He's the world-record holder for most metres rowed in 30 days (over a million.)
He's training with Concept2, and world-class cyclists.
He's faster than you.
On January 21, Gavin Grant brings his no-nonsense (okay, a little nonsense) approach to coaching on the rowing Erg to Catalyst.
Is the only progress you've made in your rowing in 2011 to start calling it, "The Erg?" Maybe even, "I'm just going to erg..." You'll learn a LOT.
Here last year? Rowing superstar? He's got NEW tricks for more power and less effort.
Best part: it's a fundraiser. For $10, you get to hate rowing less. You ALSO get to help Joe and Marnie give kids in Thailand the gift of sport. They're headed over at the end of the month to help (with Kiera and Maija) and you KNOW Joe will be showing the kids how to squat. If it's possible, they'd like to leave something behind, like a soccer pitch. Either way, those are some lucky kids!
A science teacher held up a glass tumbler for his class. In the tumbler were several large rocks; they were stacked, randomly, to the top of the glass.
"Is this full?" he asked. As a unit, the class responded, "Yes!"
From under the counter, he hoisted a paper sack and set it on the counter beside the tumbler. He ripped a small hole in the top, and then poured a fine sand into the tumbler, filling the holes between the large rocks. Soon the glass was filled; the class couldn't see daylight through the tumbler.
"NOW is it full?" he asked. The students exchanged knowing looks. Point made, Teach.
He lowered the glass, and slid it forward on the counter....until it was over the sink. He opened the tap, and added water until the tumbler was filled to the brim. The class watched the sand dampen as the water disappeared into the glass; obviously, more than a cup had been absorbed.
"NOW is it full?"
One of the greatest lessons I picked up from my CrossFit Level 1 Cert wasn't during class time. I'd been through years of University, and a handful of other Certifications, and a dozen other seminars...but never had I seen the Coaches train. On their lunch break, while we chatted and looked on, they actually worked out. Better, they hit up workouts with which we were all familiar. It was a great show, and more than I were drawn in, cheering and 'coaching' from the sidelines.
The WOD, for most, was a clean ladder. 1 clean the first minute, and then chatting. 2 cleans the second minute, resume chatter. 3 on the third, 5 on the fifth, 7 on the 7th, 9 on the ninth minute (chatter over...) continuing for as long as possible. It's not an easy workout, but they each lasted at least 12 rounds. We clapped. But wait.....
In the 13th minute, they started doing pushups....continuing as long as possible. 13 in the thirteenth minute, 14 in the fourteenth, until they were over 20. Wow. But wait....
They started squatting. Fast. 21 in the twenty-first minute, 22 in the twenty-second...until they were all over 30. Lunch break over, class in session. Lesson learned.
If you've been reading Blair Morrison's blog, you'll have noticed something similar in the last few weeks. Morrison's doing some lactate testing with OPT, and he's changed the way he approaches his Metabolic work: he doesn't stop. He scales down, but he keeps moving.
For instance, if Morrison was having trouble with 'Fran,' he'd simply grab a lighter bar and keep going, rather than stooping over the 95lbs bar, trying to breathe. Unlike the rest of us, his motor KEEPS running, keeps doing work. He won't let it idle.
Morrison trains differently than most; he's not scared to try new things. Maybe, though, he's onto something. Mathematically, it makes sense to train through constant wattage output, even if it lessens over time, rather than stopping and starting. This mirrors our own experience in The Enduro Project.
For the next six weeks, if you're doing the posted WOD, try something: downgrade the weights mid-WOD, but keep going. No, you won't be finishing as Rx'd...but you'll be developing a bigger engine.
Our programming will change a bit, from now until mid-February. We'll start most workouts with high-repetition skills work: overhead squats, pullups, pushups, box jumps, double-unders, toes-to-bar.... and we'll build up our capacity by doing 50 before the real work starts. I'll post a suggested weight each day, but the goal is to KEEP GOING. If you can't do it with the Rx weight, then drop the weight at any point and continue as quickly as possible.
This is great output threshold training for the Open, for the more advanced. For the intermediate, it's reinforcing your skillset (which is the next step toward becoming advanced,) and for the beginner, it's a development tool for the new exercises you'll be learning. It will also help with the mental continuity problem that many of us need to stare down before February 22.
Periodization refers to the planning, in distinct (but overlapping) periods, of your competitive year.
The easiest example is the linear periodization model, in which blocks of time are set aside to develop the athlete from the general to the specific. GPP (General Physical Preparedness) refers to the all-around athleticism that we seek in CrossFit; SPP (Specific Physical Preparedness) refers more to the specific skill of the sport. GPP was heavily used in the offseason to prevent boredom, recover from injury, and balance out muscle dominance.
In a broad sense, linear periodization models tend to move from the 'slow lifts' to the faster ones; from longer workouts to shorter; from higher training volumes to lower, more intense loads.
In this model, GPP would typically be placed at the base of the pyramid. Of course, domination over broad time and modal domains is our goal; CrossFit IS a GPP program.
Since power, for instance, is dependent on strength, a strength phase must precede a power phase to have the greatest possible effect. The greatest measurement of fitness, Work (force x distance) can be improved through the improvement of force potential, and then extending that force over a greater distance (or, in our case, time) without a loss in the components of force (speed and power.)
Other forms of more complex periodization have become popular in the last few years. Called conjugate periodization by most, these plans include two or more elements of fitness at once, but rarely in equal amounts. The most popularized model is the Westside method, which features two max-strength days, and two speed days, for powerlifters. Originally used by Soviet sports scientists to improve the function of weightlifters, the Westside method blends GPP training into the week after speed or strength sessions. 'Speed' and 'GPP,' of course, are relative: to a powerlifter, work capacity means 10 minutes' worth of pulling sleds around a parking lot, while to CrossFitters, it means "Murph." 'Speed,' to a powerlifter, means the acceleration of a lighter load (35-50%) over the distance of a few feet; to an Olympic Lifter, it means the Snatch; to a sprinter, it means fast starts.
In the conjugate method, different elements of fitness ebb and flow as competition approaches. For instance, the athlete may still have 'strength' and 'speed' days, but the relative loads of each will change depending on the time left before competition. Lifts become more important; reps decrease. There's a tendency - a bias - toward the same lifts used in competition, with the associated supportive gear.
If you've ever had a 'strength bias' in CrossFit - or done CrossFit Football - you'll undoubtedly notice that some things become easier, while others become harder. When you're stronger, 'Fran' gets a bit easier, since the 95lbs thruster taxes you less. However, if you've gained weight, the pullups become harder, and your stamina may decrease.
The beauty of periodization lies in the overlap between phases. It's commonly accepted that maximal strength will last for about 9 weeks after a heavy lifting phase; that means it's slowly tapering, but at a slower rate than you can gain other traits, like stamina. When these overlapping factors all come together, we call it your 'peak': endurance is up; stamina is at its best; strength is still high. Overall, work capacity is maximized for a short period.
This year, we know the date of the Open (February 22.) We know, better, what to expect from the workouts (barbells, rings, and calisthenics take priority over running, for instance.) We'll be overlapping phases of training - biases - to create the most optimally-developed athletes possible.
Strength, then, forms the basis of our pyramid. We'll do a short strength phase, move to a power phase, and then expand work capacity from the greater speed and proficiency gained at the start of training camp. Resist the urge to 'read ahead' - to do extra METCON on top of the strength work - and maximize the gains possible during each stage. Enjoy the process, in other words. You are the fittest people in town; let's pull even further ahead.
The art and show of weightlifting originated in the Circus. As a display of prowess, uniqueness, strength was a 'freakish' quality reserved for the gawk-worthy fringe. "Look at that man - he can lift two barrels at once!" It wasn't a pursuit worthy of a living, since it wouldn't feed your family, but it was an interesting hobby among many farmboys who dreamed of running away with the circus...
As these lifts became more popular, and modern-day 'shows of strength' became mainstream on beaches and more 'open' cultures around California, competitions were the next obvious step. Around since antiquity in Europe, Olympic Weightlifting began to catch on in North America.
Early on, it became clear to coaches and practitioners that the way to a big lift wasn't strength, but speed: acceleration of the kettlebell, bar, wife... to move the object overhead, fast recruitment of strength was required.The actual mechanism for recruiting force from muscle was not yet understood, but the need for speed was embraced and practiced.
The traditional lifts, though - the press, and the deadlift - were still highly valued as the foundation for speed. The ability to lift 500 pounds off the ground certainly helps a person pull 200 pounds off the ground faster; though the 500lbs wouldn't move as quickly, it was understood that the strength foundation was necessary for the later development of speed. Thus, the 'slow lifts' - which grew to include the front- and back-squat, the deadlift, the press, and the bench press - were built into the sport of weightlifting from the start.
When you're performing a heavy deadlift or back squat, it's immediately obvious to an observer why we call them 'the slow lifts' - your body just isn't moving quickly. What's not obvious, though, is what's happening beneath the surface. Starting from your Central Nervous System, nerves are being activated on the surface of muscle tissue. These nerves activate the muscles in sequence, and at the level necessary to complete the lift, starting with the weakest.
By now, many have heard of the 'slow twitch' muscle fibres and the 'fast twitch' muscle fibres. They're not completely distinct: they exist on a spectrum of fibre in each individual muscle, and tend toward either endurance (slow twitch) or speed (fast twitch.) When lifting a weight, the slow-twitch are first recruited, followed by the fast-twitch, to meet the demand presented by the load. A bigger weight requires the recruitment of more fast-twitch muscle fibre, but the slow-twitch fibre is still recruited first.
The speed at which your body activates these fibres is largely what determines success in weightlifting. We refer to that speed as "Rate of Force Development" around here, and it's also the key to success for other athletes who require speed: MMA fighters, sprinters, powerlifters, wrestlers... Yes, even powerlifters: those brutes with big bellies who certainly don't appear fast.
In any sport where success is determined by power-to-weight ratio, Rate of Force Development can be the deciding factor between first and last place.Three different factors can potentially limit RFD:
1) total potential force - your upper strength limit, which in turn can be limited by total muscle fibre;
2) recruitment speed - how quickly the muscle can up-regulate from slow to fast-twitch fibres;
3) recruitment efficiency - how well the CNS or PNS can recruit the right fibres, at the right time.
In classical weightlifting - the sport we call, "Olympic Lifting" for clarity - the bench press, squat, and deadlift were used as assistance lifts to improve strength (#1.) However, they can also be used, at high percentages of your max, to improve #2 and #3. Though the bar may appear to be moving slowly, RFD is rapidly recruiting force across the spectrum of muscle tissue.
Traditionally, when improvement of power is the goal, the base training is done with heavy weight (or light weight for high speed, according to Prilepin's Table) to improve RFD. For the last two months, our programming for CrossFit has included a LOT of the 'slow' lifts as we build our strength base. For members of the Green Army Competitive Team, you'll see this 'strength phase' continue for a little longer, and then taper into the speed-based 'power phase' toward Christmas (and just in time for the SuperMeet.) To reap the benefits of the programming: show up. Do the strength work. This is just a taste of the science behind the writing on the chalkboard.
You're the tougher sex. You can handle pain, stress, mess; and you can do it on heels, if necessary.
This has got to stop.
Would Cleopatra have done triceps kickbacks to 'firm and tone' her arms? Would she rely on Spanx to get her point across?
