So of course I pulled my hamstring and it doesnt want to get better. Its been feeling better so I've started doing rehab like really light deadlifts, some light jogging, and some bodyweight squats. It's actually the perfect time to get injured for the fact that with baseball 5 nights a week its tough to find time to get to the gym. On the other hand I was making awesome progress on strength, and now have to assume a lot of that is gone. Since I'm not able to work out, I've tried to be extra careful with food choices, as some of that wiggle room is gone without the glycogen depletion of working out. I've made a couple of good things and will post them here soon. I had a thought the other day:
No one has ever planned on eating McDonalds.
Seriously, at least no one I know has ever planned their day of eating out and said, I'm going to make an onion and pepper omelet and then for lunch I'll have a lovely double quarter with a ton of fries, and for dinner I'll have pecan crusted chicken and sauteed greens. It just doesn't make sense. I understand the creation of convenience food and how it's become popular.
What's the point? Try and plan your food whenever possible. Think ahead of time what you will be able to eat, and be prepared for other backup options (paleo kit, tuna cans, etc.) You will eat healthier, have better tasting food, feel better, and most importantly, be more badass then other people.
Monday, June 21, 2010
Monday, June 7, 2010
Today
Todays training:
5x5 squat, set a new PR at 285, I think I could go up, it did not feel too heavy, however my hamstring was hurting, so it was probably stupid to do them, but I did anyway.
5x5 press, shoulders were really tired from handstand practice and pushups, but did 115 without too much issue.
Food:
Breakfast I forgot my stuff at home, so had a bunch of almonds in the morning, and some coffee.
Lunch I had 2 chicken cabobs, about a cup of coleslaw, and some broccoli. Coleslaws not the greatest choice I could have, but it added some fats, and I really wanted it! I had my daily fishoil here too. After work before my workout I had a handful of almonds. Post workout I had a Zico coconut water, and made dinner which consisted of about a lb (precooked) of grassfed beef and a whole bunch of onions, peppers, and zucchini. I had a few pistachios before bed.
5x5 squat, set a new PR at 285, I think I could go up, it did not feel too heavy, however my hamstring was hurting, so it was probably stupid to do them, but I did anyway.
5x5 press, shoulders were really tired from handstand practice and pushups, but did 115 without too much issue.
Food:
Breakfast I forgot my stuff at home, so had a bunch of almonds in the morning, and some coffee.
Lunch I had 2 chicken cabobs, about a cup of coleslaw, and some broccoli. Coleslaws not the greatest choice I could have, but it added some fats, and I really wanted it! I had my daily fishoil here too. After work before my workout I had a handful of almonds. Post workout I had a Zico coconut water, and made dinner which consisted of about a lb (precooked) of grassfed beef and a whole bunch of onions, peppers, and zucchini. I had a few pistachios before bed.
Sunday, June 6, 2010
This past weekend I really needed to rest and relax. For whatever reason the last couple days of the week were really draining and I felt like I was running on empty. You know the feeling, 0 energy, 0 drive, 0 will power, 0 everything. Friday I managed to get in a workout even though I felt like crap and powered through "diane" which is 21-15-9 of 225lb deadlifts and handstand pushups. The deadlifts are relatively easy for me, but the handstand pushups are a dreamland away, and I've decided that developing them should be added to my list. Plus getting better at handstands will let me get some of those cool crossfit handstand pictures! The first thing I will do is build up to holding 1 minute a day of handstand against the wall. Ill start with walking my feet up the wall until I get comfortable enough with kicking up against it. 
So other than that, both saturday and sunday I played golf with my parents, and had baseball practices. Our first game is next saturday and we are nowhere near ready. I think we feel that way every year, but this year is worse because we have 1 less week than other years. A lot of downtime, along with that and I feel much better (other than a tweaked hamstring that will hopefully be better by tomorrow). I'm ready to tackle anything. Tomorrow starts my last 3 weeks of the current strength regiment I'm on with 5x5 of sqaut, press and deadlift. Hopefully I'll continue to PR every time and keep pressing numbers. To combat eating poorly, I am going to write on here everything I eat, good or bad. If it's bad, please give me crap about it, and I really want to get my nutrition dialied in now as I really press for strength numbers (and then try and lean out a little for some beach time!)
