Every second, repetition, and pound counts!

the Zone team in Okotoks on Day 1

Hello all,

I'm back from the Canadian CrossFit Regional Championship. It was an epic challenge of both my physical and mental strength and a weekend I will remember forever. I faced some very tough workouts, made many new friends, and shared triumphs and tragedies with the Zone crew and the other competitors. While happy that I gave 100% effort and finished strongly, I'm not satisfied with the result and know that I can perform at a higher level. I placed 34th in the end out of about 55 athletes (only 52 made it through to the end), an improvement over my finish at the BC's and ahead of some very legit Crossfitters. I'll write a more in-depth review soon with pics of the competition, there are many stories to share :)

Thanks everyone for your support leading up to and during the championship - I appreciate it immensely and it is through the strength of that support that I am able to achieve great things.

Here's a blog that I wrote for our crossfitzone.ca website about the importance of seconds, reps, and pounds in daily crossfit workouts and in the context of competition.

Enjoy,

Cam

Every second, every repetition, and every pound, counts!

“Every second counts” is a familiar saying in CrossFit since so many of our workouts revolve around achieving a best time. Some workouts are scored by weight achieved or repetitions performed, so one could say that every second, pound, and repetition count. They count because our workouts are competition – CrossFit is the sport of fitness and your score for the day reflects your ability to display your fitness through performing work recorded by time, weight, or repetitions.

Your score is compared to the last time you did a given workout, to the performance of your peers on that day, and against our online and in-gym top 5 times. Humans are by nature competitive and will strive to improve with the motivation of beating one’s best or the best of others. Many improvements you see in your times will come in the form of seconds rather than minutes and the more you progress, the more this becomes the case. With our online and in-gym leaderboards a few seconds, reps, or pounds are all that separate 1st from 5th and from 5th to 10th.

Time is lost easily – it accumulates all too readily with extra breaks between repetitions or exercises or when you hit the wall after going too hard at the start. Pounds are often elusive in that for some exercises, a 5 pound improvement may take a few months or more to gain. Repetitions are earned by hard effort towards the end of workouts when body and mind revolt against picking up static barbells.

The recent Canadian Crossfit Regional championship provides a good example of the power of reps, time, and weight in deciding the success of a competitor. With athletes from across Canada having to qualify to attend the competition, the quality of the competitors was assured and the variance in ability quite narrow. The fact that athletes were competing towards a spot at the Crossfit Games added to the push for points and placings, further drawing fine lines between competitors.
Here are a few examples of how much seconds and weight mattered over the past weekend.

In the women’s competition of 46 athletes,
• In the final event (Tire flip - clean and jerk – run workout) 10 seconds was enough to go from 7th to 4th and 11 seconds would have taken a competitor from 33rd to 28th. In a workout of 14 minutes duration, this is the difference of running slightly faster or performing two reps quicker.
• In the double under-burpee event, 20 seconds separated 18th place from 11th place and 1 second was the difference between 1st and 2nd.
• In the snatch event, a 5 pound increase (from 95 to 100lb) would have taken a competitor from tied for 20th (with 12 other athletes) to tied for 15th.

In the men’s competition of 52 athletes,
• A 10lb increase in the snatch weight (from 155 to 165lb) represented the difference between being tied for 30th and tied for 20th spot.
• In the wallball-pullup event, 5 consecutive competitors had times separated by just ONE second (13:12, 13:13, 13:14, 13:15, 13:16 – representing the difference between 33rd and 37th place). At the top, the difference between 9th place and 5th place was only 9 seconds.
• In the double under-burpee event, the difference between 5th and 20th place was a mere 23 seconds.

Keeping in mind that every placing in each event was worth an equivalent amount of points (i.e. 33rd place = 33 points), each second and pound possessed huge value to the competitors. Many final placings for athletes were determined by a spread of 3 or fewer points, so 1 second here or there and an extra 5 pounds could have represented the difference between a chance to compete at the Crossfit Games and going back home to plan for next year.

Effort is a part of our training plan – it’s a given factor by nature of the way we train. Rewarding that effort comes in the form of improvements over time in one’s performance as measured by the metrics of the workout. Seconds count. Repetitions count. Weight counts.

Experience with different types of workouts and efficiency of technique help you secure precious points towards your score. Effective pacing and strategy can help you improve your score by governing effort and directing it in the most energy-efficient manner. Solid technique at the start of the workout minimizes unnecessary energy expenditure and holding it through the WOD maximizes your potential for adding important reps under the duress of fatigue.

Keep in mind these points in your next workout as you try to achieve your best performance. Celebrate the winning of seconds, reps, and weight, no matter how small the improvements... because as you now know, they ALL count!

Bring it on!

Once again playing catch up here with documenting my training but today is sort of like the Christmas eve before Christmas eve... well, read on and it'll make more sense.

The Canadian Regional Crossfit champs are one of the final two opportunities to qualify for this year's Crossfit games. Qualifiers have taken place through Asia, Europe, south america, Africa, and through various regions in the States to select the competitor group thus far.

As the competitions have unfolded, crazy workouts performed, amazing scores recorded, and many many inspirational stories told, the nerves have ramped up for those of us waiting to compete this weekend. It will be a test of all our physical skills over 5 events starting Friday evening and running through til Sunday evening.

What will the exact workouts be??? No competitor knows at this point. With Friday looming three days away, not a word has been spoken about the content of the challenges except that skipping ropes will be provided. The workouts are scheduled to be released tomorrow, which I'm sure will result in most of the competitors repeatedly refreshing the crossfitgames.com mainpage on a 30second rotation until they pop up. That's why today is like Christmas eve - the anticipation of the challenges, triumphs, and tragedies that will surely emerge from the hardest of workouts bubbles and tingles on our nerves. It will surely interrupt several sleep cycles tonight.

Rest assured, these will be tough challenges. The "wide funnel" that was the sectional competitions has narrowed significantly in order to filter through only the most complete crossfit athletes out there. Expect the hardest of exercises - overhead squats, muscle ups, squat snatches, rowing, running, handstand pushups etc etc, and the most devilish of combinations. Expect it to be smartly organized though - different time domains will be tested from very short, maximum force output to longer duration, aerobic power efforts. Expect the unexpected also, as it is very unlikely that any of us will have done the specific challenges that will be laid out before us this weekend.

