Monday 03/31/2008

WOD
6 rounds of 10 reps each:
Barbell Front Squat (115#)
Overhead DB Swings (40#)
Decline Bench Situps
Pushups
Double Unders

W/D:
Go home and crash... spent all night in the fishbowl finishing my thesis. The blasted thing is finally done, though!

***
"The amount of sleep required by the average person is five minutes more."
- Wilson Mizener

Sunday 03/30/2008

WOD
Tabata:
DB Overhead Swing
Jumping Lunge
Mountain Climber
Jumping Squat
Pushup
Double Under/ Jump Rope

8 Rounds of 00:20 on, 00:10 off.

***
"The easiest way to find something lost around the house is to buy a replacement."
- Author Unknown

Great article off Dragon Door

REAR WHEEL DRIVE
This is a great article I pulled off Dragon Door, by RKC Tom Furman. It highlights the importance of training the posterior chain (aka. the group of muscles in the lower body that are important for force development in exercises such as running, jumping and sprinting).

How often do you walk into a gym (a big box gym, that is, not a CrossFit gym) and see Mr. Arms grunting and making all sorts of contorted faces in the mirror as he struggles to bust out one more darned preacher curl with the E-Z bar? Pretty much all the time. On the flipside, you hardly see anyone doing deadlifts, or for that matter, squatting ass-to-ankles. That being said, I suppose you do see a couple of quarter-squats every now and then, though.

There's a reason why all those fancy-ass gyms have like 99% of their floor space dedicated to the newfangled Nautilus creations or version 15.5 of the elliptical machine and a miscellany of other cardio gizmos, while the free-weight section is banished to the furthest corner of the room. Most of the time, all you'll find there anyway are benches, benches, and more benches - well, come to think of it, probably a Smith Machine too - with scarcely any space to work on other lifts. And don't even begin to imagine that there'd be a platform. Do you really think a globo gym'd shell out money for a plain wooden slab surrounded by drab rubber edges and a couple of recycled rubber bumpers when they could be splashing their funds on the latest revolutionary fitness equipment that promises to tone, firm, and strengthen all at the same time - without you having to break a sweat? (Just in case you were wondering, it's all hype. Always has been, always is, always will be).

Alright, so I went off on a bit of a tangent there. But you get the idea. If nothing else, incorporate full-body movements into your training plan. Mix it up - use dumbbells, barbells, kettlebells, ropes, rings, hurdles, your own bodyweight - pretty much whatever suits your fancy. And I guarantee it'll be far less mundane and a lot more beneficial!

Saturday 03/29/2008

WOD
30-25-20-15-10-5 reps of:
Barbell Thruster
Situp on Decline Bench
Overhead Walking Lunge with Barbell
Back Extension
Barbell Jump Squat
Double Under

***
"I haven't spoken to my wife in years. I didn't want to interrupt her."
- Rodney Dangerfield

So you thought Plyometric Pushups were tough?

... well, try these then.

Friday 03/28/2008

WOD
10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1 reps of:
Dead Hang Pullups
Ring Dips
Pushups
Double Unders

***
"Poor form in the gym is caused by insufficient yelling."
- Coach Mark Rippetoe

Thursday 03/27/2008

WOD
5 rounds of:
30 Am KB Swings
20 Burpees
10 Double Unders

***
"It is singular how soon we lose the impression of what ceases to be constantly before us. A year impairs, a luster obliterates. There is little distinct left without an effort of memory, then indeed the lights are rekindled for a moment - but who can be sure that the Imagination is not the torch-bearer?"
- Lord Byron

Wednesday 03/26/2008

WOD
30-20-10 reps of:
Power Clean
Overhead Squat
Plyometric Pushup
Weighted Squat Jump

Note: Use a 65# barbell for all weighted modalities.

***
"Some of God's greatest gifts are unanswered prayers."
- Garth Brooks

Tuesday 03/25/2008

WOD
21-18-15-12-9-6-3 reps of:
Deadlifts (BW)
Decline Pushups
Double Unders

***
"It is not strength but the duration of great sentiments that makes great men.”
- Friedrich Nietzsche

Monday 03/24/2008

WOD
With a pair of DBs (30#), perform the following rotation on the minute for 20 minutes:
3 DB Burpees
3 Squat Cleans
3 Push Presses
3 Front Squats

***
Oh, and my Rogue Rings are here! :)

"If it weren't for the last minute, nothing would get done."
- Anonymous

God's Workout

Virginia Hefferman of the New York Times talks about CrossFit in the NYTimes Sunday Magazine:

... They are America’s self-styled fitness elite, adherents of a punishing online exercise regime called CrossFit, which orders its followers to cultivate a distinctly martial — not to say paranoid — ideal of “physical preparedness.”

