CrossFit Montgomery County

Agility

Agility is the ability to minimize transition time from one movement pattern to another. On the surface you might think this is stuff like going from wallballs to burpees to box jumps very quickly, and while you wouldn’t be wrong in thinking that, it’s also not limited to that. Every complex movement you do has an agility component to it, and the more complex the movement, the more agility is required to do it well. This is important in CrossFit because, well, all we do are complex movements.

Take the squat clean for example. You start in a deadlift position, and quickly deadlift the barbell to your mid-thigh. Then you quickly switch from “deadlift” mode to “jump like hell” mode to put momentum and elevation on the barbell, giving it that split second of weightlessness when you reach full extension in your hips, knees and ankles. During that split second of weightlessness at full extension you lift your feet (both to move them from your jumping stance to your squat stance AND to pull your body down) and pull yourself down under the bar while flinging your elbows up, then down, then straight out in front of the bar, coiling your body tightly into the bottom of a front squat position, where you receive the bar on your shoulders all before it has a chance to fall back to the ground. Then you stand up with the bar racked squarely on your shoulders, and then turn to face the camera to make sure it was filming your next facebook video post.

If the transition between any one of those steps is too slow, you miss the lift. It’s as simple as that.

As a side note…how much agility is required to do a calf raise or a tricep press-down? Probably slightly more than would be required to defecate, though I doubt it.

Today’s WOD:

10 Rounds for time of:

15 Deadlifts [Men - 135# | Women - 95#]
5 Handstand Pushups

Accuracy

Accuracy is the ability to control movement in a given direction or at a given intensity. Like when you were a kid and were throwing a snowball at your sister’s head from 30 feet away – that’s accuracy (well, unless you missed). Why is accuracy practice important? Because without it you’ll miss that stepping stone in the creek and end up drenched while your date is laughing hysterically and every guy out there knows the importance of accuracy when relieving himself.

Accuracy is more than just hitting the bulls eye in darts or making a blindfolded world-record trashcan shot with a wad of paper in your office in front of a fantasized stadium full of screaming fans. It’s also jumping the barbell into a perfect overhead position in the snatch, knowing instinctually how high to jump and where to put your hands in order to grab the pullup bar, and landing on top of the plyo-box gracefully (and not toppling over the front of it with scraped up shins to show off for the next 10 days).

Practice your accuracy at stuff. Throw the paper wads, jump on the boxes, and do the snatch. Your fitness will only become better because of it. And if you happen to be a chameleon, you’ll get lunch too.

Today’s WOD:

Overhead Squat 3-2-1-1-1

-THEN-

Tabata Intervals (20 seconds of work followed by 10 seconds of rest repeated 8 times) for each of the following:

Thrusters [Men - 65# | Women - 45#]
Deep Pushups
Kettlebell Swings [Men - 53# | Women - 35#]
Ring Rows

Coordination

Coordination is the ability to combine several distinct movement patterns into a singular distinct movement, and its importance goes far beyond helping you cure your white man’s overbite on the dance floor. Improving your coordination is a neurological change, and can only come about through practice.

I can go into any globo-gym out there, and turn any unsuspecting treadmill junkie into an absolute ninja on the bicep curl machine in about 30 seconds. Why? There isn’t much coordination involved in a bicep curl. Try doing that with a snatch, a push press, or even an airsquat.

The functional movements that are at the heart of the CrossFit program are complex and have a huge coordination component to them, and practicing the movements with PVC will help improve your ability to perform them. Think of the importance of coordination this way: lots of practice = Fred Astaire; no practice = Fred Flintstone.

Today’s WOD:

400m Run
30 Pullups
15 Burpees
10 Wallball Shots
400m Run
20 Pullups
15 Burpees
20 Wallball Shots
400m Run
10 Pullups
15 Burpees
30 Wallball Shots

Speed

Welcome to Day 6, now do some burpees. And do them fast because today’s topic is speed, which is the ability to minimize the time cycle of a repeated movement. This is important in CrossFit since we seem to be obsessed with doing the movements in our workouts like Speedy Gonzales on crystal meth, and it’s important outside of CrossFit because…well…because I said so. So you better get faster.

Improving speed requires training and practice at whatever the movement is you’re trying to speed up, and requires some mistakes to me made during that training and practice. For example, people who can type 100 words a minute didn’t get there without hitting the wrong keys once in awhile, and no musician’s flawless performance of “The Flight Of The Bumblebee” happened without hitting some wrong notes during rehearsal. Likewise, there isn’t a fire breather on earth who got a 400 Fight Gone Bad score the first time they did that workout. They, like the people in the other examples, had to start slow because their bodies simply couldn’t go that fast at first. But they practiced the movements, and then they practiced doing the movements fast. And they kept training and practicing and practicing and training, and they lived happily ever after. Until the next WOD which really, really sucked.