It will all unfold tomorrow, as the genius programming mind of James "OPT" Fitzgerald (winner of 2007 games and top 16 in 2008 and 2009) reveals the workouts. I await the challenge, and look forward to challenging the hardest of tasks. Let no one's weaknesses go unchallenged, no one's strengths left to submaximal efforts.

Give me the hard stuff. Bring it on.


Training Update:

Friday May 21 - CFZ – “Gandalf” – rounds begin every 4 min – 4 rounds of row 250m, 6 c+j (135lb) then 4 rounds of row 250m, 15 wallballs. Combine worst time for each for score (1:20, 1:25, 1:31, 1:33 then 1:30, 1:37, 1:43, 1:40) = 1:33 + 1:43 = 3:13. Rowed too hard, gassed for the second bit :( learned from this one though about pacing, will have to look hard at this in workouts this weekend - how fast can I go to not lose ground but also conserve energy for the other challenges!

Saturday May 22 - Wts @ uvic – squat snatch – 40x3 , 50x3, 60kg x 2. 60kg x 1 rep every 30s for 6 total reps. Deadlift 2’s – 100, 120, 150, 160kg (352lb) then 100kg x 6 fast, 130kg x 2, 100kgx6 fast
Push Press 3’s – 115, 165, 185lb then 165x 6, 165x6
Circuit – 15ghd situps, 20 double unders unbroken, 10 pullups x 4 rounds untimed - this was a good circuit to push my tolerance of ghd situps and to get some practice in on the double unders. Calf felt good after this which is a good sign!

Sunday May 23 - took a day off, was going to run but decided against it, body needed a rest day!

Monday May 24 - CFZ – cl+J 5x1 (185, 195, 205, 215, 215lb), felt good, jerks were really strong. back squat 4x3 ( 225, 245, 245, 225lb) didn't feel so good today, Half Fran (9-7-5 thrusters at 95lb, pullups) time - 1:17, thrusters a bit wonky. Muscle ups – 4 x 4 reps, pull-ups – 23 reps

Run Uvic – 7 x 1 min fast/1-2 min walk/jog. This was my first real attempt to run fast, started strongly and maintained pace well in the minute intervals. Fitness felt fine, no problems there but calf tightened towards the end. Quite sore (6-7/10) today (Tuesday), not happy about that. Hoping for no real "sprint" stuff in the wods or I could be in trouble as i can't run very strongly off my right leg...

Tuesday (today), a bit sore from yesterday in the hamstrings and upper body, hoping to hit the UVic gym in a bit to get some deadlifts, rowing, and skill practice in!

Another update tomorrow with the details of the competition!!!

Cam

Finding Inspiration

At the right time, in the right place. Motivation to train consistently hard and to endure physical discomfort oscillates on 2-3 week periods for me. I wrote previously about how a "why bother" mood had come over me about a week and a half ago and how that affected my training and general mindset going into the Regionals.

Setting a good PR in the Grace workout bumped me up from bottom but a couple of pieces of media really stepped up my motivation to finish off this phase of training and go into the Regionals fired up and ready to take on any challenge.

The first is a video of a runner from the States who sets the American 10k record on the track on his debut at that distance. The announcers and music set the tone of the importance and excitement of the occasion but don't overshadow the amazing running of Chris Solinsky:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kbaj2-_VNMs&feature=player_embedded

To keep that run in perspective, that is 25 laps of the track, averaging around 64 sec per lap and finishing with about a 55sec lap. Very very few people can run a single 55 sec lap, let alone do one after 24 consecutive 64sec laps.

The opportunity presented itself to Chris and he took it wholeheartedly, allowing himself to be excellent. He could have held back, thought "I can't do this in my debut race" or "I'm not supposed to win", but he didn't. He felt the push to go and trusted his body to carry him into the record books.

Just like the first sub 4-minute mile, preconceived notions of what is physically capable can be shattered by the will to seize the moment and remove mental limitations.

The other video is from a recent Crossfit regional competition. It's of the women's competition, from which 4 competitors will advance to the international Crossfit games. The video follows their triumphs and downfalls but is culminated in another display of absolute mind-over-matter power.

http://library.crossfit.com/free/video/Games2010_NorthCentralWomen.mov
OR
http://library.crossfit.com/free/video/Games2010_NorthCentralWomen.wmv"

Again, an individual who looks to be in a challenge over her head does not give up and perseveres against a very tough workout. She could have given up and no one would have blamed her but she chose to be excellent. She chose to show everyone at that competition that size is not a barrier and strength is not dependent on outward appearance.

Seeing both of these stories unfold has renewed my drive and refreshed my view of the upcoming competition. Instead of looking at it as a forum for me to be beaten by guys who are "better than me", I look at it as an opportunity for me to show myself what I am truly capable of. I look towards next week with optimistic eyes and a confidence that no matter what the challenges are that lay ahead, I will complete them to the best of my ability.

At the end of the day, we have a choice to be average, to be afraid, to not accept challenges OR we have the choice to believe in ourselves, push beyond comfort zones, and create situations in which we can be excellent.

9 days til "go time".

Training update:

Monday - Run @ PISE – run flats/ downhills @ 10k pace, walk uphills ~ 20 mins, felt pretty good all things considered

CFZ – OHS 5x3: 75, 105, 125, 145, 155 PR! “the Rabbit” (second go at this one) – 5 x 400m row, 15 burpees, 12:17 PR!

Tuesday - CFZ – “Jordan”
4 rounds for individual time of each round. Each successive round starting on 4 minute intervals. rounds consisted of: x 10 hang squat snatch (95lb) and 15 pullups – times were: 50s, 49s, 55, 56, all sets unbroken

Wednesday - Recovery Run - ran flats and downhills @ 5k pace, walk uphills x 25min. Calves a bit tight but felt pretty good, worked on reliability of stride.

Weights tomorrow and some rowing, then down to 7 days til competition! WODs will most likely be announced this coming Sunday.

Keep fit and have (the) fun!