As we posted a couple of years ago, Confidence is the new size four. Step aerobics, Special K, treadmill walking, prepackaged 'low-calorie' meals....you're better than this.
You KNOW how to be strong. Does 'being strong' mean that you alter yourself into a shrinking violet, feigning weakness by pretending to believe all this "firm and tone with rubber dumbbells" garbage?
By now, you KNOW that lifting weights doesn't make you mannish. You KNOW that balancing on wobbly balls and boards don't fix your "core." You KNOW that mama, in the nursing home, is in pain from osteoporosis. What are you gonna do about it?
Will you turn a blind eye to science, experience, common sense...and believe what they WANT you to believe? Or will you use that innate BS meter - the one that KNOWS when junior's done his homework, or Sissy's been seeing THAT boy after school - to help YOURSELF? Will you learn to chalk your hands, mop your brow, set your jaw, and do the things that will REALLY make a difference?
Those things are called deadlifts. And cleans, and jerks, and snatches. If it has a jelly cover, it's useless to you. Learn to do these things with other women; practice; become strong. Channel Cleopatra, or just stop taking so much guff.
Does this process cost money? Of course it does. This is what we do, after all. Want proof? Ask any of your girlfriends. We make women better.
Start here: Level II Barbell Bettys. Mondays at 5:30pm (tell someone ELSE to make dinner, for a change!). $119 includes a six-week membership to the Park...where powerful women come to play!
Sorry, Tom Petty, but you were wrong: Sonny Liston did not go down swingin'. Frustrated after trying, for six rounds, and failing to catch Cassius Clay, he threw in the towel. He didn't rise from his chair. He didn't answer the bell. He bowed his head instead.
Clay went on, of course, to become Muhammad Ali, and travel much further down the road. I don't know what happened to Liston: did he rise and stalk back to the dressing room? Did he stay there until the lights had gone out, alone with his own echoes? True fans know, I'm sure. But for the rest of us, the Sonny Liston Story ended with his butt in his seat.
Liston couldn't take any more punches. I, however, can.
One month ago, I left the bus running; climbed down the steps, beneath the driver's seat, and dove beneath. I committed myself to perfect practice. In our CrossFit box - The Park - you can pay monthly to come every day. Or you can buy a punch card - 4, 8, or 16 CrossFit sessions - and just check 'em off as you show up. I bought a 16-punch card. For the first time, I was paying to be coached.
On the other side of the whistle, things change. Though the competition is still only me against me, my heart rate rises beyond the Life Fitness Treadmill "Fat Burning Zone" (patented) long before the coach starts his countdown. Anxiety is my 'cardio' now.
What am I - a 'personal trainer' with a degree, fourteen years in the industry, lifting competitions under my belt - doing with a coach? How the heck can I still benefit from turning up to these groups? I'll tell you.
Picture: me, gasping hard enough to suck the dust off the floor below. Sweat coating the face of a black leather medicine ball. Triceps experiencing fear. "Coop! Get your elbows under that ball!" - punch.
Picture: third round, out of five. Me, tasting the olive oil from lunch. Hands on my knees. 'It's too hard,' whispers the amygdala, playing Defense. "Hands on the bar, Cooper! Just get the first one!" - punch.
Picture: hook grip on a 28mm bar. Me, hamstrings tight. A coach over my shoulder. Individual attention. A magnifying glass on my triple-extension. 5 more pounds, down and up. - punch.
Picture: me, off the pace. 6 pullups behind Eddie. He's not dropping from the bar. Me neither. - punch.
These days, I'm listening to Keith Richards' autobiography, Life. Sometimes, I have to skip back a few seconds to catch what he's just said, but six hours in, it's been well worth the time. Listening to his thick voice in the 5am darkness on my drive to work, I absorb it all. This morning, he was talking about touring through Texas, where rock 'n roll was truly born, and discovering amazing bands in every tiny town through which their station wagon rolled. "They were bloody amazing," he says. "Some were better than us. They were never going to make it. And most didn't want to. That's what made them so great."
I'm not going to win CrossFit Games 2011. Of equal certainty: I will never stop trying to be great.
My first meet. First time in a prison. First time squatting out of flimsy, self-supporting 'squat racks.' First time outside of a power cage with 400lbs. First time with three judges who weren't friends. First time lifting with a time limit. First time a lift was for keeps.
Adrenaline? You betcha.
Murph 2009. Talking to the other coaches, I wanted to make it clear that I didn't expect us all to win; just don't cheat was my only criteria. I knew Mike would likely take it. But I'd been waiting all day, and I was getting better at pullups, dammit, and that last run couldn't possibly be that hard, right? The first run was hard, though, and despite a PR in the mile, I was gassed when I returned. Turns out that adrenaline was an anchor around my ankles.
Adrenaline does a lot of arousing. When it's time to get up and go, nothing beats the ol' Fight or Flight response...right? If we get excited enough, we can flip cars off toddlers, jump over tall buildings, run 26.2 miles to warn the City of Athens that the enemy is advancing.....
...but it also has some pretty negative effects. For starters, it makes the cell wall of your red blood cells more rigid. That means it's harder for oxygen to cross the membrane. Rough start. It also causes the red blood cell to change shape slightly, which decreases the total surface area available for oxygen diffusion. Imagine a giant hand squeezing the gas tank in your car, and pinching off the gas line at the same time, and you'll have a good picture of what's happening.
Now, you have adrenaline circulating in your bloodstream all the time. A bit. So you do a short warmup to burn off the excess....unless, of course, you're facing down Event #4 in the Games.....
The worst news? This phenomenon is enhanced in women.
If you made it to a Green Army team training session in the Spring, you'd have laughed: Josh and I, full of anxiety, and making each other more nervous as we got closer to starting the WOD. "What's your heart rate NOW, Coop?" he'd ask, with 30 seconds to go. Invariably, it felt like it was over 200 beats per minute; like I was finishing the burpee portion of the Filthy Fifty. This CAN'T be helping, I'd think....and then be lost in the countdown, and forget about it.
It also triggers a reaction to break down muscle glycogen, which dumps glucose into the bloodstream. First time at CrossFit? Especially nervous today? Get ready for a big insulin spike....and then a big crash. It also causes vasoconstriction in smooth muscle, like your stomach and intestines....and we all know what that means, don't we? Here's a hint: it starts with, "I think I'd better sit down for a minute...." and ends with Coop giving you a free hat.
How, then, can we USE the 'get ready to party!' effects of adrenaline, without suffering the side effects? Well, consider your warmup:
1) are you sweating afterward?
2) is your heart rate elevated?
3) are you removing clothing?
4) is your heart rate leveling off after spiking during the warmup exercise?
The best warmups:
1) elevate your heart rate, then let it drop afterward
2) burn off excess adrenaline through work output
3) don't fatigue any specific muscles
4) leave you thirsty.
5) have a calming effect.
If you were nervous before the Games this year, you likely heard this from a coach or veteran competitor: "As soon as you start the run, you'll be fine. Anticipation is worse than the event." Maybe it's a good idea to prolong your warmup, even if you have to start earlier.
Fran is a 5-minute event. You'll finish while you're still in an anaerobic phase...but if you could trigger aerobic delivery earlier, you'd be wise to. Make your warmup longer than your Fran time!
By the way, I was red-lighted on that squat. My feet left the ground at the top of the lift. I jumped. That's adrenaline.
Fourty kilometres. From the Sault to St. Joseph Island. It takes awhile to drive. And YOU'RE gonna run it. Yes, you are.
Every year, tens of thousands of aspiring marathoners pick up their copy of Runners' World, or bug the veteran in the next cubicle for advice, and they're all told to run 40 miles per week, every week; that pain is just part of the package; that injuries are bound to happen; that speed work is just jogging with rest periods. And in 40 years - a year for every thousand metres you're about to attempt - there hasn't been much change: run long. Put the rest of your life on hold. Pray for your knees and hope for the best. Eat lots of carbs, every single day, and wear your old race t-shirts to the diabetes clinic when you turn 50 and 'retire.'
Until now.
Using the POSE method, and Paleo eating, we're producing faster runners without joint pain. They're running with NATURAL HUMAN MOVEMENT. They're leaner, healthier, and happier. They're driving with their hips - as the human frame was intended - and saving their knees. And they're not carb-loading for 20 years.
A marathon is hard. It's supposed to be. It wouldn't be worth the effort if it were easy. You'll train hard; you'll love it and hate it, all in the same breath.
40k is a long way to run. You don't have to do it alone.
If you're a new runner, a marathon is a serious undertaking; you need a coach. If you're a veteran, you could be saving yourself a LOT of junk mileage; you need a coach.
Tuesday and Thursday nights - 7:30pm at the Park location. 8 weeks, starting July 27. You can sign up online here.
Mike will write an individual training plan for you. You'll do much more than 'just' run. You'll put in less mileage than your peers, and you'll finish just fine. BONUS: you'll like it more. Mike will help you with your new eating style, too. The fee is low; the real cost is your commitment.
Fourty-five minutes in. You're looking for your bike amid the crowd of hundreds of others. You're thankful that you've been practicing transitions - hell, you started thanking Mike after the first five minutes, when you realized that the course started slightly uphill. And since you learned POSE running, you eat climbs for breakfast.
Halfway up that BIG climb, you do what you never thought you would: you started being thankful for box jumps. As lactic acid starts pouring into your big quad muscles, the scraped shins of last week are no longer significant. All downhill from here, baby!
...and then, running again, quads shot, heart rate extreme: you're more glad than ever. You're GOING to finish. A personal best seems inevitable. While your age group crumbles around you, teetering and failing as their technique implodes with their comfort level, you move gracefully forward. You don't look like a pro...but you're not stopping, either. It's good to be you.
Victory will be defined differently by every athlete in that race. Achieve yours.
Duathlon Groups - Tuesday and Thursday evenings, starting July 6
Individualized Training Plans for all distances!
$179 includes coaching on the bike, run, and transition! Find out why the response to Catalyst running groups has been incredible!
In Part I of this series, we talked about metabolic energy pathways. You can be strong as an ox, or run marathons every afternoon off-ice, but until you can meet the actual chemical demands of the game, you're not going to perform better.
Anaerobic work (very high-intensity exercise lasting 5 seconds to 2 minutes, or so) can be done using hockey-specific movements; it will also work using movements that aren't found in hockey. It's best to combine both. For instance:
Sled pushing drills are certainly anaerobic, if short distances and heavy loads are used. Movement originates with hip drive, just like a hockey stride; you start with the valsalva manoeuvre (holding your breath briefly) just like a fast acceleration on the ice; you must achieve forward lean to go anywhere.
Likewise, pushups and pullups, while not following the same movement patterns as found in hockey, can be combined to achieve a metabolic-enhancing effect. Try this: do 5 pullups and 10 pushups and 15 squats. Go through that circuit as many times as possible in 5 minutes. Anaerobic after the first few seconds.
Running 5k? Well.... most hockey players don't have a running stride that duplicates a skating stride (if you can hear your feet slap the pavement when you run, you're not benefitting.) Movement pattern: non-sport-specific. The energy demands of a 5k, though high, rely primarily on the aerobic metabolism of fats and the breakdown of muscle proteins. These simply aren't available during a 2-minute shift.