So other than that, both saturday and sunday I played golf with my parents, and had baseball practices. Our first game is next saturday and we are nowhere near ready. I think we feel that way every year, but this year is worse because we have 1 less week than other years. A lot of downtime, along with that and I feel much better (other than a tweaked hamstring that will hopefully be better by tomorrow). I'm ready to tackle anything. Tomorrow starts my last 3 weeks of the current strength regiment I'm on with 5x5 of sqaut, press and deadlift. Hopefully I'll continue to PR every time and keep pressing numbers. To combat eating poorly, I am going to write on here everything I eat, good or bad. If it's bad, please give me crap about it, and I really want to get my nutrition dialied in now as I really press for strength numbers (and then try and lean out a little for some beach time!)
Wednesday, June 2, 2010
Training update
I've started my season of coaching 8 yr old allstar baseball, and I love doing it. Seeing kids improve and hopefully develop a love of baseball is one of the most rewarding experiences I've had. It does make it more difficult to work in training time when I have to be half hour away from the gym for 2 hours after work. So I have to work out in the times I can as much as possible, as well as get creative. Monday I went to our high school track at home before practice and ran. I ran some 400m, and timed myself at 1:26. Its not great, but I was happy to know I could break 1:30. At our gym I'm happy with 2:00 because it involves going up and down stairs, and wanted to see what it would be at a normal 400m. Then I ran 10 100m sprints with 60s rest between each effort. I think next time I will shorten breaks, but this allowed me to fully recover for each effort. I can't beleive how sore I am 2 days after, and know this is a capacity I need to continue to improve.
Tuesday was a regular workout at the gym with 30-20-10 of single handed overhead kettlebell squats and box jumps. It sucked!! Today was an off day as I had a practice. I ate terribly today with subway sandwiches as 2 meals, and feel like I'm slipping a little. Mark of Marks daily apple has a concept called the 80/20 rule which says that if you do healthy things 80% of the time you will get most of the benefit from it. This is a great concept as long as it is really 80/20, not 70/30 or 50/50. I personally would like to see myself eat well 95% of the time and then if I slip, I can stay inside that 80% zone.
Tuesday was a regular workout at the gym with 30-20-10 of single handed overhead kettlebell squats and box jumps. It sucked!! Today was an off day as I had a practice. I ate terribly today with subway sandwiches as 2 meals, and feel like I'm slipping a little. Mark of Marks daily apple has a concept called the 80/20 rule which says that if you do healthy things 80% of the time you will get most of the benefit from it. This is a great concept as long as it is really 80/20, not 70/30 or 50/50. I personally would like to see myself eat well 95% of the time and then if I slip, I can stay inside that 80% zone.
Israel
This thing with Israel is nuts. First of all, 2 points about anything I say about it.
1. I've really just scanned articles and headlines, and do not know details in depth.
2. My points of view are completely 100% based on biases, stereotypes, and paranoia.
That being said, I am a huge supporter of Israel, and as a Jewish person am extremely defensive of it. However going through news reports it seems like the Israeli press was trying to feed the public a lot of bull shit. Obviously they are not going to be completely neutral, but it seems that its been especially thick. I hope that Israel is in the right here, and they should be willing to allow outsiders to investigate. If they are in the wrong and used excessive force then they should face their consequences. I understand their feeling of a need to barracade gaza is to protect from rockets, but perhaps there is a way to allow aid to innocent civilians (which I'm sure there are some).
1. I've really just scanned articles and headlines, and do not know details in depth.
2. My points of view are completely 100% based on biases, stereotypes, and paranoia.
That being said, I am a huge supporter of Israel, and as a Jewish person am extremely defensive of it. However going through news reports it seems like the Israeli press was trying to feed the public a lot of bull shit. Obviously they are not going to be completely neutral, but it seems that its been especially thick. I hope that Israel is in the right here, and they should be willing to allow outsiders to investigate. If they are in the wrong and used excessive force then they should face their consequences. I understand their feeling of a need to barracade gaza is to protect from rockets, but perhaps there is a way to allow aid to innocent civilians (which I'm sure there are some).
