**

Up until recently I had no idea what this thing called CrossFit was. Through the CrossFit Challenge, I finally had a chance to see for myself what all the hoopla is about.

CrossFit is a workout framework devised by Greg Glassman in 2000. There are over 4400 affiliate gyms around the world that run the CrossFit banner and train athletes in the CrossFit lifestyle. Daily workouts posted on CrossFit.com. They also have the CrossFit Journal where they publish articles and videos about CrossFit methods and exercises.

Give your all in the WODs

WOD stands for Workout of the Day. WODs are the core of CrossFit workouts. They change every day. After you arrive at the gym, you warm-up, do a Buy-In, which is a light skill-based workout and then get into the WOD. Every WOD is timed so you can compare your results to past WODs. Some standard WODs are named. There are some example WODs below.

Constantly Varied

Life isn’t the same every day and neither should your workout be. CrossFit workout changes every single day. This prevents your body from getting used to certain workouts and adapting to them. When you adapt, you plateau and growth and improvement slow down.

High Intensity

Workouts made up of short, high intensity bursts are getting more and more attention in the media and research these days. Many people are starting to see that it’s one of the most efficient ways to workout your entire body; muscle-building and cardio. Not to mention saving you some time. Think about going from warmup to workout to cooldown in an hour compared to a 4 hour long distance run with warmup and cooldown on either end. I opt for the short version.

Functional Movement

Going to the gym for big biceps might be good if you are in a bodybuilding competition where looking the best is the ultimate goal. That’s not what CrossFit is about. Originally designed for military, fire and police training, CrossFit is all about the unknown. Who knows what you and your body are going to be doing every day in work and play. Your workouts should reflect that.Can you effectively lift heavy boxes if you are helping a friend move houses? Can you jump a fence to get a way from a rabid dog chasing you? Are you strong enough to help yourself or others out of a wrecked vehicle? There are huge advantages in life to those that are strong and fit enough to do all these things without help, not to mention the health benefits that come along with exercising often.

Scalable

Every single person in the world could do CrossFit. There is no one level you need to be at to do CrossFit. It includes everyone. But you have to be fit enough to do a pull-up or an overhead squat, right? Nope. Every exercise has scaling options that allow anybody, even the most new beginner, start somewhere and do the WODs (workout of the day). When you are able to do the easier versions of the exercises, you move up to the harder ones. There is no top-end that you can hit while doing CrossFit. There is always work to be done perfecting form, adding weight and moving faster. It’s a lifelong workout system.

Results. Period.

One of the main tenants behind CrossFit is that it works. If some exercise or method doesn’t work, it’s modified or tossed. What’s left is the best of the best in terms of high-intensity, constantly varied, functional workouts.

Example Workouts

It’s hard to imagine what exactly CrossFit is without seeing some of the workouts. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of different combinations that the CrossFit founders and affiliate gyms have come up with. Some of the main benchmark routines have names of women or military heroes.

Barbara

Five rounds of (3 minute rest between rounds) 20 pull-ups 30 push-ups 40 sit-ups 50 body weight squats

Angie (These don’t all have to be in a row)

100 pull-ups 100 push-ups 100 sit-ups 100 body-weight squats

Murph

timed 1 mile run 100 pull-ups 200 push-ups 300 body weight squats 1 mile run

Jackie

1000 metre row 50 thrusters 30 pullups

 CrossFit Games

The epitomy of CrossFit now is the CrossFit games. Competition is fierce but anyone is allowed to try out for them. The process has three stages: Open, Regionals and Games.

The CrossFit Open is available for anyone to go for it. Starting each March (2013 starts on March 7th), 5 WODs are released once per week. Anyone can complete the WODs at an affiliate gym with a certified coach watching. Results are submitted online and you get to see how you stack up against the rest of the CrossFit World.

The top athletes from each region ( there are 12 in North America and 5 in Europe) are selected and compete in the CrossFit Regionals. The winners of these compete at the CrossFit Games. The final male, female and team winners are crowned at the games and awarded their prize money, often more than $200,000.

How can you start?

Check out CrossFit.com and try out some of the exercises at home. I highly recommend trying out a CrossFit box (gym) for a few months to see what it’s like and learn all the movements. Knowing good form for all of the exercises will get you stronger and prevent injuries.

So, when are you going to try CrossFit?

The post What is CrossFit? first appeared on Pack & Trail.

It’s been quite the ride. This is the last regular post of the challenge about the workout. The rest of them will be review and wrap-up stuff. Stay tuned for that. I know you’re excited to finally read about the end of this thing!

Buy-In

Worked on skills and some muscle-up progressions.I didn’t try a full muscle-up because I didn’t think I was going to get it. It’s a MUSCLE-UP! I can’t do those.

Or so I thought.

I tried in a later class and almost got it. So close but not quite but a lot better than I thought I would get. So never say never. I realized after trying that it’s pointless to go through progressions if you can do the full exercise. The progressions can probably help in the end but you’ve got try first and see what level you’re at.On to the WOD info.

Tuesday’s WOD

7 ring dips

7 box jumps

7 knees to elbows

7 thrusters (95/65) (I did 75)

I was unusually stoked on this one. The workout was awesome but the vibe in the gym was just killer. It’s amazing how much that affects the workout.

I dropped down to zone 1 with the weight on the thrusters so I could do them faster and not kill myself. The clean up to my shoulders was the easy part. Getting that weight above my head… not so easy. My push-press to get the weight above my head could use some work.

The dips were the hardest part. I hopped on the elastic band for my last few as it was just taking so long to get through any dips. Yes, to admit defeat. Terrible, but it’s better to finish the workout in a decent time than to be stubborn and force it one at a time and take 10 minutes longer.

Knees-to-elbows on the bar were pretty tough. It takes a lot of energy to get up on that bar. I thought I was going to fall of the bar during the last set. My hands were giving out and I just couldn’t hold on. Then from somewhere this spike of stoke came and I hammered out the last 7 straight. There’s something about seeing the light at the end of the tunnel that gives you a push. It felt good.That was the last workout in my 3-month challenge. What an awesome way to end off.