Anaerobic endurance is trainable: you can buffer lactic acid accumulation better. You can learn to block out its effects for prolonged periods. You can learn to mentally deal with fatigue. You can become comfortable with uncomfortable.
If your two-hour "bag skate" isn't helping you develop the stamina necessary for hockey....why are you doing it? Smart training means efficient training: doing the stuff that's going to help you most. Getting a bigger bang for your training buck (and time, and energy....)
All summer, we'll post workouts on our Catalyst Hockey site. Every day, for free. These are not the exact workouts done in our Summer Dryland group, but they're a good representation. While they're not tailored specifically to anyone, the way we operate with our 1-on-1 clients, they will develop a broad physical fitness. Over the last 3 seasons, since we've started implementing this philosophy, we've received emails from OHL teams asking, "how are you guys doing it?" We've had rookies finish #1 for fitness at their team's main camp. They're stronger, faster, more powerful... and they're training less than most of their peers. It's not magic, just science.
Our dryland camps start June 29. Different camps for Bantam and Midget/Junior, as well as a new female-only camp (already close to a sellout!)
All groups : $329 (includes two-month gym membership, homework, food plan, twice-weekly 90-minute coached sessions, and a level of fitness you've never before experienced.) Register quickly - these groups regularly fill up!
Got a 500lbs squat? Run the mile in 4:40? Impressive. But unless you can use those tools on the ice, they're just window dressing.
Thirty seconds into his shift, Danny was already sucking wind. His heart was pounding, and it wasn't just the adrenaline: the Spring tryout had him jacked up, sure, but he was struggling to keep up. Just two months ago, he was breezing past these same guys in tournaments; now, when it counted most, he didn't have anything in the tank. No legs. Zero wheels. But why? He'd been running every day since the end of the season. He'd been doing 'bag skates' twice per week. He'd been doing workouts at the Y every single day - sure, he'd skipped "legs day" a couple of times, but none of his buddies wanted to go, either.....
Danny's "cardio" is fine. At a low threshold (when he's just warming up, or skating around) his breathing is easy. Put him in an intense 30-second shift, though, and he's dead in 10 seconds. Even though he passed the 2-mile-run test easily (11:04,) he's unable to use energy quickly. In fact, his body is trying to slow him down; to push him into an aerobic mode so that it can stay in its comfort zone.
You break down energy in several different ways; the most prevalent metabolic pathways are shown below:
What's clear from the graph, though not expressed outright: training one system limits your capacity in another. If you totalled the area beneath the three curves individually, you'd notice that they're all the same surface area: that means, you only have so much energy available to you at a given time. Training to use that energy aerobically (low heart rate, sustained output for a long period) means that you're limiting your ability to move in shorter, harder bursts. You're actually training yourself to be less intense; to move slower, and with less power!
Think those daily 5k runs are 'building a base?' upon which you'll magically gain anaerobic capacity? Different skill altogether, unfortunately. While there's some overlap between energy systems, you should spend the majority of your training time in the system on which you'll most depend - that should be obvious, right?
There are those who believe that more is better; that a two-minute workout can't possibly be intense enough to help you play hockey better. Those folks have never had a hard penalty kill. They've never faced elimination in the early Spring. YOU - the player - know how hard 30 seconds can be. Train to match that demand.
Tomorrow, we'll take a closer look at the methodology of developing better energy systems for hockey.
In April, we asked for volunteers to participate in a unique project: an attempt to improve both their aerobic and anaerobic capacity simultaneously through METCON (metabolic conditioning.) We standardized the time frame of their workouts to ensure the same relative intensity. We chose weights for the workouts based on the total output (Joules) of work performed during that time frame. And each week, we increased the total work output while keeping the workout timeframes relatively constant.
For example, in Week #1, participants performed 50,000 Joules of work in each workout. The length of the workouts varied, but the output stayed the same; in weeks two, three, and four, participants gradually increased the total work to 75,000J; 100,000J; and 125,000J respectively.
Before the Enduro Project began, participants were tested in a broad array of metabolic challenges. They all participated in Fight On Friday, which is a CrossFit - specific challenge lasting 17 minutes with two one-minute breaks. They also participated in some peer-reviewed aerobic and anaerobic tests:
1. The O'Neill Ergometer Endurance Test - an aerobic test done on the rower;
2. The RAST Test - a measure of sprint power achieved and maintained over a short time frame;
3. A Tabata Test - a measure of short-duration stamina in the upper and lower body;
4. Waking heart rate
5. Athletes were also asked to record their maximum and average heart rates during the first 3 tests.
Frankly, we didn't expect a LOT of change, especially to heart rate levels, in a month. But EVERYONE improved at EVERYTHING, with one small exception that, I'm sure you'll agree, is a worthy sacrifice.
The example given below is probably the most dramatic improvement, but it's also the most comprehensive set of results available. Participants struggled with shift changes, vacation time, and odd training schedules all month, and STILL saw marked improvement. Here's a glimpse of what's possible:
Fight Gone Bad score: April 1 - 282; May 1 - 320 (13.5% improvement)
HR during Fight Gone Bad: April 1 Average: 156, Max: 185; May 1 Average: 162, Max: 178
Aerobic Test (metres rowed in 4:00): April 1 1016m, May 1 1079m (6% improvement)
HR during Aerobic (O'Neill) Test: April Average 150, Max 175; May Average 148, Max 170
Stamina Score (Tabata total): April 224, May 271 (21% improvement)
HR during Stamina test: April Average 146, Max 163; May Average 148 Max 170
RAST Test (power loss over time, or Fatigue Index) April 5.04, May 7.03
HR during RAST test: April max 182; May max 171.
The RAST Test would appear, at first glance, to indicate that the athlete was losing MORE power per 20m sprint than before the Enduro Project; that his ability to generate power was slipping faster. However, consider how much actual power was generated:
Date Maximum Power Minimum Power Total time for 6 sprints Average Power
April 5 472 282 37.72s 402.5
May 16 643.2 395.1 35.29 486.2
Even though the athlete appears to have been losing power more rapidly in May, his average power was so far above April's test that he was still remarkably farther ahead.
Other athetes posted similar results: all improved not only in Anaerobic(glycolytic) capacity, but also in aerobic (oxidative.) Training the overlaps works, even if running is your sport. Adding very-high-intensity exercise (CrossFit METCON) to a runner's program will provide variety, better balance (injury avoidance,) novelty and fun, as well as produce results far better than merely running alone.
How can this be interpreted? After one month, athletes could perform significantly more work (Joules) in the same time with less effort (heart rate.) That's good news all around!
Want to read all the workouts from the Enduro project, along with weights used and times?
In Part 1, we discussed - briefly - how the energy pathways work. But the beauty of these systems isn't that they're mutually exclusive; rather, that they're mutually enhanced through their overlap.
CrossFit's goal is to produce an athlete with skills that are 'broad, general, and inclusive.' However, it's often been opined that training in the glycolytic pathway can yield the most efficient use of an athlete's time, since it overlaps both the CP and the aerobic metabolic pathways.
In fact, the glycolytic system can provide up to 30 minutes of high-intensity anaerobic movement, if trained properly; it can also allow an athlete to put out up to 80% of their maximum power output, if trained properly.
That means that gains in both strength AND endurance can be had through CrossFit METCON, up to the point of specialization in a sport. Elite powerlifters and long-distance runners will still need to spend some of their training time in their specific energy domain, since demands that aren't energy-specific will eventually trump the abilities of the energy pathways used. For example, a powerlifter's output is limited more by Rate of Force Development - recruitment of muscle cells by the nervous system - before it's limited by his ability to metabolise energy. The output period is simply too short. A marathoner will have to develop secondary characteristics, like very low overall body mass (even a lack of total muscle,) low innervation thresholds, selective muscle recruitment to save energy, and increased vascularization. Her output period is simply TOO long to achieve 100% of her potential through the glycolytic pathway, though short-term, high-intensity exercise can replace a lot of her running time each week.
Our main point: skill development and energy metabolism are different things. While skill development is specific to the sport being played, energy metabolism is NOT. If you're exercising at a high-demand level for 30 minutes, it doesn't matter whether you're running or doing CrossFit METCON work.
Runners who spend hours running every week - using ONLY running to improve their speed, shorter-distance endurance, power, etc. - are missing out, and possibly overtraining in a specific movement. while the original goal of "cross-training" in the 1990s was to reduce injury and deliver the same results using movements that didn't involve running, it devolved to mean "lifting light weights for many reps" in the common parlance.
30 minutes of very hard exercise means 30 minutes of developing your anaerobic (glycolytic) capacity. Calisthenics will develop your glycolytic capacity as well as running can; combining weightlifting with gymnastics and calisthenics will do the same, or even better, than running. Consider that, by shifting exercises, your output can increase because specific muscular fatigue is shifted around during workouts, and it's more efficient to do a couplet or triplet (2 or 3 exercises) to develop anaerobic capacity than running, where one weak link can limit the ability to sustaina very high energy demand.
Science aside, we had several athletes - CrossFitters - achieve 5k personal bests on the weekend. Some were in a running group for the last few weeks, where they worked on form but never ran more than a few minutes at a time. Some, like me, had done close to ZERO running in the last few months (my longest run since March was a 600m sprint, and I took 2:40 off my 5k time.) Even our longer-distance runners are going faster on less running. How is this possible? They're training the same energy systems with METCON. Are they 'better runners?' It's possible, if they've improved their technique. But mostly, they're just better at operating at a high intensity over 25-30 minutes.
The really beautiful part: they're not dragging themselves out the door, daily, for yet another 30-minute jog over the same course as yesterday. They're checking the website at midnight; they're learning skills far more technical than running; they're doing Strongman events 12 hours later. And they're having a ball. They're faster runners - but they don't consider themselves "runners," because the term typically infers an athlete who practices one sport to the exclusion of all others.
In Part 3, we'll discuss our April experiment - The Enduro Project - and how its results make our case that the improvement of a broad trait - energy metabolism - will improve a specific outcome, like running.
Before we can begin attempting to improve how you function through training, we have to consider how you create the energy you're about to expend.
There are three ways you can create energy in your body. While they overlap, each plays a dominant role at its peak:
1. Phosphagen - stored ATP in the muscle, plus as much ATP as the body can quickly generate through the combination of ADP and CP. Good for about 3-4 seconds (or one hard lift) with ATP alone, and about 30 more seconds when the secondary cycle (ADP plus Creatine Phosphate) is operating efficiently. This secondary cycle can be enhanced through Creatine Supplementation and the training effect.
2. Glycolytic - Stored blood glucose / muscle glycogen goes through a chemical process to create pyruvic acid, which is necessary for the generation of more ATP. Since this process takes time and generates lactic acid, performance drops considerably during this phase. Important: potential in the glycolytic phase isn't limited by supply, as in the phosphagen phase, but by the ability to sustain activity in the presence of its byproduct, lactic acid. This effect is lessened by training: you're able to buffer lactic acid better AND delay the point at which its presence becomes performance-limiting. Moreover, you can break lactic acid down for more energy. This is where CrossFit shines.
As point of illustration, it's useful to consider the value of extending the glycolytic phase for sport. If a hockey player can metabolise energy effectively in the glycolytic phase for two minutes, he's going to perform better. Shifting into the aerobic phase early (ie 30 seconds into a shift) means that the player has to slow down, as the aerobic pathway dictates a lower heart rate and the inability to create energy quickly.
