Tag Archives: crossfit

Benchmarks For BJJ: Part 1

Posted on January 6, 2020 | Leave a comment

Nobody bothered to ask me, but if they did ask me, here’s what I would tell them: Get in really good shape if you want to compete. A jiujitsu competition is not just about who has the best jiujitsu skills, it’s about who is willing to work harder to win. The worst way to lose in my opinion is to gas out because you were not in fighting shape. There are lots of ways to train but if I was going to initially assess your readiness, I would look at these four workouts first and see how your performed. These are just three workouts that I have frequently used to train and assess athletes and there are many more that I could choose. Let’s start here. These workouts are relatively low skill and low weight but pack a punch and are useful to gauge how ready you are for the physical and mental challenges of competition. First learn to beat a barbell that isn’t fighting back before going against a live opponent.

When you enter a tournament you know based on your belt level how long your matches will last.  A white belt match is 5 minutes and a black belt match is 10 minutes (different organizations will have different time limits). You will know your weight and your opponents should be within a certain weight range. You probably will not know how many matches you will have until the day of because brackets are often not set until they have all the participants registered and checked in. Ask around and get a sense if you are in a stacked division or a light division. Obviously it is better to be over-prepared for more matches. On average most people have about 4 matches at local tournaments. Be prepared. Also in terms of strength you should be able to back squat and deadlift a barbell that weighs the same or more than you for multiple reps. You should have multiple pull-ups and dips.

“Fight Gone Bad”

In the early days of CrossFit, Coach Glassman created a workout for BJ Penn to prepare him for the UFC.  The workout was called “Fight Gone Bad” and it was as follows: 

3 5-minute rounds of:  (5 rounds if he was preparing for a championship fight).  

  • 1 minute of Wallballs, 20lbs 10ft target
  • 1 minute of Sumo Deadlift High Pulls, 75 lbs
  • 1 minute of Box Jumps, 20”
  • 1 minute of Push Press, 75lbs
  • 1 minute of Rowing for Calories
  • 1 minute rest between rounds.

The score was the total number of reps (and calories on the rower) added  up over all three rounds. What is great about this workout is that by doing the movements correctly you are forced to do a minimum amount of work for each rep and the more reps you get overall indicates your ability put out power for the duration of a fight. 

 

“The Death Race”

5 rounds for time of: 

  • 15 Calories Bike
  • 10 Burpees

This is a “gas pedal” workout: you step on the gas and go! There is no rest. You have to hit this hard and fast. Getting this workout done in under 7 minutes will require you to go to a dark place. If you want to be physically and mentally prepared for a competition, strive to do this workout as fast as possible.

“StrongFit Conditioning Benchmark”

Originally this workout was written as 8 minutes with a 140lb sandbag. I suggest you set the clock to match your rank level: 5 minutes for white, 6 for blue, etc.  The weight should be 60-70% of your body weight. So a 200lb black belt should be carrying a 120-140lb sandbag for 10 minutes. This is just a simple and painful workout that will test your fortitude.

Pick up the bag and bear hug it or Zercher it and do 5, below-parallel squats, walk 50ft and turn around and do 5 more squats and walk back.  Repeat this as many times as you can during the time. The less you drop the bag the better. The more rounds you do the better. An average of a round per minute is pretty good. You want to exceed that by as much as possible.  Hugging a heavy sandbag is a good facsimile for grappling with another human of similar size.

CrossFit Open Workout 12.1

This is by far the simplest workout you can do to determine your readiness.  The original workout is simple: perform as many burpees as you can in 7 minutes. In its original form the burpees were done to a target six inches above the athlete’s max reach. This dramatically impacts your score. I suggest you modify this to a time that corresponds to your belt level: 5 minutes for white belt, 6 for blue, etc. I also recommend you try it with and without the target. An average of about 12 burpees per minute with a target (and 15 without a target) is excellent. If you can move at that pace it will be hard for someone to out work your during your match. 

There are lots of ways to train and there is no guaranty that being stronger or faster or doing more burpees will get you a medal. But being in good shape gives you confidence it gives you a leg up on your opponent. It’s one less thing you have to worry about when you’re on the mat. Go work fucking harder.

