A Crossfit Adventure - 8 Week Update

Training Training Logs
41

[quote]Zap Branigan wrote:
romanaz wrote:
should be interesting to watch. i dont know why everyone rips on Crossfit, its probably one of the best ideas to come out of America in the recent past.

They rip on it because of statements like this. There is no reason to overhype it. Crossfit is very good for what it is.[/quote]

I didn’t mean that Crossfit is a great general program for everyone. Maybe I should have been a bit clearer in what I said. I really meant, that for someone who fits the goals of what Crossfit claims, it is good and better then anything else out on the market for that niche.

42

You seem to sub somethin for something else everyworkout. If it’s that bastardized why are you posting about it?

43

Thirteen here…

We’re subbing because we cannot do certain exercises due to injuries and/or lack of the proper equipment.

There are two approved forms of modifying Crossfit workouts (they have a lot of info on their site so you are free to go and check this all out):

#1 Subbing - do this when equipment isn’t available (i.e. do you have a 15ft climbing rope in your gym?) or when injuries intervene. Rowing is the most common substitute for running as distance-time relationships are similar.

#2 Scaling - adjusting weights/reps to one’s ability.

I would estimate that these adjustments are applied by 80% of the people who do Crossfit. Over then next 7 weeks, I will be doing weights/reps as close to the WOD as possible, and Tanimal will be too.

44

[quote]Pinto wrote:
heavythrower wrote:
Hanley wrote:

You really have no idea what sort of numbers he’s putting up do you?

hmmm, though with exception to the deadlift, i have never hit numbers anywhere near what pinto has(though i still would put my 600lb squat, at a drug free 192lbs, in the now defunct ADFPA, with equipment that would be a joke in todays PL world, and IPF-ish strict judging, against anyone on this board), i did not see and strength decreases as far as “real” strength is concerned. if you are talking about your geared max pl numbers, yes if you abandon chains, bands, boxes, boards, and practice in your gear, of course those numbers will go in the toilet, and if you are a serious PL, then that is a no-go.

i bet his power clean, raw free squat,raw conventional pull, and overhead power will maintain or maybe even go up some. mine did. but i threw in more heavy lifting for singles and triples than they prescribed.

For the record, my numbers ain’t nothing to brag about as a 275/308 class lifter in the APF.

My observation has been that if I abandon heavy lifts for any stretch of time, my maximal strength- in geared, raw, main lifts, accessory/training lift, whatever- goes down. I remember doing a Sheiko-type routine a couple years back. I did it raw (belt and wrist wraps only) for about two months. The goal was to increase my raw “base” strength. I never took a lift over 85-90% of max for two months. The result was that my training stamina and ability to rep weights went up (no surprise there- given the volume) and I added some mass- bigger quads, shoulders, and packed on 5-8 lean lbs or so drugfree.

However, when I took some raw maxes at the end of eight weeks, I found that they were unchanged (in the case of bench and squat) and even went down a bit (in the case of deadlift). Of course- as you accureately pointed out- when I put gear back on, I found that my equipped lifts had totally gone to shit.

I think reps and volume are great for growth and can be part of the plan, but nothing prepares/maintains you for heavy weight quite like heavy weight does. I think your strength gains were more a function of those heavy sets you took than the regular crossfit rep/weight schemes.
[/quote]

well, i think we are just agreeing here. oh, and the fact that 771 sq and 551 bp are ust mediocre lifts in the apf says a lot about the state of geared lifting today.

45

what i would do often, was lower the volume and up the load on some of there rep schemes.

instead of a set of deads with 225lbs for 21-15-9, i would do maybe 350lbs for 11-7-3,

also, maybe i would do a standard WOD, but i would either start it or end it with a heavy big movement.

46

[quote]tanimal wrote:
Thirteen here…

We’re subbing because we cannot do certain exercises due to injuries and/or lack of the proper equipment.

There are two approved forms of modifying Crossfit workouts (they have a lot of info on their site so you are free to go and check this all out):

#1 Subbing - do this when equipment isn’t available (i.e. do you have a 15ft climbing rope in your gym?) or when injuries intervene. Rowing is the most common substitute for running as distance-time relationships are similar.

#2 Scaling - adjusting weights/reps to one’s ability.

I would estimate that these adjustments are applied by 80% of the people who do Crossfit. Over then next 7 weeks, I will be doing weights/reps as close to the WOD as possible, and Tanimal will be too.