3. Oxidative (we call it 'aerobic'): breaks down fatty acids for fuel. However, this does not necessarily guarantee the breakdown of adipose tissue (fats) during exercise. Most exercisers doing 'aerobics' or 'cardio' exercise at too low an intensity, or at too short a duration, to trigger the breakdown of fat for energy. An hour on the elliptical trainer - if you can stand the mind-numbing boredom - will predominantly use up blood-borne glucose, muscle glycogen, and also metabolise muscle for energy. It's a metabolism-killer in the long term, and may actually harm weight-loss efforts. At the very least, an athlete seeking to perform better in 1-2 minute time intervals will waste time in the offseason training at this low level of intensity, and may actually see their performance suffer.
In Part II, we'll consider the overlap between energy systems, and what that means for CrossFitters and non-specialized athletes.
Brothers know when to push. They know when to joke. They know when to just shut up and let their actions do the talking. And sometimes, they know when to rub it in a bit.
Right: Glen breaks Jimmy's long-held Rack Jerk record with a huge 245.
Walking to Day Two of Ontario Sectionals, we were all on edge; it was sleeting and freezing, and we were shivering more from the anticipation of a long chipper than from the cold. Josh was on the podium bubble, and was feeling the pressure. So Ray shared a funny little story about two bulls overlooking a field of cows. It was perfect for the moment, and we've been calling Ray "the old bull" for two weeks now. You've gotta love the older, wiser brother.
On the other hand, somebody's gotta paw the dirt a bit; somebody's gotta keep the other bulls ready to charge. We leave that responsibility to the youth.
The right mix of wisdom, piss, and vinegar is magical. That's why we train in groups. That's why we mix the bulls.
We also lift weights. It's good to be flexible; it's important to be coordinated; it's better to be strong. When you're strong, the rest comes more easily. When you're strong, you fight less. The more you can carry, the lighter your load.
If you're a CrossFitter, being stronger makes even the METCON more effective. Since the goal is total work (measured in Joules,) consider the wattage output of 'Fran,' using 75lbs or 95lbs, even though the heavier weight takes longer:
95lbs - Six minute Fran 75lbs - Five Minute Fran
56362.96 Joules 51799.3 joules
This isn't wattage, it's just plain old brute work. Will this apply to running, or pushing a wheelbarrow, or competing in a Strongman contest? Absolutely! The ability to do more total work is a blessing that's guided the leaders of our society from its primordial days. And now, it's time for YOU to pick up those reins. Everything in life is easier if you're strong. And strong is why we're here, after all.
Fraternity Barbell II starts April 14th! This round, you'll spend more time on OLY lifting, as well as some Strongman work mixed in. WODs will be a mix of CrossFit Strongman, powerlifting, and CF Football. Coaching by Tyler and Mitch. Blood, sweat, and progress: all your own.
Register here - 6 weeks for $80 (members) or $119 (non-members, includes a gym membership!)
In 1998, after finishing University, I started my education.
With a degree under my belt, I was still young enough to believe I knew everything - or that I could figure it out, at least. Twelve years later, I realize I'm still just starting. I scramble, every day, desperate for answers. Each new piece of research raises more 'why?'s than "a-HA!"s.
There exists a gap between a student's formal education and the readiness to apply practical knowledge. In more industrial fields, Apprenticeship programs bridge the distance. Sadly, in the fitness community, fresh-from-the-oven recruits are typically thrown into leadership roles with as little as a weekend of instruction. Ready? Fire! Aim!
Even with a four-year degree, I recognize now that I was in no way prepared to train people at an acceptable level; I thank my earliest clients for the start of my real education. I was blessed with a collective of very inquisitive teens (most of whom are now pursuing education in kinesiology-related fields) who quizzed me on every detail of their training.
Looking back further, had it not been for the hands-on immersion of high school co-op education, I'd be miserably fixing computers today, carrying even worse posture, nearing my first heart attack and shying away from carrying 'heavy' monitors. That gratitude toward employers willing to take on risk for no discernible benefit prompted us to accept 4 co-op students this semester, and it's been very rewarding.
One of the best things about the Catalyst Coaching Team: diversity. We're united by a common pursuit of excellence, but our backgrounds are very different. Exposure to each coach, in turn, will give a much broader perspective into excellence than any coach alone.
This summer, we're offering the type of program we wish we'd had during our formal education: hands-on, in-depth, and challenging. We'll be accepting five students to study with each coach on the Catalyst roster; assist in coaching groups; get their feet wet with individual programming; experience the endurance required to be a great coach; read and write research; coach and referee at events; and perform better, themselves, at individual skills.
We're asking each student for a small enrollment fee. The value of this program - including participation in Catalyst groups for free, a free membership, and some paid work time - exponentially exceeds the cost. That said, we don't want everybody. Students will be assigned a letter grade at the end of their residency. Not all students who pass through our Apprenticeship program will eventually be hired to work at Catalyst (in fact, most won't) but new Catalyst staff will come from this group.
Over the summer, students will:
Participate in coaching at both Sault Ste. Marie facilities;
Be enrolled in every Catalyst group offered at no additional cost;
Learn to operate the Park gym, in pairs and solo;
Write, read, and study more intensely than any University program;
Assist in coaching CrossFit groups;
Assist in coaching sport-specific groups
Assist in coaching for special populations
Assist in coaching teams
Become trained in the CAT Testing system;
Receive group training on professionalism, coaching, and client adherence strategy
Participate in coach-only meetings and clinics
Actually do the stuff that makes us great.
Prerequisites:
Enrollment in a College- or University-level exercise-science program
Confidence
Outstanding verbal and written skills (this sounds like a filler. It's not. If you can't write without correcting mistakes, save yourself the time.)
Experience in a wide variety of exercise philosophies, not just techniques
Ditto nutritional strategies
Ability to laugh at yourself
NOT be a perfectionist
"Beginner's Mind"
Familiarity with the CAT Testing system
Happy and smiley at 6am and 9pm - ideally, on the same day
You've got to care. "Liking the job" is not enough: if it wakes you up at night, you have the potential to be one of us.
Interested? Email chris@catalystgym.com for the Student Residency Package. If your email is your first contact with us, please tell us your story.
One year ago last weekend, I faced my first 5k run.
5k runs had popped up on CrossFit.com before, of course, but I'd always found an excuse to skip. The lizard brain was in full effect: I was still considering more Powerlifting meets, and was scared to drop weight. Realistically, I was just scared to fail, even if failure would be private. I would know.
I had the accoutrements of a runner: Christmas gifts from my sister (a real runner,) or little things I'd picked up along the way, to be ready for the "someday" when I'd finally do a 5k run. I had no idea what to expect, but I tentatively set a goal of 30 minutes to finish. I Google-mapped out different 5k options. I timed my meals all day (on a Sunday!,) checked with my wife a hundred times (are you sure you don't need me to re-hinge the cupboards today? Re-gravel the driveway? Check the shingles?) and finally set out. I told myself to go slow. At the turnaround, I knew I'd finish: I had to get home, after all. I walked a lot of the way back (there's a massive hill, about a mile long, at a grade of 6-12 degrees.) But I finished, just over 30 minutes. I was happy. And sore.
Training for last year's Ontario CrossFit Challenge, I was running 400m and 800m pretty regularly. I wasn't a better runner: I was still very up-and-down, with a long stride and a huge shock to absorb on every step. I'd finish runs exhausted, but just try to gut-out the lifts anyway. But when my quads started seizing during training runs, I started to worry: my legs would go numb, and the VMO (largest quadriceps muscle) would fire uncontrollably, as if it were attached to a car battery. I couldn't get my thighs to shut off. I DNF two workouts that I should have dominated.
Despite my years of training and coaching and study, I had missed something very simple: running is a skill. Like cleans and jerks and deadlifts and pullups. Technique matters.
After the Ontario CrossFit Challenge, I booked some private personal training sessions with Mike. His words: "You run like a hockey player." I was leaning back, with a heel strike way in front of my torso. He videotaped my runs and showed me; I was shocked. We practiced the POSE method three times, on the hot asphalt of the Industrial Park. First, I could hold my position for about four or five strides; then for a hundred metres; and slowly, over an entire 400m sprint. In July, I ran sub-25:00 at midnight, carrying a beer in my gut. I didn't win, not by a long shot (Beharriell shot by me around the 2k mark - he was already on his way back!) but it was a PR, and I knew I was onto something. My 800m times went from 3:45 to 2:55. My 400m times, even in the middle of a tough WOD, still dropped to 1:20s.
How many runners, I wonder, run for 20 years without a coach? How many read about running, follow the sport, watch the Boston Marathon...and never have their stride assessed? How many New Year's Resolutions die on the cold pavement on January 3rd out of pain and frustration?
Beginner's running groups in the Sault have always served a very important function: develop a running habit. Cough up some running germs, and let the running itch slowly kindle. Hope that the passion of the coach is infectious (and usually, at least a few would become runners for life.) But others became immunized: they'd tried it, found it painful, and given up forever. If your only exposure to something is painful and frustrating, after all, why would you continue?
It's now very obvious to us that technique coaching is critical for beginners. If we can make running easier, 'softer,' virtually pain-free......and you can get better, faster......you're more likely to continue forever. Maybe...you'll like running? It's not too much to ask.
We all need coaches. The more elite the athlete, the more it's expected they have a coach. But it's absolutely critical to use a coach when you're a beginner (or a second-time starter.) Let's do this right.
We've been hosting "Mondays With Mike" - part one and part two have already been published - to help folks learn to run better. Now he's making himself even more available to help: we'll be starting a morning group for beginners AND an evening group for beginners on March 9. You can sign up below. It's definitely the best running experience we've ever offered:
On-the-fly running coaching (he's out there with you!)
Whiteboard instruction pre- and post-run
Nutritional advice
Group runs (critical to building a habit)
8-week running program
When you're done, you'll run 5k. You'll love it.
Tuesdays and Thursdays with the coach, Saturdays with the group.
7am Group - readers of this blog: sign up online before March 1 and get 10% off!
7pm Group - readers of this blog: sign up online before March 1 and get 10% off!
Phil Mickelson is one of the greatest golfers of all time. But his collapse in the 2006 Masters Tournament is legendary:
Mickelson started his career 0-for-46 in majors, then changed his
approach. He dialed back the aggression and started making much better
course management decisions. And it paid off: He entered the 2006 U.S.
Open at Winged Foot going for his fourth career major and third in a
row.
And he almost got it. But then he reverted to his previous form. His
driver deserted him all day (he even hit into a trash can on No. 17),
yet he kept hitting it; and his decision-making deserted him on the
final hole.
Mickelson had a 1-stroke lead as he stood on the 18th tee. Despite
hitting only two fairways all day, he pulled the driver again. And
again, he missed - only this time badly, his drive hitting the roof of
a hospitality tent and bounding into the spectator area.
Mickelson had a decent lie, but a bad idea. Rather than advancing the
ball a short distance but getting it back in the fairway - where he
might make par the hard way, or, at worse, bogey to get into a playoff
in which he'd be the heavy favorite - Mickelson attempted a huge slice
under and around tree branches. It didn't work. The ball hit a branch
and stopped 25 yards in front of him.
He hit another big slice, but this one plugged in a back bunker, and
not even Mickelson's short-game magic could save him from there. He
double-bogeyed and finished one shot out of a playoff.