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For The Love of the Open

Posted on March 5, 2019 | Leave a comment

This time of year is very interesting if you are a crossfitter.  The CrossFit Games Open Competition is five weeks of worldwide, online competition between basically every crossfitter in the world.  Each week for five weeks a workout is released on a Thursday evening and by Monday evening everyone must submit their scores and have them validated.  People compete against, themselves, their friends at the gym, and against other crossfitters from around the world.  The practice of “leaderboarding” becomes a favorite pasttime during the Open as everyone constantly checks the online leaderboard to see where they rank and also follow their favorite athletes to see where they rank. By using different filters on the leaderboard, you can compare yourself to others of the same age, profession, or in the same region, etc.  It’s quite an event.  
From the gym owner’s perspective it is a complicated time of the year because you try to sign everyone at the gym up for the Open.  You have to make sure people take the online judges’ course and make yourself available to judge and validate scores.  Most gym’s choose to run the Open workout all day Friday or Saturday and also make themselves available for make ups and do overs. With some people insisting on re doing the workout several times up until the last possible minute on Monday before scores need to be submitted.  This can be an incredible opportunity for creating a fun, supportive, competitive environment at your gym and bring members together.  Additionally, the Open competition has a magical ability to push athletes to try and succeed at many tasks that they heretofore were unable to do.  Social media is often overrun with videos of people performing their first muscle up, double under, handstand pushup, etc.  It’s a great time of the year.  Many athletes enjoy the fun competitive atmosphere as well as the opportunity to push and hit new personal bests.  
There is a downside to the Open as well. Many gym owners complain about this time of year because it forces additional administrative duties on them.  The need to register people, judge and validate scores, keep the gym open longer for people to redo the workout.  Additionally, many gym owners find it extremely hard to program workouts during the Open because they do not want to overtrain their athletes during the competition or fatigue some body part on Wednesday or Thursday right before they may be needing it on Friday.  Gym owners often complain about the logistics of the open. So workouts are difficult to run in certain spaces, they may not have enough equipment.  Some athletes will either want to or need to video their workouts and that often requires rearranging of space and resources to accommodate.  Also managing people’s expectations during competition season requires a whole other level of empathy above and beyond what is usually required. 
From the athlete’s point of view, the Open is a competition and all the stress of competition is in full effect.  People stress much more about everything when it’s a competition.  Some people shut down in the face of competition and refuse to partake or partake only half-heartedly.  While others give in to the dark side of competition and start to obsess about everything.  They swear they will only do the workout once and then find themselves repeating a workout two or more times until they are satisfied or out of time.  As I said before, some people embrace this stress and it pushes them to breakthrough to new personal bests.  Others breakdown. They quit. They cry.  They Crumble.  
I myself find the impending Open always fills me with a little dread, but once I’m in it, I am glad that I signed up.  The Open is possibly the best part of the year in CrossFit despite all the negatives and hassles and here’s why.  The Open re-affirms one of CrossFit’s defining characteristics: intensity gets you results.  The Open is about intensity.   If people treated every training session at the gym every day like it was the CrossFit Open, they would get much fitter much faster.  Sadly, most people, coaches, owners spend the other ten and a half months chasing more volume and doing longer workouts, doing multiple workouts, and chasing quantity over quality.  Then they have a hard time adjusting to the all-out intensity of the Open.  
Here’s what a standard day looks like in an affiliate.  There is a brief chat about the workout.  There is a general warmup.  Then the class will do a lifting session sometimes culminating in an EMOM.  After that there is a mad rush to set up equipment for the Met Con and it’s “3,2,1 Go!”  Followed by a cool down and class is over.  Very little time is spent preparing for the workout, going over the movements and the standards.  There is very little coaching or correcting when it comes to range of motion and standards.  There is very little time spent on mobility or workout strategies.  There is very little time spent on skill development.  
Contrast this to how things happen in the Open.  Every time a workout is released coaches start posting strategies and tips to their social media. You learn the best ways to mobilize, tutorials for how to do each of the movements, the best way to cycle the barbell, the best strategies for breaking up bigger sets, etc.  Suddenly people become aware of things like range of motion and movement standards and no reps.  And, maybe most importantly, class isn’t divided into multiple workouts.  The whole hour is devoted to getting you to perform your best and be effective tackling one workout.  
When you think about it like that, it’s no wonder that so many people set personal records during the Open and get their first muscle up or double under.  What if we had one workout per day and just devoted a whole hour to smashing it and getting the best performance possible? Think about how that would affect your long term training and development.  This is why if you look at CrossFit.com you will still see only one single workout each day.  Each day the intention is to smash one work hard as if you were in competition, as if it was the only thing that mattered.  
Every year the Open is a reminder to me to focus on one thing and do it better.  

