April Challenge

CrossFit Palo Alto Women’s Challenge April 2012 - Though this started for the women's class, many others have been choosing to complete the challenges with the ladies for the past year.  Join in and see where it takes you!

There are a few ways that this month’s challenge can be completed.  You can choose to do these tasks as “mini-WODs” on your off days or as warm-ups in the first five minutes of class.  Each of these is designed to be completed in around 5 minutes.  At least three should be done each week, and you can do them in any order that you would like.  Some of these will require a little equipment, so you’ll have to be strategic about when/how you do them.  Some others may require you to google a skill/movement.  Some of them provide you a little flexibility with how many you do, so take advantage of that to listen to your body and get the most out of it that you can.  In the case where reps are undefined, practice good movement, stop before it gets ugly.  If you’re uncertain of how to do a movement, ask me ASAP so you don’t miss out.  Once you have completed a mini-WOD, check it off/initial it as if it were a BINGO game.  At the end of the month, after going through a pretty extensive repertoire of movements, you will probably have identified a few Minis that you love and that become your go-to for warming yourself up, getting something done when you’re itching to move during the day or something to do on an “off-day” when you are stiff/sore and need a little mobility.  Still, it is by no means exhaustive.  Document your journey on  paper, write about how it felt do do the Mini, if it affected your training that day (positively or negatively), if it helped you see any glaring holes in your ability, if there was something you fell in love with, whatever.  Circle/highlight the things you love and hate and need to keep practicing.  These are some of the goals of the month:

1. Acquaint you with a multitude of productive ways to use your free five minutes of warm-up at the beginning of class
2. Get you thinking in advance about your mental approach to CrossFit by choosing things that you need to do on a given day.
3. Give you resources of things you can do on your own so that you can take care of your body and start to attack the things you need to practice.

My expectations of folks who choose to do this month’s challenge are these:  that you own it, write it, complete it.  Bring your BINGO Mini-WOD list to class with you so that you can make notes in it, plan for it, and practice.  As always, you get from it what you give it, so give with your heart, body and mind.  Have fun!  I invite you all to leave comments about how it’s going, ask questions, fill me in if there’s anything I should know...  So without further ado, here is April!

250m row time: ________ 30sec rest 250m row time: ________ 30sec rest 250m row time: ________                         Initial _____	500m row time: ________                       Initial _____	10 sets of 10 KB Swings (Russian swings/chest high they should be short, sharp, powerful)                       Initial _____
400m run time ________                       Initial _____	240m farmers walk (KB) can be unilateral w/switch or bilateral                       Initial _____	100 Double Unders (attempts ok)                       Initial _____
Bear Complex (PVC or 35#Barbell) 10-20 reps 1 rep= Power Clean Front Squat Push Press Back Squat Push Press (Behind Neck)                       Initial _____	Burgener Warm-up (PVC)* burgener-warm-up.wmv (3 minute video Sage Burgener in garage gym, Mike Burgener talking you through it.  This is the vid you need to watch.                       Initial _____	Shoulder Prep Mini* KB Halos both directions Turkish Get Ups Swings Snatches                       Initial _____
Squat hold (mobility wod #1) face-the-wall-squats wallballs box jumps                      Initial _____	Rack a KB*, go for a walk, do both sides Practice downswing from rack then re-clean it to rack.* KB Press*                       Initial _____	Pullup practice Dead hangs or negatives hollow-rock* practice kip                       Initial _____
Self-Myofascial Release Hips Hamstrings Quads Calves Peroneals IT Inner thigh Back shoulders feet                       Initial _____	Running mechanics drills 100 running rope pulls* running in place running backwards (carefully!)                       Initial _____	Old-School CFPA W-Up    2 rounds 20 DU (attempts OK) 10 swings 10 pushups 10 pullups 10 PVC dislocates 10 PVC OHS 5/5 PVC OH Lunges                       Initial _____

* if you’re unsure what this means, talk to me ASAP

Doing the Ditto

Those of us of a certain age can recollect the smell of the freshly run ditto, the texture of the paper and the purplish color of the print.  Wikipedia tells me that the Ditto Machine was heading to obsoletion by the 1970s.  But I guess Faria A+ Elementary School was behind the times, because they were still using this technology when I was there in the 80s.  The ditto was a precursor to the photocopy.  It stank.  It felt slightly waxy.  At Faria, the ditto tended to be synonymous with a short-answer, fill-in-the-blank, find-the-answer-in-the-text-book worksheet.  They might have originally come out of Language Arts or Social Studies workbooks.  You could basically get through school simply by showing up to class and doing the dittos.