The post CrossFit Challenge Week 14: Muscle-up Attempts and Flying Knees to Elbows first appeared on Pack & Trail.

Tuesday’s WOD

Tuesday’s workout was awesome except for one thing. We’ll get into that after. Here’s the workout we did. Originally it was going to be 3 rounds but it was scaled back because it took so long.

2 rounds for time:

20 Burpees

200 m run

20 Hang Power Clean and Press

200 m run

20 sit ups

200 m run

20 squats

200 m run

I love the WODs with runs. There’s just something about the running that calms me down and lets me relax in the middle of a WOD. I’m  not sure if it’s just so easy mentally that I can rest a bit mentally or that I’ve had so much experience running that I don’t have to think about it much. Either way it’s nice to have a running “break” during the WODs.

But those running breaks didn’t help me this WOD. It was my own thinking, or lack of it, that nearly put me on the ground by the end of the WOD.

We started off. Burpess are a nasty thing to start off a workout with but it’s only bodyweight so it’s not too bad. Hang Power Clean and Presses are bringing the bar up off the ground then starting from a hanging position bringing the bar to your shoulders and up over your head. It’s a fairly complicated movement and with heavy weight and tired arms, gets hard quickly. This was near the beginning of the workout and was right after a running break so I didn’t have too much trouble with it.

I blasted through the sit ups (even my slow ones) and squats and went out for my last run.

But it wasn’t really my last run.I had another whole round left to do. My heart sank when I saw people just before me drop into their second round of burpees. No……Needless to say the second round was much slower than the first. After finishing off the Hang Power Clean and Presses 2 at a time, I finally got on to the rest of the WOD and finished it off. Not pretty. Shows how important pace is. Dont’ go out too hard or you’re toast by the middle of the workout.On to Thursday.

Thursday’s WOD

This one was a long WOD.

Every 2 minutes start at 0, do 10 Push Press

Every 2 minutes starting at 10, do 9 Power Cleans

Every 2 minutes starting at 20, do 8 Deadlifts

Looking back on this workout now that I’ve written it down, I think it was modified in class. I’m not sure what it was modified too. I remember it being heavy but nice having rests in between. The more tired you get the shorter your rests so you need to pace yourself and pick it up a little bit at the end. I worked with 95 pounds today in zone 1. The recommended was 115 pounds. All those Push Presses right off the bat with 115 pounds would have pushed me over the edge.

**

If you’re just joining us, check out the rest of the 3 month CrossFit Challenge. Thanks so much to Heather and Katie at CrossFit Nanaimo for making this challenge possible. You can follow them on CrossFit Nanaimo Facebook too. 

The post CrossFit Challenge Week 13: Burpees and Pacing first appeared on Pack & Trail.

I missed a day this week so the workout section of this post will be short and sweet. Then we’ll tear into a problem a lot of CrossFitters have when they spend a heavy workout on the bar doing pullups:  calluses. I’ve been having some problems with calluses when we’re on the bar a lot and sometimes it’s just annoying, sometimes it’s full-on painful. I’ll dig into some solutions in this post.

**Weekly Workouts

Tuesdays and Thursdays at 4:30 are when you can find me at the CrossFit Nanaimo box (fancy term for a CrossFit Gym). This week life handed me another schedule. I was all ready to hit the gym up when we I had to change times for meeting the lawyers to complete on a house I just bought. So naturally I would go to the 6:30. Nope, I was doing a demonstration for a new website application for work. Ok, so no CrossFit for Tuesday.

Luckily Thursday swooped in and saved the day. I get a bit twitchy if I don’t get outside and burn off some energy at some point during the week and Thursday’s workout quickly squeezed that extra energy right out of me.Here’s Thursday’s Workout :

For time:

21 – 15 – 9

Burpee Bar Hops

Back squat (no rack) (rx: 135, z1: 115, z2: 95)

Backward Skips

I’ll do a quick once over on the workout and then tell you what it was like. It was a timed workout. You go as fast as you can until you’ve done the required reps for each exercise. The 21-15-9 part is how many of each exercise you have to do. For this one, it’s 21 of all 3 exercises, then 15 of all three, then 9. After you’ve finished the 9 backward skips, you’re done. The sweetest feeling.

Burpee bar hops are burpees and then a 2 footed hop from one side of your barbell to the other side. We had barbells beside us for the back squats. A burpee is a bit of an evil thing. It’s like a pushup and then a jump with a clap over your head. It’s definitely an arm workout. And you need to those arms to get that bar over your head for the back squats.

Back squats are a squat with a bar on the back of your shoulders. Normally you’d do them off a rack so you don’t have the extra effort of getting the bar off the ground, up over your head and then down onto your back. But today we got to play with getting the bar up off the ground. When you’re legs are shaking from all the jumping, skipping and squats and your arms are shaking from burpees and lifting the bar over your head (95 pounds in my case, I was doing zone 2 weight), lifting that bar above your head is a harrowing experience. Efficiently lifting 95 pounds above your head as fast as you can is not an easy tasks. I was as focused as I could be. I realized half-way through that I would visualize the lift before doing it and then execute. Thankfully we only had to lift the bar off the ground once per set of backsquats.

Then backward skips. It’s amazing how set we get in ways of doing things. If I was thinking about it, my body instantly would try and skip forward like I have all my life. I had to really focus hard on all the pieces so I could get the rope spinning backwards properly. As split second off focus and I’d fall back into habit and try to spin forward.

For being so tough, this was one of my favorite workouts so far. I’d love to try it with heavier weight but I don’t think it would have gone as fast. Burpees would have been very slow in the last set. I got 6:02 for the workout which was pretty quick so I probably should have stepped my weight up to 115.

