“An evolving journey and exploration of the connection between spirit, mind and body WHILE attempting to discover physical potential WHILE leading to discovering purpose and producing longevity of oneself.”

– James Fitzgerald

Part I of this series of post can be found here.

The metabolic pathways. To understand fitness at a biological level you must have basic knowledge of the 3 metabolic pathways which provide the body with energy to perform. They are known as the phosphocreatine, glycolytic, and oxidative pathways. The first pathway, the phosphocreatine system, provides sources of energy in very short yet intense bouts. Think of it as picking something heavy up just one time, sort of like a one rep max. Since the body does not have time to react, take in oxygen, and produce ATP, it relies on a readily available storage of phosphocreatine found in the muscles. The kicker is that there is not very much of it and after about 10 or so seconds your storage is up and the second energy system kicks in, the glycolytic pathway. The glycolytic system is the most commonly associated with more moderate levels of training (going off the notion that a 1RM is a high level). This is where the majority of CrossFit WODs are performed at. This system operates both aerobically and anaerobically. The more efficient you are anaerobically, the faster you can work through a given time frame (higher power output). The more power you produce, the more that favorable adaptation will occur. This is where the good stuff is, where fat storages are tapped into and lean muscle building thrives. The glycolytic system works up to about 10 minutes in duration. If the intensity is lower than it takes for the glycolytic system to initiate, the aerobic or oxidative pathway takes over. Long, sustainable energy output like that used on long runs or bike rides is due to the oxidative pathway. This system’s main source of energy is carbohydrates found in the blood, liver, and muscles and needs a constant supply of oxygen to maintain ATP output. If you were to be on a long run and suddenly a dog starts chasing you out of no where, you can bet the primary energy system in use would switch back from oxidative to glycolytic. Below is a graph explaining the three energy systems’ production as a function of time.

Note: the glycolytic system is referred to as the “Lactic Acid System” in this graph.

What does this have to do with fitness? Greg Glassman says is best:

“Total fitness, the fitness that CrossFit promotes and develops, requires competency and training in each of these three pathways or engines. Balancing the effects of these three pathways largely determines the how and why of the metabolic conditioning or “cardio” that we do at CrossFit.”

Anaerobic training. Interval training is the key to developing the cardiovascular system without loses in strength, power and speed. Just ask co-owner Ben O. who recently finished his first marathon well under 4 hours largely due to interval training and not a lot of  the typical longer, more aerobic training. Interval training can be done in a variety of ways with added rest or shortened time intervals of high effort. If you train more in the anaerobic zone, you will see benefits in both strength and endurance (oxidative system). Training in the oxidative zone will not yield benefits to strength, speed and power. Look at the bodies of these two completely different types of runners and tell me which you think looks healthier and better suited for a more well-rounded performance.

It is important to regularly vary combinations of rest, work and repetitions when training with interval patterns. Lucky for you, this is what we do everyday at the box.

Rips. If you’ve ‘hung’ around the gym enough, you’re sure to come into contact with a ripped callus at least once. Rips are well known around the world of CrossFit mostly due to the amount of emphasis we put the gymnastic and barbell movements. Anything that will twist the skin of the palm and base of the fingers in a repetitive motion will cause some level of trauma to the hands.

Grooming

Ever heard of the saying “you have to tear ’em down to build ’em up”? Well this is true for callus formation too. As a newbie, you might walk away from a WOD feeling some discomfort in your hand which could last for hours or even days. Initially, this is to be expected on some level. The body will respond by thickening up the skin and building layers of dead skin over the contact points on the hand. This is natural to a certain extent. It is important to know the appropriate time to take care of your mits! Once calluses start to accumulate, the goal is to keep them smooth and level with the rest of the surrounding skin. A rough and protruding callus will eventually tear around the sides or the base, thus producing another tear. A good rule of thumb is that if you can pinch the raised edge of a callus, it generally needs to be filed down. Calluses can be filed down with pumice stones, nail files, sandpaper, or cuticle scissors. Remember to lube your hands, too! All that repetitive chalk usage will leave your hands dry and an easy target for a tear. Chalk is not meant to stop tears only to reduce moisture and slipping.

Grip Technique

Calluses at the base of the fingers can start to become painful, especially if your gripping at bar at 6 in the morning! Grip technique is something to think about to instead of just mashing those puppies down and grinding out another ten toes-to-bar. A better way to grip the bar is to place it between the metacarpals and the proximal phalanges (the crease between palm and fingers). This video by Mark Ripptoe explains better grip technique.

After the Tear

If you have a tear and are lucky enough to still have a flap of skin hanging over you tear then LEAVE IT! I see so many of you guys just tear it off mid-WOD or come back the next day with it cut off and bandaged. Your old skin actually acts as a natural bandaid for the raw skin underneath. When you get home, wash the area thoroughly with soap and water. Apply some Neosporin and bandage the sucker up during the day to keep out any unwanted bacteria.

