I know I can do more weight, I just need to get that technique down. I was so pissed on Saturday.

Then again this is way better than when I first started. I couldn't even bend my wrists back. Just gotta keep it in perspective.

Maybe that's why I was so ready for a WOD today. It looked short and terrible, just what the doctor ordered. It's a seven minute ladder, one thruster, one pull-up, then two thrusters, and two pull-ups, then three and three and four and four and so on until you die.

Oh man, that's exactly what happened. The first three sets were okay then once I hit four thrusters I was like, "Yeah, this is getting hard."

By the time I hit the 8th round I was breathing hard and had a hard time gripping the bar to pull myself up. The thrusters were terrible and I knew there was know way (and no time)  to get a 9th round.

But 8 is enough. At least it was today. Good job everyone.

Later peeps,

Rod

ps - If you haven't heard Bruce tell you the stories of his youth and how he used to scrap in the streets you're missing the funniest stand up routine since Sinbad. He's as funny as he is strong so you know he's funny. Good times. Good job Bump and Kristi, can't wait for the next competition.