But simply regurgitating answers from the text book, filling in dates of battles, or naming presidents does not necessarily measure a person's understanding of information.  It might be enough if the goal is simply to get through school.  It's also a pretty simple means of assessment, because it's easy to grade or attach a score to.  But is the ditto enough?  Did the ditto help a person learn?  Maybe some.  But generally speaking, if you wanted to do well in school, and actually digest and understand material, you had to do more than the ditto.

My college boyfriend was a high school basketball coach.  He would be dismayed when his athletes went on academic probation.  "It's so easy," he'd say.  He'd tell them simply to just show up to class and do the ditto so they could play, but to play with their hearts.  That was all.  Just 1) go to school, 2) do the ditto, 3) play ball like you mean it.  That was it.  Do the ditto.  Bring your heart and soul to the court.  My premise is this:  a person can get through life just doing the ditto.  But more than that requires more than that ("to press a lot you must press a lot").

If you want to be good at something, you have to do more than just the ditto.  What, you might ask, constitutes doing the ditto in real-life?  Or at least in CrossFit (which is totally real-life)?

• Being OK with long-term stagnancy is doing the ditto.  If you're stuck, ask why!
• Just going through the motions and doing strength work by the numbers without finishing on your best effort is doing the ditto.  
• Staying on the same rubber band for pullups without caring or working towards something new is doing the ditto.  
• Holding yourself back in any way is doing the ditto.  That includes your movement.  If you're not striving to move with purpose and precision, maybe you're doing the ditto.  
• Accepting mediocrity is doing the ditto. 

If you want to do the ditto and just that, there's no inherent shame in it, just complacency.  There are in fact, times in life where it's a good idea to just do the darn ditto (like during tax season).  But otherwise, don't delude yourself into thinking that you're going to get the same thing out of it, or expect others to stroke your ego for it.  Any educator in the world is frustrated by gifted students who just do the ditto.  If you want to do more than the ditto, you start by not selling yourself short of your abilities; if you expect more, you must do more.  Treat the first round of "Helen" as if it were a one-round workout out the gate.  Find a true one-rep-max during skill work.  Be willing to attempt a PR multiple times before expecting it to happen (I'm not talking about being stupid about progressions).  Be patient but driven.  Practice skills at home, do MobilityWOD, grease the groove with pistol practice or handstand pushups, set monthly goals (maybe even write them publicly) and practice them, eat good food, go to sleep...   These are ideas to help people get out of the rut of doing the ditto, and in turn are things that might help you get more out of your training.

If this makes you slightly uncomfortable, I think that's OK and I'm not too sorry.  (By the way, this is not a post about any one person.)  I expect more from this amazing community than seeing people simply filling in the blanks.  When your coach asks you next time whether you finished your strength/skill reps with your best effort, there should be no doubt that you did.  Does this mean that you'll step outside of your comfort zone?  Sure.  Will it be hard?  Yep.  Will it make you a better athlete, maybe even a better person?  I have no doubt that it will.

Last weekend I attended the RKC Instructor Course in San Jose. On the second day, we were working on single arm kettlebell presses. After instruction and practice, Pavel told us that we would now all attempt PRs.  "Comrades," he told us, "it is immaterial to me whether you are successful with this weight.  What matters to me is that if you fail, you fail with integrity."   We were instructed to select our kettlebell for a PR attempt that we had never tried before.  Fifty percent of the candidates PR'd that day. The idea of failing with integrity was very powerful to me that day. My first attempt I failed. But I shook it off, walked away and came back a few minutes later composed, relaxed and focused. I attempted it again and set a new personal best. If I had said, "Well, Pavel said he didn't care whether or not we PR'd, so I guess I'm done," that would have been doing the ditto.