[/quote]

oh I see. I was just wondering why, it seemed pretty odd.

47

I guess you skipped over the part in the introduction where we described our injuries then eh?..

If you go back, it says that I need surgery on my ankle (April 21st) to remove a loose osteochondral body, and Thirteen broke 5 bones in his foot during a BMX crash that still haven’t healed, and he also had shoulder surgery a couple years ago…

Next time, if you don’t read the whole thread, I suggest you should refrain from making rude comments. Besides that. bastardizing the CrossFit program would be subbing in all sorts of exercises that were no where near the original, not subbing in an exercise that was very close to the original. I took offense to your statement.

eg: subbing in bench press instead of rope climbs = bastardization
subbing in sled rope pulls for rope climbs = modification

48

"what i would do often, was lower the volume and up the load on some of there rep schemes.

instead of a set of deads with 225lbs for 21-15-9, i would do maybe 350lbs for 11-7-3,

also, maybe i would do a standard WOD, but i would either start it or end it with a heavy big movement. "

Heavythrower,
I think that’s awesome. Too many people just look at Crossfit at face value and figure they can’t incorporate it into their workout program. It definately has it’s benefits. I think it can have benefits for PL’s too. I saw an increase in my recovery time between sets when I was only doing one Xfit workout a week.

Thanks for your comments so far!

49

Today’s WOD (March 16th)
Total rounds in 20 minutes of:
400m Run
Max chin-ups

Since neither of us are able to run right now. We both came up with an alternative on the bike.

Thirteen’s previous average 400m run time is under 1:10 so he figured if he ran several 400m his average would be somewhere around 1:30. He did every round of bike at a resistance that was hard to sustain for 1:30.

We both used an approximate time reference instead of distance. (We thought this was fine seeing as how it would be stressing the same energy system)…

My best 400m time is 1:30 so I started my first round at 1:30 and added 5 seconds to every round. By the last round I was at 2 minutes. I also used a green band to assists with my chin-ups.

Thirteen:
Round 1 - 1:30, 15
Round 2 - 1:30, 10
Round 3 - 1:30, 9
Round 4 - 1:30, 8
Round 5 - 1:30, 7
Round 6 - 1:30, 7
Round 7 - 1:30, 6
Total - 10:30, 62

Tanimal:
Round 1 - 1:30, 15
Round 2 - 1:35, 8
Round 3 - 1:40, 8
Round 4 - 1:45, 7
Round 5 - 1:50, 7
Round 6 - 1:55, 6
Round 7 - 2:00, 7
Total - 12:15, 58

This afternoon is the first BMX race of the season here. I am looking forward to getting back on my bike and on the track!! Hopefully I don’t wreck myself…lol

50

I stumbled onto this site surfing and am interested in how you do with cf. I have been doing it for a year and love it. The thing to remember about cf is it is a general conditioning program. cf specializes in not specializing. You will have your strong suits and you will be humbled in other areas. The cf facility I work out at has a sign where you walk in " Leave your ego at the door" I hope it enhances your abilities the same as it has for thousands of others.

51

Thanks! I think you will find this site very informative. The articles are pretty good and the authors tend to be leaders in the field. The threads can sometimes be frustrating because there are some very pessimistic people who post very negative comments, but other than that, the threads can also be informative and interesting.

52

[quote]Thirteen wrote:
Should be a conditioning workout tomorrow (metcon)?

cb.[/quote]

metcon = metabolic conditioning

Just a term that came up to differentiate the different types of CrossFit workouts. At one time CrossFit was only metcon’s but now with the strength stuff and the occasional 5k and 10K there is a bit more variety.

Things are looking pretty good, how do you guys feel so far? I almost forgotten something.

Deload weeks- Like someone else already said, you should definitely make every 3rd or 4th week some type of deload week, where you either lessen the volume or lessen the rounds/time. So at your 4th week if you had Cindy, you could do max rounds in 10 minutes or something like that.

I didn’t see it mentioned but are you guys doing going for the kipping pullup/chinup or staying with dead-hangs? I know there is a lot of controversy surrounding that topic and wondered which you guys were doing.

