Bruises, scrapes and scars

This morning, I woke up to two giant shiners, one on the top of each shoulder. I couldn't remember exactly what I had done to warrant them. It took me a while to put them together with the manned up dumbbell thrusters from last night. Visually, they kind of compliment, in a messed up way, the the remainder of my muscle up tats that I have going on on the front of each shoulder. These are in addition to the fading stripes across my midsection from squats with the weight belt, scars from box jumps gone awry and some rope burns on the tops of my feet.

CrossFit is fun. It'll make you strong and fast. It'll challenge the heck out of you. It'll sure give you some pretty muscles. But, dang if you don't sometimes end up looking like you've been out wrestling a bear-o-dactyl.

Image borrowed from one of the best sites on earth - The Oatmeal. Click on the link. Thank me later with a cookie (gluten free, obvs) and your undying gratitude.

RESET!

We're doing a reset. Maybe started a bit too high with the lifts. Today's the second workout at lower weights. It's a bit hard on the old ego but if it'll get me stronger, I'll do it.

Here was my first set of squats at 215lbs last Friday before we reset. Failed the last rep of the last set. The depth was fine (wasn't sure about that) but you can see some knee action goin' on. This is 10lbs under my old one rep max so it could just be cropping up again because it was just plain damned heavy. Or it could be because I'm a bit quad dominant.



Gotta say I've been really liking using the belt for these. Feels a lot more secure and I think it's helping me to strengthen my core as it gives me something to push against.

Okay! One more time, with feeling.

Aaron, who is awesome FYI, sat us down and helped us spiffy up the plan for the next three months. Thanks, buddy! And then we went and demonstrated how fricking right he was by attempting to do oly after a heavy strength day. Yeah, our lifts were AWESOME. No, no they weren't.

Oh, yeah, and then on the ride home, we figured out that doing ring dips and bench on the same day was also not a smart plan. And we came up with that on our own. Go B Team!

Monday
General warm up
Oly lift of the day as per CFR programming
Either on the minute clean and jerks or snatch for 10 or 15 minutes, depending on the lift.
Optional mini metcon

Tuesday
General Warm up
Skill Work - muscle up
Strength Workout
- 3x5 back squat
- 3x5 shoulder press
- 3x3 power clean
- 3xmax max weighted ring dips

Thursday
General Warm up
Aaron's oly club lifting program
Mini metcon

Friday
General Warm up
Skill Work - HSPU
Strength Workout
- 3x5 back squat
- 3x5 bench press
- 1x5 deadlift
- 3xDHPLU/weighted PLUs

Also, today Paul showed me how Spealler teaches the strict muscle up. Thanks to Paul's fine coaching, I did five! Woot! They feel way better on the joints than does the kipping version. 30 muscle ups for time as rx'd is up next. It's going to likely take me well over an hour but I really want to do it.

CrossFit Stuff

So, I've finally come up with a plan from now until the end of the calendar year that really focuses in on some of the gains I want to see this year in terms of strength and skill. I'm no where near as strong as I'd like to be. And I struggle with the oly lifts and more advanced gymnastics stuff. Frankly, it's also just fun to work on things that are dang hard, too. I've got progressive strength training happening twice a week, two days dedicated to oly lifting, MU and HSPU skill work before strenth work (I've got my muscle ups back... did four last night) and two short and dirty metcons post oly lifting. Most importantly, I'm enjoying the snot out of it! I heart lifting so much. The schedule kind of looks like this:

Monday
General Warm up
Skill Work - Muscle up
Strength Workout
- 3x5 back squat
- 3x5 shoulder press
- 1x5 deadlift
- 3xmax DHPLU/weighted PLUs

Tuesday
General Warm up
Aaron's oly lifting program
Mini metcon

Thursday
General Warm up
Aaron's oly lifting program
Mini metcon

Friday
General Warm up
Skill Work - HSPU
Strength Workout
- 3x5 back squat
- 3x5 bench press
- 3x3 powerclean
- 3xmax ring dips/weighted dips

Trying to also make sure I'm doing some mobility work after each evening and foam rolling at home as well to keep things feeling good. My diet is also really dialed in right now and my recovery after the strength work has so far been rocking. Not feeling stiff, sore or tired like last time when I went to town on the nut butter. I think the additional recovery day is also helping a bit. Where I'm falling down is the shit kicking I'm giving my cardio. 'Nuff said about that. I'm getting it sorted!