I believe this is true with work and life.  We can do our jobs as they're written, or we can do more than the ditto and make ourselves into linchpins.  We can eat whatever we like or we can eat clean food, fueling our bodies for better health and performance.  We can just be around family and loved ones or we can spend time together and cherish each moment, making it count for something more.  We can show up to the gym to see what we can get out of it, or we can enter it deliberately, primed for performance, working on becoming better men and women in every sense of the word.  The cool part is that we get to decide.  We're the ones in charge of making that transformation happen for ourselves.

Or you can think about it this way:  The ditto was just a copy of something better than itself.  And it smelled bad.  My guess is that you want more for yourself than that.

How to Make a Game Plan for the Unknown

I get a kick out of the folks who freak out about knowing or not knowing what the workout of the day is in advance.  I was talking to some folks the other day about it and realized that sometimes I actually miss not knowing.  You see, at CrossFit Palo Alto, Tim, Graeme and I get together every four weeks and program an entire four week cycle of workouts.  We know what the strength skills will be, what the WODs are and if or when we've done them in the past.  Por ejemplo, I knew last week's 2k row was coming three weeks before it happened, and man! talk about anxiety with that kind of lead up.  I think that sometimes it's better to not know. 

Of course we like to be prepared.  We like to catch a glimpse of what lies ahead so that we can be ready for it, and if we were to suck at it, we would practice it like crazy ahead of time (I would never even dream to think that anyone would ever think of cherry-picking the workouts if they knew them in advance).  But isn't the idea to be ready for anything?  To practice what we suck at so that if we need to call upon it, the skill is there?  Sometimes, isn't it good to surprise ourselves? 

This week was full of great examples.  Halloween's WOD was awesome.  How many people approached us as soon as they walked in the door to ask, "What are 'Headless Horsemen, Green Slimy Grasshoppers and Cauldron Jumps?'" (We love you guys.)  But sometimes you get to know when you get to know.  Everyone is in the same boat at one point or another.  Our mindset going into workouts primes us for dealing with the task ahead.  The more relaxed we are about it, the more we understand the concepts, the better off we are.  So how can you prepare yourself in advance for something you can't foresee?  You gotta get your head right before you walk in the door.  I thought it was great timing when I found this diagram yesterday.

I'd love to site the author, but it's not clear who s/he is.  I haven't been able to find the original source but will edit to site the author if I discover it.

I love this!  If I were a smarty computer gal, I'd draw circles over my favorite points.  And with the original author's permission, add something about drinking water and getting sleep.  Can you guess what my fav's are?

October Whole30

The other day I finished my second Whole30.  That meant a month of clean eating.  I got to eat lots of fresh produce, plenty of quality meat, lots of eggs, a ton of tasty seasonings and good fats.  I didn't consume any grain or grain derived products, legumes, dairy, sugar, oils with unfavorable ratios of Omegas, alcohol, or fake foods.  I didn't think it would be a big nutritional shift for me.  This is pretty much my main stay as far as my diet is concerned, but it did mean that I couldn't have any "special treats," which I admit were happening a little more frequently than they should to still be categorized as "special."  I didn't go as hard-core about it this go around as Graeme and I did in March (back then I even changed my toothpaste to all natural hippy stuff and didn't wear chapstick for fear of consuming any sweeteners), but I took it seriously enough for my own liking this time.

Doing a Whole30 was basically to push a reset button and make me very aware of what I put in my mouth.  I had started sleeping with a Lark in August and realized that my sleep was WACK!  I was going to bed in plenty of time to get up to 9 hours of sleep in pitch darkness, but I was waking up in the night between 22-38 times with no more than 90 minutes of uninterrupted sleep at once!  So I figured it was time for another Whole30 to see if I could find out what was causing this issue.

I also committed to going 100% caffeine free for the first two weeks because I thought that surely, it would make a difference.  Since a 5 cup of coffee day was not unheard of for me, and that kind of caffeine consumption can jack you up, getting off it cold turkey was not fun.  I basically locked myself up at home for the weekend while I pretty much went through withdrawal.  (I expected the mad headache, but not the nausea, which was unreal!)  I thought I'd be sleeping better after a few days, that I would then be able to re-introduce coffee and with my Lark data, actually be able to determine my threshold of tolerance.  Not so at all.  Being off of coffee didn't make me a better person, help me sleep or improve my health, so after my two week commitment, I brought it back, though not in the copious amounts I formerly enjoyed.  And none late in the day. 