Cam

Run in with Ronin and a few PR's

Lucas and one of his friends having a discussion



Michelle and I at "the wedding"



Last week was a tough one. Four early mornings (either 530 or 6am wakeup) and full days all the way through til closing the zone at 730/8pm, as well as trying to get through my last true "hard week" before the Canadian champs. That on top of a few stressful things at work made me really happy that I reached Saturday afternoon relatively unscathed and with a few new PR's in my back pocket :)

I think that the forced break I've had from running is making me gain strength more easily, which makes sense - less time spent on low force high volume activity in favor of high force lower volume activity. Looking forward to next year's plan I will be mapping out sections during the year to focus on strength development with maintenance running so that I can maximize my gains. It's brutally hard to gain in all areas at once but if focused work is put in on one or two areas while others are maintained, one could reasonably expect better overall gains through the year... this is of course the idea behind periodization (i.e. the planned organization of training in a progressive manner aimed at developing peak performance during certain phases of the year) and more and more CrossFit athletes appear to be adopting this strategy as the focus on elite competitions increases.

Anyhow, that's probably a topic for another blog, so on to my update of my recent training.

Run in with Ronin

"Ronin" is one of the nicknames of our Crossfit prodigy, Lucas. His other names are Scoots (for his fondness of scooting his body around on a foam/pvc roller), little monkey (for his simian abilities), and my favorite, pumpkin (for his charming demeanor and orangey fur). As I've taken to naming workouts after people in our gym or experiences that I've had, it was only appropriate that I develop a nasty, heavy WOD in honor of Lucas.

Vital components of such a workout would have to be two of the most feared components of wods - heavy thrusters and muscle ups. Lucas excels in both strength work and gymnastics so this was a perfect fit. In most Crossfit workouts, the standard men's thruster weight is 95lb, occasionally going up to 115 or 135 for the heavier ones. I figured this wasn't heavy enough to challenge Lucas, so I made the thruster weight 155lb. Muscle ups are tough but usually most good CF male athletes can rattle off 3-5 in a row during a WOD. Again, this wasn't quite challenging enough and so I decided to have 7 muscle ups per round to test Lucas' ability (and everyone else's of course) to go unbroken. So the full workout ended up looking like this:

"Ronin"
4 rounds for time of:
7 thrusters at 155lb (115lb for the women)
7 muscle ups (14 chest to bar pullups for the women)

One of our best all round CF athletes, Tom, trains early in the day and gave the rest of us a benchmark time (15:58 or so) to chase in the evening. I was highly motivated for this workout and figured on around 12 minutes or hopefully better. I hit the workout in the 430 class alongside a real raw beast, Shane, who will probably be top 4 in our gym if he continues to develop his skills. The workout was tough to say the least, I got to a point several times where I just couldn't complete thrusters or muscle ups but managed to rest appropriately and finish with a decent time - 12:27 or so. My shoulders and legs were rubbished but I was happy with my performance. In competition circumstances I figure I could knock about a minute and a half off that time. Shane did really well finishing in 15 or 16 min.

Lucas popped in later, with all of us anticipating his destruction of his namesake wod. he came in tired and sore from a heavy session earlier that day but after about 45min of "scooting" he plucked up his chest and got into the workout. Set after set came unbroken as Lucas rested perfectly in between thrusters and muscle ups. Towards the end he had to break a bit but we urged him on to get sub 10 minutes. with a few muscle ups to go it looked like he would make it but just missed, finishing around 10:15. A tremendous effort and well worthy of the name Ronin.

I'm looking forward to seeing Lucas and the rest of our gang take on the best in Canada at the Canadian Championships. Lucas has got his training dialed in and is looking good in WODs (no pressure pumpkin if you're reading this!) and the rest of us are well prepped to compete strongly in Okotoks in about 10 days. Should be a great time.

Here's the rundown of the rest of the training I got in this past week:

Wed - "Ronin” – 4 rounds for time of: 7 thrusters (155), 7 muscle ups – 12:27
this wasn't quite fatiguing enough ( ;) ) so after a break of about 10 min I followed it up with some hard rowing - (W/R) – 2/1, 1/1, 2/1, 1/1, 2/1 (1:45ish), 4x 1/1 1:40ish

Thurs - my first venture back into running - very cautious, but felt good - Light run: 50m flat or downhill jog, 100m walk for 20min (10k pace)

Fri - 2 PR's today - first workout at PISE - Wts: snatch 3’s + 1 snatch balance: 30, 40, 50, 60kg. Snatch: 60kg (132lb) x 11 single reps. Deadlifts 3’s: 120, 130, 140, 150, 160, 170kg (374lb) PR really happy with this as I don't deadlift heavy very much!

2nd workout at CFZ - really tough metcon, meant to work on some key skills (handstand pushups - hspu; toes to bar - ttb; heavy kettlebell swings - kbs) and my second go at running at a moderate pace. This wod was named after Heather B's dog, who is a stunning and friendly beast - Tupper: 4 x 10hspu, 15 ttb, 20kbs (unbrkn, 2pd/70lb), 200m run: 18: 56 tough! first set of handstand pushups were strict and a full 10 reps - a PR by 1 rep, but I'll take it!!

Sat - rested, really tired Fri night and all Saturday

Sun - 1st workout at UVic, another personal record! - Wts – cl+j to dmax: 80kg, 90, 100, 105 PB C+J PR!, 85kg x 1 cl, 2 jerks x 5. Bench Press – 3’s 165, 185, 205, 215, 225 x 1 x 4. Back Squats – 3’s 185, 225, 245, 265, 275 x 1 x 4
GHD situps – 15, 12, 9, 6, 3 alternated with 20 du’s, good to test the calf, it feels really good so far :)

2nd workout - 1.5 hour mtb ride at Hartland, forgot my seat, so it was tough! Lots of little lizards scurrying around, all nicely colored and a very beautiful black and yellow garter snake, about 12-14" long. Pretty neat.

That's it for now, another more serious run workout tomorrow morning and a rowing/burpee metcon at the zone in the PM.

Cam

Some Pics from the BC's

Just thought I'd post some pics from the championship, I like to look at them from time to time to get myself psyched for the upcoming Regionals... sometimes I remember the pain though :( haha.



405 deadlift



the Zone team



running with that fricking ball :(



my friend Christoph leading the run



Deanna mid-clean



Lucas big squat



Friend/old rugby foe Garth limbering up



Big Jer dropping 415 (after he lifted it!!)



