OktoberFest Obliteration Results

Anthony

This past weekend I went down to Houston with fellow CFDC athletes Chase Ingraham and Anthony Mungioli to compete in Oktoberfest Obliteration. Anthony called me on Friday night and told me he found out what the first workout would be. My jaw dropped when I heard it.

I usually do thrusters at 95#; twice I’ve done workouts with 115. I was a little nervous about the heavy thrusters but was confident that I could do the rest of the WOD without any trouble.

I arrived at the competition around 7am and met some of the other athletes who were competing. Everyone seemed pretty relaxed but I was glad to see I wasn’t the only one worried about the thrusters. I was in the first heat along with Anthony and 9 other competitors.  Next we hear “3-2-1- GO” it was off to the races. Anthony and I finished the 400m run in the front of the pack and quickly moved into the thrusters. I think I was on rep 7 or 8 when I see Anthony move onto the row. Damn that guy is strong. I finish out my thrusters and hop on the rower. While I’m rowing I notice that I am in 8^th out of 11 because there are 3 people still doing thrusters. Next up is the cleans and I knock them out without much trouble. I feel like the other guys are losing a step but I keep a steady pace and move to the halfway point.

Next the jump ropes. I felt like this part of the workout was a little ridiculous. 200 single unders? Really? In my time crossfitting I’ve never had a workout that called for single unders. Typically workouts call for double unders which are much harder and require a decent amount of skill in the activity. A 6 year old can knock out single unders all day. I feel that double unders would have helped separate the athletes a little more but I digress…I knocked out the jump ropes no problem (I think everyone saw this as a time to rest and get some air) and it was back to the heavy weights.

The guy directly in front of me was kicking my ass the whole time, and when I get back I see that he is only a few reps ahead of me and resting a little too long between reps. This triggers something and I do everything I can to pass this guy in the second set of cleans. On number 15 I can’t get the weight up to my shoulders all the way. I reset, take a deep breath, and knock out the last rep.  I quickly jumped back on the rower one last time and knocked out the 500m.

Chase

Now it was on to the last set of thrusters. I get behind the bar and see Anthony is already on his run; crushing the rest of the heat and finishing with a time of just over 16 minutes; he finished 3^rd overall for the first workout. I don't even think Anthony went as hard as he could have... Anyways; I’m pretty damn tired at this point. The first set of thrusters were rough and I was fresh, so I knew this would be the hardest part of the workout. I knock out the first 4 thrusters without dropping the bar and I’m getting excited. I think to myself "I can’t believe I just did 4 in a row, maybe I still have a shot."  The rest of the way it’s 1 or 2 reps at a time. My judge is counting down and yelling and all I want to do is finish this freaking workout. As I get into the teens the bar gets heavier and heavier. I knock out the last rep and haul ass for my last 400m run.

When I start the run I see that there are about 5 guys ahead of me. They all look dead and this motivates me to catch some people. I ran hard for the first 200 and gained some ground and sprinted (probably didn’t look like much of a sprint) the last 200 which allowed me to pass about 4 guys in the last 100m. I finished 4^th in the heat with a time of 20:38. I was pretty happy with my time but there were still two more heats and I had to finish in the top 10 to make it to the final workout.

Chase was in heat two and dominated the workout like it was his job. He had the second fastest time for all the heats and came in at 16:03. Chase is a beast. (A little side note: I rested the two previous days. Chase on the otherhand got a 40# front squat PR yesterday. Who does that? Beast status confirmed)

The 2^nd and 3^rd heats are completed and I ended up finishing 16^th overall. The top 10 guys all finished the first workout under 19 minutes. I didn’t meet my goal of making it to the final workout but I’m extremely happy with my performance. If you would have asked me to do 30 thrusters that heavy a month ago I would have laughed in your face. All in all, I’d say the day was a win for me.

The Final WOD

The final workout looked a little something like this

The catch was that all the equipment was about 75 yards away from where you did the exercises. So each athlete had to run to the equipment, bring back the medicine ball and do the wall-balls, run back to the equipment, bring back the kettlebell and do the swings, etc.

