Favre on PR Friday

Posted on August 20, 2010 by Justin

PR FRIDAY – post all KINDS of personal records to the comments, yo.

I played football throughout high school like most guys (that’s American football for you Euro readers), and I played a year in college. The sport of football fits well with this whole attitude thing that 70’s Big has grown into. One player exudes this attitude into the way he plays, and that player is Brett Favre.

Favre is a tough quarterback, likes to compete, comes through in the clutch, and has fun doing it. He’s started over 300 games consecutively — an insane feat that is probably one of the most impressive sport statistics ever. Oh, and he’s coming back for a 20th year.

Favre seen here NOT wearing under armor

This isn’t news to anyone who casually follows football or the NFL. The sports “media” (code for “annoying bunch of pains in the asses”) have been talking non-stop about whether or not he was going to retire or not because of his surgically repaired ankle. Without any evidence of whether or not he would retire, that maintained priority over most sport networks. I remember seeing the dorky guy with the mustache on ESPN talking to Favre as he sat in his giant diesel truck. The guy was all, “This humidity is making my makeup smear. Do you think there are any scones left in the media van?” and Brett was all, “I’m gonna go edge my lawn and drink a few beers.”

Three weeks ago I predicted that Favre would play this season and he was essentially skipping training camp on purpose. And you know what? I don’t give a damn. He should skip training camp. Why would you want a 40 year old guy having multiple practices a day, stressing his body (that can’t accept the same stress it did five, ten, fifteen, or twenty years ago), adding to his year’s work load when you want him to still make an impact in late January? It’s physiology, folks.

Too much stress would weaken Favre throughout the season. Take into account the ankle surgery — that is another structure in his body that shouldn’t be stressed more than necessary. Guys who have been in the league for 12 or 15 years shouldn’t have to worry about training camp so that they can actually be effective during the season instead of burning out. And don’t try and pull that shit that he “plays quarterback” and the QB doesn’t go through a whole lot of physical trauma. Favre gets his ass kicked on a regular basis, but he gets back up and continues slinging the ball down field. That’s 70’s Big.

I’m rooting for Favre and the Vikings this season. I’m a Browns fan, but we all know how that is gonna end. We’ll be talking about football more, probably about once a week when the season gets underway. It’s a sport that is pretty relevant for us since it involves above average strength, power, speed, and conditioning. Irregardlessly, (a term that is used specifically to troll you) most of us will be talking about it anyway.
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Workshop Update

This weekend there is a workshop in Ft. Myers, FL. Next week there is one near Atlanta, GA. Here is the info:

10:00 AM, Saturday August 21st, 2010 in Fort Myers, FL
REGISTER HERE
CrossFit Fort Myers LLC
10970 S. Cleveland Ave. #103
Fort Myers, FL 33907
crossfitfortmyers@gmail.com | 239-634-9898

Saturday, August 28th, 2010
Body Pros, Alpharetta Location
To register, E-MAIL JUSTIN.
1750 Founders Parkway
Suite 130
Alpharetta, GA 30004-7600

Late edit:

As long as we’re talking football, you may as well watch this. I have to hate Brandon Jacobs because he plays for the Giants, but I have to admire him because he’s…Brandon Jacobs.
-Gant

WATCH

Training Logs

Posted on August 19, 2010 by Justin

Training logs are important for several reasons. Keeping a long term log shows the lifter how much progress they have made over time. It also gives immediate input on the last few workouts specifically the warm up strategy and what the last work sets were. They also give the lifter an opportunity to add in useful comments like, “maximum jackage occurred today” or “it’s like I’m on fucking D-bol”.

A tangible training log that can be carried to the gym will be most effective since there is the potential of not remembering everything that previously occurred. It also allows instant emotions to be dictated to the log, such as, “my traps are mos def gettin’ their SWOLE on”.

Aside from warm-up sets, work sets, and awesome comments, there are some additional metrics that are beneficial to record. These ancillary metrics are optional, but they give a measure of how the body feels in a training program. If the lifter consistently records how they are feeling prior to training, over time they may observe that they became overtrained. There’s a difference in recording, “I’m tired” and “I wanna beat ’em!”