Next up on the competition front is the Sask Powerlifting's Last Chance meet here in Regina sometime in December. I'm hoping to make some nice gains between now and then!

The entire disk is gorgeous...

I'll post something CrossFitesque soon enough, I suppose.

This song has been in my head lately...

Of course, it could just be stuck in my head because I keep hitting play on my ipod.

Cabbage Rolls (For Maxine)

I'm not Ukrainian or well versed in Ukrainian cooking so if anyone has any other suggestions for this, let me know.

Go get yourself some:
ground meat (bison, beef or venison would be lovely)
1lb of good quality bacon
a head of sour cabbage
a spaghetti squash
a bunch of fresh tomatoes
tomato paste
an onion or two
lots of garlic
some chili pepper flakes (or chili-garlic sauce)
sea salt and fresh pepper


1.  Fry up your bacon.  Set aside the fat and crumble up the cooked bacon.  Preheat your oven to 375 degrees.  Cut your spaghetti squash in half, remove the seeds, rub with some bacon fat. and roast in the oven for about 40 minutes or until the flesh is tender and you can easily flake it apart.

2. Dice up your onions.  In a frying pan, add some bacon fat, then saute the onions until they are translucent.  Add your garlic and your meat.  Fry the meat until it is cooked.  You can add seasoning to the meat if you wish (I add pepper, pepper flakes, onion powder, garlic powder and whatever else seems like fun at the time).  Remove from heat and add your crumbled bacon pieces.

3.  Take your head of sour cabbage and rinse it really well.  Separate out the leaves and set aside.

4.  Chop up your tomatoes, toss into a sauce pan along with tomato paste.  Add your spices (same as what's in the meat will work but especially something to give it a bit of heat).  Heat over low to medium heat until it starts burbling a bit and the tomatoes juice out nicely.  Remove from heat.

5. Rescue your spaghetti squash from the oven.  Allow to cool a little bit before flaking all of the flesh off of the rind.  This is your pretend rice.

6.  Take a leaf, put some of the meat mixture in the middle and a bit of spaghetti squash.  Roll up the leaf and put in a casserole dish or roaster.  Continue doing this until you run out of ingredients.

7.  Smother the entire thing in the tomato mixture, cover with some tin foil and then roast in the oven at 350 until they look, smell and taste done.  Not sure how long that is.

Enjoy!

Paleo Pesto Recipe

I am a slacker and don't actually weigh or measure stuff so the following recipe provides very little guidance about how much of what actually goes in there.  Be prepared for it to always taste slightly different each time.  This paleo pesto recipe is based on my girl Amy's recipe she shared with me a while back.  She has a kick ass blog with paleo recipes that I strongly suggest you check out. 

In a food processor (or, if you're like me, a cranky blender that's one step away from small appliance heaven), blend the crap out of the following:

1 jar of sundried tomato packed in OLIVE oil
a good couple of glugs of olive oil
the juice of two fresh lemons
a whole wack of fresh basil and oregano
a bag of walnut pieces

Eat with veggies and enjoy!

Why walnuts instead of pine nuts?  Why care about what kind of oil the sundried tomatoes are packed in?  
Pine nuts and oils like safflower, canola, sunflower, etc all have a whackload of omega 6 fatty acids and barely any omega 3's.  N6 fatty acids are hella-inflammatory while n3's are antiinflammatory.  While you need both in your diet, most people way overconsume the n6's while skimping on the n3's.  This means recovery post workout can really be a bitch as you'll be stiff, sore, creaky and inflammed all to heck and it's not great health-wise either (chronic, low-grade inflammation is associated with the development of cardiovascular disease, cancer and the diabetus).  Walnuts and olive oil have a reasonably decent ratio of n3/n6 fatty acids.  While it's not the ideal 1:1, you'll likely come out somewhere between 4:1 or 5:1, which is way better than the highly inflammatory 20:1 ratio most people get. This pesto will give you some decent fats and a lovely source of calories that shouldn't inflame the snot out of you.  Also, it's just yummy.

Went shoe shopping instead. Suck it, Robb!

Okay, not really. After phoning all the book stores here in Regina AND Saskatoon, it turns out no one has The Paleo Solution in stock yet. So, I am forced to wait until the book is delivered to a book seller situated somewhere in our fair trapezoid.

