First Muscle Up and Staying Hydrated

I got my first muscle up today! It was kind of a surprise. I read my workout for today and it started out with "3 rounds for quality of 15 heavy Russians and 4 strict muscle ups." So I went and I got the 44kg kettlebell and I did my 15 heavy Russians. And then I thought to myself, "what the heck, let's try some strict muscle ups!" It's probably been about two weeks since I last tried to do a strict muscle up, and I was close but not quite there - which is where I've been for a couple of months now, but I've continued to work on my strength and strict pull-ups to facilitate strict muscle ups - and today it finally paid off. So I jumped up to the rings, got my false grip, pulled, and up I went! I wasn't really expecting to get it, but once I was up there I had to stay up there for a while so Stacey could take this picture as evidence (thanks Stacey!).

I got three more over the course of my "warm-up" as well as a few failed attempts as I fatigued a little.

In other news, it's summer and it's hot outside! So I've been working hard to stay hydrated, which can be quite a challenge when you're working out a lot and perhaps also working outside doing lawn maintenance.  To help me with this, José got me a gallon of water. It's my job to empty it every day by drinking it all.

Unfortunately, I have yet to succeed. Oops! Not because I drink less than a gallon of water every day, but because I often drink 60-80oz of water at the gym and not from my gallon. Maybe I should get one of these: Gallon Gear Utility Water Jug Cover.

In addition to drinking large amounts of water, I often add Nuun tablets to my water bottle to make sure I'm getting enough electrolytes. I haven't tried them yet, but I am intrigued to see that Nuun has added a new line called Nuun Energy which contains 40mg of caffeine. I have worked hard to not develop a dependence on caffeine, but sometime it's nice to add just a little kick and it's hard to find a nice small dose of caffeine like that.

Nutrition Review - Three Steps to Success!

A few weeks ago, I signed up for the Wodapalooza Transformation Challenge as a way to hold me accountable for my eating. I've never done such a challenge before, and as it turns out I'm mostly ignoring it - except as that little extra incentive to keep doing what I was already doing. So far I'm mostly just eating less unhealthy food, and it is actually making a difference, I've lost a little weight and I'm looking leaner.

As my quest for better nutrition continues, I've realized that the approach I'm using boils down to three simple steps.

1. Eat when you're hungry, and don't when you're not.
2. Make healthy, filling choices most of the time.
3. Have treats (unhealthy foods) occasionally.

Step one is twofold, and a lot of people struggle with both sides of it. But it's very simple - if you starve yourself, your body is not going to respond well, and you may end up holding onto or even putting on more weight. And if you eat when you're not hungry, whether by bingeing or distracted eating or stress eating, obviously you're taking in more food than you need.

Step two is also straightforward, and is something that can be implemented bit by bit. By listening to my body and my hunger cues, it's pretty easy to figure out which foods work well and which don't. For instance, I usually eat a bowl of steel cut oatmeal in the morning. Sometimes I put brown sugar on it, and sometimes I put blueberries on it. I like the taste of the brown sugar better, but it's become clear to me that I stay full longer when I put blueberries on instead. Sugar doesn't fill you up, and blueberries do. It seems pretty obvious, but by going through the process of trying it both ways, I've learned it differently than just being told to have blueberries - because it's about more than just what is "healthy," it's about what makes me feel good. In this way, I'm gradually going through most of the foods that I eat on a regular basis and finding what combinations make me feel the best.

Step three is in my opinion just as important as step two. Denying yourself treats and making foods forbidden is a recipe for overeating them when you do have them. My personal weakness is chocolate, with a few other desserts. I've been finding ways to enjoy my favorite foods that still satisfy my cravings without going overboard. Lately as a treat I've been having Dark Chocolate Dreams peanut butter on graham crackers dipped in milk. It's pretty good. It's not super healthy, nor is it particularly filling, but it's a heck of a lot better than eating a bunch of Oreos or a giant slice of chocolate cake. I also have Chocolate Whey Protein for my post-workout recovery, which isn't quite as delicious as chocolate milk but tastes amazing after a workout.