Same story follows with the food.  Not a lot of change in my sleep at all.  I have found that the timing of my meals makes some difference with sleep quality, and that extreme carbohydrate restriction seemed to make a little difference, but not enough to make worrying about that worthwhile.  So what did I get out of this Whole30?

1)  Awareness.  During a Whole30, nothing you consume can have sugar, soy, certain oils or any funky ingredients in it.  While I haven't had these items in and of themselves as a mainstay in my diet for a long time, prior to the 30, I had desensitized myself from sugar, legume and grain-derived products as additives in shelf items or in eating out.  I realized that I had gotten sloppy (salsa with crap in it, marinades, food I didn't prepare... ).  So I had to be deliberate with my choices and make just about everything myself.

2)  Planning ahead and having a back-up plan.  I am a procrastinator.  [I've always told myself that it's because I work better under pressure, but really it's because (a) I tend towards laziness, and (b) if I wait until the last minute to do things I can praise myself for doing them so well in such a short time, when if I actually started on time, I would have to accept nothing less than what is truly my best.  But that's another blog post entirely - I could write quite a few blogs about all of my TRissues.]  SO... without a back up plan, I know I'd set myself up for failure.  Having Whole30 approved snacks and budgeting for this was important, as one of my biggest problems with diet is skipping meals, getting Hangry, and making poor choices.

3)  Improved performance and ever-so-slightly altered body composition.  Minute+ improvements in RX'd benchmark WODs are pretty exciting.  (Maybe this would've happened anyway, but I'm more likely to keep to the good Whole30 habits if I attribute my increased work capacity at least in part to my nutrition, and isn't that the base of our fitness pyramid anyway?)  As for body-comp, it's a slight change, such that I don't think others would notice much, but I can tell the difference myself, so that's what counts.  During my first 30, I saw no noticeable difference, so I've been pleasantly surprised to feel a slight improvement this go round. 

4)  Lack of need or desire to revert.  There are certain foods that are likely to trigger a domino response for me, making a slippery slope, and once I start with them, it's a struggle to say no to the next ones.  Other things I could just experience once and be over.  When the last 30 was over, I was eager to finally get to have dessert.  At this point, I really don't care one way or another.  I know that's not realistic forever and that at some point I will again go for it, but now I feel like I'm on a roll and don't need to go there.  It feels like a much healthier relationship to me.

It was liberating to demonstrate once again that I can be in control of the foundation of my fitness.  Finishing a Whole30 made me more aware of things that had crept back into my diet unbeknownst to me.  I wanted to be able to make conscious decisions about what to re-incorporate in my diet after it was over, and I am choosing to try to continue to avoid my potential stumbling blocks.  Yes, the heavy whipping cream is back in my coffee, but for the record, although my Whole30 finished on October 30, Halloween has come and gone, and I remain chocolate free! 

Living with Alzheimer's

I haven't written many posts recently.  Not because I have nothing to say.  Quite the opposite really.  It's because everything I have to say seems profoundly personal and consuming.  And it’s hard to share some things with the World Wide Web.  Sometimes it even feels inappropriate.  But I’ve had to remind myself what this is all about for me anyway, and remember that writing is about me embracing the challenges and triumphs of every day life so that I come out better on the other side.  And if it helps me or others when I share a bit of myself through this media, even if the story I’m telling is personal, maybe it’s worth it.  And this is as much a part of me as box jumps. 


The idea of moving back into my parent’s house wasn't the most appealing option for me.  Not only not appealing, but it seemed downright horrific.  Whether out of necessity or pride, I have always needed to exercise independence, probably to a fault, but that’s me, for better or worse.  After some self evaluation this year, I realized that I needed to make some changes in my career and consequently my budget.  So, where do you look when you need to make budget cuts?  The big items.  And that big item was rent.  So I swallowed my pride and back home I went.  And it became quite evident very early on that it was exactly what I needed to do, even though it has been hard.