"I am such an idiot," he succintly said afterward.
“We don’t rise to the level of our expectations – we fall to the level of our training”
-Archilochus, Greek Soldier
What we're talking about here is internalizing a skill until it can happen subconsciously, without conscious thought. Is it coincidence that the "Canadian Sport For Life" website lists a minimum of 10,000 hours of practice before mastery can be reached?
Malcolm Gladwell sure doesn't think so. In his essay, "Outliers," he talks extensively about "prodigies" who simply had more practice than their peers. Mozart was composing symphonies as a child, yes. But his best work started to emerge in his early 20s - still young, but by that point, he likely had 10,000 hours of practice under his belt. Gretzky was the same. Tiger Woods, at age three, below:
Was he already hitting a ball straighter than some adults? Yes. Was this his first time holding a club? Nope.
The process of internalizing motor patterns takes repetitive practice. And skills must be practiced as close to perfectly as possible, not just wobbled through. Practice makes permanent. To become masterful, a child has to stop practicing a new skill when his form degrades, and resume when they can successfully coordinate the movement again.
In the graph at the to the right, we can see that virtuous performance in any sport or motor skill must start from a base of repetitive practice, and then be refined by comparison, competition, and challenge. Practice IS necessary, but so is competition, to evolve a skill. And each skill has to start out at the same level, but several can be learned concurrently; some will even help the development of others.
You simply can't 'skip' a level. Mastery must be achieved at the most very basic set of skills before they can be complemented with greater, better skills. For instance, if a child isn't taught how to fall and get back up on skates, they'll never progress to learning to stop properly. Likewise, if an adult isn't first taught how to squat properly, they'll never progress to a clean..... they'll probably defer to the Smith machine and blame their 'bad knees' on squats in general.
Add stress into the equation - good 'ol Lizard Brain! - and the athlete will start to backslide, dropping levels until they reach the level at which they've developed the most unconscious skill.
That's not a discouragement; rather, it shows that it's NEVER too late to learn brand-new skills. It's also a terrific illustration of the domain mastery trap: once someone is really, really good at a skill, it's tough to make them consider another. They'd have to restart at the bottom, after all. A comfort zone is just another name for quicksand.
Starting a child with a broad base of skills, including running, jumping, tumbling, skipping, calisthenics, ball sports, and weightlifting, ensures that they're starting from a higher level when they learn a sport later in life. Think Whit's grace in the clean and jerk is just something she's born with? That's years of gruelling dance rehearsal, plus two years of hard work and coaching. Think Ty's just one of those 'gifted' kids who are great at everything? Well, he DID everything. He established a solid motor base as a kid, refined it enough to play baseball at a University level, and is now developing parallel skills - but the broad base was there.
Development of the 'broad base' can happen at any age. To become more athletic - fitter, leaner, and able to do more of the good stuff - are you better to do CrossFit, or sit your way through a machine circuit?
8 Standing Broad Jumps (minimum of 6 feet per jump)
Meet Ray. Ray's a family man; a farmer; a dirt bike rider; an MMA fighter. A more average guy, you'd be hard-pressed to find. Ray goes to work every day, comes home every night. His credit is good; he eats his fibre. But on Tuesday nights, for the past several weeks, Ray's been going out. He kisses his girls goodnight, slips into his truck, and drives to town. He turns into a dark pocket of the Industrial Park and politely slips in through the crowd at the door. When they see him come in, they take off their coats and sit down. Ray's a firebreather. It doesn't matter what he has planned; they wanna watch. They know something's gonna happen here, and Gray's Anatomy can wait.
Fight Record: 2 - 2
Weight Class: 155lbs
Opponent: Rich Wells - Superior Combat
Training Regimen: Training for this fight has brought me back to life! Last year wasn't one of my best years, and I definitely wasn't living a healthy lifestyle. Finding myself last August depressed, weak, and 14lbs overweight, I new I needed something to get my life back on track. The first thing I did was commit to something I wouldn't back out of, I decided to fight. Since then, I began following the precision nutrition guidelines ( dropped the extra 14 lbs. in the first month). Next, school started up for me again which meant I was able to workout with my fitness classes twice a day. During my classes, we cycle through speed days, endurance days, strength days, power days, and tempo days. The first month was rough, but I was able to keep up. The next thing that I did was sign-up for the Catalyst games and used that to kickstart a change in training intensity. A huge help was training for Franfest! Doing Fran is so close to the energy demands of a fight that it fell perfectly into my fitness training plan. At the dojo, my regimen included 2.5 hours of training every Monday and Wednesday night developing my kickboxing and jiu-jitsu. Outside of those regular class hours, our team makes time on the weekends to get together and spar. All of my toughest fights have been at Ho Shin Sool! Finally, about 6 weeks out, I started performing high powered workouts, 2-3 times/week. To do this, I was picking and choosing the WOD's that I wanted to do and when.....this allowed me to be fully recovered for the workout and maximize my power output. This last week or so has been great. All I've been doing is maintaining my weight, keeping my edge for sparring, and maintaining my fitness. I feel like I'm the kid that did all of his homework and is ready for the exam right now. I'll fine tune a few things before the fight, but I'm not panicked or worried about anything. I've prepared myself better for this fight than any other fight......I can't wait.
A lot of people wonder why I fight.....one of the answers is for the thrill of it. There isnothing like the feeling of getting in the cage!!! I believe humans are hard wired to fight, at least this human is. There is no more honest moment in the world than when you are in the cage.There is no hiding, there is no trash talk, there is no counting on others, there are no lies…..only truth.The only thing that you have is what you’re made of, and it becomes very obvious, very quickly, once the fight starts what that is. I love that honesty, it empowers you, it humbles you, it makes you better.
I know a lot of people wonder what it would be like to get in a cage, and if you’ve competed in a crossfit type competition where it was just you and the WOD, then you’ve come pretty close (except for the getting punched in the face part).I would joke about how going to Catalyst for the WOD was like showing up for a fight, but the truth is, it’s about as close as it gets.I’d be nervous all day, I’d be scared of letting myself down by not letting my best get out, I’d be scared of disappointing others, and probably the biggest factor was showing up and knowing that no one was going to let me off the hook.The WOD was going to try and make me quit, and Catalyst was going to make sure that I didn’t.It’s really cool how closely fighting and crossfit are related. I could go on for days about fighting and why I like it so much, if you’re interested, stop me sometime and ask……just make sure you’ve got a lot of time.For now, here is the quick list:
1.Fighting keeps me in shape.
2.I enjoy the challenge.
3.When I train for a fight, I get to live like a champion. That’s about 90% of the fun I get from fighting.
4.I love the sport of MMA.
5.There is no feeling like winning a fight.
6.Practicing improves my mood and makes me feel better (ask my wife how grumpy I get if I don’t practice for a week).
7.I love the crowds.I feed off the energy.
8.I love stepping out of my everyday life and becoming a fighter for a weekend.
55lbs Hampton Bars – very stiff, fat diameter,
great for deadlifting, pressing, and squatting.Knurling is short and not very sharp; use a little
chalk, not much.
45lbs Hampton bars – small amount of bar ‘whip,’
fast sleeves, narrow diameter.Okay for squatting (middle knurling) but too much flex for heavy
deadlifts.Knurling is not
sharp OR deep, so use a bit of chalk on your hands, but keep the bar
clean.
45lbs Ivanko OLY bar – more bar ‘whip,’ very
fast sleeves.Built for clean
and jerk and snatch.Narrow diameter,
sharp knurling, no centre knurling for squatting.Not great for deadlifting.
35lbs York bars – a practice “beater” bar.Sleeves must be tightened before
each use.Slow sleeve
rotation, no middle knurling.
Yes, you’re a savage.But a bit of barbell etiquette is appreciated:
Clean your own platform of chalk and sweat and
DNA.Never cross a platform on which a lifter is active
or setting up.These lifts
require a lot of focus, and movement is very distracting.
Keep chalk over the bowl.
Put your weights away after use.
Never drop an empty bar; try not to drop a bar
with only 10lbs or 5lbs plates on it (but if you have to, that’s ok.We’d rather rip a plate than dent
your skull.)
Don’t use short bars on the platforms.They make dents.And when YOU make dents, WE make
dents.
THANKS.You’re making it better for everyone.Now go lift hard!
NEW Thursday group added! 7pm starting November 19!
"I am strong. I am beautiful."
This was the mantra given to 17 women in our Barbell Bettys group on October 5. What started as a private instructional group for women on the ways of the barbell has turned into a loud scrum. Every Monday and Thursday night, women do the unthinkable:
They put chalk on their hands.
They lift weights that aren't even pink.
They - on purpose! - sometimes sweat. Right through their t-shirts!
And get this: they don't even wear gloves!
Yes, there are strong ribbons of femininity running through those layers of concrete: headbands, knee socks, lululemon. Stretchy pants and pink shoelaces come crashing up against loud music, yelling, and personal best deadlifts.
If women need anything in life, it's strength. This is true whether we prefer it to be, or not. To further paraphrase Coach Rip: Strong is why we are here.
Men are naturally stronger. But you've heard the old joke, right? About Grace Kelly doing everything Fred Astaire could do, but backwards and in high heels? Well, here's the thing, gentlemen: while you're thinking, "Gotta get this PR. Gotta crank. C'mon, grip and rip, baby!" a woman has to also think, "Would my grandma tell me not to lift weights? How does my butt look while I'm deadlifting? Is my hair going to fall in my eyes while that bar's going overhead? Is my boyfriend going to make fun of me again tonight? Are my muscles going to look too prominent? Should I care? What if I get calluses from this? Will I have to do the 'full shower' before returning to work, or can I get away without redoing my hair?"
All this, while lifting stuff that most men wouldn't attempt. In the last month, we've had a 300 deadlift; we've had a 185lbs back squat for 3 reps; we've had bench presses over 130lbs. Soon, the Bettys will be throwing Cleans around; bouncing Snatches off the platforms; locking Jerks overhead. Soon, they'll compete in their first Powerlifting Meet, live and on a world stage.
We've just finished our first six-week session of Catalyst Teens. It's been more than we bargained for. We though, "we'll take these kids in, show them how to move better, give them a couple of tough workouts, and then do it again after Christmas, maybe."Instead, we got a full group, plus a waiting list. We got effort and intensity to match the Adult group (and sometimes, more noise than the older CrossFitters...) We gotinspired. Kids would arrive every week, usually early, always ready to throw themselves into the den of any Wolf we could dream up. Some did better a certain workouts. Some are better squatters than others. But every.single.one. hit it hard. NONE caved. NONE gave up. And neither can we.We're expanding our offering: Teens can now choose between Tuesday and Wednesday night groups. The group will still run at 7pm at the Park. More details, including our philosophy, below:
Interest in Youth Fitness has never been higher, and it's never been sucha touchy subject..
On
one hand, there are still opponents to the concept of kids "lifting
weights." On the other hand, kids of all ages are jumping, running,
tumbling, falling... all activities requiring them to bear their own
weight - plus inertia and gravity - at high speed. Do the math: a
12-year-old jumping off a 3-foot snowbank absorbs more than double
their bodyweight at impact. If you're a 135lbs 12-year-old, that's the
same as back squatting 297lbs safely!
