It's My Party and I'll Eat if I Want To

I’m exactly one year away from being a quarter of a century old.  You are correct, it is my birthday.  Birthdays aren’t that special, really.  At least, I’ve never thought they were.  Everything about them is a coincidence.  By celebrating your birthday you are telling the world that approximately 37 weeks before this date, however many years ago, I was conceived.  They procreated and it worked.  Today is no more or less special than yesterday or tomorrow except that today I eat ice cream cake.  I have been fairly good about my eating lately with admittedly a couple of slips here and there when situations arose that did not lend itself to strict adherence to the rules, but always, when possible, making the correct decisions. 

But today, I’m eating ice cream cake.  I’ve had a couple of blondies that were made for me by work buddies and I’m ok with this.  It’s impossible to just go full force paleo all the time.  You will burn yourself out.  Besides, if you can stick to it, 95% of the time, you’re doing something right and better than most of the population.  Then again, to quote Howard Stern, with the “pussification of America” you’d better be better than most of the population.

The people below eat paleo

Music Sunday

Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Gold Lion

Scott Weiland seriously dealing

Pearl Jam - Alive

Kings of Leon before they got really famous

Dropkick Murphy's - Kiss  Me I'm Shitfaced

The Flaming Lips on Letterman

White Stripes - Jolene

The PowerBarner

I'm here, watching George of the Jungle, munching down on "the Power Barner" from Owen's and realizing that although the new change of pace in workouts has been a real treat my diet and food intake has been less than optimal.  There were days that I was pretty strict about my food and they felt great.  I had energy, my workouts felt good and I could focus.  However, on days like yesterday when I'm downing ice cream and vegan fo0d (damn you Carlee) I feel like crap throughout the day, perform like crap in my WOD's and feel even worse the next morning.  Time to get back on track.  After this sandwich.

Shiny Newness

The time has come for me to change it up a little bit.  For over a year I have had Olympic weight lifting as my main focus with the intentions on getting strong.  However, my training, although progressing, has gotten a little stale and a bit too stagnant for my liking.  Following Catalyst Athletics and then to Mikes Gym has been great in terms of getting stronger, but without the proper coaching I cannot see myself improving too much beyond this point (that’s actually untrue, I believe that I can get stronger, but gaining better technique would jump my #’s much quicker than just following the Mikes Gym template).  I have decided then, to finish out July using the Crossfit Football method.  August will be devoted to the main page and I will alternate as I see fit.  This could change, I don’t know, but this seems to me the right direction to follow, especially considering the goal, to be a complete athlete.

Aerobic

There are few things in life that are certain: the Mets suck, work makes me a miserable piece of crap and crossfit doesn’t get easier.  It’s pretty tricky, this crossfit.  I get stronger, faster and sexier and my times drop (sometimes) I’m still just as physically taxed as I was the first time that I hit Fran.  But now, crossfit isn’t only maintaining it’s degree of difficulty, it’s getting even harder.  For over a year now my main focus has been strength in the absolute rather than the relative sense.  My goal has been to toss progressively heavier weights over my head.  Well, I’ve done that.  My snatch is astronomically heavier than what it was a year ago and my clean and jerk has gone up exponentially as well. 

Guess what though, this singular approach in training has made me far from a great, or even good crossfitter.  I’ve been #1 in my gym for a long time now and even #1 in a couple of others so I grew a false sense of my own fitness.  It wasn’t until the Trials up in Albany that I learned that there are people hitting it hard, everyday.  They are learning new skills and developing what they are bad at.  Mine used to be strength, now it’s gone into longer metcons (which were at a point and time my bread and butter).  Last Saturday I finished off barefoot-Murph at the 32 minute mark which shows to me that I can sort of still get it done (running, now matter what, has been evil to me) but there was a time when I could probably crush that and be ok to do it again.  This is why I’m glad that I’ve finally signed up for the Cheshire pool.  The hope is to get that aerobic capacity back to where it was.  The focus is still on strength, to get my 250# snatch and 315# clean and jerk, but a few swims a week, probably ranging from 2000yds on sprint days to 10000yds on the long ones will help me retool my body.  I might need to take my rest days more seriously because of this but it should pay off big dividends.

 

PS.  If anybody wants swim lessons from an Olympic Trials semifinalist feel free to contact me.

Games

A couple of the workouts have been "leaked."  Some conspiracy theorists have surmized that it is just smoke and mirrors and that the actual workouts are still a secret.  As somebody not going I shouldn't care, but I do.  I'm anxiously waiting what Dave Castro and his cronies have concocted this year to torture some of the "worlds fittest."  It should be a great spectacle, even from afar.  Good luck everybody headed out there, even you guys in the affiliate competition.  

WoD Thursday 7/9

Snatch 5x1 @ 80% (197)

C&J 5c1 @ 80% (236)

8 rounds

110 yard sprint

8 KB Swings (2pood)

5 CTB Pullups

8:16

Unload

So far, this feels like something of an unload week from mikes gym. I could be wrong, it could be the start of a brand new cycle and he's just starting us a little light to get us used to doing the different movements (muscle snatch/clean, 2pos snatch/clean, rack jerk..., no more 10x squats). Either way, it feels good to put a hold on the stress that my body was going through towards the end of that last little bit. My legs are feeling normal again, the knee pain is gone and aside from the blisters on my feet from barefoot Murph I'm ready to go.
So far the template for this week looks like this and I either expect the weights to go up or I expect the whole course of action to change next week.
Muscle Snatch/Clean - Medium Singles
2pos Snatch/Clean - Medium Weight
Front Squat/Rack Jerk - Heavy Single
Abs/Core

America! Fuck Yea!

Links:

Learning to Squat with Greg Everett 

Tillman  (I did this yesterday.  One of the hardest workouts I've done in a while)

PWO Nutrition

The Perfect Human Diet?

I'm heading over to CFW for Murph.  It's the 4th so we celebrate the people that keep us independent of foreign control (although, maybe we should start celebrating the Chinese New Year, just in case).  To read more about Murph's story click here.  Or better yet, buy the book Lone Survivor

Thursday 7/2

Phew.  A 4-day weekend coming up full of red meat, beer, birthdays and AMERICA!  

WoD:

Power Clean + Clean 10x @225#

Clean Pull 2x3 @ 295#

Clean DL 2x3 @ 315#

10 Rounds

3 DL (315#)

6 Ring Dips

9 KTE's

10:47

KTE's got the better of me