1.17.2011

P. Lentus @ 185#

Vincent Vincent!!!
Danny and Denise - synchronized Burpees
(please enlarge this Photo and check out Katie's amazement at Denise's Burpees?!?!)
Jess S. overhead with the old school rack!



Miranda off the rack

W.O.D. 1.18.11


5 rounds for time of:
185 lbs from shoulder to overhead anyhow, 5 reps (ladies 120lbs)
10 Burpees


Community Reminders:
This Thursday 1/20 at 6:30PM will be a Primal Challenge Q & A with Laura Pappas and your CrossFit Coaches. Bring all of your questions, comments and concerns along with you!

With the pending winter weather, we aren't sure what to expect for the 9:30AM class. Please check back on the blog in the morning. We will then update you as to if the wintry mix will cause us to cancel the 9:30AM class.

Read:
The Paleo Table: Making a weeks worth of meals in advance

Quote:
“We’re forging elite fitness but we’re filtering for character.” – Coach Greg Glassman

"I can’t say it more clearly than Coach. If you’re CrossFitting and you’re cheating your reps or your time, you’re not CrossFitting — you’re just exercising." To read more words by Lisbeth click here.

Rx Results:
Sam B. 13:11
Rob P. 18:43
Kevin 14:45
Cate 8:00
Aimee 10:39
Nikki 8:56
Plentus 14:22
Danny 6:50
Chris S. 9:00

Results:
Ryan 12:53 (155)
Cindy 10:37 (45)
Jeff 8:54 (135)
Nicole S. 7:30 (85)
Kristin T. 7:50 (85)
Peterson 12:13 (155)
Jason B. 15:54 (155)
Charles 10:53 (75)
Paul F. 7:35 (115)
Todd 6:59 (95)
Steph V 10:43 (120/95)
Kara 10:25 (65)
Chris T. 10:51 (65)
Jen S. 10:26 (105)
Karen 11:06 (85)
Steve K. 11:26 (65)
Sarah S. 7:42 (45)
WW 16:38 (125)
Olan 15:44 (175)
Kathleen 11:50 (68)
Gina 13:15 (73/68)
Megs 10:13 (95)
JB 9:19 (95)
Jess S. 10:57 (58)
Denise 9:27 (63)
Katie 9:46 (53)
Howard 7:52 (115)
Karin 10:10 (53)
Mike F. 9:43 (165)
Seth 12:46 (155)
Vincent 9:42 (135)
Gary 14:20 (135/115)
Sharon 10:28 (75)
Shawn 12:29 (165)
Miranda 9:49 (110)
Melinda 10:02 (110)



21 comments:

Chris P. said...

for those interested in military/CrossFit shirts, check out Sicfit:

http://sicfit.com/article/5052-UPDATED-Forces-A-SICFIT-Set-of-Special-Edition-Tees

jen said...

what a great "quote" for crossfit!

Chris P. said...

Delayed opening = ironic early blog post on being HANGRY:

http://chrispconstantlyvaried.blogspot.com/

Danny said...

Who is Freddy and why is he so angry?

Chris P. said...

Freddy Camacho is one of the CF originals. This WOD was designed with his strengths in mind. Ironically, when they first did it, a bunch of other dudes beat him because of raw power and efficient mechanics.

http://journal.crossfit.com/2008/12/freddys-revenge.tpl

Jeff said...

Freddy is also a gracious guy with a perpetual smile on his face. I had the pleasure of talking with him last summer at the Games, he was like a kid in a candy store. It will be really interesting to see if he goes into the Masters games.

Anonymous said...

I have a question for the coaches….

Last night I had a conversation with Donkey about the fact that I want to get faster at burpees. That led to a discussion about “intensity” Donkey suggested that going with lighter weights on WODS would allow me to get better at the body weight stuff, like burpees. I really don’t care about RX. What I want to do is do the workout in the way that will best support my progress in the future. I’m strong, so it’s not a huge goal to work on strength….but I’m not fast and I would like to be faster.

My previous idea about whether other not to RX…was based on time & intensity. That I should scale if doing so would keep me in the time domain the WOD is set for so that I am keeping up the intensity. But if I want to work on not just intensity but speed….should I be cutting back on barbell weights, even if that means I finish with the top of the class, not just within the far end of acceptable time domain.

You feedback is appreciated….

donkey said...