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Posted in CrossFit, crossfit games

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The Tightfisted Panda Program

Posted on October 15, 2018 | Leave a comment

I’m just a guy that’s trying to stay in shape. I have a family, I have a job, I have a full plate, but I still need to make time for working out. I want to look good, feel good, I want to set a good example for my kids, and I don’t want to be that guy that’s let himself go because that’s what you’re supposed to do when you’re in your forties. I do not believe that you have to spend all your time working out to be in good shape. Intensity and consistency are the keys to getting in shape, not spending hours in the gym.

For me, fitness is my job and my hobby so I have a lot of gear. Most people don’t need to invest in a lot of gimmicky gear that’s going to collect dust and eventually get sold at a yard sale. You need the bare minimum of gear, but more importantly, you need a plan and someone that’s going to motivate you. That’s me.

This program is not going to turn you into The Rock. It’s going to motivate you to get off your ass for 20 minutes a day and workout. It’s going to make you stronger, it’s going to improve your endurance, and it’s going to challenge you to move in new ways.

Sound good? What you need is one kettlebell*, something to do pull-ups* on, and a place to run*. I program a single workout per day, five days per week. There are video examples of each exercise as well as video briefs for most of the workouts. There are tutorials for more complicated movements and options for modifications and scaling if the exercises are too hard. But best of all they are all short, intense workouts that take 20 minutes or less.

Why one kettlebell? If I could only have one piece of exercise equipment on a desert island, it would be a kettlebell. A kettlebell can be held with one hand or with both hands simultaneously, thus there are more exercise options than with a dumbbell of the same weight. The center of mass is offset unlike a dumbbell, thus you can do swinging exercises that are hard to replicate with a dumbbell, and you can hold it in different ways to challenge your grip. They’re small and portable and can be used almost anywhere. What if I want more than one kettlebell? You can have as much gear as you want. I will totally support you in spending as much as you want on cool exercise equipment. However, for this program, you just need one kettlebell. I recommend men get a bell between 35 and 55 pounds (1 to 1.5 pood). Women should get a bell between 20-35 pounds (10-16kg). I will demo almost everything with a 16kg competition bell. Most of you if you’re buying a bell for the first time I would recommend women starting with 12kg or 25lbs and men starting with 16kg or 35lbs. If you have absolutely zero working out experience and that sounds heavy, then go lighter. If you have a lot of weightlifting experience and that sounds too light, go heavier. I’m going to program everything with the 25/35 pound weight in mind for the average user and assume if it’s too challenging you will modify the reps down or modify the exercise. And I will assume if you’re using the heavier option you will either go a little slower or do fewer reps.

Why pull-ups? One of the best upper body exercises is pull-ups. Unfortunately, there are surprisingly few places to do pull-ups in our environment, so it is worth it to invest in a pull-up bar. Since many people find pull-ups extremely challenging, what I recommend is investing in some sort of suspension training device. I use a pair of gymnastic rings that I have suspended from the ceiling, but you can get a TRX type system and hang it from the ceiling, a pullup bar, or the back of a door. The suspension trainer allows you to do upperbody pulling exercises using your legs for assistance and allowing you to train your pullup muscles even if you cannot yet do a pullup. It also opens up a tremendous amount of additional exercise possibilities.

Why do I need to run? Good question. I often ask that same question when I’m in the middle of a run. Running is a tremendous cardio exercise and a life skill that will get you out of danger. Whether you like it or not, you should be able to run a full sprint to catch a plane, chase down a pick pocket, or escape from a horde of zombies. However, if you cannot run or do not have a place to run, I highly recommend having access to some piece of cardio equipment that can crush your soul in a similar fashion. I suggest running because it’s cheap. Most people have access to the outdoors, but some of you might live in a 5 story walk-up on the lower east side and running might not be feasible. Don’t worry. We can make it work. If you have a bike, a rower, an elliptical, a jump rope, or some other cardio equipment that’s awesome, and you can always just run in place if that’s the only option.