Friday, May 28, 2010
John Welbourne
Check out the new blog of John Welbourne, the creator of CrossFit football, where he answers questions about the program: http://talktomejohnnie.com/
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
First some good news for me! I maxed out on my deadlift, squat, and press on Monday. I set a huge PR (personal record) of 25lb with a 450lb lift. It really didn't feel heavy, and my next goal of 500 is in my sights. I hit a 10lb PR on squat with a 325lb with our coach Craig seeing the sight. It feels good after not being able to squat like a human being when I started. This again felt light. I'm still stalled on my press and can't get it going. I was told to work on handstand pushups and variations to improve that.
WOD
For time:
20 175lb overhead
40 burpees
time: 5:40
Scaled to 135 on recovery day, burpees still suck
There was a very interesting entry but one of my friends on our gym's blog (www.crossfithoboken.com) about trying to go RX (perscribed) on our workouts. For examble that would have been doing 175 today. He had a great point that to improve, you should challenge yourself even if it means not having the best score in the gym. It was excellently well written and I will repost it here hopefully. It was a very inspirational post and I agree with it mostly, except that most people especially beginners need to understand that there has to be a reasoning behind the workout. For example, we have a workout 21-15-9 of thrusters and pullups, called Fran. Fran is the most painful workout, and the record is around 2 minutes. So yes if you can complete the 95lb thrusters and real pullups in 20minutes you did it RX. You also completely missed the point of the workout, which is meant to be short and challenging. Whereas this same person could scale it to 55lb thrusters and pullups with a band, and do it in 7 minutes. Which is better? I say the second option in which you minimized breaks and maximized effort. So go for RX and if you can be in the realm of what the workout hopes to affect, go for it, but keep the WOD's goal in your mind.
I felt somewhat introspective tonight, and realized something. If you have true passions in life, true feelings, or true beleifs, that needs to be put ahead of what anybody else thinks. I have some passions, but I've realized that no matter what my reason is, I need to be into it for me and not for anything else. I love fitness and nutrition. I love to talk to people about it and if they ask me questions I'm totally game to go all night. I also realized that most people truly dont care. I'm never going to look like a calvin klein model (thank God) or a huge powerlifter, no matter how strong or fit I get, and I realized thats not at all my goal of working out, whereas that may have been the reason I started caring. My workouts are challenging mentally and physically. I get to challenge myself in strength, stamina, and power every day, and every day is different. Some days I only put in 80%. some days its the full effort. Here are some things I have learned in the past 10 months:
-It's ok to fail. Our coach Bennett just posted this about his failed attempt to climb Denali: When a critical part of your self is defined by competition, you begin to judge everything by the outcome, not the effort. I really don’t care about the preparation, the training, or anything else. I wanted the summit. Therefore, I failed. People have tried to console me on this very topic, calling it a “failed attempt” or saying “safe return” was the goal. This is simply not true…I FAILED. The question is whether it is bad to fail, and the answer is absolutely not. Through failure, you learn more about yourself, your ability to weather adversity, how strong you really are, and what you are truly made of? I like to think I am all guts, a tough guy, nothing phases me.
-You can work out on your own, but working out with others is almost always far better. If your a competitive person this can drive you way past any effort you can do on your own.
-The impressive feat is not going balls-to-the-wall in a single workout. It’s doing it the next day. And the next. And the next. Forever. It's not just workouts. It's everything you care about in life, everything you are passionate about. It's making sure every practice you coach and 8 yr old baseball team you help the worst player as much as the best. It means that at work you go out of your way to find out what will help the most and do it without being asked. Whatever it is for you, do it. And then do it again.
- Take a break. Some people are total A types, can go hard nonstop in everything and never need to slow down. I'm not like that at all. I need to rest and relax. I need to "shut off" with some relaxing at night. It's important for mental (and physical) health.
- Music makes it better. it makes your workouts go faster. And for me, it makes everything better. I love music and will hopefully adding some selections to this blog. I used to love to play music, and still play a little guitar, but have learned to really enjoy all sorts of music.
-Step outside your comfort zone. this is one of the biggest. doing 100 squats at body weight for time was really hard. I went through the entire emotional spectrum, from self doubt, to agression, to legit sadness, to actual anger. I was way out of my comfort zone and felt it. For the next couple of days i felt like i could do ANYTHING. It was awesome. Repeatedly taking yourself out of the comfort zone lets you do much better things. I have been doing well in the gym with it, and need to take it out to the rest of my life. Being out of your comfort zone is good in real life to, and I will start doing that more.
