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Tag: crossfit

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Reflections on How To Be An Oldhead

This past May was my nine year anniversary in CrossFit and my nine year anniversary with the same gym. Here is the first WOD I did way back in 2009. I can’t believe it’s been nine years. I’ve been thinking a lot about the lifestyle and the sport and longevity with both. 

I’m the second longest tenured member of my box, slightly longer than the current owners, and I’ve been doing CrossFit longer than almost every other CrossFitter I know. When I do drop-ins at other gyms, I always have more experience than the coaches–sometimes by triple–and usually more than the owners. I’ve seen over a 1,000 people come and go at my gym due to turnover. I’ve watched CrossFit grow from a couple of thousand boxes to over fifteen thousand in the world. I started back in the day when Inov-8s were de rigueur and Vibram FiveFingers were a thing. I’m truly an OG. 

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I recently launched the new website for CrossFit Apopka and I’m really happy with how it turned out. My client is opening his doors on April 4 and we had a short turnaround time in order to get a web presence up for people responding to his marketing and also to take advantage of any organic searches online. We launched the site a couple of days ago and already have potential clients responding and finding us via the Web.

Additionally, the new site went from the 3rd page of Google search results to the 1st page for certain search terms in just two weeks after the launch.

CrossFit Apopka
crossfitapopka.com

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I haven’t blogged about this, but my buddy Junior and I have been training for months to participate in Kokoro Camp. The date is finally here…we’re leaving for California tomorrow morning and will be at SealFit HQ by Friday at noon. If you haven’t heard of it, Kokoro Camp is a 50+ hour military-style camp modeled after the infamous BUD/S program that Navy Seals go through. I’m anticipating an extremely high reading on the Suck-o-meter with lots of me getting my ass kicked.

From the SealFit website:

As the world’s premier training camp for forging mental toughness, an Unbeatable Mind and a warrior’s spirit, the camp is an intense crucible experience modeled off of the famous Navy SEAL Hell Week. The difference is that Kokoro is built to teach through experience, rather than try to make you into a quitter.

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I found this article from the NY Times, A Little Deception Helps Push Athletes to the Limit, via the Fitbomb blog. The article talks about how cyclists, when deceived into thinking they are competing against cyclists of similar speed, will go beyond their perceived limits in order to win. What’s interesting is this extra push is quantified: a 2% increase in power translates to a 1% increase in speed.

A 1% increase can translate to a massive difference in power endurance sports. In rowing, where a typical time might be 6′ over 2000 meters, 1% translates to 3.6 seconds. That margin in the rowing world is an open water win–one boat length is about 2.7 seconds for an eight-man boat. A clear and decisive victory.

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When I think of my top 5 all-time athletic experiences, it goes something like this in no particular order:

  • Winning a bronze medal at the ’98 Dad Vails in the lightweight 8+. I sat two-seat. I remember it like it was yesterday.
  • Doing a sprint adventure race (trail run, mountain bike, canoe, obstacles) in Deerfield Beach. This was ridiculously fun because I was racing all-out with two of my buddies and it was like 100 degrees out. Extreme conditions make a race that much more epic.
  • Tough Mudder SoCal. Similar to #2 above, the physical demand was high and it was a blast to race with two good friends. We were wrecked afterwards. The terrain was picturesque and brutal at the same time.
  • GoRuck St. Augustine. I had to think long and hard whether GoRuck was a top 5 event because, while it was happening, I basically hated it and wanted to die a fiery death. The memory has since matured mutated towards unadulterated fondness. I think this is because GoRuck was the most epic athletic endeavor I’ve done to date, and I did it with a bunch of dear friends. It also completely changed my attitude about competition and mental toughness. Anyway, I’m slotting this badboy into the top 5 until further notice.
  • Summer Crush Games.

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I competed in my fourth CrossFit competition over the weekend, the Swamp Monster 2.0 at CrossFit 305. Check here for final results. Swamp Monster featured over 100 competitors in four categories: Beginner, Intermediate, Masters, and RX for men and women. I did the intermediate.

Let’s cut right to the chase. Swamp Monster 2.0 was hard as hell, even for the intermediates. I figured I would dominate this category and instead I got body rocked. (The RX was downright impossible except for the serious heavy hitters.) The WODs were fantastically hard and a significant factor was the heat and humidity…the temps flirted with triple digits and the humidity made it feel like 108. Not only that, but going full bore inside of a packed gym with no air conditioning and wall-to-wall sweaty bodies did nothing to ease the extreme nature of the competition. In my long and illustrious sporting career, this was one of the most challenging competitions I’ve ever done…certainly one of my toughest days of CrossFit.

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Think GoRuck Challenge is just for the guys? Lauren O’Leary is hear to tell you otherwise. Nicknamed “Scrappy” for her toughness, Lauren recently completed GRC Boston. Standing at 5’0 and weighing 115#, Lauren had mostly globo gym, distance running, and recent CrossFit experience prior to signing up for GRC. Lauren was the only female athlete to participate in Class 029 and she nailed it with flying colors. Keep in mind, these guys and gals are rucking 30-40 lbs for 10-13 hours and doing hours of bear crawls, pushups, and carrying heavy “coupons.”

In this interview, we talk about her decision to sign up for the Challenge, what her experience was like, and her past and present training. Lauren is a member of CrossFit Fenway and is planning on attending GoRuck NYC on 9/11.

Ladies, sign up and earn your Tough patches. Video interview after the jump…

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I did a kickass 5-day trip through Southern California as part of Memorial Day holiday that culminated in the Tough Mudder SoCal event. Tough Mudder was truly epic and I’ll give a full review in my next post.

In the meantime, I checked out two CrossFit gyms and got my WOD on prior to Tough Mudder. I love visiting other gyms to see what the setup is, what the athletes and instructors are like, and what the vibe in general is. I wasn’t disappointed.

First, there was CrossFit Invictus in downtown San Diego. I drove there straight from the airport and did the 6:30 pm WOD. They have a very cool space and great instructors. The instructors and athletes couldn’t have been more welcoming. We went through an extensive warmup that included dynamic stretch exercises and some mobility work with bands, all very welcome after spending the day on airplanes.

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Building on my post about periodizing CrossFit, I want to explore an idea for adding heartrate training into the sport. Just to give a bit of background, I’ve been a professional rowing coach for many years at various levels (high school to elite), and specific aerobic training is critical to our performance. I’d like to see if heart rate training can be a benefit to CrossFit.

NOTE: Glassman on the definition of fitness and training, where he rips on heart rate training…full videos if you have a Journal account. John McBrien also addresses this on a conceptual level in this Journal video: CrossFit Endurance, Intro to Programming.

To kick this off, we need a quick primer on the energy systems and how they apply to training. There are three energy systems: aerobic, anaerobic, and ATP-CP. Common knowledge, right? But, what you may or may not know is that the energy systems break down into smaller bands–by bands I’m referring to % of heart rate max (HRM)–and each of these bands can and should be trained. Most importantly, all three of the energy systems are intertwined and need to be trained in specific ways in order to get the most benefit.

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