Krista swinging a KB like it's nothing ;)



in the mix



another one of the gang



Heather swinging the KB in the second wod, Donald and I will her on



Steve "the Beast" in recovery mode



Happy days



My coach and manager



600lb deadlift? No problem...

More memories, triumphs, and sweat to come in a couple weeks!

Swimmers, CrossFit Whistler, Grace

Spent the week of May 3-7th up at Whistler with some of our top National Team swimmers, including Beijing 08 Olympians Ryan Cochrane (bronze medal) and Alexa Komarnycki. My purpose up there was to warm them up pre-swim, watch and learn at their swim sessions, then challenge them with some outdoor adventure activities...

As you can imagine, the latter task was the most fun and gave me lots of insight into how fit these athletes actually are. Tuesday dawned bright and crisp and the chosen activity for the afternoon was mountain biking. I had a trail map of the lost lake trails and info on rental bikes (although Michelle had brought along her awesome specialized fsr-xc and I had my trusty RM Fusion). I wasn't sure what to expect on the trails but once the gang had hooked up their brand new specialized 2010 rentals, we were all in for a real treat.

The start of the ride on the day was Tin Pants - Donkey Puncher - Tommy Moore - Hooktender... and boy were those trails sweet. Usually you wouldn't hear me praise crushed-gravel trails but these were/are the sweeeeetest crushed gravel singletrack trails you would ever wish to see. There were some vicious climbs but the gravel allowed for pure expression of fitness as very little skill was required... no scrambling over roots or rocks to get in the way of steady pedal cadence.

Of course when you have a pack of athletes used to 4+ hours a day of aerobic and anaerobic interval training breathing down your neck, the focus is just on keeping the legs moving to stay ahead! Fortunately the gang didn't have a whole lot of technical riding experience so I was able to get some separation on the flowy twisty downhills :)

At the end of Hooktender, which is a massive descent, the choice is to either head back to the village via paved flat trails, or turn around and head right back up from where we came... this being a "fitness" activity, I selected the latter, so we pointed our bikes uphill and started to hammer. This time, Ryan Cochrane was on my rear wheel and let me tell you that bastard has capacity!! All the way up the grind I could feel his front tire about 6" behind my back tire and in spite of screaming quads and heavy breathing, I pushed and kept ahead to the top of the climb (in hindsight he probably could have passed me easily but seeing as I was the "guide" I think he held back haha). From there a nice up and down then descent to Lost lake beach via Molly Hogan ended the ride for the bulk of the gang.

On a $100 bet, one of the swimmers stripped down to his Aspen style biker shorts and swam out to the dock and back... bananas! A few of us, Michelle included, headed back up to try a few more trails, and in spite of severe fatigue through the legs and sore crotches all around, we made it up Tin Pants and then down some slightly more challenging routes.

All in all a great ride and if you're in whistler, an activity not to be missed. I will mention also the power of crossfit in that context - Michelle and I were both able to keep up with some very talented athletes and the lactic acid tolerance and leg strength we always work on through crossfit is one of the major reasons why we could do so... yeah budday!

The other activities included indoor rock climbing (terrible gym up there, sucked except for the boulder routes), Wildplay adventure course (absolutely awesome while scaring the crap out of me, we should do a crossfit trip to this), and two visits to Jordan G's CrossFit Whistler.

Jordan's gym is tucked away under the marketplace in Creekside and is a sweet little box that is so emblematic of crossfit roots. Imagine the same floor space as at the zone but arranged in one long corridor about 12-15feet wide. Interesting space but nicely arranged with in-ceiling pullup bars.

Jordan is an awesome guy and was really accomodating and helpful in getting the swim group in there to crush some wods. I trained at CFW myself on their open gym night (Thursdays) and met a few members who were all cool people. Anyone who is up in Whistler and wants to train should look up Jordan and CFW... on a side note, Jordan competed really strongly in the BC sectionals and will be out in Calgary cheering on and supporting a friend of his, Steve Howell, a legitimate contender for a spot at the games.

lastly, I programmed Grace in for Monday of this week as part of the process of moving towards WODS that focus on a high rate of work as we approach regionals. I've been feeling a bit out of it training-wise recently with some disruptions to my regular routine and have even had a few "why bother" moments... you know those moments when you think about how tough the competition is going to be so why bother training hard since I'm not going to be able to compete with the top dogs. It's a bad way to think and I'm not proud that I had those thoughts but I'm getting through that and re-focusing on the task at hand.

Sometimes the best way to get rid of those thoughts is to lay down a super-solid, legit time on one of the big WODs. Grace was an opportunity then for me to show myself that I belong with the big guns that I'll be facing at the Regionals. I set my goal at getting under 2:30 for the 30 floor to overheads (i.e. power clean to push presses) that I would complete in the workout. I knew the rep splits I needed to achieve and I had a decent enough warm-up. Blasted away out of the gate but unfortunately missed my first rep target of 15 consecutive without letting go of the bar (got 13). From my research, anyone who hits 20 in a row is going to go about 1:30, so I figured 15-17 would be in the 2-2:30 range.

I got a bit herky jerky through the late teens and early 20 reps and reduced down to doubles to finish, 2:35. A PR by 38seconds, which is a big jump in such a short workout, but I have more in me. The good news is (besides it being a PR) that I wasn't all that tired overall, it was just the muscular endurance in my grip and shoulders that kept me from going faster.

With that time under my belt, I feel better and although a faster time would have been awesome, I know that I'm sitting in a decent position going into the last two and a bit weeks of training.

Here's a summary of the last 10 day's workouts:

Tuesday May 4: 2.5 hour (hard!) mtb ride in tha whis - killed us all off for the rest of the afternoon/evening and even into the following days!

Wed May 5: Clean+J 3’s then singles up to 100kg/220lb (105kg/230 x miss x 2). 2 x 80kg c +3 jerks. BS 3’s 80,90,100, 120/264lb, 110kg, BP 3’s 185, 205, 225, 215

Light climb in evening

Thursday May 6: at CFW: Snatch to daily max: 95, 110, 120, 132, 143lb good and easy.
4 x 10 hang squat snatch and 10pullups back to back, 90% recovery between pairings (3-5 min), 1 x 14 hs snatch and 12 pullups to finish. Felt really good on the snatches, dropped into the groove consistently well throughout. Grip was the limiting factor.