The workout started out with all the athletes doing about the same. Anthony and Chase looked strong but it was Chase who finished the wall ball shots first; quickly followed by the rest of the field. The rest of the guys are all moving pretty quick until the 30 renegade Man-makers. This is done with a 35# dumbbell in each hand. You start by standing with them hanging by your side. You then take the dumbbells down into a pushup position, execute a push up, pull the left dumbbell up to your body and bring it back to the ground, then do the same with the right, then you stand back up, clean the dumbbells to your shoulders, and press them overhead. That is one rep.

This is where most of the athletes started to break down. Chase was not one of these athletes. Chase is cruising through and I notice that he is hardly resting at all. At one point he tries to rest and I yell at him that everyone is catching up. He knew he had a slight lead but he doesn’t realize how much everyone else is resting. I continue to tell him that people are catching up to him and he somehow speeds up even more. The kid is a freak. Chase completes the man-makers, picks up his sandbag, runs the 400 and finishes before another athlete even starts the run. Dang son.

Chase brought the gold home for CFDC. The way that he dominated the last workout will definitely have some people looking out when regionals come around next year.

Neal

I want to give some special thanks to CrossFit Champions for organizing the competition and also to Carlos from CrossFit Houston and Jim & Grace from Atomic CrossFit. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate your support and I look forward to future affiliate gatherings.

All photos courtesy of Clear Lake CrossFit. For more of their sweet pictures go here

Competition at CrossFit Champions in Houston – October 10

My money is on Anthony Mungioli.

Ever wanted to test your physical fitness prowess? Well here’s your chance. Come join in on CrossFit Champions' “Oktoberfest Obliteration” which will 8am Saturday, October 10 in Houston, TX. You can workout in the individual or team competition. There is a standard men’s and women’s division and also a scaled men’s and women’s division which will use less weight. You can sign up here - http://www.crossfitchampions.com/2009-fall-competition

Myself and a few other athletes from CrossFit Dallas Central will be participating and hopefully taking home some of the iron! This is my first competition to compete in so I’m pretty excited and really looking forward to seeing how I stack up against some of the best in the area. The competition will consist of two workouts. Only the top 10 finishers from the first workout will proceed to the second workout and the winner of the second workout win it all. The first workout will be a secret until the day of the competition and the second workout will be revealed an hour before the start of the second workout. All that we do know is that the standard weights for men will be 135# and 155#; and since we don’t know which exercise those weights relate to this really doesn’t help much.

Feel free to sign up and compete or just come out to cheer everyone on. If you’ve never been exposed to the CrossFit environment this would be a great opportunity to get a sense of the community and camaraderie. If you do come out let me know in the comments because I would love to meet you.

My prediction: Anthony Mungioli from CFDC bringing home the gold! He's an amazing athlete and a greater person. You heard it here first.

We Specialize In Not Specializing

Sam doing tire squats

How can CrossFit achieve so many goals at once? How can a long distance runner and a weight lifter benefit from the same program? CrossFit is designed to be broad, general, and inclusive. A 250lb power-lifter will dominate a workout like “Grace” (30 Clean & Jerks as fast as possible) since it involves lots of heavy lifting but wouldn’t do well in a workout like “Helen” (3 rounds of 400m run, 21 Kettlebell swings, and 12 pull-ups as fast as possible) due to the running and pull-ups. On the other side of the spectrum we can have a world class marathon runner who will dominate everyone in long races but ask them to run a mile carrying a 50lb sand bag and they will be crushed by your average CrossFit athlete. We can improve an athlete’s proficiency in their given sport, whether they are a runner or power lifter, by training them outside of their skill set.

CrossFit develops all around athletes and punishes the specialist. Our goal is to be proficient in all realms of fitness, all types of training, across all time domains. We want to be a blend of the runner, lifter, gymnast, climber, and power athlete. Why? Because you never know what life is going to throw at you. Maybe you’ll have to carry a friend down flights of stairs, maybe you’ll have to sprint away from a mugger, maybe you’ll have to run 5 miles, or maybe you’ll just have to carry heavy stuff working around your house (note that doing bicep curls, lat pull downs, and the pec machine at your globo-gym will help you in none of these situations). Life is unknown so we train for the unknown.