Now that we’ve talked about a few exercises that really have nothing to do with hanging off bars and doing pullups, I’m going to talk about calluses. They’ve been a big problem in some of my workouts so I wanted to look into prevention so that I have fewer and fewer bad workouts because of torn calluses.

Callus Correction – What to do with calluses in CrossFit

I was going to start this section with the loud exclamation, “Calluses suck!”

I guess I sort of did because there is it there.

The truth is though is that calluses are only a problem if you let them become a problem. The problem is when they tear.

Calluses are from friction on your hands between the skin and the bar. The skin needs to protect itself and builds up layers of skin where it rubs more and more. So how come calluses are bad if they’re protecting your hands. The problem comes out when the calluses become too thick off the palm of your hand. When they get too thick and form ridges and rough edges on your hands they’re going to catch on the bar when you use it. When it catches on the bar, your skin tears off the bar.

Holes in your hands from tears suck. If you haven’t had them yet, do everything you can to prevent them. If you’ve had them before, you know how much they suck. They are very painful for doing the rest of your workout and they suck for a couple days while they heal. I don’t recommend it.

Blisters

If you’re holding onto a bar and it’s spinning in your hand, there’s a buildup of friction when your hand touches the bar. If there’s enough friction you might get a blister under the calluses you have. There’s a good chance that callus is going to tear with a blister under it.

Prevention

So if calluses can lead to tears (very soft, new hands can be prone to tears as well), what can you do to prevent them? Well you can’t do much about calluses. They just show up because there’s friction between your hand and the bar. But you can take care of them so they won’t tear.

Callus Maintenance

From all my awesome correction connections (links) from below, I’ll touch on a couple good methods for keeping your calluses in check. Most of the methods revolved around grinding the calluses down regularly. You can use a knife, blade, emery board, pumice stone or even a dremel sander to scrape the extra skin off. You’ll want to do this any time the skin on your calluses gets a little raised above the rest of your palm. They’ll have rough edges or little ridges above the rest of your skin. That’s when they need to be ground down a bit.

After a hot shower is a great time to do this. Your skin is soft and it’s easier to see where the extra skin is that you can get. Don’t go too hard on them, you don’t want to rip all your skin off. You need some of those calluses there as some padding against the bar. Your skin does that for a reason. It might take some practice to find out exactly how much you need to go. Most of the sites recommended trying to get to level with the rest of your palms. Anything raised might catch and tear.

Outside of that, make sure you keep your hands moisturized outside of the gym. Dry, cracked skin is more likely to tear.

Grip

This part doesn’t have as much to do with lifting a bar as it does for managing your grip while doing pullups. Kipping pullups can be one of the worst things for tearing calluses. Some workouts are huge numbers of kipping pullups and the weight on your hands combined with all the movement just creates ripe conditions multiple tears.To hold a pull-up bar so it doesn’t lead to as many tears, you have to let it go a little bit and let the bar slide into your fingers a bit more. You want the bar in your fingers than in the meaty part of your hand. If you look at your hand from the side in a normal grip it would be a circle around the bar. With this different grip your hand and first part of your fingers will be straight with the rest of your fingers curling around the bar. This awesome article on calluses on FitBomb has a video in it about the grip.

The last important part to this part about changing your grip for pull-ups is that it’s harder. To hold your hand like this it takes more forearm and finger strength. One of the authors calls it the training grip. He calls the easier full-hand type the “business grip”. He uses the training grip as much as possible because it leads to less tears but for tests or competitions he often uses the “business grip.” It just sounds cool too.

Movement

With kipping pull-ups there’s usually a lot of movement going on to get yourself up and over the bar. You probably don’t have to move as much as you do though. You can use more hip action and less swinging to get you up there. The FitBomb article talks about a good video on GymnasticsWOD here that shows Carl doing very minimal movement in his kips. Less movement, less rubbing on your hands.

Covers (gloves and tape)

Most of the sites didn’t recommend using any sort of gloves or tape regularly to stave off calluses and tears. They’re a fact of life in something as hand intensive as CrossFit. Ease into workouts, don’t go all out when you’re brand new with 100 kipping pull ups. Try and use the training grip when you can. But there are certain times like competitions or tests or just a marathon training session where there is absolutely nothing you can do to save your hands. If that’s the case then it’s time to get some gloves or tape your hands up. There’s a specific way to do it so the tape doesn’t ball up and just pop off your hands in the middle of the workout.

Less chalk

One last tip before we hit the end of the article here, is that you might be using too much chalk. If you’re caking your hands with it that might be leading to more friction with the bar (as well as drying your hands out) and increasing the chances of tearing. Maybe try a little less next time.

A Collection of CrossFit Callus Correction Connections

(apologies for my appalling attempt at alliteration)

How to tape your hands on Rifs Blog

Removing Calluses on Beast Skills

CrossFit Journal: Hand Rips – Causes, Treatment and Prevention

CrossFit Hand Care on FitBomb – A great article on prevention, proper grip and proper kip technique. Plus an experiment on healing techniques.

Blood, Blisters, Sexism and Pull-ups on CrossFit.com – Pär Larsson talks about why torn, bloody hands are not sexy. 

**

If you’re just joining us, check out the rest of the 3 month CrossFit Challenge. Thanks so much to Heather and Katie at CrossFit Nanaimo for making this challenge possible. You can follow them on CrossFit Nanaimo Facebook too.

The post CrossFit Challenge Week 12: No Rack Back Squats and Callus Correction first appeared on Pack & Trail.

Tuesday’s WOD

7-6-5-4-3-2-1

(200m run in between)

Snatch Deadlift (Deadlifting the weight off the ground with a wide Snatch grip)

Hang Power Snatch (Snatching the weight over your head from a hanging position)

Squat Snatch (Snatch the weight over your head from the ground into a squat position)

Overhead Squat (Squats with the weight over your head)

Ow! Overhead squats are still my enemy! This was one intense workout.

