Detour

ski week

I took this week off of work because my son's public school has a "ski week" this week. Well, they don't call it that because that would be saying out loud how ridiculously privileged the families in the district are. But, in a move that proved to be the right thing and also long overdue, my son transferred to a private school a month ago and that school doesn't have the week off. I needed a break so I kept my planned vacation.

I'm working on a post about public schools; stay tuned.

As is typical of me, I did not spend the week relaxing, rather I built an Olympic lifting platform for our garage.  Check it out:

  

Cool, huh?  Our weights aren't here yet, so I haven't been able to workout, but it should be fully functional in 10 days or so.  Yay! By far the hardest part about this project was rearranging and making space in my garage.  That's also not finished, but I was able to create the space to build the platform.  

I have decided to back off on my running and crossfit "metcon" workouts for 3 months.  What's a metcon?  From the crossfit discussion boards:

Metcon doesn't have a strict definition. Its about intensity. Intensity is about power output.

If i had to define metcon i would do it like this 

1. High Heart Rate 

2. Simultaneous Use of Many Muscles 

3. Continuous Movement 

4. Short to Medium Time (5-30 min) 

and the best way to tell if your doing a metcon workout..... 

YOU'LL KNOW IT !!!  

An example of a metcon is this (from my gym's site):

30 Deadlifts @ 225# (men)/155#(women)

Rest 1 Minute

30 Pull-Ups

Rest 1 Minute

30 DB Snatches Each Arm @ 45# (men)/30#(women)

Rest 1 Minute

30 Knees-to-Elbows (Hang from the pull up bar and raise your knees to your elbows. Try it.)

Looks horrible doesn't it?  These workouts are all about power and your heartrate spikes very high, but they are short.  Most metcons are timed; the person who performs all the prescribed reps/distance (sometimes 200 or 400 meter runs are thrown in) in the fastest time wins. Sometimes there is a prescribed amount of time and the person who does the most reps wins.

Being able to handle heavy metcons is the holy grail of crossfit.  

So why am I giving them up?  

Well, let's think about power.  How can you increase your power output?  Power is work over time. So I can get stronger or I can get faster.  Or both. 

Since our metcons usually involve lifting heavy shit, getting stronger will make me faster.  In the workout above, if my single rep max (the amount I can lift one time) is 160#, doing thirty reps at 155# will take me all day.  If my single rep max is 250#, this wil be a much easier and faster workout for me.

My strength is a limiting factor.  I am strong compared to the average 5'3" 135# woman.  But I am not strong enough to kill those metcons, or even to make a decent showing in olympic lifting.  

And here's the rub: doing too much high intensity power work or running will interfere with your ability to get stronger. The best way to get strong is to lift as heavy as you can (in the 1-5 rep range) eat a lot and sit on the couch.  Anything else you do (working, parenting, running errands, housework...) will detract from getting stronger.  

So in order to get better at the heavy metcons, I need to stop doing them for a while. Seems incongruous, but it's not really.  Athletes have been using strength training to lay a foundation for (later) speed for years.

So, I am going to do only strength workouts for a while: heavy front squats, back squats, shoulder presses, push presses, power cleans, clean and jerk and snatch. Also pull ups and bench press. I will still do HIIT (high intensity interval training) running workouts once or twice a week (those are generally also strength workouts and are a good compliment to Oly lifting)

But what about my heart and lungs?  Yes, my conditioning will suffer.  But that's ok, at the end of 3 months I will start training for general conditioning again.  And the beauty of it is that you can generally keep your strength gains when you go back to doing metcons.

I hear women complain about their inability to get stronger sometimes.  Well, if you are doing a gazillion hours of cardio per week, you won't get stronger or it will be very slow.  If you want to get stronger, build in a strength cycle.  Athletes do this in most disciplines, even endurance athletes. It's a good idea even if your primary goal is to be a faster runner or cyclist.  It requires patience and managing our emotional relationship to exercising.  In other words, recognizing that you do not have to be sweating profusely and burning a certain number of calories per session to be making gains in fitness.  

This is training for performance.  Here are some pictures of strong crossfit women I know:

 

  

 

 

I love these photos.  I love crossfit.  It is the hardest sport I've ever been involved in.  Every one of these women, these different body types, is incredibly strong and getting stronger all the time. These women all push themselves, on a regular basis, to a place most people don't ever experience. They all inspire me every day.

That's me running in front (no, I wasn't winning anything, we were warming up):

My son and I in a competition last year:

 

  

I'm off to lift something heavy now...

P.S.: I am officially the "Coolest Mom on the Block" for building an olympic platform in my garage on my vacation.

i suck

Things that are pissing me off right now:

• My sloooow progress on adding weight to my olympic lifts.
• My loss of strength in other lifts.
• My waistband's refusal to loosen despite a few weeks of dieting.
• My dog's need to chew every damn piece of furniture in my house.
• My son's inability to do a damn thing, including getting up in the morning, without my intervention.
• Sarah Palin

Things that are making me happy right now:

• My going to the gym anyway.
• My  improved form even if I still can't pick up any damn weight.
• My son's amazing progress in his lifting and that he is getting a charge from it.
• My son's happiness in his new school and my JOY at no longer getting daily calls from the public high school
• My improved running.
• My impending week off work next week.

I don't know what I can do about the kid and the dog.  The kid is getting lectured and the dog is confined to an ever shrinking area in the house.  Soon, he will spend entire days in the bathroom. The dog, not the kid.  Actually, come to think of it, the kid spends a lot of time in the bathroom already...

I can do nothing about Sarah Palin.