The thing that made this decision and process all the more difficult is the fact that my father has early-onset Alzheimer’s.  He is 69 years old, diagnosed five years ago.  Looking back, there were signs for several years before that, but sometimes even though there are signs, the fear of loss that comes with acknowledging those signs is just as frightening as the thing itself.  I was afraid to acknowledge early on that I might be loosing my father.  And in my family, we never talked about anything.  Sickness, health, life, death, fear, issues...  If you didn’t name it, somehow it didn’t exist.  So we didn’t talk about Alzheimer’s much in the beginning or what it would mean to my family.  But we're in agreement it’s time to start doing that now.

A Navy Commander and Senior Research Engineer, my dad specialized in not specializing; a kind of modern Renaissance Man.   Electrical engineering, radar, acoustics, physics, geology, astronomy, computers, programming, literature, history, all things math...  He was a Genius.  Quite literally.  He had crazy-weird smarts.  Give him a random 6 digit number, he’d give you its square root.  He used an abacus or slide rule instead of a calculator, and just as quickly.  He worked on some of the original applications of triangulation.  He was one of O.G.s of the ARPANET.  He never met a stranger.  He memorized poetry and was the greatest story teller around.  He hunted and he fished.  He built furniture, worked leather and fixed cars.  He played the piano and he drew.  He cooked dinner every Sunday and did the dishes every night.  He made our backpacks from kits when we were kids.  He made his own coats so that he could have a enough pockets to hold every imaginable artifact necessary for survival.  He fixed broken jewelry.  He made the cranberry sauce for Thanksgiving and the apricot preserves in the summer.  He got me through physics and math.  He had a witty response to everything and he had "no sympathy for self-inflicted hammer wounds."  He taught me how to tie flies before I could even cook and made sure I could fire a double barrel shotgun without getting bruised up.  He came home from work and played catch with me in the front yard.  He took off early from work to be at my Field Hockey games.  He rented a small garage at Moffett Field so that the two of us could overhaul a Chevy small block together, and he let me fire up the engine myself when we were done as he looked on with pride.

And last week, for the first time, he didn’t know my name. 

The past few months have been difficult.  At this time, my mother is able to do just about everything he needs for support.  Part of my role at home lately is to take care of the “honey do” lists for my mom and spend time with my dad.  I enjoy the time I get to spend with him.  Some days are better than others, but every day is an exercise in patience and gratitude.  The time I spend with him provides a little respite for my mother, but I do have a bit of selfish motivation.  You see, during the time I have with him, I still get to see the glimmers of the man I know as my father.  They are getting fewer and farther between, but it is easier to accept the changes as they come if I have no regret about missing those moments.  If I can see those glimmers of light when they shine, it makes me happy, even though it is tragic in its own way.   

It seems like his Alzheimer’s symptoms have been progressing more quickly since the summer.  But how much quicker they might seem if I weren’t seeing him on a daily basis, I don’t know.  It is hard to witness the new challenges and struggles each day presents.  But the alternative of not seeing those glimmers of personality is far more painful. 

So in the end, what started for me as a check on my pride has turned into a blessing; to be able to spend time, even if only a second at a time, with Jim the scientist, the teacher, the artist, the hunter, the domestic, the father, is one of the most important things I can imagine.

A lot of the stories out there about caregivers and family members with Alzheimers are downright depressing.  Going to caregiver support groups can be a downer if they're not facilitated well.  And yes, it sucks to witness this slow deterioration of mental faculties.  Nothing will change that.  But I'm finding that the more I live in the present... the less I think about the impending doom ahead... the less I borrow trouble from tomorrow; the easier it is day by day.  "Do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will take care of itself."  And I find that to hold true, whether I'm fretting about the next time my dad doesn't know who I am, or worrying about whether I'll pass a 5 minute snatch test.  As long as I do today what I need to do in preparation for tomorrow, then the challenges of daily life don't seem nearly as cumulative.