While
repetitive high-impact exercise can cause joint dominance issue, these
are very different than acute stress injuries. The best way to avoid
these kinds of problems? Build a well-balanced, strong, flexible kid. Wayne
Gretzky didn't skate in the summer; he was a baseball pitcher. Most
high-level athletes started out doing several sports at once. We
routinely ask high-level athletes which sports they participated in as
kids; the answers are usually gymnastics (tumbling,) martial arts, or
dance. The
best way to produce a good athlete: give them lots of variety at a
young age. The best way to keep a person fit for life? Introduce them
to fun exercise at a young age involving a wide variety. These form the
backbone of our Catalyst Kids program.
Kids
who know how to exercise properly from a young age are far less likely
to suffer any athletic injury when they're older. They're less likely
to do dumb stuff in a school weight room, or spend all their time
obsessing about their "six-pack" when they're in a gym. Got a daughter?
Start thinking about ways to avoid an eating disorder. They're becoming
more popular, not less. Isn't it better to promotea lifestyle where
fitness is based on achievement instead of aesthetic? We think so. Teen (Age 12-15) CrossFit Group - Tuesdays or Wednesdays at 7pm Starts October 27!
Appropriately, the day after I write about Cherrypicking, a max effort CrossFit WOD pops up. Fun for the experienced lifter, the benefit of attempting max lefts may not be as obvious to a rookie.
This is NOT about burning calories. It's not even about improving your strength. The 1-1-1-1-1 WOD is a test of strength, not a stimulant. Instead, it's about something nearly invisible but definitely palpable: efficient recruitment of force.
Is this a boring topic? A bit. I'll make you a deal: take a deep breath, and hold it. If I'm not done the description by the time you have to exhale, you can skip the rest. OK?
Your muscles are wired together, and to your brain, through your nervous system. But this system is wired to do LOTS of things, and learn NEW things, all the time. It's not wired to be perfect at everything. This system is responsible for turning on individual muscle fibres in the correct sequence, as quickly as possible. Problem is, the first few times it has to learn a new pattern, that process is NOT quick. And since the system teaches itself to do the same thing each time it meets the same challenge, you can actually teach your muscles to be slow.
OK, exhale. The way we get the muscles to twitch more powerfully - to turn on quicker, line things up in sequence, and fire - is to teach speed. We in the game call that Rate of Force Development.
We're dealing with units that are so tiny that you'd never see it with your naked eye - unless you're seeing a misfire. An inefficient recruitment of force. Remember when that guy was pulling that heavy deadlift, and his hamstrings were shaking? Bingo. The body was struggling to recruit help from anywhere possible, and it was chasing thousands of rabbits at once. Do that lift a few more times, though, and you're better at getting things lined up in the proper order.
So why do we care? Well, for one thing, this will make you stronger without making you bigger. This is exactly how little guys in the 165lbs weight class can do deadlifts over 600lbs. It will also have an 'umbrella' effect on your other lifts: pulling your maximum higher will make the lighter weights easier.
There's also a cascade of hormonal release with heavy weights. For one, insulin sensitivity improves in the muscle, because it's looking to refuel before it begins to repair itself. Second, the thyroid output of T3 improves to rush nutrients into the system. Testosterone kicks up a little, which helps in saving protein and preferentially using fat for fuel.
Things like bone density and spinal stability are also improved more efficiently through the use of heavy weights than through the use of repetition. The stimulus from a high-repetition set of leg extensions is simply not enough to trigger osteoblast (new-bone-generating cells) activity; a heavy set of squats will.
Yes, it's the redemption WOD for muscleheads. Yes, the coaches yell themselves hoarse. But the benefits are myriad. Don't skip "singles night."
May 2008. My second day of CrossFit. Linda was her name, and she was well versed in the frustration of young men. And me, just a barbell-lovin' farmboy from "down the line," who had no idea what he was in for...
Mike and Tyler had been drinking the Kool-Aid since February, and were already seeing results. I was coming off a 3-year Powerlifting rip, competing in the 198lbs class. My first WOD was a huge stroke of luck: CrossFit Total. My second was....a little less lucky. Though I was pulling 500+ deads on a semiregular basis, my power clean was an abysmal 135; to make up for it, I added weight on the deadlift. I didn't rush; I paced between exercises. I tried to keep my thoughts - and my lunch - to myself. I was partially successful. I've never run into Linda again.
If CrossFit is good at one thing, it's this: exposing your weaknesses. The more weak links in the chain, the quicker the chain will snap. You can only coast on your strengths so far; ultimately, there's going to be a big confrontation, and the winner ain't a fixed bet, amigo.
There were a lot of scrapes, twists, and pains at Catalyst Games 2009. Be sure of that. Some were mentioned once and then tucked away in some dark recess of the unconscious mind to be dealt with later. Some were temporarily hobbling. But 48 hours later, there was only one ache being discussed at the Park: regret.
I wish I hadn't dropped to the Scaled 2 Class.
I should have kept going.
I should have shown up and done the first two Events.
I should have done it as Rx'd.
I should have done it, period.
You never regret the WOD you finish. You never look longingly at a platform on which you've left everything you had to leave. You never wish to have all that sweat back.
If a WOD intimidates you, good. It's exposing a massive opportunity: a chance to strike right at the heart of your weakness. A chance to kick Mr. Sandbag while his gloves are drooping. It's a chance to make an investment: to pay a big lump against the principal, not just cover the interest. Because there IS interest: the longer you wait to deal with this stuff; the more you choose your WODs based on your strengths and ignore the "hard ones"; the more you turn your cheek to that blazing, illuminating bulb, the harder it's going to be for your sight to adjust.
C'mon, Linda. One more chance, baby. You and me, down by the river.....
Lifting heavy stuff requires more than brute strength: it takes technique. Not just guts, but grace.
Thanks to CrossFit, dozens of women in Northern Ontario have fallen in love with lifting heavy stuff. Contrary to the antiquated notion that heavy weights make women too muscular, they stimulate your thyroid to increase your metabolism, make your muscles more sensitive to insulin, and trigger a metabolic trickle-down effect that make you leaner, stronger, and better at doing stuff.
Starting October 5, Coach Tyler will lead a group of lucky women on a journey through the iron jungle. They'll deadlift. They'll bench press. They'll squat, clean, jerk and snatch. They'll sweat. They'll use chalk. They'll do all the fun, gritty stuff usually left to the untidy domain of the men.
6 Weeks - Mondays at 7pm - Park location - Starts Oct 5
NEW! Thursdays at 7pm Group added due to high demand!
$80 - Members; $125 - Non-members (includes membership for the length of the course)
Coached by local legend John "Dr. Focus" Santana, this group focuses on training cyclists to go faster. Clients from last year's group noted significant improvement on their cycling times in races this year; hard work really does pay off!
A jovial, friendly hour of hard work on indoor Cyclops2 fluid trainers. Riders are free to bring their own quiet trainer(fluid or magnetic) and save $10!
Tuesday nights at 6pm.
$80 for Session I: October 6 through November 10
(plus gst.)
Please register early at 256-1344.
This class usually has a waiting list, so make sure your spot is reserved!
I learned the lockout from Abby Errington, and Abby's never done an Olympic lift in his life. Maybe he's never lifted weights, even.
Abby (short for Al, Jr.) owns a wilderness lodge in the Chapleau Game Preserve. You can't get there by car. There's no electricity, no roads, and not much to distract a ragtag group of teenagers other than the fish. I spent 5 months with Abby in 1996. Two hundred miles from civilization, a million miles from a gym, and I learned how to lock out a weight.
My first week, Abby's wife asked me to move a bed from a cabin on this island to a cabin on that island. There was a short bridge between the two, so I could thankfully pull this off without use of a boat.
First, I drug the mattress to the door. Then I stood and looked at it for a few minutes. It was heavy. Worse, if I drug it in the dirt, it would be destroyed. I needed help, but there was none around; besides, I'd been asked with the assumption that I could do it alone, and alone it would be.
Eventually, I went back to the main lodge to ask for a hand truck. Bosslady told me there weren't any. So I returned to the mattress, picked it up, and half-lifted, half-slid it a quarter mile through the forest. I'd lift it up a few inches, slide my foot forward a few inches, and set it back town on the bridge of my foot so it didn't touch the ground. An hour later, I arrived, leaving a curious wake of dirt and leaves the width of a size-eleven Nike.
Abby followed soon after, carrying the bed frame over his head. I thought he was Superman. How the heck did he do that? I asked. "It's easier to carry heavy stuff if it's over your head," he said.
As soon as he was out of sight, I wrestled the mattress over my head. NOT easier. My back felt like it would snap in half. I rested it on my head, feeling again the sheer mass of an old mattress, and thought maybe fear would give me the strength to move that sucker down the dock and back.
I fought, shakily, my way to the end of the pier. I rested the mattress on my head again while I opened a gate to the dock. When I tried to move between two posts at the entrance, the mattress bumped against them. Oh - oh: I'd have to lift it over. And so I quarter-squatted, jumped up, and let the inertia pull the mattress into the air. Its sheer springiness made me grip it tightly with my elbows fully locked out. But then....
...it was easy. At full lockout, you don't have to struggle to extend your elbows, or even hold them in a state of semi-extension. At full lockout, your deltoids can rest while infraspinatus anchors your scapulae into a comfortable position. At full lockout, your humerus is sucked deep into the shoulder, where it anchors and sets itself to stay awhile. At full lockout, your pelvis is properly aligned to support your core musculature. It's safer for your back, because the horizontal distance from point of rotation (base of your spine) to weight is virtually zero. That means less rotational torque, and a spinal position that we're actually built to hold.
The technical details came later, of course. All I knew was that I could carry a mattress to the end of the dock and back. Watching Ty coach the Jerk this weekend, I thought of Abby Errington Jr., and how lessons learned the hard way are usually the ones that last.
"Why are your players so much more fit than anyone else's?"
"What are you doing that's so different?"
"How can you get this kind of player without steroids?"
"Can you get this kid back to the way he was at his best?"
"This kid was the surprise of the draft. He earned his spot because he was so far ahead of everyone else at fitness testing."
These are all questions we've heard from OHL coaches since last fall. Different teams, different players, different coaches. Some during phone calls with Coaching staff, some via email.
The kicker: we're not doing anything that's top secret. Instead, we're constantly reviewing scientific research and applying it to our athletes. We write great programs, and excellent food plans, and make sure our athletes use them. Most of our players don't use any supplements at all; the others use only a basic protein supplement.
THE CATALYST DIFFERENCE:
Intense application of basic physical movement. First, we make our athletes experts at basic compound movements like squats, deadlifts, presses, and cleans. Then we take them to the next level through creative workouts that combine elements of weight lifting, calisthenics, sprinting, Strongman, gymnastics, kettlebells, and more.
Want an example? A typical (non-Catalyst) Trainer will split up an athlete's week into body parts and add a bunch of distance running. In contrast, we'll focus on movements like hip extension, explosive technique, and challenge-based workouts. By training MOVEMENTS, not individual MUSCLES by themselves, we make a better athlete.
In fact, athletes who train with us OFTEN KNOW MORE about exercise than any of their peers, and sometimes know more than their coaches! Junior-level coaches will even admit that their offseason program is only a rough guideline to be followed if there's no other option. In 2009, 3 OHL teams have already told their players to follow OUR program instead of their team's offseason handbook!