Friday May 7: 60 min mtb ride with Michelle - some tough bits but we were tired!!!

Saturday: rest

Sunday: Row intervals: work/rest - 1min/1min, 2/1, 3/2, 2/1, 1/2, 3/1, 2/1, 20 max srokes to finish.

Monday: CFZ - work up to heavy single power clean + pushpress/ jerk: 165,185, 205, 215lb
Grace: 2:35 PR!!
Pull-ups: 10, 15, 4x20 (full rest) - 105 total, added up quick
OHS: 5x5 up to 2x5 @ 115lb

Tuesday: Wts at PISE - Front Squat 5’s then 3’s 40, 50, 60, 80, 90kg/198lb x 3reps x 4sets BP 3’s 165, 185, 205 x 3 x 4, GHD 4x12 (worked on speed), GHR 4 x 6 assisted

That's it for now gang, hoping to double tomorrow with some rowing and a really tough heavy metcon at the zone in the evening...

Cam

Catch - up, Injury, the Rabbit

Okay, so it's been a while so this will be short to document my training over the past couple of weeks. I've got 3 weeks and two days until the Canadian CF Champs so am starting to get half nervous half amped up!!!! Have had a few interruptions as follows:

1. Did my calf in while running some fast intervals, pulled it just below the lateral head of the gastroc, really painful but no bruising. It's been 12 days and it's really starting to come along since I've not been doing any running, jumping, hopping or skipping. Getting advice from my AT as to the best return strategy from here. I've been keeping the cardio through regular exposure to my friend the rowing erg as well as the usual mix of crossfit metcons - just need to regain the stride efficiency of running so that I can capitalize on my running focus of the past 6-8 months!

2. Three trips and a wedding. Needless to say, all were good (especially the wedding!!!) but gave me a bit of trouble with scheduling workouts. I'm on the third trip right now but it's with a group of National Team swimmers (including three Olympians) and I'm leading them on various dryland training excursions in Whistler. Needless to say, I'm trying my hardest to stay at the head of the pack! Hoping to pop in to CF Whistler for a WOD this week.

The Rabbit.

One of the best things about having a girlfriend that is fit and likes CF is that she will WOD with you and push you when you're tired. Michelle is great at this and is equal parts coach, motivator, and training partner. She's really hitting her stride with training and has kept her goal of getting in three CF wods per week for the past month - as we all know, 3 WODs executed well is a pretty powerful stimulus! She's hitting PR's regularly and her technique is improving steadily.

Competition in training is a key motivating factor and when in and around CFZ, this competition comes easily as there are many talented and fit guys/gals to compare with. When traveling and training in globogyms, it isn't as easy to motivate oneself to hit burpees and rowing and thrusters etc. This is where the rabbit comes in.

Last Sunday Michelle and I visited william griffin rec centre in North Van (a great rec centre with bumpers and lots of squat racks and rowers etc... a rarity!). The goal was a two part wod - strength work first ( I did 4x10 thrusters and 5x3 deadlifts, she did 5-7x3 clean and jerks and 5x5 deadlifts). We both hit respectable numbers:

Me: Thrusters - up to 152lb for 10 unbroken reps, up to 335 x 3 in the deads
Michelle: up to a PR of 93lb in the C+J, up to a 5 rep PR of 165lb in the deads!

Then it was metcon time. I wanted rowing and burpees, Michelle was awesome in that she instantly agreed to get into it with me. I wanted a WOD in which we could compete directly with each other so we came up with this idea:

"The Rabbit"
Me: 5 rounds of 400m row, 15 burpees
Michelle: 5 rounds of 300m row, 10 burpees
(in hindsight we should have either done the same amount of burpees OR the same distance of rowing, but as my brother often says, hindsight is 20/20!!)

Since I outweigh Michelle by about 50lb, rowing should be easier for me. Burpees aren't easier but I felt that having had quite a bit of exposure to the rowing erg I would be less fatigued going in. I was wrong of course.

Michelle took an early lead with a quick 300m row and went right into the burpees. The start was as close as I ever got as she stayed consistently ahead of me in spite of having a battle with the "I want to quit" demons early in the second round.

When the dust and sweat droplets settled, Michelle came in around 11.5 minutes, with me about a minute behind. In spite of the difference in times, it was a great motivator for me to keep trying to catch her up and for her to keep ahead of my hulking, sweating, worm-burpee-ing bod.

I wouldn't have trained nearly as hard without her and this was not the first time that that was the case. She has been and I'm sure will continue to be my closest and most consistent supporter and workout partner, and I couldn't be more happy for it :)

Other training of note:

Tuesday April 20 - Back Squat 3’s- 225,245, 265, 225; Floor Press 5’s- 165,185, 205, 215 then did "Franata", tied Lucas (aka pumpkin aka scoots aka ronin). wrecked quads for about 4 days.

Wednesday April 21 - Snatch tech and strength in the AM, hang power cleans and rowing in CFZ wod (RowBots) in the pm. Awesomely fun 3 min "extra" row at the end as part of games prep

Thursday April 22 - 4x3 min running intervals, did calf in at end of 4th interval. Limped painfully home

Friday April 23 - CFZ wod – Mutiny – 4 rounds of 500m row, 15 pullups, 15 burpees, 15 wallball (18:10) need to get faster on burpees!

Saturday April 24 - Wts: squat clean +push press – up to max (50,60,70, 80, 90, 100kg clean, 95kg (210lb) clean + pp big PR (by 15lb) on the push press!, 3 x 80kg sclean combined with 3 push presses), deadlifts x 3 120, 140, 150, 160kg (352)x2, bp 3’s 165, 185, 205, 215, 225, 185x10

Sunday April 25 - Cfz wts: snatch balance and ssnatch – 75, 95, 115, 135, 150 PR!!! Good tech
Heels over head – 5 x 5hspu, 10 ttb: 5:36.

