28 February 2012

BP: 3x5 @ 185lbs

MetCon: 5 rounds for time: 30 jump ropes, 20 wall balls, 10 dips

Tech: Practice DU's

Getting back into bench press felt good. It feels bad though knowing that just 8months ago when I was lifting I was throwing up 250lbs 5x5. Welp, just got to get back to work!

Cheers!

27 February 2012

BS: 3x5 @ 230, 250, and 270lbs
MetCon: 3 Rounds for time of 300m row, 10 pull-ups, and 10 Wall ball shots @ 00:07:14

P.S. It should have been 20 wall ball shots but I was not very careful when reading the WOD.

My back felt really good today. It helped the workout was backsquats and that my back hurts in the medial scapula. Where the infraspinatus and teres major articulate with the scapula. Steve says I tore it...I believe him. The injury was over 5years ago so what can you do? I go to the doctor and they say rest. I rest and it gets better then hurts later. It is just something I have to deal with and be smart about.

So I like to read articles on fitness and how it affects the body. I came across an article in the NYT talking about cells called astrocytes in the brain hold which store carbohydrates for easy use by neurons when your blood glycogen gets low. They report a period of supercompensation in glycogen in the brain post strenuous exercise. They then reported that with continual strenuous exercise over a period of a few weeks a new base level of glycogen levels just how supercompensation in athletes works.

Supercompensation

The study discussing the details of the results and methods is locked away from me. I was only able to read the abstract. This is a bummer because I will never be able to know what they did or how they did it. I also can't look anything up. So I just look up the big words in the abstract I don't understand and start inferring like crazy.

Abstract

I didn't know about these astrocytes nor did I know what roll they played in the brain. I found out that they are the start shaped cells that brain pictures are famous for. These cells assist neurons in doing stuff..even after reading I couldn't understand fully. They play the largest roll in communicating via this Ca2+ wave. This allows the cells to transmit a stimulus to far reaching parts of the brain. The abstract talks about the largest depletion, and consequently greatest regions of supercompensation within the brain, are the parts of the brain associated with memory and muscle movement. If you think about it that isn't too surprising. The part of your brain that was working the hardest needed and used the most energy. So now you have excess energy storage in the part of your brain associated with that movement. This now gives that region of your brain a leg up for the next bought of exercise. Perhaps this has something to do with the old adage "practice makes perfect" or "muscle memory". I know muscle memory can be taken literally in the sense that you are training your CNS to fire more efficiently and there by recruiting more muscle more efficiently. Which is why athletes who leave for a while always tend to "get it" back relatively quickly. Apparently the brain has more to do with it than I thought.

Well it was fun learning about astrocytes and brain supercompensation. Something to think about some more. Especially on how we can use results like these to assist with training. What time is best to eat after workout to assist with glycogen restoration within the brain? What types of food? What types of training: heavy lifts, aerobic, anearobic and for how long and in what order? Is this even really worth thinking about? I don't know. Maybe when I get to read the article it will make more sense.

Cheers!

My path forward

I began with rowing during college and after college decided that I wanted to be like my childhood hero Arnold's. After many mistakes, and injuries, I found that in order to get bigger I needed to get stronger which led me to strength training and Starting Strength. I then came across Stronglifts and blew all my old lifting PRs away. I eventually worked my way to 222lbs about 6months ago and decided it would be a good idea to go for a run. I struggled so bad. It was terrible. I decided that I would rather be more overall fit than really strong. And so I researched and found crossfit.
I have now been "doing crossfit" for 4 months, the most recent 2 months seriously.You probably won't see me be as crazy about the crossfit way of life as everyone else. Just like any program you decide to invest in it has its strengths and weaknesses. It may not work for you depending on your goals...let me rephrase that: There may be better, more efficient ways to reach your particular goals than doing crossfit. From my 2 months doing the crossfit main page (MP) workouts I have found that I have definitely become more of a well rounded athlete. It has already begun to shape my body to the type that I want it to be.
The goal of this blog is to track my workouts by holding me accountable to the anonymous internet masses, and some close friends that I discuss training stuff with. I have been really bad at documenting my progress regardless of the program I have been trying and so I thought this would provide some incentive to keep track of things. Another goal is to become a more proficient and effective communicator. Writing things down will force me to think about what I am going to say and then working to communicate that through the blog with as little confusion as possible. I know the internet loves correcting grammar and that is not one of my strong suites.

26 February 2012

OFF

I haven't worked out due to my upper back flaring up again. It has begun to feel better but I would rather play it safe than sorry.