The rating of perceived exertion (RPE) scale can also be utilized for individual exercises. In such a case, if a 1 rep max (1RM) is known, then it will be considered a ’10’ on the RPE. There should be nothing left after a 10 rated lift, and if the bar path is deviated to the smallest degree, the lift will end in failure. If a lifter doesn’t want to deal with numbers, they can just use subjective terms, such as Brent’s “ez pz” for a set that is, oddly enough, “easy”. I remember recording “Very. Fucking. Hard.” after doing heavy sets of squats. If there is a gauge on heavier lifts, then the lifter will know how difficult they were months later when they are figuring out how well they adapted to their program, given the circumstances.

Speaking of which, other circumstances would include food, sleep, stress, time management issues – basically anything that would deter training from occurring as normal. I typically reserve comments on these issues if something is askew because there isn’t much of a point in saying, “No stress in life today, aside from Brent trolling the fuck out of me.”

If you haven’t been keeping a log because you’re lazy, then it’d be good to start doing so. Even if you aren’t following a strict program, having a log and being able to review your non-program will still be descriptive in letting you know what has been working or what hasn’t been working. Besides, if you don’t know what you’ve been doing, then you can’t figure out what you’ve been doing wrong when the shit hits the fan.

Here is a page out of my log to give you an idea of how it is structured and how I annotate different things. It is from earlier this year when I was working on rehabbing my back and regaining strength.

Click for larger image.

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There is an IPF survey going around that could potentially affect the bench, squat, refeering, weight class changes, age categories, and more. If you give a damn about powerlifting under IPF ruling (like if you compete in USAPL), then go take the survey.
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/JTHYB7X
Personally I think the survey is a little vague, but oh well.

Military Guys

Posted on August 18, 2010 by Justin

Edit: I didn’t preview the post and the formatting was all jacked up. Woops. I’ll put the blame on what is apparently the flu that I came down with yesterday.

I get a lot of e-mails from guys that are in the service, and they usually have some unique circumstances. Some times guys want to get stronger while keeping their bodyweight in check because of annoying regulations. Some times they need to get ideas on programs that don’t have access to a typical training facility. Other times they just want to get bigger and stronger and have the room to grow. In any case, it’s always a pleasure to help them (I enjoy helping people in general).

I got an awesome e-mail recently from a Captain in Afghanistan. It was deadlift day for the group of lifters that includes some “runners that have been converted over to lifting”. You have to admire their intensity — they don’t fuck around.

How awesome is this?

These are the guys you want to go fight for you. Luckily they got to finish up with a meal of fried chicken, ribs, and mac and cheese. God bless America.

I wonder if they got to have any beer with that. I’d like to drink beer with this bunch.
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Here’s 1LT McGraw out in Iraq training hard on a linear progression.

I’ve coached and worked with lots of military personnel and they are always a joy to be around (one of my best friends is an AF guy). All you deployed guys take care out there.

Learn From Your Mistakes

Posted on August 17, 2010 by Justin

AC closes his eyes and misses a third attempt squat forward.

Something is bound to go wrong. You’re going to miss a rep because you let the bar drift forward as you pulled it off the floor. You might (for whatever reason) close your eyes (followed by a forward somersault) and miss a heavy squat. At some point you won’t finish your pull and miss a clean or snatch. And you will sure as hell miss a heavy press forward. Whatever it might be, something is going to go wrong; you aren’t perfect all the time.

Some people can’t come to terms with this reality. They’ll get frustrated when learning a new movement and try to quit. Some pout and moan when they miss a lift and others don’t understand why they sucked on a given day. Others will look in the mirror and say, “My traps aren’t big enough.”

Irregardlessly, you’ll face these events and it’s up to you to decide whether or not you’re going to act like a sally when they do. When things go wrong, you (and your coach, if applicable) need to figure out what went wrong so that it doesn’t happen again. If you can manage to learn from your mistakes, then you’ll inevitably improve.