In the meantime, Chad from CrossFit Saskatoon announced the first event of the Prairie CrossFit Challenge... a killer obstacle course.  I am so filled with squee at this point, it's kind of ridiculous.  Aside from being the most fun sounding thing you can do while getting sweaty with clothes on, this puppy is right in my wheelhouse.  Lots of running and happy leg endurance (stairs, tire runs) and a bit of strength mixed with endurance (sandbag fun, farmer walk) and no lifting anything above my shoulders.  The only thing that I'm not fond of are burpees. 



To celebrate, I've called Escape Sports and asked them to hold a sweet pair of size 38 Vibram Fivefinger Treksports in champagne. I figure they will come in handy on the course and my sprints will stay clean (although still smelly) for any indoor events.

Champagne! Unlike the Continental, I've not grown impatient with the French.

Going book shopping!

Blarg. Another email from Amazon today saying they're delaying shipping of my Paleo Solution book by Robb Wolf but they've also given me the option of canceling my order. I think that's what I'm going to do if Chapters has the book in stock. I hope so because I kind of want to get my nutrition nerd on and I've got an hour or so between work ending and oly club starting up.

And while this might not be quite as awesome as the Medusa Snap (I've been practicing), I thought it was kind of lovely and made me smile. Yesterday, I nailed myself in the lady business attempting to figure out kettlebell clean and jerks and, gotta say, that didn't exactly make me feel like a kick ass e-freaking-leeeeete xfit athlete.  Ahhh, muppets.  I don't know if the Muppets can solve hunger or bring world peace but they do fix crap moods. 

Oh Snap!

You know why we do this?

Because we can't always get our hands free to do... THIS!

It could just be the raging fever.

It could just be the raging fever I have going on, but I'm kind of enjoying the new baby carrots marketing strategy. The Twitter feed is all kinds of amusing and the three ads they've debuted are good times (the one below is my favourite).

A.S. Byatt has nothing to do with CrossFit

I really enjoyed her latest interview and want to keep the link handy.

So I got up the nerve to email Robb Wolf

I've been meaning to send Robb Wolf a question for a while since he is super smart scientist and I am only a lowly professional bullshitter.  Here's what I emailed him:

"Hi Robb,

Sorry for the length of this email... 

I have tardive generalized dystonia.  I was diagnosed about seven years ago.  When I was diagnosed, I was pretty pissed off and spent a few years wallowing in self pity and take out pizza on my couch.  As you can expect, my health declined even further and I ended up all metabolically deranged.  My PCOS symptoms went from bad to worse and I also ended up with insulin resistance. 

Fast forward through the next couple of years.  I did the whole Body for Life thing on the days I wasn’t too symptomatic with the dystonia.  I eventually graduated to Alwyn Cosgrove-designed workouts and Berardi’s Precision Nutrition.  This all improved my health overall and I lost 60lbs, upped my insulin sensitivity big time and saw most of my PCOS symptoms disappear.  Two years ago, I joined CrossFit Regina and then a year ago I decided to give 30 days of the paleo diet a shot a la Urban’s Whole 30.  What’s your saying?  Oh yeah… Holy cats!  Not sure why, probably because I don’t have a doctorate in neuroscience, but my dystonia improved.  Like, a lot. 

This used to be my life.  Most days, I was functional and could even work out in the evening but demonstrated some messed up movements on occasion throughout the day.  About a week out of every month, I spent my waking hours curled up in a posture, unable to walk and, on those really terrible days, even unable to dress or feed myself.   Yay!  I’d like to say I was all stoic and brave and whatnot but I wasn’t.  I really suck at having a disability. 

Nowadays, I have a few mornings where I’m a bit slower than usual and walk with a bit of a messed up gait.  That’s pretty much it.  Most days I'm just like everyone else.  At the gym, I might find it hard to find my rhythm on box jumps and switching from movement to movement in a WOD can sometimes also mess me up a bit.  This is not exactly a hardship.  And it's certainly not always.  For example, a couple of months ago I got 23 rounds as rx’d on Cindy.  That's three very different movements, done quickly, with no time wasted during transitions.  That’s kind of a night and day difference from not being able to dress yourself.

Now, I’m also starting to figure out that the improvements aren’t static either.  Since I’ve returned from the 2010 Games (I was on CrossFit Regina’s affiliate team… see, I told you I’ve really seen improvements) I’ve kind of let the diet slide a bit. There have been a couple of accidental gluten hits, some deliberate dairy and rice exposures in the form of ice cream and sushi (yummy), and I’ve been mildly symptomatic pretty much every day.  For the last week I’m back to happy paleo eating and starting to pull out of it and feeling a bit better every day.