... Olympians, soldiers, police officers, firefighters and devoted fitness amateurs convene on the site, reveling in max squats and circus-strongman stunts, which they repeat as many as 100 times per workout. This is exercise not for vanity or for longevity but for an imagined moment of heroism that may never come.

Sunday 03/23/2008

WOD
20/18/16/14/12/10/8/6/4/2 reps of Thrusters (45#)
Alternate with:
2/4/6/8/10/12/14/16/18/20 reps of Double Unders

***
"Easter is not a time for groping through dusty, musty tomes or tombs to disprove spontaneous generation or even to prove life eternal. It is a day to fan the ashes of dead hope, a day to banish doubts and seek the slopes where the sun is rising, to revel in the faith which transports us out of ourselves and the dead past into the vast and inviting unknown."
- Author unknown, as quoted in the Lewiston Tribune

Saturday 03/22/2008

WOD
10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1 reps of:
Bench Press (95#)
Dead Hang Pullups
Bar Dips

Perform 10 double unders between sets.

***
"Christ has not only spoken to us by his life, but has also spoken for us by his death."
- Soren Kierkegaard

Friday 03/21/2008

WOD
Perform all travelling movements down and back the width of a tennis court.
3 Rounds of:
Bear Crawl
15 Jumping Squats
Walking Lunges
15 Pushups
Travelling Burpees
15 Double Unders
Broad Jumps
15 Donkey Kicks

***
"No pain, no palm; no thorns, no throne; no gall, no glory; no cross, no crown."
- William Penn

Thursday 03/20/2008

WOD
"Sissy Test"
20 Burpees - 1 DB Overhead Swing (16 kg)
19 Burpees - 2 DB Overhead Swings
18 Burpees - 3 DB Overhead Swings
.
.
.
.
.
.
3 Burpees - 18 DB Overhead Swings
2 Burpees - 19 DB Overhead Swings
1 Burpee - 20 DB Overhead Swings

Note: Difficult? F&*$%# Yes!! Crazy? Quite possibly so. Impossible? No.

***
"What I need is someone who will make me do what I can."
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Wednesday 03/19/2008

WOD
Tabata: 8 Rounds (00:20 on, 00:10 off)
Jumping Squat
Decline Pushup (feet on bench)
Jumping Lunge
Mountain Climber
Jump Rope/Double Unders
Bench Dip

Note: Perform exercises in a circuit fashion.

***

Tuesday 03/18/2008

WOD
With a 16 kg KB, perform 5R/5L - 10R/10L - 15R/15L - 10R/10L - 5R/5L reps of:
Swing
Snatch
Clean
Push Jerk
Overhead Squat
American Swing (2-handed)
Double Unders (sans bell, of course)

***
"I eat merely to put food out of my mind."
- N.F. Simpson

An Oldie but Goodie - the Push-Up

This article appeared in the New York Times on March 11, 2008.

What caught my eye:

"Based on national averages, a 40-year-old woman should be able to do 16 push-ups and a man the same age should be able to do 27. By the age of 60, those numbers drop to 17 for men and 6 for women."

What can we make of these numbers? How many honest pushups can you do?

I remember how we used to knock off insane numbers of pushups at the whims and fancies of instructors back in Basic Military Training. "Knock it down!" was probably the most oft-heard phrase during boot camp, and as soon as we heard the phrase pass the lips of whichever military superior we happened to be at the mercy of, we would fall to the ground and get ready to knock off a few dozen good ones. Except that they probably weren't "good ones" in that respect - speed and vigor in rattling off the reps seemed to count for far more than chest-to-deck, nose-to-ground, immaculate form. Well, I suppose they still met their purpose in being a form of physical heckling for our myriad incompetencies then!

Monday 03/17/2008

WOD
3 rounds of:
5 BB Deadlifts (185#)
10 DB Thrusters (35#)
15 DB Renegade Rows (1 pushup, followed by 1R/1L DB row)
10 DB Thrusters
5 BB Deadlifts
25 Double Unders

***
"God makes three requests of his children: Do the best you can, where you are, with what you have, now."
- African-American Proverb

Sunday 03/16/2008

WOD
With a 16 kg KB, perform 3 rounds of 10 reps each:
Am KB Swing
KB Clean and Press (R)
Am KB Swing
KB Clean and Press (L)
Am KB Swing
KB Goblet Squat
Am KB Swing
H2H KB Swing

Perform 30 Double Unders at the end of each round.

***
"There cannot be a crisis next week. My schedule is already full."
- Henry Kissinger

Saturday 03/15/2008

WOD
Organize, then run, a 5K.


Success on both counts!

***
"Phi Sigma Pi is a National Co-ed honor Fraternity founded at Central Missouri State University on February 14, 1916. Today, there are 94 chapters nationwide encompassing over 20,000 students, alumni and faculty.