Monday April 26 - Cfz wod: Fsquat 5x1 (up to 225, miss 240), Baseline 3:47 PR!!, 4:07 second one, big stimulus as it absolutely wrecked me for a while - more on this later

Tuesday April 27 - Cfz wod: The complaint – 10min amrap: 3muscle up’s, 7 thrusters @ 135 (5 rounds +4reps) then 10 min 10pullups, 10 wallball’s – (7rounds +10reps) 204 total - great WOD to cover a lot of bases prior to a short trip away!

Wed and Thursday - rest while at a conference in Calgary

Friday April 30 - Wgriffin RC in north van: BackSquat 7x3 up to 2x130kg (286), Push Press 7x3 up to 90kg x 1 then 3x3 @ 85. BP 3’s up to 195 then 205x6. Wtd pull-ups 3’s to +60lb then 6x45lb.
Row: 6x 2min on/2min off (1st warmup – 520, 578, 573, 573, 568, 566, 4x10 ghd mixed in between the last 4 row intervals). Rows crushed me in this workout :(

Saturday May 1 - my bro's wedding - lots of standing, talking, eating, and general good times :)

That's it for now, going to make it more regular as I approach regionals.

Keep fit and have fun

Cam.

"the will to win is nothing without the will to prepare" - OPT

A minor setback, time to get back on track...

Update update update...

After a tough week of squatting heavy and training hard, my hip decided it had enough and shut down on Saturday morning. I had a weird arcing pain through my glute, groin, and all down my left leg... must have pinched a nerve or something. It hurt to sit down and pretty much move in any direction, which was none too nice.

Sunday was the second go around of our Affiliate team tryouts - we're putting a team into the Canadian regional crossfit championships for a chance to get into the crossfit games team competition. I was really looking forward to the workouts (there were 3 in the span of as many hours) but my hip kept me on the sidelines, or more correctly, in the role of head judge!

Everyone hit the workouts really well, with PB's all over the place. Check http://crossfitzone.ca/crossfit-affiliates-watch-out for more of an in-depth look at the events of the day.

After helping Michelle move and forcing my body to lift, twist, and bend, my hip was starting to feel better. I hopped into the hot tub for a good 45min for some stretching and woke up Monday morning feeling ready to go!! I guess it just needed to settle down a bit or maybe the nerve got back into place...

So that meant two days completely off training, which then means I have some catching up to do.

Monday was a running day - I wanted to get 8x300m repeats with 2min rest in between done. I feel that's a good distance for me for speed endurance work without being super taxing. After a nice 15 minute warm-up through some trails by PISE, I got a solid 7 reps in before my right calf tightened. I finished the session with a good 8 min tempo run.

The plan was to do a double workout and get down to the zone in the evening but I got home after work and crashed. I figured that wasn't going to happen so I stayed away from the gym for the first day in about three weeks!

Today I hit the 430 workout (called "KyleNESS" after one of our prominent members) at the zone and combined it with the workout from Monday. The result was:

Back squat 4x3 reps: 225,245,265,225
Floor press 4x5 reps: 165,185,205,215

then from Monday's workout - "Franata" - which is alternating work periods of thrusters (front squat to press) and pullups, on a ratio of 20s work, 10s rest for 4 complete work intervals each. It went really well, a lot better than the last time I had gone through it:

Thrusters - 9,9,8,8 reps @ 95lb
Pullups - 16,14,11,10

Immediately after that, I hit another four work intervals of bodyweight squats, getting 16-18 per round.

My Franata score ties me for first on the leaderboard, which I am pretty happy with since it's Lucas (the guy who came 2nd in the BC Champs) in first and he is a beast at both thrusters and pullups. I have a feeling he'll get a few more reps next time though!

Tomorrow I'm looking to do a double workout - snatch, clean+jerk technique, handstand pushups and overhead squats in the early afternoon then the rowing portion of the workout at Crossfit Zone in the evening. It's much easier to get the rowing work done in a group setting so I'm looking forward to it!!

That's it for now...

A Date with Diane, New Ergs, Clock Malfunction

Ahhhh yes, Diane... one of the very few ladies I had yet to attempt to conquer. Monday was my first real opportunity and I'll admit I had a small amount of trepidation. Diane consists of 21-15-9 rep rounds of 225lb deadlift and handstand pushups (hspu). Deadlifts I can do, and the goal was to get all reps of them unbroken. HSPU on the other hand are not my strength - after a certain number of reps my shoulders just seem to lock up. Fortunately I have learned how to "kip" with the legs out of the bottom position, which if you time it juuuuusssst right, it makes the hspu infinitely easier.

That being said, I was never going to come close to hitting 2 minutes-ish like Pat "the Manimal" Barber (CrossFit superhero) but the benefit of doing a WOD for the first time ensures that you'll hit a PB no matter what!!

I started strongly, hitting 21 straight reps of deads then right into the hspu. The key for me is to conserve energy on these and not go to failure. I ended up getting through the 21 fairly well, then got 15 deadlifts unbroken. At that point, the wheels kinda fell off on the hspu and I had to chip away at 1-3 reps at a time. 9 more straight deadlifts, then what felt like 30 min to get the last hspu done. time:
13:23, not blazing by any means but I've come a long way since only being able to do 1 hspu about a year ago. Something to improve upon.

Other Monday training - earlier in the day I hit one of my favorite running interval workouts (I've pretty much dropped all steady state running in favor of short to long intervals). It's a combo of 3,2, and 1 minute intervals:

3 min @ 80% effort, 1min rest, 2min @ 90% effort, 1 min rest, 1min @ 95ish effort, 2 min rest. I usually do three cycles through that sequence although this past Monday I had to squeeze it in between some appointments and only got 2 cycles plus another 3 min done. I like this workout because each cycle builds on the speed of the 1 mins and pushes the intensity up each round.

Tuesday was an unintentional rest day, but a great day for the Zone... I managed to swing 6 ergs from Rowing Canada at bargain prices!! Michelle and I took them apart, bundled them into the CSCP truck and my trusty Cavalier, and shipped them down to the Zone. Now our erg fleet is up to 8 machines, with possibly 2 more to come. This is awesome and awful at the same time - we now can do more rowing as a group, and we now have no excuse NOT to do more rowing.