Any idea why paleo+CrossFit (and especially the paleo part) is making such a huge difference?  They say dystonia isn’t progressive but it can change over time.  And tardive cases are expected to see improvement up to two years after development.  I’m kind of past that.  Is it just because, when I’m eating well, my digestive system is all pleased and my body is happier so I’m just less inclined to be symptomatic?  Or is there some kind of magic happening to my brain chemistry thanks to the pseudo-science?  Or is it some kind of combo of the two?  And what about the process of learning and then repeating, ad nauseum, functional movements all with a messed up brain.  Is that doing fun and funky things to my gray matter?  Because I swear thrusters are easier when I’m symptomatic than is a more unstructured, random activity like walking leisurely through my neighbourhood to get to work. 

Any insight you could provide would be awesome.  I mean, I know what I’m doing is working for me so I’m just going to keep doing it.  But it would be fun to know if there’s any info out there that might explain WHY it’s working. 

Thanks for reading my email..."

I really hope my email piques his curiosity.  I'm kind of curious to know why the heck it's made a difference.

Luxury

I'm just taking a moment to be very, very grateful to have the luxury of eating delicious, high quality food that promotes health and performance.  Because it is a luxury.

I don't have to worry about whether or not I'm going to be able to procure food for myself tomorrow or next week.  I also don't have to make a choice of either eating food that has gone bad or to starve.  And it's not hard for me to get food that tastes good and won't result in me developing diabetes five years from now.  The stores I can easily get to carry more than just five flavours of Ichiban, some stale white bread, a few cans of Chef Boyardee and Froot Loops.  And the stuff I buy can be both tastey AND good for me.

It's a luxury to care that the food I put into my body helps me look, feel and perform at my best.
It's a luxury to care that the food I can buy was raised ethically and in a way I feel good about.

Maybe it shouldn't be.  But it is.  And I am grateful.

If only poor people understood nutrition from The Fat Nutritionist

PS.  I've been reading through The Fat Nutritionist today and found a few fantabulous posts that I thought were brazilliant (am I annoying you to an appropriate extent with an overusage of made up 'words' that are simply two words denoting similar characteritics all mooshed together?... excellent!).  Go, read and enjoy!

Eat food.  Stuff you like.  As much as you want.
The rules of nutrition.

Back when I was doing "Fit to Strip" as exercise and eating 1300 cals a day of whole wheat muffins and fat free yogurt...

Back when I was doing "Fit to Strip" as exercise and eating 1300 calories a day of whole wheat muffins and fat free yogurt, I set some goals for myself.  No, no, I didn't want a muscle up or an HSPU or to do Fran in under 4:00 minutes or a double body weight deadlift (410lbs, baby - now there's a fucking goal!).  Silly, silly you for thinking that!  No, back when I gauged all my progress on the scale, there was nothing I wanted more than to be 135lbs.

Yes, how exciting.  To go through life with gravity exerting just enough pressure upon me so that a calibrated scale would note in the morning, immediately after getting up and peeing, and while wearing no clothes, that there was exactly 135lbs of pressure being exerted on the ground underneath my stationary feet was a thrilling thought. Imagine that accomplishment!  There could be nothing sweeter!

Well, it's taken five years but today I finally got to experience that tingling thrill.  And let me tell you, it doesn't really mean a damn thing.  I am sorry to report that there really is nothing different about today than yesterday.  Or the day before that when I weighed something other than 135lbs.  Robin, did point out one special and exciting benefit.  When I'm doing body weight squats, it's super easy putting a pair of 45's on a bar. I'll let you know if she's right.

Edited to add:
I can't believe I actually typed the following sentence. 

"Since I am a couch potato with no lung capacity, I’ve been sticking with the 40 minute basic routine and will add in stripper moves when I’m ready."

Sometimes I kind of make sense...

Really, it sometimes happens. Not, like, all the time or anything. Actually, I talk out of my ass a lot - it's a skill I put to work quite often on the job site. Heh! Anyways, I belong to a couple of message boards that get traffic from people who trying to make some lifestyle changes.  And sometimes I write shit that kind of makes some sense. Or, at least it does to me, based on what I've learned over the past five years.  And then it gets bumped down the threads and eventually lost in the ether.

A few months later, I run across a similar question and have to retype whatever response I've come up with and it's never as good the second time around.

I've made a few posts over the past few days that I don't want to lose in case I want to use them again.