What kind of workouts will these be? Well you can expect that you will have to run, use the kettlebell and do something on the pullup bar every week, but the workouts will always be changing to challenge you in different ways. Some days you will spend more time running. Some days you’ll just stand in one place and do a lot of kettlebell swings. Some days will be a circuit of many different exercises. Some days will challenge your flexibility and balance and some days will challenge your strength. Some days you’ll hate it and be frustrated and other days you will feel amazing. It’s all part of the process. You won’t get bored, you won’t over train and burn out. Most importantly, you’ll get fit.

The cost is $20 per month or $200 for the whole year, you can get started right away. Email me at coachpanda@forcedistancetime.com and we can set you up.

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Posted in CrossFit, Rx'd, Strength

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Athlete vs. Warrior

Posted on June 5, 2018 | Leave a comment

What does it mean to be an athlete? Athletes tend to prize certain characteristics such as drive, determination, competitiveness, commitment, and adaptability. Athletes also comport to a code of conduct referred to as sportsmanship. Good sportsmanship means to play fair, be a team player, lose gracefully, win with class and dignity, respect the officials, and respect the other team.

What does it mean to be a warrior? To be a warrior one must possess strength, courage and honor. Warriors follow a code of Bushido which espouses honor, obedience, duty, and self-sacrifice. On a philosophical level these two groups are not at odds, in fact, they overlap nearly perfectly. Thus it is not surprising that many athletes look to the great warrior texts such as The Art of War and The Book of Five Rings for inspiration and guidance.

What is surprising is that martial artists do not look more closely at the best practices of athletes to help them physically prepare. I work with a lot of athletes and the best ones all do similar things. They eat right. While each athlete might have a different plan for how they eat, they all have a plan. Good athletes are in control of the quality of their food as well as the quantity of their food. They keep track of there macro and micro nutrients. Good athletes understand that proper nutrition is essential to your performance and health.

The best athletes work hard in the gym to keep their bodies functioning at a high level. Varsity and professional weight rooms are filled with athletes getting after it. There are coaches helping them not only get stronger but also fixing imbalances and preparing their bodies to be injury resistant.

The best athletes warm up. They show up early and prepare their bodies and minds for the training session or the competition at hand. They know that a good warm up not only helps them avoid injury but also helps them get mentally prepared to work hard.

The best athletes take their recovery seriously. The best athletes are nerds and go to bed early. They stretch and roll and get massages and take care of small aches and pains before they become bigger problems.

The best athletes use their practice time to fix their mistakes. I see a lot of athletes that are not that impressive in practice. They seem a little slow and sometimes look like they have two left feet, but when it’s game day they are MVPs. What I have come to realize is that good athletes will use their training sessions to fix mistakes and work on new skills. They are not concerned with how they look in practice because they are consciously working on new skills which naturally makes them slightly slower and more awkward. That’s how the best athletes continue to improve.

In addition to spending time with high level athletes, I spend a lot of time with enthusiasts and hobbyists. It is okay to merely come to the gym or dojo to look better for the summer. And, honestly, sometimes it’s more fun to hang out with people that are not seriously competitive athletes. However, we could all adopt a few better practices that would help us improve.

You do not need to revamp your whole diet, but you could make sure you eat more protein especially after you work out. You could consider removing some processed foods from your diet. You don’t have to hire a professional coach, but you could do some more burpees and swing a kettlebell every other day. You do not need to hire a professional masseuse, but you could make sure you show up in time to warmup for class and stay 10 minutes later and do some stretching before you leave.

Taking a few small steps will add up to better performance and longevity. Think like a warrior and act like an athlete.

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All Other Things Being Equal

Posted on June 4, 2018 | Leave a comment

There is a common argument that is put forth so much that we do not think about how stupid it is. The argument goes like this, “All other things being equal, the person with more X will prevail.” The argument is always used by someone that is trying to sell you more X. The fallacy of the argument is that the way it is set up, no matter what X is it will confer an advantage over people that are otherwise equally endowed. So no matter what X is, the statement always holds true for X as well as Y or Z.