What exactly does that mean? It means we need to be skilled in Accuracy, Agility, Balance, Coordination, Cardiovascular Endurance, Flexibility, Power, Speed, Stamina, and most importantly Strength. Specialized athletes are amazing at a few of these and absolutely terrible in others. We believe that you are only as fit as your weakest attribute. This why fringe athletes (those who specialize in a few of the 10 physical fitness skills) would benefit from CrossFit training. CrossFit trains athletes to be good in all 10 general fitness skills. We do this by running fast, lifting heavy, running long, lifting light, climbing, pulling, pushing, throwing, and moving different types of objects (including your own body) in many different ways. We mix these types of exercises in as many combinations as we can think of. While it may look like workouts are random they are in fact thought out and are designed to serve a purpose.

We don’t train to be great at one thing; we train to be pretty good at all things. I don’t care if you’re strong and can deadlift 400 pounds if you can’t run a mile. I don’t care if you have great endurance and can run 26 miles if you can’t do a pull-up or squat your body weight. We believe that if you take a hopper and filled it with an infinite amount of physical activities the person with the most broad and inclusive training would, on average, perform the best at any given activity pulled out of the hopper. That’s how we train at CrossFit because life is a hopper; we never know what it will happen tomorrow.

Whole Grains: An Excellent Foundation For A Bad Diet

Everyone knows that whole grains are the greatest and you should eat them with every meal. Just read any diet, fitness, or healthy living literature and you will almost certainly see a recommendation that you should eat whole grain products rather than the normal variety. But what if someone told you not to eat any grains? You would probably ignore the advice; I mean, just look at all those articles and studies out there that are telling me whole grains should be the foundation of my diet.

What would a caveman eat?

I’m not saying these studies are wrong; they are correct. What I’m saying is that there is a better way. The articles and studies are pretty much common sense. Of course a whole grain is going to be more nutritional than a grain that’s been processed, changed, and/or mixed with other ingredients. But what these studies fail to do is compare a diet full of whole grains to a diet of NO grains. A friend of mine said it really well; “With food there’s good, better, and best; We want to show you the best.”

When you ask someone about their “healthy diet” I can guarantee you will hear the words “I eat whole grain this and multi-grain that.” It’s pretty messed up when even the people who are actually putting forth the effort to eat healthy can’t because they don’t know what healthy is. I was one of these people! They know what sort of healthy is; they know how to eat healthier than most people, but healthier than most people isn’t saying much. We want you to be optimally healthy. I’ve told you how here.

Here’s a hypothetical Study to what we’ve all been hearing about whole grain products: A study comes out that tells us that light beer is much healthier than regular beer. More research is done and it becomes conventional wisdom that light beer is good for you. But when someone finally compares the light beer drinkers to the no beer drinkers the results show that for optimal health people should have never drank beer in the first place.

This is the same kind of thinking that has happened with grains. We’ve heard so much about how great they are that it’s become conventional wisdom that they are the miracle food; but that was only when we were comparing them to the unhealthier type grains. We’ve seen study after study touting the benefits of eating whole grains over processed grains; but the trust is that we shouldn’t be eating them in the first place. Many grains when eaten straight from the ground are toxic to humans. We just simply weren’t meant to eat them. You need to be eating food that can be eaten in it’s natural state; just as God made it. Sound familiar? An optimal diet in four words: “Meats, Vegetables, Nuts, Fruits.”

Here is a study comparing the Paleolithic diet (Meats, Vegetables, Nuts, & Fruit) to a Mediterranean-like diet (whole-grain cereals, low-fat dairy products, fruit, vegetables and refined fats generally considered healthy.)

Why I Love CrossFit: Part 3 – IT’S FUN!

Linda of CFDC - Dominating the guys in a local competition

If you’re anything like most gym goers you have a set routine; back, biceps, and legs one day followed by chest, triceps and shoulders the next; followed by 20 minutes of “cardio”. Your workout may not look exactly like this but chances are its similar. I was doing the above protocol for years so I know first hand how boring and redundant it can get. This type of regimen is boring. People begin to dread going to the gym to do exact same movements they did 2 days ago. Not to mention the plateau’s you hit because there is no variation of what you’re doing.

CrossFit is constantly varied, functional movements, executed at a high intensity. Let’s break this down.

It’s constantly varied which means you will always be doing something different. There are some workouts that you will do once every 3-4 months and others that you may never do again in your life. You won’t be using machines, but you will be using sledgehammers, tires, ropes, Kettlebells, plyo boxes, PVC pipes, dumbbells, sleds, sandbags, rings, and good old fashion barbells. All these elements allow for constant variation so workouts will always be interesting and you’ll never get bored doing the same movements.