So far this approach is going very well. I'm not starving myself, so my recovery from workouts is pretty good. But since I am cutting out the majority of empty calories, I am slowly but surely losing body fat.

Practical Applications for Functional Movements

CrossFit's quick definition is constantly varied functional movements performed at high intensity. Functional movements means useful! I've been putting my strength to good use lately with some outdoor projects. I started working on an edible garden a few weeks ago, which has so far involved weed whacking, tilling, building a raised bed, moving approximately a ton of dirt, and some digging and weeding.

At this point, I've planted a bunch of plants, but I'm not sure that I'm done yet. So far I've got strawberries, tomatoes, blackberries, raspberries, and grapes. I'm hoping to add a few more plants and maybe a couple of fruit trees if I can manage to clear some more weeds out of the area I've been planting. Still on my garden to-do list is installing drip irrigation, but since it keeps raining there's not a big rush.

It's also getting to be pool season, so with Jose's help I've been opening our pool for the year. This has involved quite a lot of hard work in the form of vacuuming and sweeping the pool. We had a pool cover on all winter, so mainly there was a buildup of pollen and dirt with a little algae growing. As I was sweeping, I was glad that I'm in such good shape due to CrossFit, because otherwise it would have been much harder.

Progress: Getting PRs and Coaching

I know that I've been quiet for the past few weeks since the Open, but now I'm back with an update and some deep thoughts.

With the Open over, it's time for a nice long off-season for me as I train, train, and train some more. I have a lot of technique to work on and some strength and conditioning to gain. I'm also continuing to work on my nutrition, with slow and steady progress towards healthier foods. April has been an excellent month for me so far, since I have written no fewer than five PRs (personal records) up on our monthly PR board. Those PRs are: 140# snatch, 210# front squat, 175# split jerk, 19 consecutive double unders, and 255# back squat (set today). I'm fairly certain that with a little more technique work, I can PR my clean as well, since I recently failed to PR my squat clean but was able to more or less power clean my current squat clean max. So basically, my training is going really well. I'm putting in a lot of hard work and it's really paying off.

That said, I recognize that I'm in a sort of honeymoon period with CrossFit, where I'm new enough to so many things that it's relatively easy to get better. Right now, the PRs are coming fast and furious, and I expect that to continue a little while longer since I have so many different skills to catch up on - for example anything requiring gymnastics. But at some point, PRs will become more difficult to hit, and eventually - hopefully many years from now - numbers will begin to decline. In the end, as they told us in the CrossFit Level 1 seminar, one of CrossFit's main goals is fighting off decrepitude. CrossFit, or any fitness regime emphasizing range of motion and functional movements, seems to be fairly effective at fighting off the effects of old age, but nothing can defeat old age entirely. But just because you may have passed your peak, doesn't mean you should stop trying. If you give every workout your best effort, then you will be the best that you can be.

Part of my deep thinking today is because of coaching. I've more or less finished my coaching internship and today I taught my first real class (apart from Open Gym). I don't have any regularly scheduled classes of my own just yet, but I was substituting for another coach this morning. Surprisingly I wasn't all that nervous, despite the fact that I'd never coached a real class by myself before or that ten people showed up for class! I had only met a couple of them before today, but everyone was really nice and class went really well. Both in class today and in other classes I've worked with as an intern, I've come across people who were disappointed in their performance in a workout. And I tell them what I tell myself: you did your best today, but maybe your best today isn't your best ever. It's okay to have days where you just feel off (mentally or physically), but don't let them get you down, come back and have a good day next time.

16.5 Announced, Done and Re-done!

The last workout of the 2016 CrossFit Games Open was announced on Thursday. It was a bit of a surprise, because it broke the pattern that had been observed in previous years' Opens - we have to repeat an exercise, the bar facing burpee. But it continues the tradition of repeating a workout from a previous year. 16.5 is the same as 14.5 (the last workout in the 2014 Open). The neat thing about repeating a workout like this is that many of the people who do 16.5 have a time to beat from when they did it two years ago. I wasn't doing CrossFit two years ago, so the workout is brand new to me.

