Spring Time, Fresh Class, more Kettlebells and Wallballs

First Xfit class of 2016, its been a while since I coached a class. I have a great group for this spring class, everyone is eager to learn and trusted me enough to smash their shins on the box going for a max box jump.

yesterdays WOD was a running baseline that I borrowed from my coach.

Running Baseline
400m run
40 squat
30 situps
20 pushups
10 pullups

Jenny ended up taking the box jump with a 34" leap, and Carrie took the baseline with a 4:58 RX

Pain without gains

 This year marks six years since I found Crossfit. The fitness revolution that changed my life for the better. Right away when I started training huge gains came fast. I quickly became the strongest in the gym at the deadlift. Since then , as with most things in my life, have fallen off track and came back. With all of this on and off training the hardest thing I find is dial back my intensity upon returning to training. Often I jump back in, were I started and injure myself in the process. starting the cycle over. Currently I am recovering from a triceps strain. I am working on slowly returning to my training. Time is the main ingredient in recovering from a muscle strain. My plan, so far has consisted of 3 weeks off, and now I have started at 10% of what I was doing before. Basically, preventing any more muscle wasting that has already occurred. at this point, I plan to progress, by 10% a week. Hopefully in 10 weeks I will be at 100%, and get back after my goals. Unfortunately I have decided not to compete in the BC strongest man competition in June, because of my injury. Currently my plan is to drop some body fat that has incurred during my long winter hibernation.


MOBILITY -->

 This weeks song is an oldie, but one of the best songs for pumping you up for a big lift!

P.O.D - Boom!

 This weeks fitness idol is Dr. Fred Hatfield or Dr.Squat. One of the most influential people in fitness history.I cannot write a better bio on Dr.Squat, than the one already on his website, so click his name and check him out.

Another attempt

I have been thinking of things important to me since I fell off my last attempt at daily blogging. So I am planning to try and get in a weekly blog that will include; a mobility video, a weekly workout song, a weekly fitness Idol and hopefully some other content, yet to be determined.

The Mobility is going to start with MWOD, and I hope to evolve it as I go along. The weekly workout song is for you, my readers that are on the lookout for workout tunes, maybe you haven't heard them before, or maybe you forgot how awesome they where. The fitness Idol, will be just that, someone who has made amazing contributions to fitness.

This weeks mobility video, starts out where Kelly Starret started the famous MWOD. On Video number one!

Weekly Workout song this week, is my 4 year old son's favorite. Juicy J, Wiz Khalifa, Ty Dolla $ign - Shell Shocked ft. Kill The Noise & Madsonik

Pavel Tsatsouline is this weeks fitness Idol. Pavel is credited by some as the person who brought Kettlebells' to North America. Pavel has a few books that can be found at Amazon.
 

Last blog I posted was for the Whole Life Challenge and that was a great kickstart. Of course, after straining my right triceps things really fell apart. First training fell of the rails, then nutrition went out the window too. I really love cheese, and 8 weeks without cheese proved to be too many. So, now I have gained back some of what I lost, but things are back on track. I will be hitting some kettlebell training after I finish this post, and working on my conditioning and mobility for the long run.

Goals!

I mentioned in the Holiday update post, that everyone should have goals. I have been really trying to lead by example lately. As most of you know, I am doing a 5050 Burpee Challenge, but I have also asked that as many people as possible join me. I have heard one excuse that I feel I need to respond to. It was "I can't do it because the CrossFit Open is starting soon" Well... I think that is a pretty lame excuse. Really if you wanted to, you could program your burpees throughout the day to avoid fatigue, or you could program the majority of your burpees after your open workout, giving yourself as much time to recover for the next open wod as possible... I never said you had to do burpees every day. So to prove my lead by example, I have signed up for the open. 

Here I go with some goals, I'll list them here, please feel free to ask me my progress to keep me accountable. You can also post your goals to comments if you would like me to keep you accountable. 

Strict Paleo diet for 90 days (Due April 7, 2013)
I should mention That I started on January 6, so today marks 30 days clean. This is very strict, were I am not drinking any alcohol. I have no intention of losing weight; I have lost 5lbs but this isn't on purpose, i am trying to maintain as much weight as possible so I don't lose strength.

Complete 5050 Burpee Challenge (Due May 11, 2013)
I started the movement, I believe it is my responsibility to lead the pack. 

Complete all CrossFit Open workouts (Due April 7, 2013)
I signed up, and I want to follow through and complete all open wods. Up to this point I don't believe I have finished the open workouts any year.

If you want to register for the open, you can do that here.

Lifting Goals
Deadlift - 560lbs - (May 18, 2013)
Squat - 400lbs - (May 18, 2013)
Jerk - 265lbs - (May 18, 2013)

Please create your own goals, and make them happen! 

 Meanwhile, here is some inspiration 

New T-shirt Logo for 2013!

I have been working on a new logo for a little while now, finally I added it to my store. As I have mentioned before any money from the sales of these shirts goes into Cannon Strength & Conditioning. This includes but is not limited to buying equipment, setting up a brick and mortar business, and education. By Purchasing Cannon Strength & Conditioning you are supporting my dream of owning a gym and running it full time. This year I  made four sales in my online store, this is less than I would have liked, but I haven't been promoting enough either. 