For example, you hear this in competitive sports all the time, “All other things being equal, the athlete that is _________ will win.” You could fill the blank with “stronger,” “faster,” “heavier,” “better conditioned,” etc. The point is anybody that has an advantage of any kind and can capitalize on that advantage will be victorious. The argument that one advantage is more advantageous than another is specious.

Yes being stronger than your opponent is helpful if you can capitalize on that. The same is true of having better endurance or a better strategy. But all other things are not equal. They are never equal. Ever. You and your opponent both have strengths and weaknesses. The best path to victory is not trying to merely outdo everyone with strength, speed, or endurance. Because what will you do when you encounter someone stronger than you? Remember, there is always someone stronger than you. Always.

“A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.”

-Robert A. Heinlein

You need to be strong when your opponent is weak. You need to be fast when your opponent is slow. You need endurance when your opponent is gassed. You need strategy when your opponent is confused. You need to be centered when your opponent is scattered. Your fitness is not one thing, it is many things. Your success should be built on many things not one thing. Specialization is for insects.

Your training off the mat should make you formidable on many levels. Train to have no weaknesses that your opponent can exploit. Train so hard off the mat, that rolling is always easy in comparison.

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Your Cardio Sucks

Posted on June 4, 2018 | Leave a comment

Here’s a phrase I want you to ponder, “cardio-respiratory endurance is modal specific.” What does it mean? Let me give you an example. Lance Armstrong won seven Tour de France victories and was considered the best cyclist of all time. Prior to becoming the greatest cyclist, he was a reknowned triathlete as a teenager. After retiring in 2005, he decided to run the 2006 New York Marathon. Yet the best cyclist in the world, who had triathlon experience, who was coached by elite marathoners, and who was likely taking the best performance enhancing drugs available at the time, was only able to perform above average at the marathon. Many people speculated that since he had the best cardio endurance of any athlete alive at the time, he would be able to dominate in an endurance event like the marathon. Yet human physiology proved them wrong.

You take the best cyclist in the world and put her in a boat, in running shoes, on cross-country skis, in a gi, or in any other event other than cycling, and she will cease to be dominant. How many times have you heard people new to jiu-jitsu remark that “grappling is a different type of cardio” or some version of that statement. At the most basic level, cardio-respiratory endurance is the exchange of oxygen for carbon dioxide. As you train, the body will get more efficient at intaking oxygen and expelling carbon dioxide. That’s a good thing. However, efficiency at running does not translate perfectly to efficiency at jiu-jitsu. Jiu-jitsu uses many more muscles than running, it requires changes of tempo and direction, it requires both isometric holding of positions and dynamic, explosive movements. Jiu-jitsu utilizes the anaerobic as well as the aerobic energy pathways. It should not come as a surprise that 20 minutes of cardio on a treadmill doesn’t have much carry over to a 7-minute grappling session. This is why you see people come in to jiu-jitsu for the first time and they seem fit from the gym, but they gas quickly when on the mat.

This is not an excuse for you to stop doing cardio!

If you want to improve your cardio-respiratory endurance on the mat (and you should!), then you need to train in such a way that has carryover to BJJ. You need to do short fast intervals. You need to do longer workouts with high rep full-body movements, You need to train with multiple modalities in a single workout. You need to change your workouts often to avoid plateaus.

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Good Fighters Don’t Need Water.

Posted on March 5, 2018 | Leave a comment

There’s an old expression in boxing: “Good fighters don’t need water. Bad fighters don’t deserve it.” There’s nothing wrong with hydration. You need to hydrate. The problem is that people use water breaks as an excuse to rest when they should be working. You simply do not need water during a 15 minute workout. You don’t. If you came to the gym hydrated and ready to work, you should be able to push yourself for 15 minutes without needing to drink water. There is no amount of working out in 15 minutes that is going to cause you to get dehydrated. The fact is, you want to take a break. You want to quit working.

My job is to push people out of their comfort zone. My job is to get people to push and work harder. Sometimes that means telling you to put down the water and get to work. Of course, some people push themselves really hard and it’s helpful to tell them to take a sip of water and take a break if they are red-lining. Don’t get me wrong, I encourage pregnant women and the old and infirm to take breaks during the workout. However, if you’re of a viable age with no injuries and in dire need of some fitness, I’m going to tell you to stop wasting time and keep working.