Parents: you'll be secure in the knowledge that if your son or daughter has to play in another city, they'll know how to take care of their own training safely and effectively. Because we first emphasize mastery of the basics, they'll always know how to exercise without risk of injury AND for maximum benefit in limited time.
MAKE THE CUT. DON'T LEAVE YOUR TRAINING UNTIL THE LAST MINUTE!
Our camps all include:
Membership to Catalyst Athletic - our Athletic Training Gym in the Industrial Park
Full Food Plan
Coaching by the best Trainers in Ontario
Exposure to exercises you'll NEED to know to play NCAA or OHL hockey - but CAN'T find anywhere else
Extra workouts
CAT Testing at the beginning and end of the program with detailed reports
It will be a year in June since my second surgery on my knee, my first being in January of the same year.There is not a day that goes by that I do not think about that devastating occurrence in my life.One that has truly changed my life – not necessarily for the better……but then again they do say that “things happen for a reason.”While the whole events surrounding the injury have not been easy, they have certainly placed a positive spin on things for me.I am indeed a better person for enduring what I have been through.Questions cross my mind such as will I be at the same level I was prior to the injury?Will I be able to complete without worrying about hurting myself again?Will I have limitations?Will I have the confidence to rise above this?So many questions and so much doubt have entered my head.
Unlike other sports, gymnastics is not an easy sport to transition into following an ACL injury.The pounding and abuse the body takes is like no other.The mind is a powerful tool, and I have learned to utilize it to help me get through this ordeal.I realize the importance of rehab, conditioning and practicing daily to achieve desired outcomes.First and foremost, it is paramount to cut off the doubt fast and refocus on the positives that will help me perform.When in doubt, I know my confidence is affected, so telling myself that I can and will nail it and visualizing myself doing all these things really helps to put things in perspective. I try to create in my mind what skills I want to do and then work to bring them into physical existence.
Proper conditioning is a vital and driving force in my recovery, and I enjoy varying degrees of conditioning so I am always eager to approach Chris Cooper for innovative and helpful tips.Strength is also key and helps to raise my confidence while motivating me to work through the sometimes unavoidable physical pain.
Prior to a competition, I like to set positive goals for each event to help me focus on what I want to achieve instead of worrying about what could go wrong. I totally involve myself in achieving those goals by staying focused and committed to the game. I find it helpful to putaside the idea that others are watching or evaluating my performance.Regardless of how often I compete, there is always that element of fear.However, I like to imagine that fear is a normal reaction and that every one experiences it to some degree. To alleviate my fear, I like to envision something comical like my mom trying to do a balancing act on the beam.(It is definitely a lot harder than it looks.Gymnasts make it look easy).
While everyone deserves a second chance, not everyone is as fortunate as I have been to get one.While overcoming obstacles, I have had tremendous support from family, teachers, coaches, therapists and mentors.It is indeed a privilege to have had these wonderful people in my life, particularly Chris Cooper (personal trainer @ Catalyst) and Lisa Proctor (gym coach) whose guidance has been immeasurable.
I look forward to training through the summer and next year at Twistars Gym in Lansing,Michigan, where it is my hope to take my gymnastics to another level.My personal mission statement is to obtain a gymnastics scholarship and to continue to participate in the sport for as long as I am able to.- Shelby MacDonald
"Why are your players so much more fit than anyone else's?"
"What are you doing that's so different?"
"How can you get this kind of player without steroids?"
"Can you get this kid back to the way he was at his best?"
"This kid was the surprise of the draft. He earned his spot because he was so far ahead of everyone else at fitness testing."
These are all questions we've heard from OHL coaches since last fall. Different teams, different players, different coaches. Some during phone calls with Coaching staff, some via email.
The kicker: we're not doing anything that's top secret. Instead, we're constantly reviewing scientific research and applying it to our athletes. We write great programs, and excellent food plans, and make sure our athletes use them. Most of our players don't use any supplements at all; the others use only a basic protein supplement.
THE CATALYST DIFFERENCE:
Intense application of basic physical movement. First, we make our athletes experts at basic compound movements like squats, deadlifts, presses, and cleans. Then we take them to the next level through creative workouts that combine elements of weight lifting, calisthenics, sprinting, Strongman, gymnastics, kettlebells, and more.
Want an example?A typical (non-Catalyst) Trainer will split up an athlete's week into body parts and add a bunch of distance running. In contrast, we'll focus on movements like hip extension, explosive technique, and challenge-based workouts. By training MOVEMENTS, not individual MUSCLES by themselves, we make a better athlete.
In fact, athletes who train with us OFTEN KNOW MORE about exercise than any of their peers, and sometimes know more than their coaches! Junior-level coaches will even admit that their offseason program is only a rough guideline to be followed if there's no other option.In 2009, 3 OHL teams have already told their players to follow OUR program instead of their team's offseason handbook!
Parents: you'll be secure in the knowledge that if your son or daughter has to play in another city, they'll know how to take care of their own training safely and effectively. Because we first emphasize mastery of the basics, they'll always know how to exercise without risk of injury AND for maximum benefit in limited time.
MAKE THE CUT. DON'T LEAVE YOUR TRAINING UNTIL THE LAST MINUTE!
For the second year, we're offering ourEARLY CAMP starting mid-May. This camp is available only to Midget and Junior-level players, and runs Thursday nights at our Athletic Training facility in the Industrial Park.
Our camps all include:
Membership toCatalyst Athletic- our Athletic Training Gym in the Industrial Park
Full Food Plan
Coaching by the best Trainers in Ontario
Exposure to exercises you'll NEED to know to play NCAA or OHL hockey - but CAN'T find anywhere else
Extra workouts
CAT Testingat the beginning and end of the program with detailed reports
More now than ever, we're getting calls from coaches in the OHL, Junior, and Midget levels. At the start of the offseason, they want to know that their players are in good hands; totally understandable. Most have already given their players an offseason workout plan, and just want to make sure the Trainer checks all the boxes and keeps input to a minimum.
After talking with us, usually for at least a half hour, though, it's common for them to call the player and advise them to follow our plan instead. Want to know why? It's not a secret. Read on.
"Cardio" is a slang term reserved for aerobic endurance work. "Work Capacity" is the ability to apply force across a distance for a specified time. To get mathematical for a second,
W = Fs : Work = Force x Distance. Force = mass x acceleration.
Typically, most offseason Hockey programs focus only on aerobic development: long runs, hill repeats, jogs, cycling.....all in the pursuit of the elusive and undefined 'base.' 'Base' training is similarly undefined, but most coaches would agree that it refers to the ability to avoid fatigue at the high level of output demanded by hockey. In other words, the capacity to perform work.
If the GOAL of all the 'cardio' is to increase the ability to perform work, is jogging or running 5km the best way to do it? Let's get back to math:
Work = Force x Distance. In the case of cycling or running, 'Distance' is the movement of the limb in space; force is the energy exerted to move the body that distance. Simple stuff, really.
Let's take a 5k run. Since there's very little acceleration after the start (you keep a constant pace for most of the run) the actual Force generated is tiny. Pulling a sled, though, on concrete? There's no momentum due to the friction of the asphalt and steel. Hammering through 30 pullups after a 400m sprint and 30 pushups? Lots of force there!
In real-world terms, performing long aerobic training at submaximal heart rates (below 70%, typically) will NOT improve performance at heart rates above that level. That's a key point. Running/jogging long distances will NOT improve your ability to work hard under fatigue.
Long aerobic work WILL improve oxygen uptake efficiency - your V02 max score, which is another variable often used by hockey trainers - but not necessarily at a rapid heart rate, which is common after a rough shift. Nor will aerobic work help you avoid the rapid heart rate, which is caused as much by performing the Valsalva maneuvre as it is by metabolic turnover (using oxygen to metabolize energy.) Doug Bodger, Defenseman for San Jose: ""I don't think you're breathing half the time. You're mostly exhaling...pushing and shoving...and concentrating so much you don't think about breathing at all. That's why we can only stay out there for a minute at a time. It's like holding your breath."
When you start a skating stride, you 'brace' down your spine: your glottis closes, you trap air in the lungs, and are thus stabilized to transfer force to the legs. You can't avoid the Valsalva maneuvre; it's necessary for spinal integrity. Unfortunately, your heart races to recover when you DO take a breath. Endless hours of cardio-based training won't alter this necessity.
So far, this article has focused on what DOESN'T work: the ages-old habit of doing endless aerobic exercise to develop the mythical 'base.' What DOES work, then? High-intensity intervals under load. Brief, all-out bursts of twenty to sixty seconds, usually while performing a complex task or combination of simple tasks. Mixed workouts . Full-body movement instead of isolation exercises.
Every year, we hear something like this: "We picked him up in the fifth round, but he really impressed us at camp" or "he was the steal of the draft" or "can you get him back to the level he reached last summer with you?" or "What are you guys DOING with these kids? They're way ahead - it's almost unfair!" These are actual quotes from OHL coaches. And the truth is, we don't have any secrets. We have logic, science, and a burning desire to win at all costs. Heck, our capacity for work isn't too bad, either.
In one week, we'll be putting our daily workouts online free. These are for hockey players; they're not tailored to any one player to address individual strengths and weaknesses. Rather, they'll develop anyone to a level of excellent overall fitness. Our job in the offseason is to deliver the player to the coach with an elite level of fitness, injury-free, ready to be a better hockey player.
Where: Catalyst Fitness,
99 Industrial Park B Sault Ste. Marie, ON 256-1344
Cost: $50.00
This 90-minute seminar with IFBB
Fitness Pro/Agatsu Kettlebell Certified Instructor Marnie Holley, will give you
the knowledge necessary to implement safe and effective kettlebell training
into your fitness program. Basic exercises (and their variations) such as the
swing, clean, snatch, press, windmill, and Turkish get-up will be taught.A variety of bodyweight exercises and
sample strength/endurance circuits will also be presented.
This seminar is expected to sell out FAST! It will be
capped at 15 attendees, so please register at Catalyst Fitness ASAP to reserve
your spot. Entry will be on a first-come, first-served basis.Please note that you will be required
to make advance payment and will need to complete a registration form/waiver.Please make cheques payable to Marnie
Holley.
Be sure to
wear workout clothing, flat-soled shoes, and bring a small towel and water
bottle.
For further information
please contact Catalyst Fitness at(705) 256-1344or emailcatalystfitness@yahoo.ca
Three rounds for time: Run 400 meters 1 1/2 pood Kettlebell X 21 swings (or 55 pound dumbbell swing) 12 Pull-ups
St. Mary's will be at Catalyst Gym this morning at 9am. They're learning how to clean, squat, deadlift, and bench press - staples in the football life. They're going to flip tires, jump onto and over stuff, push and pull sleds, and swing kettlebells. Want to play college ball? Better have a good clean; your pec deck numbers don't count. Biceps curls? Good for getting food to your mouth faster. Smith machine squats? They make your quads look great on the bench.
Welcome, Knights. Get ready to turn a corner.
Want to get YOUR football / hockey / wrestling / gum-chewing team into Catalyst for a free skills session? Call us: 256-1344, or email chris@catalystgym.com.
Chris will be at St. Mary's College this morning, talking to their players about REAL strength training. Want to see what they'll see? Download the synopsis and workout template Download OFFSEASON FOOTBALL TRAINING .