Overhead Squats (and Squat Snatches) are definitely in my Goat list. I’m still having troubles rotating my shoulders around enough to get a good solid overhead hold in the low squat position.

The Hang Power Snatches and Deadlifts were fun, probably because I didn’t even have any weight on the bar because of the Overhead Squats later on in the workout. I didn’t want to be changing weight half-way through the workout so I just used the 45 pound bar the entire workout. I have to use more energy that I should because I can’t get my shoulders around though. Every Cash-Out I’m doing some stretches to help with the shoulder mobility problem. I know I’ll be able to lift the weight once I get my shoulders in place. I was hoping for a quick fix for the mobility problem but it looks like it’s going to require a lot of patience!

I was thankful for the runs in this one. I can usually stomp the runs no problem. It lets me get out of the gym for a quick refresh outside before I tackle another round of killer Overhead Squats.

Thursday’s WOD was the Beefcake from the title. I know one big workout once in a while isn’t going to make us all huge muscle beefcakes but it felt like the old days in the gym with low reps and huge weight.

Thursday’s WOD

Bench Press 1-1-1-1

Backsquat 2-2-2-2

Deadlift 3-3-3-3

It was solid day but I had a sore back from hockey so I didn’t push it. I still got almost up to my personal best in backsquats for 1 rep max. I was doing 2 reps though so I’m not sure what it would have been but if I had only been doing 1 rep I would have been able to beat my 1 rep max.

These days are nice to have to measure up your progress. Most of the WODs have such a variety of exercises in them that it’s hard to measure progress on certain exercises. Don’t get me wrong, I love the variety and keeping things fresh for every single workout but slowing down and doing one exercise is a really good test.That’s it for workouts this week. On to the questions. This week’s question has been coming up more frequently at the gym so I decided to check into it and see what my options were.

CrossFit Questions

Footwear – what’s the deal?

I’m currently just using a pair of runners for my CrossFit WODs but they aren’t the best so I’ve been researching what makes a good CrossFit shoe. Here’s the answers I’ve been able to come up with.

CrossFit is very similar to a lot of other sports in terms of footwear. You can wear normal runners to start but you’ll quickly find out that there are better options out there. Runners can get you started at CrossFit or playing Ultimate, Soccer or Basketball but they’re not the best. A few points on each of the shoes stand out as big differences to some of the other sports footwear.If you like minimal running shoes, you’re in luck. A lot of the preferred CrossFit shoes are basically flat, lightweight running shoes. And so what makes a good CrossFit shoe? Let’s get into it.

Lightweight

When you’re ripping around in the WOD and on runs you don’t want to a big heavy shoe that’s going to slow you down. They need to have some weight to them to stick together but the consensus seems to be lighter is better.

Durable

New CrossFit shoes for your WODs is exciting and they most likely will have an impact on your performance, comfort and safety. Having new shoes wear out because you’ve worn them a few times sucks. Make sure you get some shoes that are good and tough to last as long as you can in the gym.

Neutral Drop

This is probably the most confusing part on this list. It’s not a feature that has been listed on shoes until recently. It goes something like this. All shoes have some sort of measurement for the difference in height from the ground to your heel in the shoe and to your toes. Most running shoes have large cushion under the heel and only a bit under the toes. This creates a drop as you go from the heel of the shoe to the toe. In other words, when you have the shoe one, your heel is higher than your toes are. The drop from heel to toe and all the padding under the heel was created under the assumption that we’re supposed to land on our heels when we run. Recent studies have found that’s not how humans are supposed to run.

New running techniques like the Pose technique shorten your stride when you run, pulling the spot where your foot lands in front of you in closer to your body, nearly underneath your weight. Our feet are meant to land on the ball first when we’re running and the only way to do this is to shorten up our stride and lean forward a little. Coming back around to shoes, all the cushion in the heels of most running shoes and a big drop from heel to toe makes it hard to run on the balls of our feet. New running shoes are coming out that have zero drop from heel to toe, making it easier to run properly.

Another benefit from the limited cushioning and zero drop in these new shoes is that they’re very stable for lifting heavy weights. Every time we go to lift heavy weights, the cushion in those big shoe heels worms around and creates an unstable platform for balancing all that weight. We want to stack the odds in our favor when we get that big weight up on our shoulders and chests and having a wormy, squishy, unstable platform under our feet is not the way to do it. A direct connection to the ground through the heels is a great way to do that and you can get it with shoes with little to no padding.

Breathable

If you’re not sweating, you’re not working hard enough. Chances are your feet are working extremely hard in your workouts and they’ll sweat to. You don’t want everyone to run out of the gym when you take your shoes off in a steamy mess so it’s probably a good idea to get breathable shoes. The less moisture you have in your shoes the less likely they’ll slip around or create blisters too.

Quality Sole

Many of the workouts rely on you being able to stick to a certain spot on the ground or box. If you’re sliding around on your shoes every time you jump or run, you’ll never get anywhere in your workouts. You’ll want a quality sole that won’t break down quickly and that gives you nice grip when you’re jumping and running.

Stable

This ties in a bit with the neutral drop above. Unstable shoes can lead to injuries or just sub-par workouts. Heavy weights demand a stable platform to do that from. Shoes with a solid base or just minimal padding will give you a good solid start to heavy lifts. The rest is up to you. Now that you know exactly what to look for in a shoe, here’s a few examples of good ones that are favorites in the CrossFit community. Some have been out for a while while some are brand spankin new.

Inov-8 Bare-XF 210 – These guys are great minimal trail runners. Inov-8 makes a variety of them. They make great trail runners as well as CrossFit shoes.

Vibram Five Fingers – The famous Vibram Five Fingers. They’re like gloves for your feet. Give them a try on before you get them because they’re not for everyone. They come in a variety of designs, they’re about as minimal as you can get. They do have a thin sole on the bottom so you can run on the road but you’re going to feel any rocks you step on.