24 February 2012

Front Squat: 5x205 (My back injury from stupid crew popped up and had to drop the weight) 2x5@135lbs

MetCon: 5 minutes pull-ups and push-ups. AMRAP

It is a bummer when the weight isn't an issue but some other factor is. I felt strong today but I didn't want to push through any pain like that. Rather take it easy than be out for a few weeks.

I have taken to eating less and less carbohydrates...it is really getting to me. I am getting headaches and feeling run down. I am going to try and start eating more fruit to see if that will help.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=URfttPuxcL4&feature=relmfu

I am listening to Aesop Rock and I love it.

Cheers!

22 February 2012

3x5 OHP @135lbs

Skill Development: Handstand pushups.

Today was supposed to be off but I messed up and forgot. So the end of this weeks workouts will be shifted. I am really tired. I slept nearly 10hrs last night. This morning I feel a lot better but I have this pain in my neck. I do not think I warmed up enough for doing that heavy weight.

I felt like a bad ass doing handstand push-ups. I have never really been able to do them. Tammy was showing me some tips and techniques she picked up with some other crossfitters she rolls with and it really helped. We filmed the handstand push-ups so I know where I need to work on it.

We should have done some sort of MetCon but I think both of us were smoked. We need a day off.

Literature Review: High-Intensity Intermittent Exercise and Fat Loss

Mainly just my thoughts out loud on some PubMed articles I have been perusing. The articles investigate the high-intensity intermittent exercise (HIIE) which is just the HIIT or Tabata type of working out. I have been interested in the physiological effects of different types of exercise. I have only ever heard, more like been around the bro-science, that you want to do your long cardio after your lifts in order to preserve your muscle mass blah, blah, blah. This is how most people train anyway. They jump on the bike/treadmill/stairstepper/gazelle thing and just go for hours. I never understood how they could do it because that sucks. It looks like it sucks. I know it sucks too because you never see those people last. They are at the gym for the 3 weeks after NYE and then they are gone...

The article I linked to earlier focused on HIIE and its affects on the body. It compared numerous studies with different groups of people. Some studies used non-trained males and females and had some do HIIE training and others do steady state cardio. The variables were the types of people (athlete non-athlete), type of workout (HIIE and slow and steady cardio), and the duration of the HIIE vs the duration of the cardio. The results of the review were pretty clear: Picture of HIIE dominating and another . I am no biologist or physiologist or anything. From what I read and learned from this article was that for any person training with HIIE has numerous benefits over cardio. Aside from the fact that you can do a Tabata-esque workout in 20min or less, the physiological changes and the body's hormonal response to the HIIE training are much greater than that of slow steady cardio. The article made mention of the fact that HIIE training was most beneficial, in regards to sub-cutaneous fat loss, for people already considered obese. The problem with this is that most people will not benefit simply because they are not comfortable with the discomfort such workouts demand. Fat people would benefit most but they didn't get fat by sprinting 20m and then jogging for 10m x20. They got fat by consuming more calories than they burned, overly simplistic I know but mas o menos, and not exercising. This type of intense exercise, while shown to be most beneficial to the obese, will not likely be very popular with that demographic.

The article talks of catecholamines...I had no idea what these were but after doing some reading discovered this was a little molecule that is responsible for your fight or flight response (adrenaline is an example). This is a molecule associated with stress, and in the case of working out proves to be highly beneficial. Studies have shown that an HIIE type of workout for 20min found significantly increased levels of epinephrine and norepinephrine (adreniline and noradreniline). OK..so what the hell does that even mean? Well, these molecules are known to drive lipolosys which means fat burning. So, if theory proves correct, the more you have of these molecules floating around in your blood the more, and the better, your body will be at burning fat. There is further evidence that this hypothesis is correct as shown here: The Fat Burning Table. You can see the trend for fat burning that the HIIE groups have. If you look at the picture you will notice multiple different trends, all positive for a person who desires to be fit. What I found especially interesting was the increase in VO2 max for just doing these rinky-dink HIIE exercises! I must add here that the largest increase in VO2 max was seen in the group doing steady state exercise (SSE) for 45min on the bike. The cohort here was 45 and older with BMI's of 30 or more. Anything a group like this does would get them in shape. The point being is that for athletic people, or former athletes who are looking to get back into shape, HIIE seems to be the way to go. Quick, efficient, and with great results. The only caveat being you have to go all out which most people are not comfortable with. The intensity demanded to obtain these results are not something a newbie would typically take to. I wonder how results would come by playing with frequency. Do you still see benefits over simple cardio by performing HIIE once per week? Twice per week? Where does one start to see the deleterious effects of overtraining in elite athletes? It is impossible to maintain this intensity over a long period of time. I will still grind the gears about it and hopefully come up with some intelligent questions to ask someone who knows what they are talking about.


 I will likely update this post because I suck at writing.