On Body for Life's binge/starve inducing "Free Day" concept:
Don't freaking binge then starve yourself. You're doing this to get fit and healthy. You're not doing this as a punishment for being overweight or unfit. So, stop treating food as a reward or punishment. It's neither. Food is good. It's life, it's community, it's sharing and it's fun. Celebrate food by eating good, real food. Starving yourself is just stupid and it's not going to make up for an earlier binge. It's telling yourself you're not worthy of life. And, to be honest, isn't binging just more punishment on your body? It's telling yourself you're worthless and someone to disrespect. Neither behaviour is going to bring you joy. And neither is certainly going to get you where you want to go.

On attempting to accurately gauge calories burned to calories consumed to ensure perfect two-pound losses each week on the scale:
Dr. Mat Lalonde, who is both exceedingly hot and smart, has a great quote. "You are not a bomb calorimeter."

You can't just weigh and measure the inputs and outputs and then get perfect results. Our bodies are way too exciting, interesting and complex for that. There is a whole host of wacky hormonal things going on as your body does this thing called living. On top of that, your scale weighs EVERYTHING. It doesn't show you body composition shifts. It doesn't tell you if you're retaining water that day. Yep, even those expensive ones that use bio-impedance (horribly inaccurate - FYI). It just tells you how much force gravity is asserting on you at any given time.

Stop doing math.

Your body is giving you feedback all the time. Now you need to start learning to listen to it. Focus on your actions. Are you eating food that is high in nutrients and that nutures your body? Are you constantly hungry? Preoccupied with eating? Are you gassy, bloated or constipated? These are all signs you need to tweak what you're eating. Or do you feel pretty good (i.e. hungry when you should be hungry, comfortable after meals with happy digestion). Are you moving your body and challenging yourself in ways to improve your fitness? Are you lifting weights to get and stay strong (you should be... weights improve insulin sensitivity, bone density and darn if they don't make you look pretty!)? How`s your cardio-endurance? Do you have lots of energy throughout the day? Do you feel pretty positive? Are you having fun? How do your joints feel? Are you getting stronger? Are you getting faster? If not, you might need to tweak your workouts. You'll want to make sure you're getting enough rest and recovery between workouts so you are seeing improved performance. And you'll want to make sure you're bringing it to your workouts. Lots of people make the mistake of working out longer and longer instead of just upping the intensity of what they're doing. Longer just means more wear and tear on your joints. Harder generally results in improved fitness.

The weirdest thing starts happening as you stop doing math and, instead, just get consistent with all those behaviours that promote health and fitness. Eventually, you start looking like a healthy and fit person. And that's because you are. Surprisingly, the number on the scale generally goes down as well.

Seven days!

Yep, seven days! That's all that's left to go. I CAN'T WAIT!!!

Leave it all on the floor.

I wish I could find a video that included more of OPT's speech at the start of Regionals.  He talked a lot about leaving it all on the floor at the competition.  I've been thinking a lot about that this weekend.  I think to be really happy with how I do down in California, I'm going to have to leave it all on the floor.  But it's not going to be just what I do down there that weekend.  It's also what I'm doing here beforehand.

With Regionals, I worked recovery pretty hard.  I prioritized rest, my diet was spot on for a good chunk of it and I'm so happy with how I did.  I did all I could to do as well as I could when I was there and that's all you can ask of yourself.  And it paid off with faster body weight movements, better run times and that helped my team.  For sectionals, I can't say that.  While I busted my ass on the training, looking back at the other aspects of preparation, things weren't anywhere close to ideal.  While it provided valuable information that I can use to better plan for next year, a part of me is still a bit disapointed that I didn't really go all out with nutrition, rest and recovery.  Lately, while I've been doing well with the training, I know I haven't been trying as hard as I can with keeping the nutrition in line.  I mean, it hasn't been bad, but it hasn't been as good as it can be, either.

For the Affiliate Cup, I don't want to second guess what I did to prepare.  I want to know I left it all on the floor.  So it's ON.

Also, did you hear the news about breakfast?  Not so high and mighty now, are you breakfast?

Next up, HSPUs and 95lb snatches for reps...

Got my first muscle up last night.  Could only snag the one.  Will try for two on Friday.  This was after 3x210lb back squats - something I wasn't feeling too confident about given all the cardio madness.  It was a good night in the gym all around. 


Also, 5k in vibrams may be a bit too much of a jump.  My left foot is a cranky biotch today.