Merrell Barefoot Trail Glove – A shoe version of the Vibram Five Fingers. The Barefoot Trial Glove is a minimal trail running shoe but works great for CrossFit workouts. They have zero drop and little padding so you getting a direct connection with the floor when you lift. Then you can run the trails using your Pose Running Technique after the WOD.

Reebok CrossFit Nano – One of the newer shoes by Reebok specifically for CrossFit, they have zero drop and are super lightweight. They have a special grip on the toe to prevent wear from climbing ropes. Definitely check these ones out if you’re going to be around the gym a lot.Now you have the details on exactly what to wear on your feet for CrossFit.

Have you tried any of these shoes? Which ones do you like best?

**

If you’re just joining us, check out the rest of the 3 month CrossFit Challenge. Thank you so much to Heather and Katie at CrossFit Nanaimo for making this challenge possible. You can follow them on CrossFit Nanaimo Facebook too. 

The post CrossFit Challenge Week 11: Goats, Beefcakes and Good Shoes first appeared on Pack & Trail.

**

This week we got to experience the Turkish Get-Up. Dun dun dun. They’re not that scary really. But they do make you think.

Buy-in: Ring rows and handstands

Our Buy-In this week was ring rows and handstands. Ring rows are basically the opposite of a push-up. The rings hang from the roof or a bar and you set them about hip height. Setting them higher or lower changes the workout and how hard you have to work. Hang from the rings with your arms vertical and your body sort of horizontal, like you’re laying on the ground but just above it. Your body should be straight and rigid. Then you pull up with your arms until the rings get to your armpits or shoulders. To make it intense you can put your feet on a box so they’re up high with your body angled down to your shoulders.

Handstands are, well, handstands. I think everyone has tried a handstand once in their life, even if it was just as a little kit pretending to be a world famous gymnast. I thought handstands were something spies should be able to do when I was little so that increased their appeal. I never could do one for more than a few seconds though. Working on them in Buy-in’s has made me quite a bit better. I think I’m to 5 or 6 seconds with a good handstand and then a flail after that. If you want to try handstands make sure you have some space so you don’t end up kicking someone in the face or putting your foot through the wall.

Tuesdays’ WOD

Today was really simple. Simple doesn’t necessarily mean easy though. It can still mean crazy hard. Here it is:

1 Power Clean, 1 Push-up.

That’s it!

Kidding. It increases every minute until you can’t do any more at 1 minute: 2 Power Cleans, 2 Push-upsat 2 minutes: 3 Power Cleans, 2 Push-upsand so on till your arms collapse.I was surprised that the limiting factor in this exercise was the push-ups. That’s probably an indicator that my Power Clean form isn’t very good and I was using my arms too much. I was aiming for 8 rounds. That was the lowest score from the previous workouts during the day. I wanted to at least get 8 and then anything on that would be gravy.

8 was when I really started to feel it. I had to really think about my Power Clean form. I had to really push through the push-ups. The rests were getting shorter and shorter.

10 got really hard. You can’t pace much any more, it’s an all out sprint for  both the exercises. You have to get through the exercises as fast as you can or else you won’t have time to continue. If you run out of time doing push-ups, you’re out. No more rounds for you.

12 was killer. I managed to just crank out the last few push-ups of the round but I was toast. That was all I could do. They were the worst push-ups I’ve ever seen but they were done. More Power Cleans? Nope.

Thursdays CrossFit WOD

So if Tuesday’s WOD was all about nice, small numbers, Thursday’s WOD was about the highest numbers I’ve seen in a WOD. Over 200 reps total with all the bodyweight exercises in it. Each of the exercises aren’t that hard but they start to add up at the middle. The last half is way more work than the first. You know you can do it but it’s mind game by the end. You can do it but how fast? How can you split it up. It’s tough to do 20 box jumps or 30 sit-ups when you’re really tired so do you do sets of 10? 5? Try and power through all of them?

Here’s the WOD:

20 Walking Lunges (each side)

30 Sit-ups

20 Box Jumps

10 Pull-ups

5 Turkish Get-ups

10 Pull-ups

20 Box Jumps

30 Sit-ups

20 Walking Lunges (each side)

Box Jumps are 2 feet hops onto a box. Simple right. Awesome leg workout. Just don’t trip and fall on your face!

Turkish Get-ups are a bit strange to explain so here’s a video. You can do them with any weight. The girl in the video has a heavy weight so it’s much more work.

For cash-out we just did some mobility stretches and a slow cool down.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Turkey Day everyone. Hope the weekend was awesome. If you wanted to do a Turkey Workout from Nanaimo CrossFit, Katie has posted one that everyone can follow along with. Give it a try. Remember to warm up before you get right into it!

The post CrossFit Challenge Week 10: Turkish Get-ups and Too Many Sit-ups first appeared on Pack & Trail.

Partner workout?!

That means I actually have to get myself moving faster because I have a partner to answer to?!

Yup.

Working with a partner can push you harder. It really depends on how you feel about that partner though. You could not care and only go as fast as you want to. Or, like most people will I think, you can push it that little bit harder because it’s not just you on the team anymore.

Our Buy-In was trying Butterfly Pull-ups and then some Tricep Rows. I’ve done Tricep Rows before but the Butterflies were different. Tricep Rows are started in a push-up plank position. You then pull one hand at a time off the floor straight up to about chest height. Your elbow goes straight up in the air. You can do it with weight if you like but it’s a pretty hard exercise without it. The closer you put your feet together the less stability you have and the more core workout you get.

Onto the WOD!

WOD 1

15 minutes or 4 rounds (with partner)

5 Plank Over Under

5 Chinup hold

5 Burpee Box Jump

Ended with 3 rounds + 16

Some of the groups made their 4 rounds with this, we almost did but didn’t quite have the time. The Plank Over Unders are holding a high plank while the other person crawls under you and then hops over top. Chin-up holds are just a hold on the bar with your chin above it. Most  of us dropped into just hanging from the bar for the last few rounds. Guys had to hold it for 20 seconds, girls for 10. These were tough.

