Finally got the podcast from the radio interview I did a few weeks ago, you can download it here. I’m not on until 12 minutes in and it’s nothing super sexy, just my two cents on the fitness industry and how we’re different.

Brian’s Full View Radio Interview

So decided that I wasn’t going to take a day off today and decided to do Linda. I’ve never done this before Rx’d, so the goal was just to finish. Both the deadlift weight and the bench press were extremely daunting going in, but got it done (really really slowly).

Body Weight: 208.5

20090228 WOD
“Linda”
10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1
Deadlift 1.5xBW
Bench Press 1xBW
Clean 0.75xBW
Time: 1:13:57

Brian PCF v. Linda from Brian Wilson on Vimeo.

Almost embarrassed to even put that up it’s so slow, but really it was a huge confidence boost. The fact that I know now that I can do 55 Deadlifts at 315, 55 Bench Press at 210 and 55 Cleans at 160 in around an hour, is kind of nice to know – it’s one less piece of the “unknown and unknowable” measure of fitness.

However, I’m really really slow. Check out the below for some examples of how to do this a little quicker.

Matt Mursky: 29:37
Nicole Carroll: 28:26
Gillian Mounsey: 14:59
Gillian Mounsey: 11:57

Rounds:
1 – 9:23
2 – 13:37
3 – 13:40
4 – 10:58
5 – 8:17
6 – 7:21
7 – 5:32
8 – 2:33
9 – 1:43
10 – 46

Diet not great today, but not bad. Tried to stay Paleo and be as Zoneish as I could w/o being super-lame.

1 Comment »

M
3x800m Run
3:00; 3:14; 3:12

Compare to 080908: 3:15

Ran this with Tom and Andy at work today. Tom is a former high school cross country runner and SEAL. He usually destroys me on run WODs, but for whatever reason I beat him handily today. He did some heavy thruster and sprints yesterday, so definitely is part of that, but I’m also getting faster.

Tried to POSE and was feeling ok with the technique. Kick felt good and I was keeping the foot loose as well. But my calves got progressively worse and worse after each run. They didn’t feel too bad during the runs, but after they were pretty bad. Once I got back to my desk and was cooling off, I tried to get up and couldn’t flex them at all. Tried some PNF stretching per K-Star, but even now several hours later they are hurting. I’m not looking forward to waking up tomorrow morning, they’re going to be bad.

Dinner at Dino with Jenn, but I’m not going to count it as a cheat meal. Kept things pretty under control. Not perfect Paleo, but not bad Zone-wise.

For an impromptu restaurant review: I liked it, Jenn didn’t.

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MGW
PCF WOD 090225
“Filthy Fifty”
For Time:
50 Box Jumps
50 Jumping Pull Ups
50 Kettlebell Swings 1 pood/25 lbs
50 Walking Lunges
50 Knees to Elbows
50 Push Press 45 lbs/35 lbs
50 Hip Extensions
50 Wall Ball shots 20 lbs/15 lbs
50 Burpees
50 Double Unders
Post time to comments.

Time: 24:31 (PR)

Compare to 080721: 33:02
Compare to 080528: 25:44

Notes: Pretty happy with this. Did it with Curtis and a couple of his friens, Mike (from Verve), John, and Misook. Mike gave me somebody to chase on the first half, and Misook on the second half. Everything was Rx’d and legit.

There are really several things on the Filthy Fifty where technique is critical. Double Unders is obvious, and the fact that I only had to break once definitely helped me out a lot.

The Knees to Elbows tend to really trip people up, so let’s deal with those first: they can be made much easier by kipping. Check out a vid of Brendon from CFHQ cranking them out here [mov][wmv].

The key here is to drive your feet almost straight down after you’ve touched the knees to elbows.  This will allow you to get right back into a solid kipping position.  If you just let the feet float down they’ll pull your center of mass forward and cause you to start swinging, thereby reducing your tempo.

The Jumping Pullup can be easy or you can make it hard on yourself.  The main focus should be in finding a height that allows you to just have your torso and knees bent slightly so your jump is more like a jumprope jump then a jumping squat.  This way you can use the elasticity of your calves to get you up and down extremely fast.

For Kettlebell Swings, Wall Ball, and Push Press, the key is ensuring that you are staying solid in the concentric (closing the torso) portion of the movement.  If you get soft after the Kettlebell reaches full height, or when you’ve released the ball, or reached the top on the Push Press, you won’t be able to harness that elastic energy on the way back down.

This will cause you to have to “restart the engine” every rep, instead of just letting it continue to run smoothly and fire off those reps.

Walking lunges are made easier just by throwing your arms up at the bottom, check out Annie here [wmv][mov].

And the way to make Burpees easier and faster is so simple: don’t do them.  Seriously, just cheat, do 3 and swear you did 50…kidding.  Seriously though, if you’re shaving reps on your WODs to make them over faster or b/c your desire to beat people is that bad….you’re an asshole.  Leave the ego outside the door, do your reps, accept where you fall out on the whiteboard.