Hydrating should be done before you get to the gym and after your workout. Throughout the day, you should be drinking water. But during short high-intensity efforts, you should focus on pushing yourself. Then when you’re done, get yourself some water. If you are doing a longer workout, taking a moment for a sip of water, chalking your hands, writing down how many reps you’ve done are great ways to rest and pace yourself. That type of break should be earned. When I’m doing a longer workout, sometimes I tell myself that when I finish a certain amount of work, I’ll reward myself with a short break. Most people just need to embrace the discomfort and stop reaching for the water.

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Posted in Nutrition, Thoughts

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Routine: The Enemy Or The Path To Success?

Posted on September 2, 2016 | Leave a comment

CrossFit seeks to build a program that would best prepare trainees for any physical contingency—prepare them not only for the unknown but for the unknowable. Varying workout elements provides the mechanism for creating a stimulus that is broad, general and inclusive. Any program, no matter how complete, contains within its omissions the parameters for which there will be no adaptation. Routine is the enemy.

However, there is a natural tension that exists between varied stimulus and ordered progression that leads to success in many known tasks. Routine is a double edged sword: it can provide the necessary framework for success or lead to gaping blindspots that lead to the loss of game, mission or life.

Routines are habits and like habits can be good or bad. A good habit like brushing and flossing can be preventative of future pain and disease. And a bad habit like smoking can lead ultimately to illness and death.

The two guiding principles should be dosage and balance.

A routine of exercising everyday is generally favorable. However if your exercise routine every day is the same chances are it will eventually become ineffective and possibly detrimental. For example, if you run 3 miles every morning, at first that might be a huge benefit to your health. However, if the stimulus ceases to be sufficient enough to drive adaptation, you will cease to adapt and get the benefit of that exercise. Secondly, the repetitive stress of running everyday can lead to orthopedic injuries.

Biologically speaking exercise works on the principles of stimulus and adaptation. You overload your body with some stimulus of force, distance or time and your body adapts to that stimulus by creating more muscle fibers or becoming better at gas exchange or becoming more metabolically efficient. When the stimulus ceases to exceed a certain threshold, the body ceases to adapt. That is why all programs vary the parameters over time and progressively get more challenging as the athlete adapts.

The body is wired for survival. If you ask your body to run, it will run. If you ask it to lift, it will lift. However, the body isn’t wired for optimum safety and mechanics. You have to teach it to run and lift with proper mechanics. Each foot strike when you run can send a force of greater than twice your bodyweight into your body. Multiply that by the thousands of foot strikes you will make running 3 miles per day, then ask yourself how long your body can tolerate that before something gives.

Balancing variance with routine is a skill that must be cultivated. Create good habits but make sure those good habits have lots of room for variation. I taught yoga for many years in New York City and sometimes we would be in a studio on the second floor and sirens and the other sounds of the city would bombard us through the windows or we would be in a room inside a gym blasting techno music right outside. And most people found it very challenging to concentrate and relax. I would always remind my student that anybody can go to a mountain retreat and meditate and find peace and quiet but the true object of meditation is to find peace and quiet while in the middle of the storm of noise in the city.

Setting aside 6 minutes of 60 minutes every day to exercise is a good routine, but make sure that within that time you allotted that you have made it hard and stressful and taken yourself outside your comfort zone.

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Posted in Meditation, Thoughts

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Advanced Kettlebell Course

Posted on March 21, 2016 | Leave a comment

I spent the weekend taking the CrossFit Advanced Kettlebell Seminar with Jeff Martone.  The content was divided between what I call “Old School” and “New School.”  The Old School stuff was rotational work with the kettlebells most notably the Windmill and the Bent Press, two lifts that are synonymous with physical culture.  Look at this iconic photo of Arthur Saxon.  How cool is that?  arthur_saxon.fw_

The new school content was what is known as Girevoy Sport or Kettlebell Sport.  In this sport like Olympic Weightlifting there are 3 contested lifts: the snatch, the clean, and the jerk.  However, unlike Olympic Weightlifting, this is an endurance sport where athletes compete to complete as many reps as possible (usually in 10 minutes) of either snatch, clean & jerk (“long cycle”) or jerk (“short cycle”).  They basically stand in one place and lift the kettlebell(s) as many times as they can without putting it down.  When competing with a single bell, they are only allowed one hand switch.  The bells can not be put down.  Merely standing and holding one or two kettlebells for 10 minutes without putting them down can be arduous.  Imagine exercising non stop for that time.