Burpee Box Jumps are dropping to the ground for a push-up, then standing back up for the Burpee and then jumping with 2 feet onto the box.  They start out deceptively easy. Then after a few rounds, your legs start to burn and jumping each time is a concentrated effort. By the final reps, it takes some serious self talk to get yourself all the way to the top of the box and down without falling on your face.

We made it to the middle of our last round of Chin-up Holds when the timer went at 15 minutes. I was glad to see the end after those holds. My hands were toast. They couldn’t hang out for one more round. After the terrible Burpee Chest to Bar’s and the Chin-Up Holds this week, I decided I need to work on my grip strength. I knew my muscles were strong enough to do more than this but my hands have been giving out too soon. I’ve found 8 exercises for grip strength that I mention below.

WOD 2

Loved this WOD! The Sept 27 CrossFit Workout was right up my alley with a lot of running. I think that’s why I liked it so much. No grip strength required either! Well that’s not true. There was a little bit but all I needed was to stay above the rings for the Ring Dips and then run like crazy and I was done.

So todays WOD was a countdown.

28’s

7-6-5-4-3-2-1

muscle ups or ring dips

400m run in between

14:34

So easy right? Get on the rings for some muscles ups or ring dips and then go run. I definitely can’t do muscle ups (I haven’t even tried yet but the girl in the video is killin’ em) so I opted for some ring dips. We started with 7 dips then a run, 6 dips then a run, 5 dips then a run all the way down to 1. Aside from the running in the workout, I liked the fact that the dips got easier. Every time I got back to do more dips I had to do less.  I can’t wait for more workouts like this one that I was excited to complete.

Goals

Here’s a quick update on my CrossFit goals for my last few updates of the CrossFit Challenge. Only 5 more updates for the Challenge. It’s gone by so fast! These are things I’ve come across that my performance in is pretty poor. I’m going to be working on:

Weighted Overhead Squats – I’ve got bad shoulder mobility, working on mobility for this one.

10 Kipping Pull-ups – My grip strength is the issue here.

10 Double-Under skips – The timing is tough with these. I’ve done a few in a row but it’s tough to keep it going.

5 Butterfly Pull-ups – Just tried these ones the other day. It’s a complicated move.

1 Muscle-Up – Haven’t even attempted these. Going to play with them for cash-out one day.

Grip Strength – I need to be able to hang onto the bar longer. I explain this a bit more below. 

CrossFit Question – What’s a butterfly pull-up?

A butterfly pull-up is basically a pull-up with some body movement thrown in that helps you get up and over the bar. The basic move is a pull-up where you move your body up and down. It’s hard and slow. The kipping pull-up is a little faster. It brings your hips into the equation and helps you up and over the bar with some momentum from kicking your legs up.

Finally there is the butterfly pull-up. The butterfly pull-up  gets your body moving in a much smoother rhythm to get your chin over the bar. When you can do these ones they are much faster than kipping or strict pull-ups. Sometimes in the WODs you have to do many push-ups under a certain amount of time and the faster you can do those the faster your time will be. It’s important to be able to do them quickly.Here’s a bit of instruction to show you how to do a Butterfly Pull-Up

CrossFit Question – How do I improve grip strength?

Grip strength is the limiting factor in a lot of CrossFit exercises. On it’s own improving your grip strength is going to be a huge advantage for climbing, kayaking and mountain biking but the main point of it here is to increase the weight you can lift while training. You can have huge strong arm and back muscles but if you can’t hang on to the pull-up bar or the barbell then you aren’t going to do much. I was feeling very limited in my pull-ups. I took a look around online for some suggestions and ran into the idea of being limited by grip strength. I’m not the only one having problems with it.Here are some good additions to your workout that focus on grip strength.

Farmer Carry – one or two plates in each hand. you can use 2 thin ones and hold them together. I will be adding this to my cash out.

Weighted Chin-ups – chin-ups but with a weight belt or a weight between your feet. Really stresses holding on the bar as long as you can!

Deadlifts (with Fat Grips) – The fat bar really works your grip muscles. When you return to the regular bars they’ll be easier to hold on to.

Low bar lifts (half dead lift) – pick up and hold as long as you can

Spring Loaded Grip Trainers – These are the little grip trainers you can do at home or at work. They’re just little spring-loaded handles.

Rope Climbs – I don’t have a rope but it would be a good trainer

Heavy dumbbell carry in each hand – This is like a farmer carry but just with dumbbells. They need to be heavy to work well.

Towel Pull ups – Wrap a towel around a bar and hold onto each rolled up end. Be careful with these ones, apparently it’s hard to drive home after.

Challenge Update

I’ve only got 5 more updates for the CrossFit Challenge and then it’s done! Once I’m done the regular updates, I’ll be doing a couple wrap-up posts to let everyone know what my decision is to continue or not. I’ll be touching on a few things that I’ve found great about CrossFit on it’s own and for other human-powered sports. If there are still some things that you don’t get about CrossFit or you want to know more about, email me or comment down below. I want to make this a good intro to CrossFit for the human-powered sporters.

The post CrossFit Challenge Week 9: Butterflys and Grip Strength first appeared on Pack & Trail.

Tuesday’s WOD was a 20 Minute AMRAP was a collection of bodyweight exercises that added up to 50 reps. It started with 15 air squats and decreased in number from there. I love these ones because there’s a mind game to them. You have to pace yourself. There’s a 30 second rest built into each round but after a couple rounds, you’ll wish you’d have 5 minutes to rest and not just 30 seconds.The hardest part about this WOD was keeping count! Every time I finished a round, I added to my tally. Except that I forgot to on a couple rounds. When I got to the end and added things up I was much lower than everyone else. This was confusing until I was trying to remember tallying each round. There were definitely a couple that I missed. That and the fact that there were 50 reps in each round instead of 40 like the board said. Oh well. Chalk that one up to being confused. To score yourself, you add up every rep. Each full round was 50 reps and then the final few reps that you had from your last round.