WORKOUT 16.5

21-18-15-12-9-6-3 reps for time of:
Thrusters
Bar Facing Burpees

Men use 95 lb.
Women use 65 lb.

I did the workout Friday morning, and I think I did okay. On Coach Dave's advice, I split the first two sets of thrusters in half, doing 11-10 and 9-9, then I went by feel and split the rest up 5-5-5, 6-6, 5-4, 6, and 3. For the burpees, I just kept going without pushing so hard that I couldn't handle the thrusters. I think I paced it pretty well. If I had gone out harder, I would have had to slow down and probably ended up doing smaller sets. I finished in 12:53. I'm pretty pleased with that time, but I wasn't sure it was the best I could do. Even so, this was me when I was done:

So, I did it again today. I actually ended up splitting up the thrusters more because I went out a little hard with the burpees, so my set of 18 was 6-3-3-3-3, but I did the rest of the splits the same. I pushed a little harder through the middle and at the end to shave 24 seconds off my time to get 12:29. I'm really glad that I did it again, I knew that I could have pushed harder the first time and that's exactly what I did.

As a side note, I also found out yesterday that I passed my CrossFit Level 1 test. Yay!

CrossFit Level 1 Course

I spent most of this past weekend attending a CrossFit Level 1 course at CrossFit Jääkarhu here in Austin, TX. We had two days of a combination of lectures, demonstrations, and breakout sessions to practice technique and coaching cues. The experience was fun, useful, and necessary. Assuming I passed the written test (I'll find out next week, but I think I did), I'll be able to say that I have a CrossFit Level 1 certificate, which allows me to teach CrossFit classes at an affiliate like CrossFit Cedar Park. Of course, I still have a few hours left in my internship at CrossFit Cedar Park.

Lecture topics included talking about the definition of CrossFit, the meaning of "fitness," technique and how it relates to intensity, nutrition, and programming (planning workouts). We also had demonstrations of each of the nine foundational movements of CrossFit: the press, the push press, the push jerk, the air squat, the front squat, the overhead squat, the deadlift, the sumo-deadlift high pull, and the medicine ball clean. We got the chance to work on each of these movements in smaller groups, with the staff teaching us as they would teach a beginner. Since none of us are perfect, there were ample opportunities to practice coaching each other so that we all learned how to recognize good form and also some good cues to correct poor or dangerous form.

In addition to the foundational movements, we went over thrusters (put together a front squat and a push press), kipping pull-ups, snatches, and strict muscle-ups. We used some of these exercises in a couple of short workouts, which served as practice coaching others during a real workout.

The weekend finished with a written test that I'm not allowed to say much about. I should get my official results by this Tuesday, but based on how well I think I did on the questions I'm pretty sure I passed.

16.4 Done!

This post is a little delayed because of how I spent my weekend, which will be the topic of my next post. But I completed 183 reps in 16.4 on Friday night, which I'm pretty pleased about. The deadlifts were easier than I anticipated. At just over 50% of my max, they really weren't too bad, and I broke them up into sets of something like 8-8-6-6-5-5 and some smaller sets that I don't remember after that. The wall balls were hard but doable, I think I did sets of 10-10-5-5-5-5-5-5-5. The row was great for me, I kept it fairly steady above about 900 calories/hour, and I got off the rower with more than 3.5 minutes left. I probably took 20 seconds preparing for my handstand push-ups, but then I managed a set of 4, and then a set of 6. The rest were singles with 2 failed reps for a total of 18 HSPUs.

I think that if I were to do the workout again, I would probably push just a little harder on the wall balls, and try to go faster on the HSPUs. Most of my HSPUs I went fairly slowly, taking my time to set up my kip because I didn't want many no-reps and because if I don't kip big enough my arms burn out quickly. I will not be redoing 16.4, since two and a half days later I'm still not fully recovered.