Want a great illustration of the industrial-style workout? Watch this video. It features two approaches to training in the offseason. On the one hand, there's hard work, chalk, and improvement. On the other, there's chest-bumping, fashion advice, and a lot of talking.
The industrial gym featured: Joe Defranco's. A great resource for football players. Defranco literally wrote the book on combine preparation.
Want to read more about the Westside template? Click here.
It's so close, you can almost smell it. Fresh-mown grass, early morning dew, rich dirt, clean uniforms....
Make this your best year ever. Our baseball training group starts February 7.
Get small-group training from Elite Trainer and Coach Tyler Belanger.
6 Weeks - February 7 through March 14
Includes 1 group session per week, workouts for the duration of the program, a 2-month gym membership to Catalyst Gym (built for athletes!) and a six-week food plan.
Downhill Ski Training:A Question of Balance (in more ways than one)
Mike Watson, BHK, CSCS
Recently we’ve been blessed to have a fantastic group of local downhill ski racers join us at the Park location for some dryland training.I’ve been lucky enough to work with a handful or the Sault’s elite in the past five years.Some of these skiers have competed in the provincial and U.S. intercollegiate systems.
When training for a sport such as skiing, we often have to wade through the gimmicks and archaic training methods and find what will work best in the least amount of time.We also have to pick training methods that will give our athletes the best chances to avoid common injuries associated with the sport and the training practices that sometimes come with it.
The nature of the beast: What is skiing?
Pure and simple, skiing is about power.The average race will last no more than a minute and a half.The movements that happen during that time are fast, powerful and heavily loaded challenges to the hip, knee and ankle joints.Each turn sees the skier forcefully loading these joints eccentrically to avoid collapse or crash; and equally as powerfully, concentrically loaded to power out of each turn.There is NOTHING slow and controlled about skiing.
So, if there is nothing slow and controlled about our sport, then why would we ever have our athletes train this way?3 or 4 sets of 10-12 reps are not going to help us recruit muscle at the rate needed to absorb the gravitational forces generated by a steep pitch.We need to teach these athletes to train fast and explosively!
The most common complaint from the kids in our dryland group (ages 10-16) is knee pain.Most of these kids already have the beginnings of patellar tendonitis or patellar femoral syndrome.Three big reasons: age, nature of the sport, and misinformed training habits.
Most of these kids are growing like crazy. Their muscles and connective tissues are struggling to catch up to growing bones.Boys tend to get super tight posterior chains (low back, glutes, hamstrings) while the girls, due to feminine pelvic structure, are blessed with posterior chain issues and illiotibial band issues at the same time!The nature of the sport sees them ina constant state of squatting and resisting squatting.The outcome is a lot of very quad-dominant athletes with sore knees.
All too often, we hear of coaches and trainers interpreting knee issues and quadriceps fatigue during skiing as a sign of weak quads, leading to……you guessed it!More quad training, and weird…..more pain!I recently heard of a trainer telling a skier with obvious patellar issues to stay low all the way through repetitive sets of lunges to “focus on the quads.”While personal trainers aren't always the best at diagnosing a joint issue, it's fair to say that the patellar strain injuries caused by repetitive strain from skiing can generally be cleared up by strengthening the hamstrings, stretching the quadriceps, and correcting the motor pattern in around 3-4 weeks.
A general rule:if there is pain or discomfort at a joint, chances are that the joint itself is not the issue.Most likely there is an imbalance either above or below the joint.In the case of the knee, we’re usually looking above to the balance between the posterior chain and quads.During running and skiing, our quads play a major role, but mostly as a decelerator or shock absorber.Hip extension in skiing and most other sports is where we get our power and increased performance, not from more powerful knee extension.If quads fatigue early, it is likely that they do so because of lack of support from other muscles around the hip and knees.
Try this as a great example:Squat.Get your hips back over your heels as if you’re sitting back onto a low bench or in a skiing tuck.Now extend your legs using just your quads as if you were on a leg extension machine at your gym.You can’t? No surprise.
Now try to get out of that squat by squeezing your glutes and driving your hips forward.Notice any difference in your performance?
Simply put, if we develop the posterior chain, everything else falls into place athletically.A well developed low back leads to better posture, which means the abdominals are engaged and suddenly our ability to control our bodies becomes a lot more proficient.That leads me to a pet peeve:balance training.
One of the biggest trends in gyms and with athletes is balance training: doing things on unstable surfaces such as physio balls or Bosu balls to “engage the core.”Much of the recent research shows that unless you’re an elderly woman, or under the age of 12, you not only look funny, but you’re wasting your time.
In adults, balance skills can be regained but not taught.If you don’t already have adequate balance skills by the time you’re 12 years old, you are not going to dramatically improve.You're wasting your time (and money).However, if you’ve lost these skills over time, as in the case of the elderly, then balance training can help you relearn some of these skills and help prevent falls.
Some experts go so far as to say that the majority of our balance skills come before the age of 4.They cite elite skiers as having some of the best balance and spatial awareness skills you’ll see, because they often are on the slopes at a very young age.They go on to suggest that the best way to develop balance skills needed for skiing is to have strong and balanced low back, rectus abdominus and oblique muscles and to ski as much as possible.Turns out that standing and squatting on a physio ball with 10 lbs weights doesn’t improve your performance; it just makes you better at your party trick.
Want to improve in a hurry? Stick to mastering the basics of human function: squatting, jumping, and picking stuff up. Strengthen your hips to save your knees, and most importantly, seek qualified guidance to avoid problems down the road.
Bench shirts aren't magical. Made of tough material, they simply stretch when the bar is pulled to the chest. You can't put on a bench shirt and magically add 100lbs to your press, unfortunately.
Powerlifters are evenly split on the use of shirts. On the one hand, shirts do a lot of the work. That's undeniable. They help. A lot. On the other hand, they don't help through the whole range of motion. They're available in different strengths and fabrics; they take some practice. While some can get as much as 200lbs or more out of a good shirt, some struggle to add 20lbs to their press. What's more, most powerlifting federations have made bench shirts mandatory for competition.
Origins
Bench pressing began as an assistance exercise for the Jerk, an Olympic lift. However, since big men with less mobility could do well in the bench press, squat, and deadlift - but perhaps not in the more athletic lifts, the Clean, Jerk, and Snatch - competitions sprung up for these new 'powerlifts' all over the place. Most of the rules are still built on those of the Olympic lifts, but one in particular has changed the way athletes now train for the bench press. I'm talking about the PAUSE.
In a powerlifting meet, after lowering the bar under control to your chest, you have to pause it, motionless, until the referee says, "Press!" At that point, you explode upward, and pause at lockout. This is harder than it sounds. You may be motionless for anywhere from a split second up to 3 seconds (at which point your stretch reflex is significantly diminished.) Since you're actually stronger at lowering a weight (eccentric phase) than holding it still, it's really tough on the shoulders to hold a maximal weight at the chest longer than a full second. Bench press shirts were originally born to remove that stress at the shoulder.
The first bench press shirt was patented by Inzer (www.inzernet.com) in the 1980s. Up until that point, bench presses approached 600lbs (Bill Kazmaier) but that was assumed to be the ceiling. Inzer's first shirts didn't really do much, but they helped just enough to get athletes thinking of ways to use them better. Inzer's shirt was a single-layer polyester (more on that below,) but when their patent ran out in the 1990s, other manufacturers were already ready and waiting in the wings, including Titan and Crain.
These days, a single-ply poly is rare. I have one, but I also have a single-ply denim, and there's a big difference. Most big lifters are using triply-ply denim (some with a bit of poly sewn in,) and there's no chance you could ever use them.
How They Work
Bench shirts have very small chests, which have to be stretched out to the shoulders as the bar is lowered. Grab a 3" stretch of your jeans, and try to stretch it to 12". Not easy. That's what a bench shirt does. Most shirts are also stitched in such a way that your shoulders stay forward, your arms can't drift downward, and your elbows pull toward one another. Watch a bench presser in between attempts: if he leaves his shirt on, he can't lower his arms.
Bench shirts have a 'sweet spot' that lifters call 'the bubble.' Essentially, if you bring the bar lower on your chest, you'll get more resistance from the shirt (good.) If your arms drift back, you'll suddenly lose resistance, as if you were sliding off the side of a bubble (bad.) Bench shirts can help, but if you get in trouble on your press, things can get very bad very quickly.
Types
Poly - a rubberish material. Lots of pop out of the bottom of your press, but ridiculously hard to put on. Notoriously painful; if you wear a poly shirt, your armpits are going to bleed. So while you're trying to press a new PR, you're also bearing the pain of being cut, from your underarms to your lats. They also take at least one strong helper to get on and seated properly. It's not easy; it's so fatiguing on your assistant that they usually won't be able to bench that day. As soon as your shirt's on, your circulation is cut off, so timing is critical. Hard to wrap up when you can't feel your thumbs!
Denim - much more comfortable and easy to get on. Usually have the back wide open, so you'll only need help pulling it tight across the back of the shoulders. However, it's still not loose; you'll still bleed when the bar's coming down. To work, the shirt has to anchor somewhere; that somewhere is your skin. Denim is very resilient to stretch, which means there's not much of a 'pop' out of the hole. However, since it's stronger than poly, if you know how to tweak it well, you'll get more out of the denim.
Problems you wouldn't expect
First off, there's the lockout. If the shirt is tight enough to do anything, then there's no way you can make your current max touch your chest with the shirt on. You'll have to pull it down as hard as possible, or add weight. And since the shirt only helps for the first part of the lift, you'll have to press the increased weight back up. For instance, if your raw bench is 300lbs, it's not unreasonable to try to add 20lbs to your bench with a shirt. If your shirt's too strong, though, you'll never pull 320lbs to your chest. If your shirt's not that strong, you'll have trouble pressing it back up. That's why, for people bench pressing under 350lbs, carryover from the shirt isn't that big. That's also why you can't just buy a triply-ply denim shirt, have it tailored, and press 800lbs. That gap between the weight you can lock out and the weight required to touch - and pause at - your chest is too big.
Next, shirts wear out. Especially poly. You can wash them to shrink them back down, but that just makes them lose elasticity more quickly. They're also pretty costly.
Last, even though they're customized to your measurements when you buy them, they're not always to your liking. The Internet is full of used bench shirts, worn once and discarded.
Are they cheating?
Used in a gym? Absolutely. If someone's using a bench shirt and not competing in, or training for, a real powerlifting meet, then they're doing it for show. Maybe that's impressive to some. Maybe it's acceptable to others. But don't compare your bench numbers in a shirt to those of your unshirted friends; it's a very different lift.
Used in a meet? No. It's mandatory in most meets, like it or not. There are some raw meets out there, and they're fine for those who like the 'real' bench press. Every federation is different, too, about what they'll allow: the IPF is now accepting single-ply poly, while the WPO is very accepting of anything the lifter wants to wear.
This is an unanswerable question. While they're not quite steroids, in that using a bench shirt takes a lot of skill and practice, it's not the same as a normal bench press. They're practically two different sports. Using even the best bench shirt takes a lot of practice and customization and blood, and the lifts are still ridiculous. But they're not magical. Your first time in a bench shirt will rarely yield a PR bench press.
We keep a couple of old shirts around; if you'd like to try one for yourself, just ask. Like everything else in the iron world, it's fun to try once, if only to say you've done it.