There is power in unified rowing and we found that out on Wednesday night when we lined up all 8 ergs for 8 repeats of 30s on, 30s off for max total metres. This was part of a WOD named after Olympic gold medallist, Andrew Byrnes, and also included working up to a 3 rep max in the front squat and push press. One of the ergs we brought in is actually the very same machine that Andrew trained on leading up to the Beijing Olympics, which is pretty cool to say the least. We also have an erg that Doug Vandor (perennial top national team lightweight rower) trained on before Beijing.

Being that some of us are in "games prep" mode for the Regionals at the end of May, we got the special treat of doing the 8x 30/30 TWICE! For the duration of the workout, I was spurred on by Steve "the beast" Solely, whose effort in training is second only to his rapier wit ;). For the second row, I had on my right the "delicate flower" herself, Krista Kitson, who was putting it ALL into those row intervals... we should have made an audio tape of the second row - sounded like the "monkey house" at the local zoo.

I managed only to drop off by 72m from the first to the second row, which wasn't too shabby, here's a summary of the day's training:

11am: Mobility work and Snatch tech
Snatch balances (3 reps) alternated with squat snatches (2 reps) from the floor: 7-8 sets from 40kg to 60kg

530pm: CFZ "andrew byrnes"
4x3 front squat - 165, 185, 205, 215
4x3 push press - 135, 155, 175, 185 (should have pushed this more, probably had 195/200 in me)
8 x 30/30 #1: 1480m total
Overall Score: 1880
8 x 30/30 #2: 1408m total

1880 was good enough for second on our leaderboard - big Jer Bear destroyed the row with a monster 1549 total m, surprise surprise. This is the same Jer who owned the 2k row at the BC sectionals with a 6:29.9 clocking... deadly.

Thursday was a chance to catch up on the wod I missed on Tuesday - the Helenator. Based off the classic crossfit workout "Helen" (3 rounds for time of 400m run, 21 kettlebell swings (55lb), 12 pullups), my version was geared to a bit more running and a few more pullups:

5 rounds for time of:
15 kettlebell swings (55lb)
200m run
15 pullups
200m run

I had intended on most people wrapping this wod up in around 14-17 minutes but most spirits were crushed with the majority of people being over 20minutes (one person at 29!!! that's savage). Tommy J had the best time on Tuesday with a bit over 15 minutes and I figured I could top that by running fast and staying really consistent with my pullups.

The rest of the class was doing snatch technique so I looked at the timing clock and when it hit 5 minutes I started my workout. It went well, all kettlebell swings unbroken, first three rounds of pullups unbroken (then 10/5 after that), and I kept a decent pace on the runs, picking it up on the parking lot and trying to keep the legs stretching on the downhill back to the gym. Unfortunately, I had set the clock earlier for 16 minutes so when it hit that time(at beginning of my 5th round) it stopped, much to my chagrin. I figured I had four rounds done at 16 min on the clock (11min total time of my workout since I started 5 min in) so can only guess that my time was around 14 minutes... but i can't on good conscience record that on the leaderboard! Oh well, bad luck, I'll have to do it again - and faster!!

All in all, the week has gone well with training so far. I'm looking to do a double tomorrow - cleans, back squats, bench press, ghd's tomorrow midday and a tough metcon tomorrow night (4 rounds for time of 5 muscle ups, 30 double unders, 20 double crunches). Rest on Saturday (or a light row) then affiliate team tryouts on Sunday... good times!

Keep fit and have fun...

Cam

Exercise tourette's syndrome, 500 row pb, lying down for time

Pic of me just post 500m row

Catching up on the weekend of training...

Saturday mornings I train a triathlon group at PISE from 830-930am, which unfortunately conflicts with Sat am classes at the zone. I usually can get down there for 10am, which is the second class, and help run that plus run the "Intro to CrossFit" session at 11. This Saturday, it was the "post" part of the Kelly workout challenge, so I figured I'd catch up on the row + pullup/burpee workout from the day before... I hadn't done a 500m in a while so thought that would be a good one to hit up.

I warmed up for about 15 min while cheering on my friends and was ready to try out a shortened stroke rowing technique I'd seen on youtube a while back. Basically for a short distance like the 500, if you're fit enough, you can do away with the "length" part of the rowing stroke and just hammer away at 40-50 strokes per minute. Note the disclaimer - if you're fit enough! I've seen a lot of "fly - and - dies" using this technique so you still have to control your energy output.

Anyways........ my previous personal best was 1:28.5, not too shabby but I knew I could do better. I got myself amped up, blocked the front and back of the erg with some weight plates, then 3,2,1 GO I hammered off the start. I was hitting 1:18 and 1:19 splits early on, a good sign. I eased off a little but kept the splits at <1:25>

I end up either just yelling with exertion, or better yet, swearing at the bar/exercise/whatever I'm doing. I figure it's got something to do with pent up emotions, but fortunately in CrossFit we let each other do all sorts of crazy things, so it just helps me fit in better ;) In my Saturday row, the yelling started at the end of each stroke from that 250m mark and got progressively louder and louder. I tried to suppress it but just couldn't. It felt like I wasn't pulling hard at all but I was still sitting 1:31-1:33 towards the end.

With 10m left, my "exercise tourette's" kicked in even more and I let out a very loud "F**K YOU!" to the rower and sailed into the finish.... 1:25.9. Everyone had a good laugh as apparently they had stopped to watch me when the yelling started mid-race. I apologized for my obscenity, which drew even more laughs. Good times overall though, a nice PB and incredible lung burn that lasted a good 30 min.

My recovery period took a bit too long and I had to run the intro (which also went long as the guy who did the baseline tapped out at the pushups and laid down for 28.5 min - I timed him in true crossfit fashion haha). I headed home disappointed that I didn't do the remainder of the workout (50 chest to bar pullups followed by 50 burpees).

Fortunately, later that day Michelle and I finished test driving cars and i felt inspired to do the rest of the wod.... well, actually I had just intended on doing the pullups when I first showed up. Quick 10 minute warm up, chalked up, hit the bar for the pullups, looking to put in a decent time. These were chest-to-bar pullups, so just like it sounds, my chest had to physically contact the pullup bar on each rep, which demands a much stronger pull and can be tricky to coordinate. Didn't start well with my arms still fatigued from the row experience early in the day but paced well through the middle and finished the pullups at 3:30 ish. With michelle urging me on, I got right into the burpees, ending up finishing the whole deal at 6:38, a 1:12 improvement over my last time and just :01 better than my buddy TeeJ!