Trying to just pound veggies from here on out and cut down on the cheat days/meals.  I was getting lazy and eating a lot of starchy carbs and fruit, and my weight was going up as a result.

3 Comments »

A pic from yesterday courtesy of Steve Rakow (CF Ocean City).

Today’s WOD was some stuff off of Omaha Ricky’s Games Prep page.

W
Push Press 2×3 : 2×154, 1×176 (f on 2), 2×176
Hang Snatch 2×3 : fx110, 2×110, 2×110

I’m a little concerned about my diet as of late. January was awesome, lost a bunch of weight, cranked on the WODs – Zone (as modified by Robb Wolf) delivered as promised.

But February has been a different story. I’ve been having cheat meals more frequently and/or eating more fat in an attempt to stave off hunger. Issue is that I’m still not down to ideal bodyweight (I would guess I’m around 13-15% BF) and I’ve also lost a step on the WODs.

Any and all input is welcome, if you want to look at the whole month in total, just click here.

9 Comments »

GW
090222 PCF WOD
“Sharon”
As many repetitions as possible in 3 minutes per station.
Wall Ball, 20/12 lbs
Slam Ball, 20/15 lbs
Push Ups
Sit Ups
Post reps to comments.
Total: 283

Notes: Fairly happy with this, Dan, Aaron and Jon all in the low 300s.

For meals today, I needed to get some chow down. I’ve been feeling super hungry lately and binging/cheating accordingly. So henceforth this style of eating will be called a “Paleo Reset Day.” Just gorge myself silly, but everything paleo:

Just for fun, plugged it into Fitday.com and got:

link

Had a few beers, so not 100% Paleo, but pretty close. Feeling pretty good too.

1 Comment »

MG
4 Rounds
Run 400m
50 Squats
Time: 13:22

Compare to 20080520: 15:39

Went to the park WOD that we did b/c of the Gymnastics Cert – glad I did otherwise I wouldn’t have worked out.

Diet much better today and got a lot of PCF stuff done. Continuing with the PNF stretching and enjoying how my hamstrings feel.

2 Comments »

Supposed to workout today, but rough rough day at the day job and just needed to chill a little – hence the atrocious eating.

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So originally was going to do:

“Freddy’s Revenge”
5 Rounds
5 Push Jerk, 185 lbs
10 Burpees
For Time.

Since I was reading Ricky Frausto’s blog and he talked about overhead strength being the difference between the “men and the boys”.

Well, it appears I have not made the cut for manhood yet. I tried to work up to 185 lbs behind the neck jerks, which should have notionally been easier – couldn’t get one.

I think this is totally mental, as I can jerk 225 lbs from the front rack. I think the big issue was just not being able to see the weight and being worried about how to ditch properly.

So then I dropped back down to 165 lbs. I knocked out 3, but getting the bar back down on my back was extremely difficult.

So just decided to scrap that WOD and come up with another one that was still going to hit the overhead piece hard.

GW
Max Rounds in 10 min
2 Handstand Pushups (HSPU)
4 Push Jerks, 135 lbs
6 Chest to Bar (CTB) Pullups

Rounds: 5

Notes: Had to go to one abmat in the 2nd round, but I think that was mainly because I wasn’t keeping my body tight on the HSPU at all. Really need to focus on that hollow rock piece and stretching the toes towards the ceiling. That keeps my body tight so that I can get up and down easier. The more I focused on this, the easier these were.

So went way over on fat today, but was HUNGRY!! Got a chance to cook some today though, so will hopefully be good for the next few days.

As long as I cook ahead of time, I’m usually 95%-100% solid on Zone, but if I have to eat on the fly, there’s at least a 50% chance that I will mess it up. Only rub is long meeting tomorrow at work and seminar at the gym this weekend, so will be tough, but need to stay focused!

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Going through Kelly Starrett’s material on the Crossfit Journal (of San Francisco Crossfit) has been huge for me. His videos on Midline Stabilization have helped me personally as an athlete and professionally as a trainer.

His latest video on Hamstring Assessment was really a big piece of what’s missing from me as a trainer. I hate stretching, not because I don’t like flexibility, I think flexibility is great. But simply because stretching never works!

I’ve never seen anybody get flexible by stretching. I’ve seen people that are flexible stretch, but I’ve never seen anyone go from Point A (inflexible) to Point B (flexible) by stretching.

Now along comes K-Star and he explains why. So dig up Hamstrung and his Midline Videos on the Crossfit Journal and read what you can on PNF stretching. That or just come to my classes, because we’re going to be doing a lot of this in the near term and I’m going to work on getting K-Star out to PCF ASAP.

2 Comments »

Food was a little better today, but note the BW at 213 today – Goddamn Key Lime Pie!

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