Today’s WOD:

4 Rounds for time of:

12 Overhead Squats [Men - 115# | Women - 75#]
15 Knees to Elbows
18 Med Ball Cleans

Optional Cash-Out

Row 2000m

Power

Ah yes, the holy grail of CrossFit. The old “force times distance over time” thing. Power is the ability to produce a maximal amount of force in a minimal amount of time. It’s what makes you jump high and land soft, throw far and kip fast, and despite the lyrics in the old “School House Rocks!” theme song, knowledge is *not* power when it comes to lifting yourself or an external object.

The ability to produce power is takes both training AND practice, and makes it different from all but one other of the 10 General Physical Skills. It is improved through both an organic change AND a neurological change. That’s right foks – big strong muscles alone won’t give you power, but neither will perfect technique…they both play an equal role in improving this skill.

Today’s WOD:

“Diane”

21-15-9 reps for time of:

Deadlifts [Men - 225# | Women - 185#]
Handstand Pushups

Day 4 of the 10 General Physical Skills Days is Flexibility. Flexibility is the ability to move a joint through the full range of motion required for functional movement. It’s the most often overlooked and arguably the most important of the skills as it affects every movement you make. Tight hamstrings will destroy your deadlift potential and cause some *serious* low back pain, tight lats will kill your hopes of locking out the bar comfortably at the top, tight shoulders will make an overhead squat (and therefore the snatch) impossible and tight hip flexors will make opening your hips a serious chore. Every single movement you make in the gym (as well as every movement you make OUTSIDE the gym) is affected by your flexibility. Having trouble getting to the bottom of a squat? It’s because your flexibility is bad. Can you calculate your deadlift PR by adding 25 lbs to your bodyweight? Time to work on some hip extensor flexibility. The benefits of improving your flexibility are immeasurable – your performance will improve, stuff will stop hurting, and someday, just maybe, you’ll be able to stare at your own ass.

Today’s WOD:

“Randy”

For time:

75 Power Snatches [Men - 75# | Women - 55#]

Optional cash-out:

Unbroken sets of consecutive Double-unders
10-20-30-40-50-40-30-20-10

You must complete each set without fail before moving to the next one. If you miss anywhere during a set you must start that set over.

Strength

Strength is the ability of a muscular unit (or a combination or units) to apply force. This is of course, a technical definition with little to no application in the real world. In CrossFit we define strength as “the productive application of force,” because we have found greater value in being able to move our bodies or an external object from point A to point B than we have in being able to perform a preacher curl with a 100 lb barbell. Becoming strong at the functional movements which CrossFit is based upon is what is going to make you better at your favorite sport, will make or break your mission, and will save your life. Big strong biceps alone will do none of that for you.

“The processes involved in building strength involve muscle, bone, connective tissue, and endocrine systems as well as the neuromuscular system, and the remodeling of these tissues takes time. Strength acquisition requires a much more profound change in physiology than that which accompanies the learning of a movement pattern, and the processes that bring about this change do their
work over months and years, not just weeks.” -Mark Rippetoe

Be patient about your deadlift goal, your first pullup or your first muscle-up. It’s not an easy target to hit, but I assure you it’s entirely worthwhile.

Today’s WOD:

With a 20 minute clock, sprint 400m, and then in the time remaining do as many rounds as possible of:

7 Pull-ups
14 Double-Unders
21 Squats

When the 20 minute clock runs out, sprint another 400m.

Stamina

Continuing in my quest to educate you in the 10 General Physical Skills, we begin this week with stamina. Stamina refers to the body’s ability to deliver, store, and utilize energy. Fun, right? You can all go around now and tell everyone at work that you know the definition of “stamina”. Congratulations. Then when your boss says something about your upcoming quarterly review, you can challenge him to a pull-up competition to demonstrate your newly acquired knowledge.

I can see it now… You reach into your bottom desk drawer and pull out a telescoping door-mounted pull-up bar and quickly install it in your boss’s doorway before he knows what’s going on. You jump up and do 20 strict pullups (no kipping – this IS your place of business and all), and yell “HA! Top THAT monkey boy!” to your boss when you come down off the bar. You’re not even breathing hard, but you are strutting a little for the crowd that has gathered.

