CrossFit Portland

11-13-2009

1) Back squat 95% 5 sets of 1-2
2) Press 90% 4 sets of 2
3) 7 rounds of the DB “Bear”, done on a one minute timer:
5 DB Deadlifts
5 DB Hang Power Cleans
5 DB Thrusters
35lbM/25lbF

Jay self describes his own passion in life. Mike B., this WOD was meant for your new found double under skills! Hope you are having a great vacation.

11-12-2009

1) Gymnastic skill work: 4 stations, groups rotate every 5 minutes:
A) Handstand practice – wall, free, parallettes, HS walking
B) Skin-the cat/back lever/front lever practice
C) Dip practice – bar, rings, Bulgarian dips, Korean dips
D) Wrist series x 2 (see Misc info)

2) “Rhiannon”
AMRAP double unders in 10 minutes

Got this great message from Kristi, a November On Ramper who just started Baseline on Tuesday.

“…My boss just told me I can put up one of those over-the-door pull up bars in my office…woo hoo.”

That’s Drive and taking Control of your environment.

Last night, these three ladies did “Josh” as prescribed. It was down to one pull up at a time and it was a fight all the way. Monica tore both hands in the first set of pull ups. With 40+ pull ups to go, I offered her a sub to take care of those hands as much as possible. However, Monica was driven to finish this workout prescribed, one painful rep at a time. A hard earned RX.

11-11-2009

“Josh”
21 OH squats 95/65
42 pullups
15 OH squats 95/65
30 pullups
9 OH squats 95/65
18 pullups
Compare to 09/30/2009

DROM:

1) Clubbell pronations/supinations
5lbs x 10/10 2 sets.
2) Thread the needle
spinal twists

Here we go. Today is one of those “Benchmark” days Scott was talking about in the programming. Get mentally ready to get after it with everything you’ve got and you may be surprised at the outcome! I got a great progress update from Rachel this morning after doing “Josh” and it is one of those CrossFit Portland moments that we all can be inspired by.

“…It’s funny how some days I go into a WOD and I leave feeling like I haven’t made any progress at all, and then other days I am truly blown away by how much stronger I am in a pretty short time. Today was one of those days. I completed “Josh” Rx, a huge huge feat for me. I think it’s not only that my body is stronger but somehow I have more determination to get through no matter what. Not sure when that happened but it’s pretty damn cool.”

First Muscle Up – Justin S.

First Double Under – Lieghti S. (just finished On Ramp)

First Baseline day of On Ramp

Firsts are always fabulous

11-10-2009

1) Deadlift 1 rep every minute for 6 minutes. Use 85% of your 1RM
2) 4 rounds for time:
15 pushups
15 KB swings 53/36
25 Double unders

DROM:

Hip extensions:
x10 forward
x10 side
x5 circular

That finisher last night looked too easy but felt not so easy. We had some great races that came down to the wire. Two boats tied on the tenth of a second and one boat edged out another by .1 of a second. Great effort everyone!

Monday night Mobility class with Scotty

I get many questions about how I plan the workouts for the gym. It is a complex process, taking many factors into account. Rather than writing a book detailing everything that needs to be taken into account, I thought I’d share some of the basic principles I use to program the WODs.

1) Strength priority: High levels of strength are needed if one is to progress to optimal fitness. Strength is the foundation that your fitness will be built upon. Endurance without strength will lead to lack of progress and even eventual injury. It will also be the limiting factor if you expect to perform well at many of the benchmark WODs. If you are a guy, you will never have a good “Diane” time until 225 lbs has become a light deadlift for you. Many days will have strength work, reflecting this priority.

2) Mobility and flexibility priority: This is an area often neglected by many programs. We prioritize it. Once you have improved this ability, your recovery will be quicker. You’ll get thru your daily life more pain-free, and your workout times will improve as you no longer have to fight against your own body while training. I select warmups and cooldowns that will serve to both release tensions from the workout just performed, and to improve typical problem areas. Recently, regular attendees of my mobility class have made impressive improvements once we began 6 week focus blocks. Based on this success, I have begun targeting one area in the CrossFit class cooldowns for 6 week blocks.