Also trained Sunday night LAAATE (get 'em in when you can!), so here's a summary of the weekend's workouts:

Saturday 1030am: 500m row, damper at 6.5, 1:25.9 (PB by 2.6 sec!!!)

Saturday 6:30pm: OPT pullup and burpee wod: 50 ctb pullups, 50 burpees - 6:38 (PB by 1:12!!)

Sunday 9:45pm: Squat Snatches - 3x65, 3x75, 3x95, 2x115, 2x125, 1x135, 1x145 miss, 1x150 miss, 2 x 125

Front Squats - 3 x 135, 3x185, 1x205, 1x215, 1x235 (belt), 3x190, 3x190

All in all, not a bad weekend, til next time!

Cam

Training Friday April 9

Had to work on some strength and power work today, it's been a while since I worked on squat cleans, jerks, back squats etc. These movements are foundational to my training plan as they develop the raw physical ability to produce force.

With the addition of conditioning work across several time domains, as well as power endurance exercises, I can transfer this raw ability into good performances in crossfit workouts. The goal of these sessions then is twofold - firstly to increase my capability to produce force in basic structural exercises and also to hone technique for the best efficiency of movement.

Training:

Squat Clean and Jerk - 3x40kg, 3x50kg, 3x60kg, 2x70kg, 2x80kg, 1x90kg x 3 sets

Back Squats - sets of 3 reps - 80kg, 90kg, 100kg x 3 sets

Close Grip Bench press - sets of 3 reps - 155lb, 185lb, 195lb, 205lb

Overhead Squats - sets of 4 reps - 30kg, 40kg, 50kg, 60kg x 2 sets

This workout is easing me back into strength work, I will look to really ramp up the poundages as soon as possible, with the goal of hitting 105-110kg in the clean and jerk, 135kg for 3 in the squat, 225 for 3 in the close grip bench, and 80kg+ for a single in the overhead squat.

Training Thurs April 8

I always like when crossfit workouts recur. It gives me a chance to gauge my improvements in fitness and gives me targets to beat. I scheduled "Road Runner" for today, a workout that we've done twice before at CrossFit Zone but that I had not yet done. I knew it would be a good one to test myself with as some of the guys who had done it before had put up some pretty good times.

I decided to try my new New Balance shoes out... they're much lighter than my Adidas trail shoes plus the Adi's are showing significant wear. My right calf has been giving me trouble when I run and row so maybe a change in shoes will help?

Anyhow, here's what went down:

Road Runner:
Run 800m
30 sumo deadlift high pulls (sdhp) @ 95lb
run 400m
20 sdhp
run 200
10 sdhp

I ran the first 800 a little too easy, came in at 2:45 or so, with my PB on the street course being 2:30. Aside from that, hit it all pretty hard, found the anger on the second round of sdhp's, started throwing the bar around, good times.

Finish time: 7:38, all time rank - #1 as seen on www.myfrantime.com ... short but sweet, good lung burn and arm pump

Felt good to put up a good time, sub 6:45 is definitely possible though - target for next time!

Daily Training

So... it's been a few months and I've only posted one blog so I figured at the very least I should post my daily training just to keep the blogs flowing a bit more regularly. I placed 14th in the BC CrossFit sectionals a couple of weekends ago, which means I am now training for the Canadian Regionals that will be held in Calgary at the end of May. I'm hoping to put up a blog about my Sectionals experience with pics soon.

Moving forward, I have a little over 7 weeks to prepare for regionals. I feel that the most important thing for me to work on is developing more power in workouts - the ability to do the work of the wod quicker. I feel my ability to sustain a submaximal pace is pretty good but I really need to have the ability to put the pedal to the metal in some of the shorter metcons. My strength was shown to be a bit of a weakness in the sectionals, so I'll also be focusing on a 4-week block of some pretty heavy strength work.

Training from Wed April 7:

11:30am - Rowing - 4 x 1000m, 5 min rest interval. DF - 125

#1 - 3:36 sr 28

#2 - 3:34 sr 29

#3 - 3:28.6 sr 30

#4 - 3:34 sr 30

followed by: GHD situps, 4x8 (just to get back into these)

As per usual, my stroke rate drifted up over the intervals. All intervals were done with a race start but no ramped finish.

6:30pm - CrossFit Zone WOD - "the LIZ"

3 part workout - 5x4 Deads for top weight, 4x4 hang squat snatch for top weight, 4 min max double unders

Deadlift - 315 (just didn't feel right so didn't go heavier)

HSS - 115 (grip limits pull)

DU's - 240

total score - 670. Not a bad little strength stimulus, worked on accuracy and getting under the bar in the HSS.

Cam

Welcome

hmmmmm the inaugural post, what to write? it's so pivotal, setting the basis for all that's to come... well in reality probably not since no one will bother to scroll back so far to the first post unless they have way too much time on their hands. so here goes.

fitness and life to me are intertwined, and have been for a long time. from soccer and baseball at a young age, to basketball in high school, to rugby for 13 years, to drop in and pick up sports, to mountain biking, bmx racing, golf, tennis, ping pong, climbing, trail running, crossfit, and to the millions of random challenges my brother and I will compete in, fitness and sport have always been there.

in times that weren't so happy, times of frustration, anger, depression, sadness and mental strain, exercise has been there for me. the wind in my face, the sweat on my brow, the beat of my heart, the straining of my lungs, and the contraction of my muscles transport me away from daily troubles with splashes of endorphins and focus on the task at hand.

exercise and the pursuit of athletic excellence and fitness have taught me many things about myself. physical challenges have told me I have limits, then have turned around and convinced me that my abilities know no bounds. exercise has torn my body down and then built it back up. it is true that the body really is the only machine that gets better the more you use it.

likewise the mind thrives in a healthy and vibrant body. mens sana in corpore sanum. sound mind in a sound body. the higher my fitness gets, the more clear, creative, and numerous my thoughts.

we are built to move. we are built to think and create. this blog will share some of my expressions of how we should move, in addition to some of my thoughts on training and life.

hope you enjoy your stay.

Cam