The bar isn't supposed to hit your chin

Mistakes can be mechanical in nature. Letting your knees drift in as you hit the bottom of your squat will cause them to also shift forward at the bottom which also brings your pelvis forward. Heavy deadlifts have a tendency to drift forward if you don’t pull it back, and this makes them exponentially harder. Hitting low on a snatch will help you miss it forward. Catching a clean in the same way will make the front squat much harder. Basically if you do something that moves the bar forward or backward of the middle of your foot, the lift is going to be extremely difficult, and there are lots of reasons that can make this happen on every barbell lift.

Problems can also occur from a macro standpoint: programming and recovery. Recovery limitations are either your fault or out of your control. It’s your fault if you didn’t eat enough protein and calories, but having a three day shoot out as a SWAT team member with little sleep is a function of your job. In either case, care must be taken when training to account for these things.

Brent percieves his lack of trap development as failure

Programming problems can arise when someone is not ready for their program, advancing beyond their program, has long-term recovery issues, experiences nagging or acute injuries, or has too much volume/intensity causing too much stress in the current program. This is where you have to be particularly observant to look for patterns in your training and this is the chief reason why keeping a training log is important and necessary. As you advance and get stronger the closer you will have to pay attention to this. If you’re deadlifting too frequently, you’ll get run down and it will affect your squats and pulls. If you’re doing too much volume early in the week, then your intensity day will not thrive because you won’t fully recover. If you’re hamstrings aren’t used to handling heavy loads when they are tired, then deadlifting in a long meet is going to be arduous. When you cause local stress on structures (particularly muscles, tendons, and ligaments) and you have chronically high systemic stress, the structures won’t heal efficiently and are more prone to injury (which is why people get hurt from frequent CrossFit training). It’s all cumulative.

Younger lifters will some times feel helpless because of failure. Older lifters understand failure and most will learn from it. I know some people that have gotten strong because of their persistence over years and years of training, and it wouldn’t be possible without learning from their failure.

Looking for patterns is a concept that Pete Blaber repeats in his interesting book, The Mission, The Men, and Me. If you’re observant over time you’ll be able to absorb enough data to recognize patterns that can help you figure out what went wrong. When you figure out what went wrong, you’ll be able to fix it and improve. It’s okay to fuck up. Just don’t keep doing it.

Hangover

Posted on August 16, 2010 by Justin

Edit: There is a t-shirt poll on the left side bar.

The ten day California journey is over. We drove to Sacramento on Friday and met up with Ben Claridad, a strong and funny Olympic weightlifter (that means he gets along fine with us). Ben, AC, and I trained at Camilo Gutierrez’s Midtown Strength and Conditioning that evening. Camilo is a real nice guy and has a pretty sweet facility that is home to some strong geared powerlifters and other strength/power athletes. After training we ate some pizza and basically had a sleep over at Ben’s where I watched AC and Ben play some videogames.

The next morning Ian Carver of CF Centurion hosted the last 70’s Big Workshop of our Cali tour. Ian is a law enforcement officer and, according to his wife, is “old”. In any case, they have a beautiful family and we had a lot of fun at their facility. There were almost 25 people at the workshop including 7 or 8 women who could be our spokes model on why women who train are wonderfully in shape and attractive.

After the workshop, we had Chipotle burritos, beer, and did some coaching for some of the people that hung around till 8:00 PM or so. AC and I drove to the Sacramento airport, dropped the rental car off, got to our terminal, and boarded the red eye flight to Charlotte. I didn’t sleep at all on this flight and felt like I was in hell when I sat there with everyone asleep around me, had nothing to do, and couldn’t get in any kind of comfortable position. I slept on the hopper flight to Atlanta for about an hour.

When I finally got back to my mom’s house outside of Atlanta, I was smelly and exhausted and slept for a few hours, then fell asleep by 7:00 PM and didn’t wake up until this morning (hence the late post). In any case, it was a good cap to the excellent trip where we met and hung out with lots of great people, trained a bit, and hopefully gave everyone a good show. Here are some random pictures from my phone.