Personally I was excited to work on Windmills and the Bent Press was a move I have struggled with and was eager to get some pro tips on how to do it correctly.   I have had some exposure to Girevoy Sport through friends but never really had any desire to do it.  However, I was fascinated by the fact that my female friends could do 100 kettlebell snatches on each arm without putting the bell down.  My best was around 27.  So clearly there was something to be learned about efficiency.

I prefer the kettlebell moves where I do 3 to 5 reps per side and put the bell down.  When we got to the KB Sport section of the course I was less enthusiastic to be doing longer sets of cleans, jerks and snatches.  However, Jeff was able to layer on so many effective techniques to help relax.  The goal as he described it was not a powerful effort but effortless power.  With each passing set he cued different ways to stand without tension, to relax whatever body part wasn’t working like your face or the opposite arKB_Sport_Featurem.  He emphasized “anatomical breathing’–breath coinciding with the position of the body.  Constantly breathing and not holding the breath.  He emphasized a relaxed grip and different ways to minimize the stress on the grip.

By the end of the weekend we tested out with a set of 30 snatches on each arm with a 20kg kettlebell.  It was the easiest 60 kettlebell snatches of my life. I was shocked at how little I was winded after the effort.  My grip was taxed but I never felt like I had to drop the bell nor was I afraid it would fly out of my hand if I dared to do another rep.  I was a little surprised because, if you have ever spent two straight days swinging kettlebells, then you know your hands are just rubbed raw and your hamstrings are smoked, I thought for sure I was going to struggle to get to 30 reps.  I didn’t.  It was effortless power.

It made me start to wonder if I could use these techniques to do 60-100 reps of any exercise.  Martone claims that the Russians use that 100 rep milestone for squats and deadlifts and lots of other exercises.  Certainly being more efficient and more relaxed and breathing more would have to carry over.

I’m lucky if I breathe once per rep.  We learned that on just the swing itself you take two breath cycles.  Additionally, when you receive the bell there is an exhale, when you lower the bell there is an inhale.  If you rest with the bell in the rack or overhead, you continuously puff out short exhales.  Ultimately, there is way more breathing going on in one rep of a kettlebell snatch than I had previously imagined.  This breathing helps a lot in being able to sustain longer efforts.  I think about what I do in a set of wallballs or burpees and realize I am not breathing nearly as frequently as I could… or should.

Further exploration is required.

 

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When It Finally Happens

Posted on March 12, 2016 | Leave a comment

So after many, many,…. many years of CrossFit I finally got a bar muscle up.  It was long overdue.  This weekend the CrossFit Open Workout 16.3 is 10 snatches and 3 bar muscle ups.  It was time to step up to the plate and swing for the fences.

To be honest, I really haven’t really tried very hard to do a bar muscle up.  I’ve done jumping bar muscles ups and banded bar muscle ups in workouts, but usually just avoided them a lot.  That being said, I have been working really hard on all the elements of a bar muscle up.  I do a lot of work on my gymnastics swing and my transitions and deep pullups and dips.  Today was the day I put all the pieces together.

Here are the things that conspired today to make me successful:

  • I have been doing the preparation: hammering positions and the basic fundamentals.
  • I had a bunch of supportive people around me cheering me on.
  • I had good coaching that helped me get closer and closer with each attempt.
  • There was an urgency because I needed to get them this weekend in the Open.
  • I tried…Hard.

I can’t stress how important each of these elements are to success.  Do you prepare? Do you surround yourself with supportive people?  Do you have a coach that can be objective and point you in the right direction?  Do you have a sense of urgency?  Are you trying hard?

I should probably state before all of this comes the belief in yourself.  Without a belief in yourself, nothing is possible.  Stack the deck in your favor and set yourself up for success.

 

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