It’s functional movements which means that CrossFit develops foundational fitness that is beneficial to athletic needs. You may not think yourself as an athlete but if you want to be fit and healthy then you will also become athletic. This program will develop body control and will help translate to real world applications. When was the last time you did the “Pec Deck” movement in the real world? How about a bicep curl or a lateral pull down? Those movements just aren’t functional. CrossFit movements are.

It’s executed at high intensity which means that you don’t have to workout for long periods of time. Most globo gym patrons workout for about an hour and then hit 30 minutes on the elliptical or treadmill. Our workouts usually last about 10-15 minutes (although classes are 45-60 minutes due to warm ups, skill work, and cool downs) but I can guarantee you will get a workout like you’ve never had before; cardio included. Since you are working at a high intensity you’re keeping your heart rate elevated and you will actually get the aerobic response that you were looking for on that elliptical machine. This leaves us time for what really matters in life; things like family, friends, or updating your blog!

Once you get into a CrossFit box and are going through the workout with everyone, music blaring, coaches encouraging you to the finish you will be wishing you had started a year ago. The anticipation right before you hear the words “3-2-1-GO!” won’t be found in 24-Hour Fitness or Gold’s gym. If you have a gym that you actually want to go to you’ll see better results since you’ll be more willing to stick with the program.

Life is Hard

When you know you've given it all you've got

The Sport of Fitness

The Sandbag Carry event at the 2009 CrossFit Games

One reason people see great gains with CrossFit are because of the people around them. At CFDC we post our time or score for that day’s WOD on the whiteboard for all to see. I always check the scores of people who went before me and try to beat the best times. I constantly look around during the workout to see who I need to catch up with or who is right behind me. Sure it doesn’t matter because you’re just doing the workout for yourself, but it's still fun to win. There’s no first place award, no shiny star, and no recognition (other than a high five!) but everyone wants to finish first.

A lot of people grow up playing competitive sports but as we get older we lose those opportunities to bring out our inner athlete. I look at CrossFit as my sport now. Just like

The Times They Are A-Changin’

How we do Box Jumps at CrossFit Dallas Central

These past few months have been a whirlwind. I have been extremely blessed with a great opportunity and everyday the picture for CrossFit Beaumont is clearer as all the pieces fall into place. In the beginning of 2009 I had never heard of CrossFit; and now my life has made a complete 180 and I’m going to be opening a gym. Here’s what I’ve done so far.

• Obtained 2 CrossFit Certifications (Level 1 and Gymnastics) with 3 more coming by December (Olympic Lifting, Running and Endurance, and Basic Barbell/Powerlifting).
• Become a trainer at CFDC (although I’ll still be learning from the other coaches). I’m coaching about 6-10 hours a week and I’m in there on my own another 5-10 hours.
• Started acquiring equipment for CFB. I found a great deal on Kettlebells so I picked up about 400lbs worth.
• I’m constantly learning more about coaching, technique, programming, training methods, nutrition, and the business side of things.
• Most importantly; I’m hearing from lots of people in the Beaumont area who are ready to get started!

That Reminds Me

The picture from Monday's post reminded me of a video I recently watched of Chris Spealler trying to do 100 consecutive pull-ups. It's pretty amazing.  Check it out here. If you've done max rep pull-ups you realize just how incredible this feat is. If you haven't go ahead and give it a try. Thinking about it motivated me to give it a try and so yesterday I jumped on the pull-up bar and managed to get 51; a new PR by 5 reps!

CFB updates - Got some quotes for equipment. Everyone I've talked to from the different suppliers has extremely helpful and I can't say that I'm surprised at all. All of my emails have been answered within hours and the discounts that they offer to CrossFit affiliates are amazing. This community really is something else.

A Pretty Good Week

Chris Spealler being chased by The Fittest Man On Earth, Mikko Salo

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Last week was another great one. I’ve made the transition from shadowing coaches to training athletes on my own (although I’ll still be shadowing when I have the chance). I put my first athlete through her first three fundamentals classes and everything went great. She was a stellar performer so that made my job that much easier. This week I have two new athletes that I’ll be putting through the fundamentals classes so I’m looking forward to that. At CFDC each new athlete has to attend three 1-hour fundamentals classes to go over the 9 basic movements and some of the other more common CrossFit exercises.