CrossFit Portland

I haven’t been around CrossFit Portland as much as in the past but don’t think I’ve been off doing preacher curls and leg presses at the local Gold’s! In addition to making the occasional appearance at CFPDX I’ve been spending a decent amount of time in the saddle getting in some miles for fun, and for the upcoming cyclocross season.

The vast majority of cycling training resources around are fairly conservative and old school, prescribing many miles of boring (and largely ineffective for my purposes) base training. Seeing near constant improvements in General Physical Preparedness from two years of crossfitting and after bouncing some ideas off of Scott, I knew that I’d deviate from standard periodization training on the bike. Spending months riding and not being allowed to get my heart rate above some magic number would likely burn me out and make me able to ride far, but slowly. ‘Cross races are 45 minutes of pure hell maximal effort bike riding, jumping over barriers and running up muddy hills. Explosive power is an advantage.

I just got done with a CrossFit-esque workout that I adapted from The Cyclist’s Training Bible. The protocol, after a warmup:

On a 6-8% uphill grade
-60″ of 90% effort in a medium-high gear
-30″ of 100% effort in a high (hard) hear
-4′ rest

My intention was to do 8 intervals. I only did 5. Why? Well, you know how in the middle of some CrossFit workouts you feel hypoxic and your whole body feels like it could fall apart? Take that same winded feeling but concentrate that full body burn directly into your quads. Yow! There’s no doubt that CrossFit workouts are super intense, but having that intensity largely in one muscle group is super intense in a different way. I *could* have done three more sets, yes, but my performance was quickly degrading (and I’m guessing becoming less effective since I wasn’t able to express power in the same way) and I knew I’d be going on a nice long cruise tomorrow.

For some balance, I finished my workout with 5 sets of 5 pushups and pullups. To be honest, these didn’t go too quickly. After spiking my heart rate so severely multiple times on the bike, it shot up again right away during my first set of pullups! The entire thing took me a total of one hour, door-to-door.

I plan on coming up with some more CrossFit workouts for the bike as well as using the great CrossFit Endurance site for some inspiration. After racing last season with plenty of crossfitting but minimal bike training I’m interested to see how I feel with more sport specific training.

Now for some fuel!

The Wednesday night main event was the handicapped mile. We ran a mile the previous week, and recorded everyone’s times. This week, everyone started in reverse order, handicapped by their times from the week before. Everyone finishes at the same time, plus or minus any improvement! The finish was pretty hectic. Congrats on some nice times!

We followed this with light/high rep one arm snatches to windmills, with a focus on shoulder stability.

Kamal works up to a max load in the one arm snatch to windmill. This is a great test of strength, power, mobility, stability, balance and coordination.

Jack Blatherwick, the conditioning coach for the Washington Capitols and conditioning coach for six American Olympic Ice Hockey teams including the 1980 “Miracle Team” talks about the ineffectualness of base training with long, slow distances.

This question comes up often: is it appropriate for young sprinters and athletes in sprint-interval team sports to establish an aerobic base with long, slow distances?

With few exceptions — perhaps professional athletes recovering from an intense season — the answer is “NO,” for the following reasons:

Read the rest on Functional Path Training

I really liked the following bits:

If marathoners do too much long distance training, they establish a comfort zone, running below their anaerobic threshold. To improve times, they must run faster, of course, above their threshold — and there are quite severe respiratory and cardiovascular consequences. This is a physiological habit, not a psychological one, and “speed” work must incorporate intervals to elevate the comfort zone.

Patterns of slow strides are imprinted just as “permanently” into our neuromuscular memory as the quick strides that a sprinter would like to record. Just as a golfer would not intend to include repetition after repetition of “bad” swings when he practices, neither would a sprinter.

…

the mistake made by many fitness coaches is to “compartmentalize” the training into separate workouts — aerobic endurance, anaerobic power, anaerobic endurance, skill, agility, strength, etc. etc. etc. Of course in a game, all of these attributes are required at the same time, so we should be looking for more ways to incorporate the various elements into “integrated workouts.”

Compartmentalizing the metabolic training is analogous to isolating each muscle separately in our strength workouts, and it is just as non-productive.

…

Furthermore, anaerobic interval training is highly aerobic, and can be a more intense cardiovascular workout than what fitness gurus would call a “cardio” workout. College hockey players doing six weeks of dryland training composed of “anaerobic intervals” for quickness and power made greater gains in aerobic and cardiovascular measures than if they had trained with aerobic distances for the same period

CrossFit for the win!! Don’t abuse your body with LSD training. Go hard!

There’s a pretty good article in today’s New York Times about the pushup.

But many people simply can’t do push-ups. Health and fitness experts, including the American College of Sports Medicine, have urged more focus on upper-body fitness. The aerobics movement has emphasized cardiovascular fitness but has also shifted attention from strength training exercises.

Moreover, as the nation gains weight, arms are buckling under the extra load of our own bodies. And as budgets shrink, public schools often do not offer physical education classes — and the calisthenics that were once a childhood staple.

In a 2001 study, researchers at East Carolina University administered push-up tests to about 70 students ages 10 to 13. Almost half the boys and three-quarters of the girls didn’t pass.

Push-ups are important for older people, too. The ability to do them more than once and with proper form is an important indicator of the capacity to withstand the rigors of aging.

Read the rest of the article, titled An Enduring Measure of Fitness: The Simple Push-Up

On Friday, we debuted “the bucket”. Taking the ever boring plank hold to the next level – this exercise – borrowed from gymnastics puts the plank into quick, 360 degree revolutions. A great core strength and shoulder stability exercise, with a hefty dose of coordination.

The bucket circles were paired with light, high rep overhead squats.