More

All around me are people who are hungry for performance.  Hungry for faster times, better scores, bigger lifts.  And the concensus among them seems to be "more."  More workouts.  More double days.  More runs.  More _____ (fill in the blank).  More.  More.  More.  But are those the "mores" that they really need?  I would argue that sometimes the necessary "mores" for better performance are these:  Rest.  Sleep.  Mobility.

An athlete approached me the other day.  He felt like he was training harder than ever and not getting any stronger.  His pullups and pushups were, in fact getting harder.  He had reverted to a thicker band for pullups and moved to his knees for pushups.  What did his training schedule look like?  Three days of CrossFit, one day of running and two days of cycling.

With a training schedule such as this, it was no small wonder that his body didn't have ample time to regenerate and recover.  We don't get stronger or faster during a workout.  We get better during rest.  It's the quality of recovery that makes or breaks us. 

The classic CrossFit prescription of training days to rest days is a 3 on, 1 off schedule.  For a select few individuals, perhaps a 5:2.  But not everyone can handle this type of intensity.  Especially when combining skill/strength work and metabolic conditioning as we do at CrossFit Palo Alto.  And not everyone even needs to strive for this kind of frequency of intense exercise.  Even if we're able to "get through" each workout, "getting through" the workout is not the point.  I want you go be able to kill the WOD.  Killing it is preferable to "getting through" a workout any day.  

So how do you know if you're overtraining?  If you're not getting adequate rest?  There are lots of scientific ways you might put this to test.  If your resting heart rate is elevated upon waking...  If you're not able to reach the reference height of your vertical jump...  (Substitute pullups or another benchmark ability for vertical jump if you'd prefer.)  But sometimes, no science is necessary to tell you that you just feel like crap.  Your immune system is compromised.  You're getting sick.  You're a regular "Pissy Patty."  Your workout times are stagnant or reverting...  Movement that normally feels easy is labored.  Some other things can make you look like this too.  Bad sleep (which goes hand-in-hand with inadequate recovery/rest and nutrition), and a crappy diet can, along with overtraining, make a very poor return on investment in your training time.  And really, doesn't everyone want a high ROI for everything we do? 

If you're antsy between workouts, consider using time to improve your mobility instead.  Cook a good meal.  Go to bed early.  Play with your kids.  Play with your wife...  The answer to faster times and better performance often has more to do with turning the lights out, computer off and getting some good shut-eye, than adding an extra run.  Maybe that time could instead be dedicated to the day's Mobility WOD.  Not everyone is the same.  Some people have a higher threshold for tolerance of work:rest days, or running/swimming/whatever, is so much a part of their core being that they feel they simply cannot function without it.  And if your WOD times keep getting better and your nutrition is sound and sleep is good, more power to you.  But if, on the other hand, you're finding that your energy levels are low, sleep sucks, nutrition is less than stellar, movement feels sluggish or your times aren't improving, it's prime time to take a close look at your training schedule and re-evaluate, not how much time you're training, but instead, how much time and how well you're recovering.  You might find that the solution is indeed "more."  But just "more" of something totally different.

The Little Violinist

In my last move I wound up piling a bunch of random papers into a "to be sorted" pile.  I found this one on Friday when I started to weed through the mess.

Don't judge the spelling and grammar errors.  I was seven.  Still, I thought this was pretty funny:  my 7-year-old self writing about keeping lifelong dreams and goals in sight and working toward them. 

I read this little story and asked myself a couple of questions.  What would my 7-year-old self would think about me now?  Would the Trish of 2011 be a person that Patricia of 1986 would want to be when she grew up?  (The answers to those questions are probably better left to a journal entry over a public blog, but nevertheless, enlightening.)  And also, could I learn something by reviewing the silly story goals of the child I once was?

Yes, the girl in the story was a version of me.  I was 7 when I started to play the violin.  I was in college when I last played it for an audience (Chet, Alex and I were "Go on Green"), and I'll probably be 105 before I do that again.  I do not desire to play in a symphony or be a world famous violinist.  And I don't look good with black hair, but I wrote stories about the person I wanted to be with a romanticized future.  Sometimes our 7-year-old dreams aren't really what we'll want 25 years later.  Priorities change, but the lesson of a dream turning into a goal becoming future is valuable.