Phi Sigma Pi was founded by Eldo L. Hendricks, C.H McClure and Claude A. Philips on Valentine’s Day, 1916 at Central Missouri State University (then known as State Teacher’s College at Warrensburg Missouri). The Founders of our fraternity decided that Phi Sigma Pi would stress not only scholarship, leadership and fellowship, but do so in a concept of an equal tripod dedicated to these three ideals."
- Phi Sigma Pi National Website

Friday 03/14/2008

WOD
10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1 reps of:
Front Squat (Bodyweight)
Hindu Pushup (slow and controlled)
Double Unders

Note: Here's a short Youtube clip of the Hindu Pushup.

***
“You have to learn the rules of the game. And then you have to play better than anyone else.”
- Albert Einstein

Thursday 03/13/2008

WOD
10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1 reps of:
"Barbell Burner" (prescribed wt. 65#)
Donkey Kicks
Overhead DB Swing

Note: Here's how to perform the "Barbell Burner".
Begin standing.
Squat and grasp the bar using a clean-width grip.
Thrust your legs behind you.
Do a pushup.
Return your feet to the squat position.
Perform a squat clean (or hang squat clean, if the original position of the bar is too close to the ground).
As you're coming out of the squat, explode out of the base by straightening your legs and pressing the bar overhead, locking out your arms (basically, a thruster).
That's a rep - rinse and repeat.

***
“There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work, and learning from failure.”
- Colin Powell

Rrrrrrrrrrrrrings!

I just ordered a pair of snazzy black rings from Rogue Fitness yesterday, here's hoping they reach me in the mail soon! I've read reviews on the CF message board as to just how awesome these rings are - hardy, grippable surface that holds chalk well (very important to a sweaty-palmed person like me), and easy to rig and take down. I'll post a review and pics of the Rogue rings once I get them and have a chance to try them out, so check back for my opinions!

It's been a significant while since I've done any form of ring work and I'm looking forward to working on more gymnastic skills and ring complexes once I get them. In my opinion, gymnastic rings are quite possibly one of the best fitness tools you can have around, for a variety of reasons. They're portable (much more portable than a kettlebell, which is something I can testify to after having transported my 16 kg MuscleDriver bell back to Singapore as one of my checked-in luggage pieces - as you can imagine, I opened my bag back home to find a leaflet politely informing me that TSA had inspected my bag), you can pretty much rig them up anywhere - loop the webbing over a sturdy tree branch, a high beam, a pullup bar, whatever - you can perform a myriad of exercises on them - dips, pullups, muscle-ups, a million variations of pushups, skin-the-cats, front levers, gymnastic progressions if you're so inclined, static holds, handstands... the list is endless. The adjustable webbing also means that you can pretty much scale the workouts as necessary - shorter webbing provides more stability, hanging the rings lower enables you to do jumping ring dips or negatives if you can't do them unassisted yet, and inclined ring rows are way superior to inclined bar rows if you're looking to build up muscular strength in your back and arms to be able to do pullups.

Well, so that pretty much tells you that I think rings are the shit! :D

A couple links to rings/ring training:

Rogue Fitness's Rogue Rings. I believe you can also order Powermax and Elite Rings (discussed below) off the Rogue catalog.

Tyler Hass's (maker of Elite Rings - a great product, I've used them before) RingTraining site. You can buy his Elite Rings here, which I believe comes with a guide to ring exercises that will keep you pretty occupied for a couple years, and there's articles on his site that also discuss rings and how you can use them, in far better detail than I can.

Powermax Rings, sold by Gill Athletics. I wasn't so impressed with the texture/feel of these rings because I found them quite slippery and heavy, but they're a good option nonetheless.

CrossFit forum thread on homemade rings (read it, you'll be impressed at the quality of some of these self-constructed rings!).

Getting started on ring training - courtesy of gubernatrix. A great foundational article on some exercises you can try out on rings!

Wednesday 03/12/2008

WOD
10-20-30-20-10 reps of:
Mountain Climbers
Prisoner Jumping Squats
Pushups
High Knees
Donkey Kicks
Jumping Lunges

***
"You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face.... Do the thing you think you cannot do."
- Eleanor Roosevelt

Tuesday 03/11/2008

WOD
With a pair of DBs (Rx'd - 30#), perform the following:
Hang Squat Clean/Push Press/Front Squat/Squat Thrust
10/1/1/10
9/2/2/9
8/3/3/8
7/4/4/7
6/5/5/6
5/6/6/5
4/7/7/4
3/8/8/3
2/9/9/2
1/10/10/1

So you'd do 10 HSCs, 1 PP, 1 FS, 10 STs, proceed to 9 HSCs, 2 PPs, 2 FSs, 9 STs, and so on.