-Something unrelated. try and look in your own eyes in the mirror. you can't do it. maybe it takes looking at the people you surround yourself with to understand who you are. hopefully their eyes are what makes your happy.
WOD
For time:
20 175lb overhead
40 burpees
time: 5:40
Scaled to 135 on recovery day, burpees still suck
There was a very interesting entry but one of my friends on our gym's blog (www.crossfithoboken.com) about trying to go RX (perscribed) on our workouts. For examble that would have been doing 175 today. He had a great point that to improve, you should challenge yourself even if it means not having the best score in the gym. It was excellently well written and I will repost it here hopefully. It was a very inspirational post and I agree with it mostly, except that most people especially beginners need to understand that there has to be a reasoning behind the workout. For example, we have a workout 21-15-9 of thrusters and pullups, called Fran. Fran is the most painful workout, and the record is around 2 minutes. So yes if you can complete the 95lb thrusters and real pullups in 20minutes you did it RX. You also completely missed the point of the workout, which is meant to be short and challenging. Whereas this same person could scale it to 55lb thrusters and pullups with a band, and do it in 7 minutes. Which is better? I say the second option in which you minimized breaks and maximized effort. So go for RX and if you can be in the realm of what the workout hopes to affect, go for it, but keep the WOD's goal in your mind.
I felt somewhat introspective tonight, and realized something. If you have true passions in life, true feelings, or true beleifs, that needs to be put ahead of what anybody else thinks. I have some passions, but I've realized that no matter what my reason is, I need to be into it for me and not for anything else. I love fitness and nutrition. I love to talk to people about it and if they ask me questions I'm totally game to go all night. I also realized that most people truly dont care. I'm never going to look like a calvin klein model (thank God) or a huge powerlifter, no matter how strong or fit I get, and I realized thats not at all my goal of working out, whereas that may have been the reason I started caring. My workouts are challenging mentally and physically. I get to challenge myself in strength, stamina, and power every day, and every day is different. Some days I only put in 80%. some days its the full effort. Here are some things I have learned in the past 10 months:
-It's ok to fail. Our coach Bennett just posted this about his failed attempt to climb Denali: When a critical part of your self is defined by competition, you begin to judge everything by the outcome, not the effort. I really don’t care about the preparation, the training, or anything else. I wanted the summit. Therefore, I failed. People have tried to console me on this very topic, calling it a “failed attempt” or saying “safe return” was the goal. This is simply not true…I FAILED. The question is whether it is bad to fail, and the answer is absolutely not. Through failure, you learn more about yourself, your ability to weather adversity, how strong you really are, and what you are truly made of? I like to think I am all guts, a tough guy, nothing phases me.
-You can work out on your own, but working out with others is almost always far better. If your a competitive person this can drive you way past any effort you can do on your own.
-The impressive feat is not going balls-to-the-wall in a single workout. It’s doing it the next day. And the next. And the next. Forever. It's not just workouts. It's everything you care about in life, everything you are passionate about. It's making sure every practice you coach and 8 yr old baseball team you help the worst player as much as the best. It means that at work you go out of your way to find out what will help the most and do it without being asked. Whatever it is for you, do it. And then do it again.
- Take a break. Some people are total A types, can go hard nonstop in everything and never need to slow down. I'm not like that at all. I need to rest and relax. I need to "shut off" with some relaxing at night. It's important for mental (and physical) health.
- Music makes it better. it makes your workouts go faster. And for me, it makes everything better. I love music and will hopefully adding some selections to this blog. I used to love to play music, and still play a little guitar, but have learned to really enjoy all sorts of music.
-Step outside your comfort zone. this is one of the biggest. doing 100 squats at body weight for time was really hard. I went through the entire emotional spectrum, from self doubt, to agression, to legit sadness, to actual anger. I was way out of my comfort zone and felt it. For the next couple of days i felt like i could do ANYTHING. It was awesome. Repeatedly taking yourself out of the comfort zone lets you do much better things. I have been doing well in the gym with it, and need to take it out to the rest of my life. Being out of your comfort zone is good in real life to, and I will start doing that more.
-Something unrelated. try and look in your own eyes in the mirror. you can't do it. maybe it takes looking at the people you surround yourself with to understand who you are. hopefully their eyes are what makes your happy.
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