Further Prevention

Gloves and tape are two ways to prevent tears during a WOD. I know it might be a pain to take these extra measures but for some of us it might be necessary. Here is a step by step diagram on how to tape your hands. Reebok also introduced a glove to wear similar to a batting glove in baseball. Here is a complex review of the gloves. If you need to take this step.. Do it! Anything to prevent tearing.

And remember: If you feel or see a tear coming on mid-WOD then tell me immediately! It is better to switch up the movements really quick than to tear and be out or limited for 3-4 days.

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300 Challenge is coming May 12th…. Everyone is encouraged to participate!

What is fitness? The term “fitness” is one that loosely floats through magazines such as Men’s Health and Cosmopolitan without really having a clear and concise definition. A quick search on dictionary.com yielded the the one word definition of “health” as the primary definition of fitness. Big help there. Outside magazine once crowned Mark Allen, a professional triathlete and winner of 6 Ironman triathlons, the “fittest man on earth”. Is this true? Have we really found the one person that is fitter than everyone else on the planet? No, we haven’t. Not to take anything away from Mr. Allen, because it is obvious that he was in remarkable shape to be able to pull off such a feat, but do you think he is fit in categories such as strength, power, speed and coordination? Probably not so much. I would say that a balance of these as well as the high endurance and stamina levels that he already possesses would make him even more fit.  When I think of fitness, I think of being well rounded and at least decent in every facet of healthy movement imaginable. This might sound lame but my definition fitness is kind of like the the quarterback in high school movies. You know the guy who also is dating the head cheerleader, makes straight A’s, wins homecoming king, and is captain of the chess club. Basically, fitness should be about being good at everything.

Let’s break down what I mean by everything. CrossFit has come up with a list of ten general physical skills that should be highly regarded in defining fitness. An individual who possesses competence in all of these skills is more accurately titled as fit. Here is the list:

1. Cardiovascular/respiratory endurance – The ability of body systems to gather, process, and deliver oxygen.

2. Stamina – The ability of body systems to process, deliver, store, and utilize energy.

3. Strength – The ability of a muscular unit, or combination of muscular units, to apply force.

4. Flexibility – the ability to maximize the range of motion at a given joint.

5. Power – The ability of a muscular unit, or combination of muscular units, to apply maximum force in minimum time.

6. Speed – The ability to minimize the time cycle of a repeated movement.

7. Coordination – The ability to combine several distinct movement patterns into a singular distinct movement.

8. Agility – The ability to minimize transition time from one movement pattern to another.

9. Balance – The ability to control the placement of the bodies center of gravity in relation to its support base.

10. Accuracy – The ability to control movement in a given direction or at a given intensity.

The application of these ten skills are equally important. Being ready for anything thrown in front of you. Imagine there was one of those lottery ball machines that randomizes the balls then spits them out with different number on them. Only instead of numbers, there were a wide array of physical challenges written on them. Being able to be ready and preform adequately for the unknown and unknowable is of huge importance. This example suggests that your fitness can be measured by your capacity to perform well at these randomized physical tasks in relation to other individuals.

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Sign up for the 300 Challenge happening May 12th. Let me know if you are planning on attending. The workout is scalable so NO EXCUSES!!

One of our owners, Ben O., and long time member, Emily H., completed the Big D Marathon over the weekend. This was Emily’s third marathon and Ben’s first ever. Their goal was to complete it in under 4 hours which they reached and with a stunning time of 3:48 and 3:45, respectively. Their training was a little unconventional as neither logged in many miles each week but substituted some of their shorter weekly runs with WODs. This goes to show how your training in here carries over into sport outside of the box, even long distance running.

That is not the biggest news of the past few days for these two, though. The CrossFit power couple got engaged last night! What a way to cap off a weekend after completing your first marathon together. Now these two will start the marathon of life together pretty soon (excuse the corniness). We wish you guys the best!

The 300 Challenge

EDCF is proud to announce that we will be hosting a mini-style competition on Saturday, May 12th. The 300 Challenge will be a WOD for all levels and will include beginner, intermediate, and elite (as rx’d) divisions with standard scaling options for each. 30 people will be allowed to compete and participants will not just be restricted to our box. Everyone is welcome. Before we announce it to the other gyms we would like as many of you guys (and girls) to sign up ASAP so we can get EDCF numbers there. The workout is as follows:

For time:

25 Pull-Ups
50 Deadlifts 135/95#
50 Push-Ups
50 Box Jumps 24/20″
50 Floor Wipers
50 KB Clean and Press 35/25#
25 Pull-Ups

* 20 minute cut-off

The workout will run in 3 or 4 different heats with elite, intermediate, and beginner mixed into each one. We will try to get an early start and really make an event out of it. Since this is our first one we are open to any and all suggestions! Hope everyone can attend!!