Thursday’s WOD was killer.  

There was some legs involved in the workout but only to keep you upright. All six exercises absolutely thrashed my arms. By the end of it I was barely getting up to the bar on the pull ups with a bungee on the bar. I think part of my problem for this one was mindset. I wasn’t really in it from the beginning. Thinking you are going to have trouble is pure poison to a good workout.

Whether you think that you can, or that you can’t, you are usually right. ~ Henry Ford

Check Your Expectations

Some days just don’t go so well. Some are down right crappy. At the end of the day though, when you’re tired, frustrated and sore, the fact that you got up off the couch and went for a workout is a huge success. Most people don’t even get to that point. Sometimes all it takes is a realignment of expectations.What’s the goal? What’s can you control? What do you expect to get out of this? All these are great questions I’ve found I have to ask myself sometimes.I find sometimes my expectations are ridiculously high. Why am I not good at this new workout or new exercise? For one, I’m new at it. A little reminder that this is the first time I’ve done a lot these CrossFit workouts goes a long way. Looking at things from the outside is helpful to see that it can take a long time to get good at most things. Expecting perfection on the first try or even the 20th is a recipe for frustration.

Control Your Goals

Another idea that’ pops into my head a lot after workouts, adventures or any worthwhile goals is all about your goals and who controls them. The more external your goals are, the more frustrating it might be when you can’t attain them. If you have full control over your goals then it’s going to be a lot sweeter ride to the end.For example, if I head into CrossFit Nanaimo, with a crazy goal of doing 80 pullups in 10 minutes I’m probably going to end up disappointed. I’m pretty sure I can’t do that yet. It’s completely out of my reach. But if I were to say that I want to do 80 pullups in a short a time as possible, or I’m going to do as many pullups as I can in 10 minutes, then I can definitely complete those goals. They’re just going to have a time or number attached to them.The key is what I’ve attached my happiness and feelings of success to. If I say I won’t be happy unless I do 80 pull ups in 10 minutes. We’ll I’m not going to be happy because it’s not going to happen. But if I say I’m going to be stoked when I do my 80 pullups or after my 10 minute AMRAP, then I’m guaranteed to be happy after.

Attach success to the effort you put in rather than the result and you’ll end up much more successful. 

You have no control over the result, but you can put in as much effort as you like.

Cash Out

For our Cash Out’s we’ve been doing good mobility stretches from a sweet set of CrossFit posters at the gym. They explain them all and have pictures of each stretch. I’ve always known stretching is important but I’m new to the idea of mobility so I did a little research on what it means and why it’s important. That leads us into our first CrossFit Question: What is “Mobility”?

CrossFit Question – What is “Mobility”?

Anyone’s who’s done any sports knows the importance of warming up and stretching. When you get into actually working out you want warm, loose muscles that will take the abuse that you throw at them without going too far. That’s where injuries come in. You want to gently push your muscles without jumping over that limit.

Mobility becomes a factor with a number of the CrossFit exercises and it starts to limit what you can do. Mobility is like range of motion. If you don’t have the range of motion to complete an exercise, it doesn’t matter how strong your muscles are, the range of motion will be the limiting factor.  The Overhead Squat is a prime example and an exercise I have trouble with.

An Overhead Squat is a squat with a bar over your head (after getting it over your head safely). Sounds simple right? It’s not. As you lower into your squat your body leans forward to balance. The weight that’s over your head has to stay directly in line with your contact on the floor or else you’re going to fall. Sometimes you can get that deep squat but your elbows bend. Bent elbows don’t hold nearly as much weight as straight ones do. There’s the rub. You can either get into a deep squat and bend your elbows or not squat much and keep your elbows locked. Neither result in a great lift. A big part of the problem is the shoulder mobility. If you can get your shoulders to rotate so you can hold your arms and bar straight up while leaning forward into your squat then you’ll be able to lift much heavier weight.

That’s just one part of one exercise. Almost every exercise has a limiting factor in it that can be worked on using mobility exercises. I’m seeing more and more now that mobility can be just as important has lifting heavy. It’s one more thing to incorporate into every workout.

That’s it for today! Week 9 will be out very soon as I catch up with my posts. I’l be doing more CrossFit Questions in each post as well so if you have any questions for the CrossFit Nanaimo crew, let me know and I will get them answered ASAP.

Happy WODing!

– Ross

The post CrossFit Challenge Week 8: What’s Mobility first appeared on Pack & Trail.

Hard at work at the Nanaimo CrossFit gym, of course!

Well, every week except for Week 7 of the challenge. September 11 and 13th I had to miss out on my workouts because I was hit with the perfect storm the weekend before had a bad cold. I really didn’t feel like doing anything. I spent a couple days in bed, which is the last thing I ever want to do.  It did feel good to get some good rest in. This summer has been go, go go!

While I didn’t learn anything in the gym this week, I did realize I missed working out. A lot. I didn’t get my regular escape into CrossFit land and I could really feel it.

With many sports there’s a nicely balanced area of focus and effort where you don’t think about anything else. 100% of your mind is focused on completing the task at hand. It’s hard but not too hard. It’s fun but not too easy. Flow is what they call it in Creative Land and it’s one of the big reasons why I like pushing myself with workouts and good adventures so much. The trick is to find that balance.

The task can’t be too hard. If it’s too far above your skill level you’ll just be frustrated. If you’ve ever run, hiked or skied with someone much better than you, you’ll know what I mean. It can be really hard to keep up. Hopefully they’ll stop and wait for your but if they don’t, it’s frustrating. It’s not fun any more. There’s no flow.

But the task can’t be too easy either. If the task is below your skill level, it will be easy at first and a bit of an ego boost but you’ll get bored. Once bored, your attention will wander and you won’t be getting as much out of what you’re doing. If it requires skill, you might screw up because you’re not paying attention. You won’t be getting much out of the workout if it’s too easy. I’ve never been bored in a CrossFit workout. They’ve built it to be perfect for everyone.