53

Both of us do dead hang chins/pulls. I am using a band for assistance so it’s pretty hard to kip with that lol. I have tried kipping and even after watching the technique video I still just can’t get it. I can’t even do one kipping chin whereas I can do two chins from a dead hang…still need to work on that if I ever want to do them. Not sure if I even care to do kipping chins though. It’s more impressive when you can pound out a fair amount of chins from a dead hang…just my opinion

54

[quote]tanimal wrote:
Both of us do dead hang chins/pulls. I am using a band for assistance so it’s pretty hard to kip with that lol. I have tried kipping and even after watching the technique video I still just can’t get it. I can’t even do one kipping chin whereas I can do two chins from a dead hang…still need to work on that if I ever want to do them. Not sure if I even care to do kipping chins though. It’s more impressive when you can pound out a fair amount of chins from a dead hang…just my opinion[/quote]

I personally look at it this way, if you compare the both it’s like comparing a strict standing overhead press and a push press.

Deadhang for strength stuff. I use these for when I’m doing straight sets or weighted variations.

Kipping for metcon’s. Once you really get the kip down these will add a whole new thing to scorch you during metcon’s.

For a while there was this “if you can do 35 kipping pull-ups then you will have beast dead-hang numbers as well.” Ehh…not so much I think both have a time and place and should be used accordingly.

55

I have done Crossfit (and the Zone diet) for three years now.

Before that I did your standard body building fair and never really progressed. So when I started Crossfit i tracked everything pretty meticulously as well as my PR’s, etc. Over a period of 2 and 1/2 years I got stronger, faster, etc. My Deadlift was over 3 times my body weight for example. In any case – what did not change was my body weight. I was at 155 lbs and 2 and 1/2 years later still at around 155 lbs. Now I lost some fat so some muscle was gained.

So then I decided to change my diet. I stayed on the zone so far as using it to count my blocks (or how many calories I was taking in – it is an easy system once you learn it). But I started doing the Double-Surge, eating more protein, taking BCAA’s during the day and when I woke up at night. Result: 6 months later I weigh over 184 lbs. And my PR’s have reflected the extra muscle as well.

My problem now is that I may need to start buying some new clothes.

So in any case – I think if you are not growing with Crossfit then you need to eat more.

56

[quote]Backlash79 wrote:

I didn’t see it mentioned but are you guys doing going for the kipping pullup/chinup or staying with dead-hangs? I know there is a lot of controversy surrounding that topic and wondered which you guys were doing.

[/quote]

There shouldn’t be any controversy between kipping and dead-hang pullups. They are different exercises, for different purposes.

It is like comparing apples to oranges.

57

[quote]heavythrower wrote:
what i would do often, was lower the volume and up the load on some of there rep schemes.

instead of a set of deads with 225lbs for 21-15-9, i would do maybe 350lbs for 11-7-3,

also, maybe i would do a standard WOD, but i would either start it or end it with a heavy big movement. [/quote]

IF you do it for time – that is totally acceptable. Nothing wrong with that. Most people scale the WOD down – some, like myself scale it up occasionally when I want to deal with more weight.

I will say this though. I think you see moderate weights in Metcon WOD like this because when fatigue sets in, form does suffer and injuries are not likely with such moderate weights…that is my opinion of it anyway. The point of Metcon is power generation. Not to say you should allow your form to break down so much you are doing fore-head ups instead of pullups…but it does happen to a degree.

58

Crossfit is brutal.

Good job, guys!

Have you taken any measurements/times before starting this “test”

59

[quote]mmllcc wrote:
I have done Crossfit (and the Zone diet) for three years now.

Before that I did your standard body building fair and never really progressed. So when I started Crossfit i tracked everything pretty meticulously as well as my PR’s, etc. Over a period of 2 and 1/2 years I got stronger, faster, etc. My Deadlift was over 3 times my body weight for example. In any case – what did not change was my body weight. I was at 155 lbs and 2 and 1/2 years later still at around 155 lbs. Now I lost some fat so some muscle was gained.

So then I decided to change my diet. I stayed on the zone so far as using it to count my blocks (or how many calories I was taking in – it is an easy system once you learn it). But I started doing the Double-Surge, eating more protein, taking BCAA’s during the day and when I woke up at night. Result: 6 months later I weigh over 184 lbs. And my PR’s have reflected the extra muscle as well.

My problem now is that I may need to start buying some new clothes.

So in any case – I think if you are not growing with Crossfit then you need to eat more.
[/quote]

pretty serious gains there

60

Awesome thread, been reading it since the beginning and I wish you both success. I might have to incorporate some of the workouts into my routine as well.

Keep up the hard work!