After Dr. Nick from Dallas Lifestyle Management Clinic came out and spoke to the 5:30 and 6:30pm classes yesterday, I wanted to go a little more in depth into Active Release Technique (ART). ART, as the website describes it, is a patented soft tissue management system that treats problems occurring in muscles, tendons, ligaments, fascia, and nerves. If applied correctly it can help with headaches, back pain, carpel tunnel syndrome, shin splints, shoulder pain, sciatica, plantar fasciitis, and tennis elbow just to name a few of the  ART is most commonly associated with treatment due to overuse injuries related to adhesions and built up scar tissue.

As adhesions build, the range of motion of the muscles and joints is compromised, the muscle shortens and weakens, and nerves can be compressed. The surrounding tissue of the affected areas will suffer from decreased blood supply, poor mobility and pain. During treatment, the provider uses their hands to apply pressure and remove or break up the fibrous adhesions with the help of stretching motions in the direction of venous and lymphatic flow. As CrossFit athletes, everyday we are subjected to moving force through ranges of motion that, while always functional, our bodies might be resistant against because of muscle tightness or previous injury. A lot of good can come from stretching and mobilizing like we do at the beginning of every class. Stretching and mobilization should be done outside of class times to pinpoint your trouble spots, too. Everyone has trouble spots, don’t kid yourself into thinking you don’t. A lot of us don’t make time for this extra bit of work or need to take it to the next level in order to not compromise the work you put in during class. ART is a great way to schedule these times and get professional help by learning what you are actually dealing with and increasing body awareness.

For you guys and gals that came to class yesterday, you were able to finally meet (or re-meet) Nancy. Besides running “the hill” 5 times for the 400 m run, a total of 75 overhead squats were completed. That’s a lot of overhead squats, especially for you newbies who are foreign to the movement. An enormous amount of flexility, core stability, and strength go into these. If there are insufficiencies in any of these three, it will open up room for error. Lowering the weight, widening the stance and getting a wider grip on the bar will help but sometimes aren’t enough. It is more common than you would think, that when doing the overhead squat, for one’s arm to experience some numbness. This is usually due to some sort of peripheral nerve entrapment or just simply a pinched nerve. There are ways around this and as you progress in flexibility and strength, chances of this happening are less frequent. Here are a few things that will help in the future:

1. Posterior capsule stretch, sleeper stretch, external rotation stretch

2. Lats stretch, pec stretch, pec minor massage. You can use basketball or other ball andto lie on top of for pec rolling.

For pec major you can use corner stretch — arms abducted to 90, with hands pointing up. Face the concave corner of a wall, and let the elbows touch the side of the wall. Then, lunge forward and let it stretch out the anterior muscles of the shoulder.

3. Deep tissue massage all around the scapula; anterior, lateral and posterior shoulder; coracobrachialis, biceps brachii, and brachialis.

4. Nerve glides (google first link)

5. Band dislocates and wall slides

6. Foam roll thoracic spine (put 45s on your chest for deeper stretch). Also, roll side to side as you are rolling and try to arch your back

K-Star Says it best:

Watch this entire vid.

Episode 71: Overhead Squat/Snatch Prep | Mobility WODHello the MWoders, Today we are presenting the Mob-fest from the inside of a Danish church (also the home of Crossfit Copenhagen).Sick, I know. Test: Overhead Squat/Snatch Receiving PositionMwod: Two minuets opening up the hip and groin against the wall.

via Mobilitywod

This one gets good at around 3:15.

Episod 67: Ring Dip and Overhead Squat Prep | Mobility WODHey MWod Kids, Short video today about getting ready for ring dips and overhead squatting.This Mwod has a few versions of the horrible hip grinders for warm up.Heading to Norway and Denmark tomorrow so hang tough if the Mwod timing is a little off.

via Mobilitywod

Fast forward to about 3:25.

The 2012 Reebok CrossFit Games open has come to a close. The five grueling workouts that comprised this years competition have come and gone and have left us sore and hungry for more. So what’s next? The Regional round of the Games, that’s what! The top 60 men and women in our region (Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi) will be competing. This year’s Regional round of competition will be held in San Antonio, TX on the weekend of April 27-29th. Wanna get in on the action? Well a group of us from EDCF are traveling down that Friday to spectate through the weekend. Jen Hardi is in charge of looking into hotels. Tell Jen or I if you are interested in going by THIS FRIDAY. Hotels are booking fast and we need to get in on the action.

What: South Central Regionals 
When: April 27 – 29, 2012 from 8 am to 7 pm 
Where: Freeman Coliseum located at 3201 East Houston Street, San Antonio, Texas 78219

Tickets are only $10/day and can be purchased here. Hope you can make it!