Moving forward I  promise to make at least one post a month. the contents of which will be a combination of what is happening in my little gym, news related to the fitness industry, and anything else that seems to be running through my head.

Today, More heavy lifting.

 After a weekend of horrible eating... I mean delicious, but horrible. I had a really rough Monday, so I pushed back my squat deadlift day to today. My stomach feels better, but felt a little drained had only 4 egg muffins for breakfast. 

My calf is still injured from practicing POSE, obviously not practicing correctly. I hope that my Calf feels better for Thursday, so I can try again. But I will only do 100m sprints this week and progress slowly.

Squat

135 x 5

225 x 5

305 x 5

225 x 5

 Deadlift

225 x 5

315 x 5

425 x 5

425 is harder than I remember it being... I went to a power lifting grip for my heavy set. My goal is slowly getting closer, I still plan to hit 500 x 5 but it might be harder than first thought.

I really need to tighten up my diet if I am going to keep hitting PR's It is always the weekend that is hard on me. During the week I can control myself.

Training Log 2012-03-05

Today I started my new program, The only reason I changed it was because I was running out of time during my lunch hour. Three Lifts was too many for one 1 hour session. 

Starting from were I left of, as I am continuing my current rep and set formula. Today was;

Warmup 500m row - 1:38.8 (26spm) Warm but not beat down, will need to test 500m row in a few weeks.

Squat 135 x 5, 225 x 5, 295 x 5 x 3 (3 working sets of 5 reps at 295, PR!) Left adequate time between sets allowing for another set. Should get some serious adaptation from this.

Deadlift 225 x 5, 315 x 5, 415 x 5 DOHG (pretty sure this is a PR) Work set was hard but doable, back felt a bit arched on the last few reps, Need to keep things tight.

Did 20 - 25lb Overhead  lunges & 25 Ab mat sit ups. For a bit of extra work rounding out the hour.

DOHG = Double Overhand Hook Grip (In case you didn't know what this meant.)

Four Animal Stew And a Poor Training Day

 The two subjects in the title are not related.

I figured I would tell everyone about my four animal stew.(Paleo Dish Elk Stew Recipe modified with acouple extra animals....) I replace the Elk with Moose and Buffalo (simply because I didn't have any Elk left), and I used Beef and Chicken broth. Hence the name.

Training today sucked... Feeling a little discouraged, but give me a minute and I will get over myself. Got interrupted just as I got strapped into the rower. that took 20min. So by the time I rot my row started I decided to skip heavy squats. My row was alright 1.37.3 (500m) for a good warmup. Did a quick 30 air squats to grease the joints up a bit. Got into bench, failed hard on my first work set. 3/5 at 205lbs, week sauce. So I pealed my belt off and stomped out in a rage. Oh, that's my minute, I'm done!

I mentioned that the stew didn't cause my poor training. however I am pretty sure the giant chunk of apple crumble, and three huge scoops of ice cream may have had something to do with it.

Diet today is better so far today, although I haven't thought about dinner. Breakfast 4 hard boiled n3 eggs. lunch giant bowl of four animal stew as I type. 

A new direction...

My current thought is that I will try and keep my posts to my personal experiences. I keep trying to write articles that are intelligent and and coherent; while teaching you, the reader about something important. Since my writing skills are neither intelligent nor coherent; I will point you to what I have learned, from were I learned it. Now I listen to a ton of podcasts, A lot of which would probably put the not so interested to sleep, but if you can read my blog without falling asleep you should be okay. My training knowledge, started with CrossFit, but has been evolving with my coaching and my personal training. Most training links I give you will reflect this.

You will notice I posted "nutrition" related links on the right. I think I may also post training related links as well, but one step at a time. Look for those in the next week or so.

Today's ramblings are from my personal training.

 I have been following a novice strength program to get my strength to were is needs to be, but I have been running out of time. I do my workouts on my lunch hour, and as the weights get heavier and recovery time increases I am running out of time. Next week I will change my programming from a three day ABA, BAB workout to a 3 day ABC style workout.  

My current program looks like;

A: Squat, 5 reps x 3 sets; Bench 5 reps x 3 set; Deadlift 5 reps x 1 set.

B: Squat, 5 reps x 3 sets; Press 5 reps x 3 set; Power Clean 3 reps x 5 sets

Next week will look like;

Monday                           Reps                       Sets

Squat                                5                               3

Deadlift                             5                               1

Wednesday                                                    

Power Clean                    3                               5      

Bench Press                    5                               3      

Friday                                                              

Front Squat                      5                               3

Press                                5                               3

Note: These are work sets, always warm up to your work sets. 

This is still a novice training program, I will have to adapt it further once I max out on a novice level. Intermediate programing will be planned on a monthly schedule.

Currently I am listening to presentations on Paleo Summit, which is a Free online event brought to you by Underground Wellness. Check it out, let me know what you think.