But I might have a shot at fixing my fitness problems.

It's hard to keep up your inspiration to keep dieting/training/keeping on when the results are so slow that they are not discernible.  I have a couple of tricks for those times.  I go back to the first step as laid down by Black Hockey Jesus:

The crux of the First Step in The 365 Day BHJ Fitness Regime is intense self loathing: “We admitted that we are disgusting excuses for people and we hate ourselves.”

I look in the mirror and tell myself I suck.  It's my fault that I am not doing better. This is true.  Fitness is like high school grades:  Results are a reflection of effort.

Actually, I don't hate myself.  But I do suck.  This is an important distinction because hanging my "value as a person" on how disciplined I've been is stupid.  But recognizing that my results reflect my effort is right.  Also, it will save me tons of time I could otherwise spend wondering alternately if I have "a metabolic disorder" or why God hates me.  

This is not negative thinking.  This is recognizing that how fit I am is in my control.  This is positive.  I have control over my level of suckitude.

Then, I tighten it up.  I recommit to the principles of of my diet.  I talked over here about how important diet is in losing weight.  No more "tiny cheats."  

Then, I take a look at my workouts.  Have I really been going as hard as I can?  Or have I been letting that tiny voice that says "good enough" stop me from lifting that heavier weight or going that much faster? Have I been letting fear drive the bus? Am I complacent?

Do I let it creep into my brain that it's "good enough" for a 48 year old?

Fuck that.  I have no idea where my limits are.  I am not up against them yet, I know this deep in my heart.  

I need to hit it harder.  I need to pay attention to detail.  I need to do the extras, the stretching and the abs. I need to do the foundation work and squat 2 days a week.

I need to keep my eye on the prize and keep my goals in mind.  I also need to remind myself that I have been moving towards them and that the changes I am making will get me there faster.  When I want that ice cream I will ask myself if it will help me lift more weight.

Bottom line: be honest about I got where i am and what it will take to change it.  Then: Just Do It.

  

find your thrill

Well, that was fun.  Five days and a bottle of Vicodin later and I feel almost human.  I think I may actually be able to work out tomorrow for the first time in several days.

When I can't exercise I get cranky.  Really, it's a mood enhancer for me.  Which is why I'm such an addict. I wrote here about how it started, my bodybuilding past.  

I did bodybuilding style workouts for 16 years, even when I was no longer a bodybuilder.  I think there are huge benefits to lifting weights.  After bodybuilding I ran (all distances from 5k to marathon), rode and raced bikes (road and mountain),  and did triathlons (up to olympic distance).  I threw myself into each sport with fervor and dedication.  I ran 70 mile weeks when I ran, rode 250 mile weeks when I was a cyclist and trained for 12-15 hours per week as a triathlete.  I don't understand moderate.  Sometimes I wish I was one of those people that can go for a meandering 10 mile bike ride along the bay on the weekend.  But unless there is some sort of way to compete with someone, or conquer a weight, distance or speed I haven't done before; I'm not too interested.

I've thought a lot about that, my competitiveness. And I think it's ok to be competitive. It's important to channel it to those places where it's appropriate.  I always have an outlet  in my life where I can compete in a healthy way.

The point is; I don't throw myself in halfway.  When I started running my first training run was a 5k and I immediately started running 6 miles a day with stadium stairs thrown in once a week.  When I bought my first road bike in college (days after I had finished a marathon and could no longer stomach even the sight of my running shoes), my first ride was 70 miles with a hill they called cardiac hill.

I'm still trying to make my point which is not that I'm a badass, but that I never got hurt.  Nope.  No knee problems or overuse injuries no matter what crazy shit I threw at my body.  Why?  I believe it is because I had such a strong foundation from lifting.  

A few years ago (during my triathlon phase) I stopped lifting. I had just burnt out on the bodybuilding style workout...lift a weight you can manage for 8-10 reps, rest repeat...on and on for each body part.  I was bored.  I was bored with the workouts and bored with the gym.  So I stopped.  I did yoga instead.

I started getting hurt.  Tendonitis in a knee that made cycling excruciating.  Then a torn hamstring that impaired my running for a year (including the several months that I employed my usual treatment: ignore it and hope it goes away).  It sucked.

So I started looking for a more interesting way to lift weights. I also was burning out on the hardcore endurance activity.  During my triathlon training I discovered my body responded pretty well to interval training and i started doing more of that than the traditional "go lots of miles at a steady pace."  Also, my own theories of weightlifting had evolved, I only wanted to do movements that gave me a lot of bang for my buck.  Think pull ups instead of bicep curls, the benefit of pull ups is you don't only work your arms but your entire back.

As I got older, I found that shorter workouts of extremely high intensity were what I wanted to do. By accident I found Crossfit.

I love Crossfit.  I love the intensity, I love the fact that there is skill work, I love the lifting, I love the competition.  Crossfit introduced me to Olympic Lifting.  So now I run, do crossfit and Olympic Lifting.  I usually only run up to a 5k distance, once a week I run sprints.  I am always going for intensity.  I love the community I have at my gym.  I am sure that if I ever get tired of it, there will be something new to get fanatical about.

Sometimes I run into people I haven't seen for years.  When they ask me what I'm up to and I tell them about my latest thing they say, "You're so disciplined."  Well no.  I am actually doing the things I love.  I loved getting close to nature on my long runs and bike rides, loved getting to places I wouldn't otherwise see.  I love seeing a new city by running through it; nothing can compare.  I love lifting a scary ass barbell above my head and encouraging my friends to do the same.  I love doing all of those things with my son.  

For me, this is just living.