3) Emphasize shorter WODs with a higher peak power output: There are many reasons to emphasize shorter metcons, or to perform them in more of an interval style with prescribed rest between rounds. Long workouts necessitate pacing yourself, just as one wouldn’t take off in an all out sprint to start a marathon. Shorter workouts allow a trainee to attack and leave it all on the table, leading to a higher intensity workout. Many of the metabolic changes we are looking for come primarily from the intensity, not the overall volume. If one trains like this to improve peak power, then when necessary, they will perform well at longer WODs or real life efforts. The reverse is not necessarily true.

Also, we can limit some of the negative hormonal responses from exercise by training this way. You will get a overall lower release of stress hormones (that will break the body down) and a larger release of anabolic hormones (that will accelerate repair and regrowth).

4) Spend blocks of time concentrating of bringing up physical qualities: Progress is made more quickly when there is greater exposure to a stimulus. We spend blocks of time, often 3 month periods, with a greater focus in some areas. For example, if you feel like we do more strength work in the winter, you might be right!

5) Tailor the workouts to what a majority of the people need: I try to program workouts for where a majority of our clients are. The excessive volume of some programs is simply too much for the average trainee. More is not necessarily better when it comes to athletic conditioning. Connective tissue takes much longer to adapt to new workloads than muscles. I’d rather see the few people who are ready for more scale up or do our advanced WODs. This is a much better option than giving a majority of people joint inflammation from more work than their connective tissue was ready for.

6) Build in recovery periods, alternate intensity and overall volume: Adaptation is faster when the main training stimulus varies from time to time. I program periods where the overall workload is higher, then this will alternate with periods where the workload is lower, but the work being done is more intense.

7) Use benchmark WODs for exactly that: benchmarks! A question I get frequently is why don’t we do the benchmarks more often? I like to save them for their intended purpose: occasional tests to see where you are. I don’t program them as simply a training day. I leave the training work to unique workouts. When the benchmarks do come up, you should be pumped to tear into them!

8.) Equipment needs and other variables: There are some workouts that are difficult to do in a class setting. I must take into account class size, and also any other classes that might be running simultaneously. (If you are really itching to try “Linda”, a workout that is very difficult to do in a class, let us know, and we can arrange a special time.)

9) Most of the time, varying the muscles stressed or energy systems worked: One gray area in programming the WODs is not knowing everyone’s training schedule. I plan as if everyone will come all six days of the week. In reality, with the exception of a very few, no one comes every day. However, many will come on back to back days, so I usually plan workouts that won’t torch the same movements on two consecutive days. There will be some exceptions to this, as life doesn’t take into account that your legs are sore and today you need to lift something.

10) Randomness!: Yes, there are many reasons to keep workouts randomized. Our workouts have a structure behind them as described in the prior points, but within this structure is plenty of variation. This keeps things from getting stale or boring!

Hopefully, this gives you a clearer picture of how things are planned here, and what some of our priorities are. If you have any additional questions, I am always glad to answer them. Good training!

Warmup this week:
1) 4 min jump rope skills
2) Walking lunges w/twists 2 trips
15 PVC OH squats hold bottom 3 sec.
10/10 T-pushups

WOD:
1) Hang power clean 5-4-3-2-1
2) Teams of 3: Row 3000m, switch rowers every 250m.

Cooldown:
3 x down dog to cobra
Lying hip flexor stretch
Lying active hamstring stretch

11-7-2009

Choose one of the following benchmarks; go all out!
“Helen”
“Grace”
“Elizabeth”
“Nate”

Helen is a popular choice !

Cheema “patiently” worked through Elizabeth It was awesome since that weight was close to his front squat max.