Feeling the pressure from the onlookers, your boss tentatively grabs the bar and to everyone’s amazement (including your boss’s), he performs 3 flawless reps. On the 4th rep he gets about halfway up – he’s pulling and pulling and pulling (but nothing’s happening), and finally he comes off the bar with a “kiss your quarterly bonus goodbye” look on his face.

“See,” you explain condescendingly, “the reason you couldn’t get that 4th pullup is because you lack the necessary stamina. And because you’re a giant weenie.” (You already gave up your quarterly bonus – you may as well earn the punishment) Then you hand him my card and tell him to give me a call to de-weenie-ize himself.

Today’s WOD:

“CrossFit Total”

The CrossFit Total is the sum of the best of three attempts at the following movements:

Back Squat
Shoulder Press
Deadlift

Read Mark Rippetoe’s article about The CrossFit Total for rules on the lifts, general guidelines, and some helpful pointers. If you think you know everything there is to know about these lifts and the CrossFit Total in general, I assure you that you are wrong. Read the article.

Cardio/Respiratory Endurance

Welcome to Day 1 of the “10 General Physical Skills Informational Opportunity/Make Tai Do Burpees Or Do Them Yourself Challenge”, or 10GPSIOMTDBODTYC, for short. Let’s let the fun begin…

Ever wonder why you have so many problems breathing during these workouts? It’s because your endurance sucks, in a nutshell. Anything that takes more than 4 or 5 minutes to accomplish is directly affected by your endurance (or lack of it). You can improve your endurance by getting on the rower and going for a 2k PR regularly, by running a mile or more as hard as you can, by swimming and biking and all the normal ways you would normally think of, but there are lots of other ways to improve it as well. You can bust your ass in the WODs that take more than 4 or 5 minutes (which is most of them), reduce the number of breaks you take during a WOD and reduce the amount of time you take for each break. You can refuse to take the instinctual break between pullups and pushups and force yourself to do 5 pushups before taking that break. Then you can strive to make it 6 pushups, and then 7, and then 8 before taking your break. You can continue doing wallballs until the ball doesn’t go up high enough to hit the target, and not just taking a break when it starts to get tiring. If you want to take a break, do one more rep and see if it makes it. And if it does, try another one.

You improve your endurance by training like you’re trying to improve your endurance. It’s as simple as that.

There are three energy systems used by the body to produce the necessary energy for all the ridiculous things I make you do in the gym (and everything else too). The first can produce a LOT of energy for a few seconds before it burns out (the phosphagen, or ATP-CP pathway), the second can produce a moderate amount of energy for up to several minutes (the glycolytic pathway), and the third can produce a low amount of energy for an indefinite amount of time (the oxidative, or aerobic pathway). In terms of the 10 General Physical Skills, Cardio/Respiratory Endurance refers to the ability to gather, process, and deliver oxygen, and falls squarely in the oxidative pathway.

Yes, I had to get some science in there so I have at least a small chance to avoid doing 100 burpees today…

Today’s WOD:

10 Muscle-ups
20 Burpees
30 Pullups
40 Wallball Shots
50 Double Unders
60 Walking Lunges
70 Pushups
80 Kettlebell Swings
90 Situps
100 Squats

The 10 General Physical Skills CHALLENGE

You’ve seen ‘em up on the whiteboard, you’ve read about ‘em in the CrossFit Journal and you’ve heard me reference them a million times. There’s a reason they’re all over the place – they’re important. I’m talking about the 10 General Physical Skills, as named by Jim Crawley and Bruce Evans of Dynamax (the makers of everyone’s favorite medicine balls, or as I recently heard them called, “CrossFit Stuffed Animals”). For those of you playing the home game, the skills are cardio/respiratory endurance, strength, stamina, flexibility, power, speed, coordination, accuracy, agility and balance. And competency in each of them is CrossFit’s first standard for fitness.

It doesn’t take a rocket surgeon to see that a lack in any one of these skills could cost you the game, your mission, or even your life. But what do they mean? How do they affect you? How can you get better in each of them? Over the next several days (10, to be exact), I’ll take you on a guided tour of the 10 General Physical Skills so that YOU TOO can be an expert.

Read them carefully, because there will be pop quizzes each day at the gym. Answer the question right and I’ll do 10 burpees. Answer it wrong and YOU’LL do 10 burpees. This challenge will be cumulative, meaning that any skills previously addressed are fair game. And the best part of this whole thing is that you’re already entered in the challenge! Oh happy day!!

This is a chance to make me do a shitload of burpees. Take advantage of it, because it may not come up again for awhile (since I hate burpees). The challenge begins on Friday Feb 26 – you’ve been warned.

Today’s WOD:

For time:

40 Handstand Pushups

Every time you have to stop, do 10 situps