***
"Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery."
- Charles Caleb Colton

Monday 03/10/2008

WOD
21-15-9/15-9/9 reps of:
BB Thrusters (65#)
Overhead DB Swings (35#)
Double Unders

Note: No rest between "sets".

Olympic Weightlifting
WOD
1. Snatch
35/1 x 6
37/1 x 6
39/1 x 2
40/1 x 2

2. Clean and Jerk (C&J)
35/1+1 x 4
40/1+1 x 4
45/1+1 x 4
50/1+1 x 4
52/1+1 x 5
53/1+1 x 2
54/1+1 x 3

3. Back Squat
60/2 x 2
65/2 x 2
70/2 x 1
75/1 x 1
77/1 x 3

***
"You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with."
- Charles Poliquin

Sunday 03/09/2008

Track Workout at EMU's Bowen Fieldhouse
W/U:
Run 2 miles easy
Striders 4 x
WOD
3 x 1-mile repeats
2 min rest between rounds
followed by
5 x 400 m sprints
30 sec rest between rounds

WOD
10 rounds of:
- Barbell Complex (2x)
Deadlift
Squat Clean
Push Press
Front Squat
Push Jerk
Back Squat
(Perform 1 rep of each exercise without putting the bar down, and repeat once more.)
- 10 Pushups

***
“The difference between perseverance and obstinacy is that one often comes from a strong will, and the other from a strong won't.”
- Henry Ward Beecher

Saturday 03/08/2008

WOD
21-15-9 reps of:
DB Burpees (basically, a burpee with the DBs at your side. Without the jump)
DB Hang Squat Clean
DB Push Press
DB Renegade Row
Double Unders

Olympic Weightlifting
WOD
1. Snatch
35/1 x 9
37/1 x 3
38/1 x 2
39/1 x 4

2. Clean and Jerk (C&J)
35/1+1 x 4
40/1+1 x 4
45/1+1 x 4
50/1+1 x 4
52/1+1 x 1
53/1+1 x 1
54/1+1 x 1
55/1+1 x 1C/0J
55/1+1 x 4

3. Front Squat
55/2 x 2
63/2 x 1
65/2 x 2
73/2 x 1
75/1 x 1

It's good to be back!

***
"Only the mediocre are always at their best."
- Jean Giraudoux

Friday 03/07/2008

WOD
On plane ride from Tokyo to Detroit, perform:
L-sits using armrests as supports
Pullups from the overhead storage compartment
Dips in the aisle
Squats near the exit row
Suicides between lavatories
As many reps as possible in 11 hours and 45 minutes (without waking the whole of humanity)

***
"When you think about flying, it's nuts really. Here you are at about 40000 feet, screaming along at 700 miles an hour and you're sitting there drinking Diet Pepsi and eating peanuts. It just doesn't make any sense."
- David Letterman

Thursday 03/06/2008

WOD
10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1 reps of:
KB Complex
Am KB Swing
H2H Swing
Double Under

***
“The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.”
- Sun Tzu

Wednesday 03/05/2008

WOD
30-20-10 reps of:
Burpees
Jumping Lunges
Am KB Swings
Double Unders
Pushups
Jumping Squats
H2H KB Swings

***
"Fight one more round. When your arms are so tired that you can hardly lift your hands to come on guard, fight one more round. When your nose is bleeding and your eyes are black and you are so tired that you wish your opponent would crack you one on the jaw and put you to sleep, fight one more round - remembering that the man who always fights one more round is never whipped."
- James Corbett

Tuesday 03/04/2008

WOD
#1
21-15-9 reps of:
Am KB Swings
Double Unders
Plyo Pushups

Rest 2 min

#2
15-12-9-6-3 reps of:
Am KB Swings
Double Unders
Plyo Pushups

***
"Happiness is nothing more than good health and a bad memory."
- Albert Schweitzer

Monday 03/03/2008

WOD
Perform 3 rounds of 10 reps each, with 10 double unders between each exercise:
KB Snatch (L)
KB Snatch (R)
Am KB Swing
KB Clean and Press (L)
KB Clean and Press (R)
AM KB Swing
KB Overhead Squat (L)
KB Overhead Squat (R)
Am KB Swing

Note: This WOD is pretty long... as I discovered midway into the first round. Suck it up!

***
Where you used to be, there is a hole in the world, which I find myself constantly walking around in the daytime, and falling in at night. I miss you like hell.
- Edna St. Vincent Millay

Sunday 03/02/2008

WOD
10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1 reps of:
KB Complex (swing-snatch-clean-press-overhead squat) - alternating R/L
Am KB Swings
Double Unders
Pushups

***
Heehee.