Love’s Executioner and Other Tales of Psychotherapy by Irvin D. Yalom

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Some interesting insights that I think I can apply to my own job as a Coach. I didn’t like the author’s presentation at times, but with a muddy subject like transcendental psychology, I understand this is a very subjective view.

I appreciated the author’s desire to get across the point that nobody’s ever “sure” about diagnosis or treatment.

Some valuable points:

“One of the axioms of psychotherapy is that the important feelings one has for another always get communicated through one channel or another – if not verbally than non-verbally. For as long as I can remember, I have taught my students that if something big in a relationship is not being talked about (by either patient or therapist), then nothing else of importance will be discussed either.”

“We are all stuck with some anxiousness about death. It’s the price of admission to self-awareness.”

“The first step in all therapeutic change is responsibility assumption.”

“It’s the relationship that heals, the relationship that heals, the relationship that heals – my professional rosary. I say that often to students.”



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Encounter by Milan Kundera

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Wonderful followup to “The Curtain”. Rich in it’s examination of the novel, but also moves into painting, music, and poetry.



Mainly a defense of writing as art, especially with the examination of Malaparte and contrasting his work to Sartre’s quote: “Prose is in essence utilitarian…the writer is a speaker: he designates, demonstrates, orders, rejects, questions, entreats, insults, persuades, insinuates.”



Both in Malaparte’s excerpts and Kundera’s explanations, we find that writing can move far beyond utilitarian, in his last paragraph:



The war’s closing moments bring out a truth that is both fundamental and banal, both eternal and disregarded: compared to the living, the dead have an overwhelming numerical superiority, not just the dead of this war’s end but all the dead of all times, the dead of the past, the dead of the future; confident in their superiority, they mock us, they mock this little island of time we line in, this tiny time of the new Europe, they force us to grasp all its insignificance, all it’s transience…



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From the Potomac Crossfit blog last two weeks:

Wednesday 111026

I generally don’t like the “Harden the Fuck Up” attitude. When I see people do this (without a lot of thought involved beforehand) I see injury and general stupidity. However, I also think that you are least likely to adopt the most helpful attitude towards your own training. So if you naturally want to slam your head against the wall prior to your training so you can get in the zone, and then absolutely have to put 5 more pounds on the bar on squat days or sprint the last round of Helen until you throw up, then maybe you should chill out a little and stretch more often. But if you are a “finesse player” who tries to find creative ways to get fitter without working harder, you probably need to watch less Kelly Starrett videos and #HTFU. -Brian PCF

Thursday 111027

I don’t like to hound on the “Post to Comments” blurb that we put at the bottom of each day’s WOD. I think it’s critically important if we want to better our training, and I think it’s a great return on investment for the athlete and the box, but I don’t like the idea of beating people over the head to do it. I don’t think there’s a better way out there to get easy to track feedback on how you’re doing as an athlete and how we (and by we, I mean Erika and Aaron, I’m terrible at programming) are doing as a box. So consider this your passive aggressive reminder that it’s good for you and it’s good for us. -Brian PCF

Friday 111028

There’s nothing like having a dedicated training partner (or partners) to keep you on track. We swap around within the coaching staff all the time with this in mind. Right now I’ve got a $40 Paleo pool with Liz and Alison for the next month, and I run with Wilkins every Friday.

Self-organization is key, just find somebody who is shooting for the same general goals (eating clean, faster run times, better squat, etc), put some money on the line, write a contract, and do it.

Heavy trash talking and partner sabotage or actual human empathy are also completely up to you. -Brian PCF

Saturday 111029

Erika, Aaron and I have resolved to each write something on the blog every day. For many of our long time clients, hopefully these will reinforce things that you’ve learned in the past. For new clients, it will hopefully fill in some gaps in your knowledge of Crossfit and help you progress faster.

Todays Lesson: Long METCONs suck. That is all. -Brian PCF

Tuesday 111101

Inevitably, you will fuck yourself up to some degree while Crossfitting. Anecdotally I can say that 80% of this comes from activities outside of Crossfit: Soccer, Basketball, Rugby, Golf (yes, Golf).

There are a few things you need to do when you get injured:
1) Heal. This means rest, proper nutrition, and a “therapeutic dose of functional movement.”
2) Mobility. Ensure that you can move through the proper range of motion pain-free.
3) Get Strong as a Motherfucker. I have yet to see a persistent or random injury not get better by dedicated strength work. Consistent shoulder problems? What’s your 1RM Press? Consistent knee problems? What’s your 1RM Squat? -Brian PCF

Wednesday 111102

Let’s consider a thought experiment:

Athlete A joined Potomac Crossfit on 1 January 2011. Since then she has lost 15 pounds of body fat, she has gone from zero to three strict pullups, she couldn’t perform an air squat to full range of motion on her first day of Foundations, now she can squat 1.5xBW and deadlift 2xBW. She can do Helen and Fran Rxd, but the pullups take her a while.

The experiment: Is Athlete A happy with her progress?