CrossFit scales very well for every single workout. If you can’t do the prescribed, you can move down to zone 1. If you can’t do zone 1, you move to zone 2. If you can’t do zone 2, you move to zone 3. You can go even further if you need it. I haven’t been able to do some of the workouts so I’ve had to scale them down. That’s the whole idea. If you can do every single workout easily at CrossFit there’s no point. They’re meant to be very hard. I talked a bit about this in a previous post. Yes, there’s always room to improve, but it’s always a great workout for everyone. As long as your mind is in it, you can push yourself without getting frustrated.

Week 8 will be out soon so I can catch up on posting!

Stay tuned.

The post CrossFit Challenge Week 7: The Sickness first appeared on Pack & Trail.

You Choose Your Workout

Someone mentioned the other day after reading a few of the Challenge Posts that it sounded really hard. I agreed that it was tough but it got me thinking about how that affects new people coming into CrossFit.

Before I started CrossFit I had heard it was this workout-till-you-puke kind of system that sounded super intense but got killer results. I liked what I heard about the results and was curious (scared?) about the puking part. I’m not a fan of puking. I don’t know anyone who is.

When I started though, it was very obvious that it’s not a workout-till-you-puke activity. Unless you want it to be. You can make CrossFit as hard as you want. You can let it be an easy warm-up activity for something else where it gets your heart going but you don’t really push yourself. Or you can make the most intense hour of your life. It’s all in how hard you push yourself.

When you get set up for the workout there are always 2 related variables that you can adjust: weight and speed.

For weight, you can choose the amount you do a workout with. More weight will make it harder, less will make it easier. But that’s not the whole story, there is also speed to consider.

When you complete any workout, you’ll do the movements at a particular speed. Faster movements are more work, slower movements tend to be less work. Faster movements will let you finish the workout in a lower total time. Slower movements will increase your time.

Getting back to the workout, you can adjust these 2 variables all you want. You could use a heavier weight and decrease your speed or use a lighter weight and increase your speed. Either way you’re getting a great workout. One catch though is that if you use a lighter weight and choose to push yourself faster, you may or may not push yourself as fast as you can go. Weight is a more concrete number to use than internal motivation for speed. Either way, you can play with how fast you go and your workout weight all you want.

What that all boils down to is that you can choose to workout exactly how you want to.

If you want to push yourself you’re on the floor afterwards, you can. If you want to get a nice workout in but still be able to mountain bike and walk the dog after, you can.

Onto the WODs!

Tuesday’s WOD was 4 rounds of 4 exercises with the plates we usually put on the bars. I grabbed the 35 pound plates for these exercises. The recommended weights were actually different for each exercise but I just used the 35 pound plate for all mine to keep things simple.

So we had 4 rounds of 20 Overhead Weighted Lunges, 20 Plate Sit-ups, 20 Plate Thrusters and a Farmer Carry to do.

Overhead Weighted Lunges are a lunge with the plate over your head, elbows locked and knee to the floor.

Plate Sit-ups are a sit-up with the plate over your head the whole time, elbows locked.

Plate Thrusters start with the plate held in front of you shoulder height in a squat stance and then rising out of the squat stance and using that momentum to get the plate up and over your head.

A Farmer Carry is just carrying 2 plates 20 metres. We were able to put our fingers through the holes instead of gripping the edges of the plates like some workouts make you do (killer!).

I really liked this workout especially the Plate Thrusters. My arms were toast by round three so I really had to concentrate for the last 2 rounds on getting the momentum from my legs and carrying that through into the plate and getting it above my head. There was no muscling it up with my arms any more, they couldn’t do it on their own. All the power had to come from my legs. I wish I had known that early on and saved some energy for the other exercises.

The Plate Sit-ups are killer. I’m not great with a sit-up as it is if no one is holding my feet down but 4 rounds of 20 of them with a plate above my head. Wow! Intense workout. I was down to 1 at a time by the end of it. 1, rest, 1, rest.

Everyone gets cheers

Even the coaches are working their tails off when they participate in the WODs. They aren’t in this to look good, they’re in it for a killer workout. Adam was hurtin’ on the Plate Sit-ups just like I was but we were cheering him on as much as we could after we finished our rounds.

Humbled

Thursday’s WOD was the hardest one yet.

The first section to the WOD was a partner row and 200 metre run. One partner rows while the other runs. When the runner is back, they switch off. After 4 rounds our time was taken in combination with our total rowed metres for a score. My partner and I did pretty well. I was saving a little bit for the next part of the workout though.

This is the part where I get humbled trying to do 100 Overhead Squats.

An Overhead Squat is an exercise with a bar (or a PVC pipe if you’re just starting or warming up). You Squat Snatch the bar (and weight if you have some) over your head and then drop down into a squat, then come back up. The squatting and raising of the bar is the Overhead Squat and you have to 100 of them. But there’s a catch.

The hard part comes in when you’re deep into your squat and your body is tilted forward. That weighted bar above your head has to be directly above your body. So that means when your body is tilted forward, your shoulders have to be wide open while supporting the weight above your head. Your elbows have to stay locked the whole time. If you can, give it a try right now. Grab a broom with a really wide grip above your head with straight elbows. Squat down keeping your knees above your toes until your thighs are parallel to the ground. Make sure your arms stay perfectly vertical even while your body comes forward with the squat. Not so easy.Now do 100!

I just used the bar for this one which was 45 pounds. I probably could have used the lighter bar for it to. By the end, I was doing 1 or 2 at a time to be able to do it. The mobility in my shoulders to keep my arms straight up while weighted just wasn’t there. If I pushed my hands out further on the bar my wrists couldn’t hold the weight. It was a workout of balance.

But I did it. I was last through and everyone was cheering me on. I couldn’t give up. I managed to push through and just finish off the last one.

I have found my new Goat. 

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