I am tired of typing. I was going to write about the stuff I learned regarding insulin sensitivity etc. But I think I will save that for another day. I also need to read up more about nutrition etc.

Cheers!

21 February 2012: 3x3 DL + 10min>MetCon

3x3 DL @265lbs

Metcon: 250m row and 10 pull-ups AMRAP for 10min

DL's were a cake walk today. Tammy and I invented the MetCon on the spot and it was pretty rough. Crossfit demands a lot of pull-ups in succession and so the only way for me to get better at lifting my 214lb fat ass up is to practice. I made it through 6 rounds of the MetCon. Rowing was easy money, holding 1:40-1:38/500m. The pull-ups were good up until the end of the 3rd round. This means I got about 25 "uninterrupted" pull-ups. From then on I broke the pull-ups into 5 reps.

Good times.

20 February 2012: Crossfit Strength Bias (CFSB)

Both Tammy and I have noticed that while our aerobic and anaerobic performances have become better it has been at the cost of the strength both her and I had spent so much time and effort in building. This made me ask myself if there was a way to have a more strength oriented type of crossfit workout. So me being a fucking google ninja typed it in and came onto the CSFB. This, currently, fits my fitness goal perfectly. Being strong can only be beneficial to everything that I will come across in life. I can't fathom a situation where I would regret being strong. My friend Dewey used to break everything he touched because he was freakishly strong. This isn't bad at all because it was/is funny and he is so strong that he breaks everything. Which is awesome. So today begins my foray into the world of CSFB. My intentions being to become strong and fit... with more strong thrown in there.

Workout:

3x5 BS @ 225, 245, 265

MetCon. Angie AMRAP in 10min

75 pull-ups, 75 sit-ups, 75 push-ups, 70 squats

BS was a cake walk and I nearly made the entire Angie in 10min. It should be noted that I broke up Angie into pieces and it is only because I would not be able to crank out 100 pull-ups in any reasonable amount of time. The others are easy money. Tammy and I both are working on the pull-ups because this seemse to be where we both struggle

Most of the girls will be used as benchmark WODs. In addition to that some of the hero workouts will be used to gauge both strength and fitness. I suppose more functional strength.

19 February 2012

Did the Main Page (MP) workout from crossfit.com. This workout was a benchmark workout and used to determine the 1 rep. max (1RM) of the "big three" (Backsquat (BS), Dead-lift (DL), and Push-Press). It is called the "Crossfit Total". This is Mark Rippetoe, famous for Starting Strength.

Results:

Push Press: 165lbs

BackSquat: 305

Deadlift:315

The workout was difficult. I haven't done anything requiring heavy weights in over 6 months. So beginning the workout I was a bit nervous about how I would perform.

Push Press:

The biggest surprise came with push press. I performed a strict press with no (read here very little) bend in the knee. This is the largest weight I have ever put up on push press even when I was training with starting strength. I believe the factors going into this strange result was the fact that during my strength training I focused a lot on bench press and really did the press as an after thought. Despite the greater benefits of the press I was still stuck in the "bro" mentality of a big bench press is worth something. I can trace my feelings about it from when my sister used to make fun of my big arms and little chest in high school. Overall it felt good.

Squat:

I was actually pleased with the result here because I had been getting very strong in the back squat and this was what my 5x5 weight was about 6 months ago. So without training the heave squat I maintained a decent amount of the strength gains. Tammy told me the rep was legit and that I did in fact go down far enough.

Deadlift:

Really disappointed with this lift. I did an easy 315 no problem and so I, stupidly, decided to make a HUGE jump to 395. I thought it would be no problem because of how easy 315 was...it was not easy. It was hard. My lift was shit and my technique crumbled. Tammy said she got nervous that I was going to destroy my back. Thankfully the back is still in tact but I learned a valuable lesson (again) not to try and save the world.

Introduction and stuff

I find that I am constantly searching for new ways to workout. From rowing, to bodybuilding, to strength training, to gymnastics, to crossfit, to now some mishmash of everything above. This is the record of the experiments I do to see what works best for me, which has yet to be determined.

I have been asked by some of my friends to share what I do so they can keep tabs on what it is I am doing. Hopefully by me making the mistakes they can tailor their workouts and be more efficient in reaching their own personal goals.

I doubt anyone will read it besides them but if some of you out there do read it and then decide to comment, I am more than happy to hear constructive comments. Anything else I will just delete and block. I have been on the internet before so I know how it works.

I will try and update everyday with both my diet, which is what REALLY holds me back, and the workouts I do. I will post my thoughts and musings on everything from past experience, to blogs I love, to scientific articles I read. I will post my progress in different benchmark exercises and workouts for my own records and for everyone to make fun of me. Pictures and videos as well.