4.26.11 The Single Best Exercise

My sister gave me an article from The New York Times Magazine titled What's The Single Best Exercise? by Gretchen Reynolds and wanted to know my thoughts.  I read it, chuckled, and the answer was CrossFit, the article never mentions CrossFit, but talks about what we do all the time.  CrossFit is not one exercise but look at the exercises stated as The Best:

• The Burpee - Say no more we all know how awesome this exercise is and how we curse it every time.
• The Squat - Activates the largest muscles in the body and its SIMPLE.  If you conquer the Air Squat go for the weighted squat.  Hhhmmm ... let's see every PUSH511 warm-up includes Air Squats and how many times do we challenge ourselves with front squats, back squats, overhead squats?  Keep going Thruster, Clean, Snatch...... the air squat the building block for all.
• "H.I.T." - High-Intensity-Interval Training.... can you say CrossFit.  We take all exercises and do them at high intensity. I like the way the article stated "Of course, to be effective, H.I.T. must hurt." 
• Finally the best exercise to tie in muscle strength, as in a squat, and interval training is sprinting up stairs.  Well if you run the Horribly Hilly 800M PUSH511 route in a good Pose method with your knees pulling up high, then that sprint up Dillon from Haven Street is pure perfection.

CrossFit is The Single Best Exercise - People write and talk about CrossFit in so many other terms, should we let them in on the secret?

4.21.11 Posterior Alignment

I read a good article in the Wall Street Journal the other day, yes WSJ and fitness can go together. The article was on Alignment Lessons and The Egoscue Method developed by Pete Egoscue in San Diego.  Many times you hear your coach say keep the bar close to your body, scrape your legs on a deadlift (aka wear high socks), pull head out of way of bar on a press, why is that? So the bar (weight) stays in alignment with your spine, the most effective way to carry a load and prevent injuries.

So have you looked at yourself and know if your body is aligned?  If not, how do you hope to lift, pull, push weight aligned with your spine?   Most people spend many hours hunched over a desk (except for Anne-Marie), do you think that helps on body alignment?  A few stretches/exercises to help you get re-aligned:

• Lie on your back with legs on a box or chair if at home. Arms to the side, bend elbows with fists toward the ceiling.  Squeeze shoulder blades down & together, hold the contraction for 1 second & release. Repeat 3 sets of 10 contractions.
• Lie on your back, raise 1 leg straight in the air at a 90 degree angle to the opposite leg laying straight on the floor.  Hold for maximum 15 minutes/leg, yes long stretch, you can shorten but if reading a book, what a great way to get in 30 minutes of reading while releasing your lower back & hips.

Ahhh.... I think I just heard my L4 & L5 say Thank You!

4.16.11 Nutrition - The Engine Behind the Scene

We tend to get caught up in the WOD board results as to time and loads: How much faster can I run that 200M sprint? How far can I push my CrossFit Total? Yeah I did the 30 Muscle-ups for time, but could I do 50 and in how much time?  To reach these goals and set new goals we may not fully realize or appreciate the critical item that will make it happen - FOOD.  What & how much do you eat & drink?

Print out the CrossFit Pyramid and place it in your office/home/car/kitchen/gym bag wherever, but make sure you look at what is at the base of that pyramid: NUTRITION, which lays the metabolic foundation for health & fitness.  To attain your personal records on load-speed-reps you need to incorporate Nutrition into your daily WOD.

4.15.11 Fine Tune Your Body Alignment

Shoulder Press 1X7 on Wednesday, 4.13.11.  Key point when doing strength WOD's is to concentrate on the technical aspects, since during a Metcon we become focused on going faster and setting a PR either with time or # of rounds. Naturally technique will start to breakdown as the body tires, so if you practice technique principals during the strength days you will hold technique longer during the Metcons, which will result in faster times/higher # of reps.

Case in point on Wednesday, I was thinking of all the key aspects for the shoulder press: Foot placement, drive through the heels, solid core, hand placement on bar, elbow position from bar, driving bar over head w/ lockout.  As weight increased and I was resting between sets thinking, picturing next lift I noticed my shoulders were not fully back, I was standing fully erect all other aspects in place...a very slight pull back on my shoulders and all of a sudden my lumbar curve was more solid and my overall alignment was improved.  Results my PR Shoulder Press is back and now I am more confident of taking it to the next load.

Life & Death

My last post described a wonderful Houston weekend, now the weekend has a somber overture. I just found out the reason why the producer of the Opera Il Postino, Daniel Catan, was not present for the pre-opera discussion on Saturday night, he passed away.

Live every day to your fullest.

Family - CrossFit - Seafood - Museums - Perfect cup of espresso - TexMex - Eclectic Art Work - Sun - City Parks - Opera

Can you ask for anything more in one weekend?   My kind of get away weekend, varied but balanced at the same time.  The weekend also included a "C" theme.  Started off Saturday morning at Bayou City CrossFit, ate a Crab & shrimp salad for lunch, toured the Menil Collection along with the Rothko Chapel, Byzantine Fresco Chapel & Cy Twombly Gallery (a gem of a gallery).  Ate Cobia for dinner and watched my nephew perform in Il Postino as Mario (bravo! bravo!) an opera produced by Daniel Catan.

Sunday the theme continued with my own CrossFit WOD at the hotel, 4 rounds of: 400M Run - 15 Pushups - 25 Squats, next up the very strange but utterly mesmerizing sculpture presidential head park, many C named Presidents sitting in this industrial lot, Clinton was peering through the trees at Obama & Bush, interesting....Next up the perfect double espresso macchiato at Catalina Coffee, followed by a tour of the Glenwood Cemetery, reportedly Howard Hughes is buried there but could not find him and not sure wanted to.  Last but not least the Beer Can House, yes a house covered in beer cans, tops, tabs, etc.

The weekend energized me, despite the 6:00 am Monday flight home, and recharged my batteries for various reasons.  Great to see and experience new things, meet new people & be open to what the day gives you.  This all started at Bayou City CrossFit when I decided to opt into the masters class @ 8 am vs. the open class, Bayou City masters is 40 and above so I qualified. I wanted to learn about coaching a masters class, so I put my desire to go Kick My Ass with the young ones aside and see what I could learn at a masters class.

1. You will get you butt kicked, remember CrossFit is about how hard you push yourself.
2. CrossFit is a community no matter where you go, my new BFF Itza and I teamed up for a WOD & came so close to knocking off the boys!  Another exercise and I am sure we would have had them, gaining all the time.
3. CrossFit is about Family.  One of the fellow WOD'rs is a mother of 3 CrossFitter's including herself. Daughter in Austin, Son in Tulsa and a Son in Seattle (? maybe Portland).  Also the masters coach is the father of the owner of Bayou City.

Tips for a Masters Class:

• Concentrate on longer, team, body weighted WOD's
• Exercises: Use bands to assist on Abmat sit-ups & L@90's - Box Steps vs. Box Jumps - Box Sits vs. Air Squats

I look forward to continue pushing myself by living CrossFit every day.

Morning Sunrise

April 6th - This morning the sun rose with such brightness it was blinding in a beautiful way. Maybe because the weather has been so up & down and spring does not want to ingratiate itself in Baltimore any time soon.  However, today I think is different just maybe, just maybe the time has come for spring to arrive. Spring means revived energy, fresh look on life, new beginnings......so go grab the day and walk blindly into whatever life offers up to you today.