Now this is where it gets tricky. Is Athlete A “half empty” or “half full” type of gal? Does she have a training partner that she can compete against? Is she even writing down her workouts so she knows how far she’s progressed? Is she comparing herself against the top girls in the gym or people at her ability level?

What I want you to consider is how much data versus attitude affects the quality and consistency of your training. -Brian PCF

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From The Onion

ST. LOUIS—A group of fully grown men felt inspired Saturday by a stupid little sign hanging in a locker room and expressed their exhilaration by shouting, clapping their hands, and jumping around, baffled eyewitnesses confirmed.

“It motivates me,” an otherwise reasonable adult said of the sappy phrase featured on the dumb and embarrassing 11-by-14-inch sign, which is prominently displayed high on a wall where anyone can see it. “Makes me want to be the best I can.”

The collection of men, who by all accounts are grown-ups and not small children easily tricked by phrases constructed of nonsense buzzwords, publicly admitted that the insipid, saccharine message resonates with them so much they feel compelled to shout the idiotic slogan together before taking the field of play. In addition, without smirking, sneering, or bursting into laughter, the full-fledged adults said the pathetic sign makes them believe anything is possible.

“After reading it, you realize how you should live your life,” a completely serious grown man said of the placard, which would not look out of place in a kindergarten classroom. “Those words are filled with so much wisdom. They’re quite powerful words that really strike a chord. Makes me want to give it my all.”

The group of adult men also told reporters the sign itself is important.

See more here.

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“We try to identify all hidden causes of heart disease, of coronary arteriosclerosis. One of the very very dominant and important causes is small LDL particles. There’s only two ways to get small LDL particles, that’s 1) genetically, and 2) carbohydrates. Just understanding that led us down the path of a strict low carbohydrate diet, such as a Paleo Diet. And low and behold we saw a dramatic reduction in small LDL.

“But it was this odd twist that we stumbled on in this effort to gain control over coronary plaque and small LDL and that is elimination of wheat, this is the key strategy to get rid of coronary plaque.” -Dr. William Davis

Check out Episode 95 of the Paleo Solution Podcast with Robb Wolf, the Track Your Plaque website, and the Wheat Belly website for more info.

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Question from Justin:

“I’m about to start Wendler for my deadlift which has been stuck forever. I can do sets of 5 at practically my 1RM. So, I’m going to start. Would you recommend taking the first week and trying to find my latest 1RM? I did the CFT whenever we recently did it so I have that, and I know my 1RM from a *long* time ago. And I did sets of 5 relatively recently. And finally how many cycles should I do? I see the spreadsheet has 24 weeks, so maybe that’s the answer.”

Don’t try and find a new 1RM, take your 1RM that you did recently for Crossfit Total. Plug that into the handy spreadsheet here. Commence Wendlering.

Most folks will find a point where they plateau at either Press, Deadlift, or Squat. Some all three. That’s when we go to Wendler. Key things to keep in mind are:

• Better to start to light than too heavy.
• You can do one exercise, two, or all three.
• You can do a make-up Friday morning and daytime if you miss a day.
• Keep at it, there’s no “end” to Wendler.  You could do it for 1-2 years and still see improvement.  The spreadsheet goes to 24 just because that’s how many tabs I felt like making.  Just copy and paste to make more.
• Deadlift is touch and go, squat is to failure, press is to failure (contrary to “doctrinal” Wendler 531).
• You can buy the e-book here.  I own it, I consult it often.
• You can read an intro article here.

Wendler 531 is absolutely great stuff and it fits right on top of what we do: Monday – Squat, Wednesday – Press, Thursday – Deadlift.  If you want to do just one movement, two, or all three, that’s fine.

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Stumbled on this when I found Clive James website, which I am ridiculously excited about. Cultural Amnesia, one of my favorite books of all time.

Haven’t read much of anything from Peguy, but some interesting quotes on James’ website and wikiquote (especially considering everything describes Peguy as a socialist):

“Humanity will surpass the first dirigibles as it has surpassed the first locomotives. It will surpass M. Santos-Dumont as it has surpassed Stephenson. After telephotography it will continually invent graphies and scopes and phones, all of which will be tele and one will be able to go around the earth in less than no time. But it will always be only the temporal earth. And it will even be possible to burrow inside the earth and pierce it through as I do this ball of clay. But it will always be the carnal earth.”

“Homer is new and fresh this morning, and nothing, perhaps, is so old and tired as today’s newspaper.”

“It will never be known what acts of cowardice have been committed for fear of not looking sufficiently progressive.”

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“The pain of working on your weakness isn’t necessarily the workout itself but, in most cases, the anticipation of it. For me, I dreaded doing tire sprints so much that on the day of the workout, I was drained mentally before even doing the sprints. The workout would be in the back of my mind the whole day as I constantly looked for excuses and tried to make up fake injuries to get out of it. The tire sprint workout was always brutal, but the wait was a hundred times worse. Pure agony.”

-Jackson Yee, Elite FTS

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