Steph: To be clear, the point I was making was that doing the Rx weight is fine--*if* you can fly through the WOD in the suggested time. But if using Rx weights destroys your speed/intensity (which i'm using interchangeably here, as I'd argue that pushing hard weight is intense as well but in an entirely different way), then you should drop to less than Rx so that you can finish the WOD within the suggested time range.

The high intensity work will ultimately build both speed and strength if I am understanding posts that Plentus has made in the past as well as my recent conversation with Jason, as well as many other recents posts/conversations.

In short, save the feats of strength for strength days and use the metcons how they're supposed to be used--as high intensity, high speed, high constant effort. If all you do is focus on strength, it will improve but you will not see your burpees get faster this way. An extreme example is the powerlifter who can pull a 1000# DL but couldn't run a block. They're not training for general fitness, they're training for heavy lifting, and this is not a cut on powerlifters--they are amazing to me. But they don't care about burpee speed. You do.

Dorothy said...

Hey Steph: Interesting dilema. I don't think that decreasing your weight to go faster in Metcons is a good way to get better at burpees. If you are strong enough to RX the weight and still make the time domain, then you should just focus on going fast as you can on the Metcons at the RX weight. The speed will come.

When I was a beginner runner they told me not to worry about speed that it would just come with time, and it did. I didn't really work on getting faster, I just got faster.

Chris P. said...

Steph, there's a lot of factors at play here that determine your burpee speed. Fast twitch muscles, efficiency in the movement, lung capacity, etc.
Take it on a case by case basis for the WOD if you are trying to get speedier. As for the burpees, let's start with a baseline of 10 and time yourself. Let's say it takes 45 seconds. Each day do 10 and try to get that under a time of your choosing, maybe 35 seconds. Then add on 5 burpees and set a new baseline. Keeping volume down will make you focus on quickness and speed and hopefully will get you that feeling when burpees show up in WODs. Just my 2 cents.

donkey said...

I am eager to hear more opinions on this as I may not be interpreting it correctly and want to get this right, which is why I was happy to see Steph's question on the blog.

I agree to Dorothy's point that IF you can push the Rx weight AND you are usually within or close to the recommended time frame for a WOD, you should. I'm not saying that it's ONLY about the weight--more that it's your ability to move that weight quickly, which maintains your intensity, which in turn makes you faster at things overall.

I have experienced much of this in my own training and I'm keenly interested to hear more. For my own part, I've focused very heavily on weights and getting to Rx, not nearly as much on getting through a WOD in a given timeframe. The result after a year of xfit, when I look at my WOD times across a variety, is the following:

1. I have gotten MUCH, MUCH stronger across all the lifts we do
2. I have NOT gotten much faster at metcon things that I was physically able to do before, example, running, burpees, air squats, etc. Exception: rowing, because i do so much of it because of various injuries. I've also gotten a much better row form so that helps.
3. For metcon things I could NOT physically do before, it's harder to tell because I've taken on harder work and the pay on that is time spent doing it. Pullups on a band vs. no band...I'm probably just now getting to a similar rate of speed for some things, and still slower at others (wallballs at 14# to 9' have been my standard for about six months--once I got there, my speed at those weights/heights have held steady). HSPU, dips, DUs etc...all of them I'm still working on full unassisted ROM/stringing reps so it's hard to tell progress on an apples-to-apples comparison.

All that said, when I look back at WODs with both weights and metcons that we've done more than once, I see a clear trend. I'm much better and therefore faster at pushing heavier weights, so my overall WOD times are improving. For pure metcon with light or no weights, performance is generally about even, MAYBE slightly better. you can really see this in WODs like TABATA and FGB where you count each type of rep in a clean timeframe.

I am a data geek and I love this analysis stuff, but in the end, what I think I'm interpreting the other coaches saying relative to intensity is likely colored by my own data points, so an unbiased POV from people who really get this stuff is useful to me as both a crossfitter and an assistant coach.

donkey said...

Adding: I understand my results are maybe unique to me, but if I am interpreting the intensity question correctly, I could be something of an extreme example of what happens when you focus on weights more than time rather than equal focus to both.

aaand now I'm done.

JZuck said...

I am no expert, but I would guess that if you are always trying to use a heavy weight and it ends up turing what should be a 10 minute WOD in to a 15-20 minute WOD, then you should lower the weight and up the intensity and try and get in under that 10 minute mark.

Also, if you want to get quicker at burpees, I would just do them every day after class. Even if it is just a quick set of 20 for time.

Lastly, I would imagine that a good way to increase speed and keep that strength, would be some prowler work, or something similar. Maybe a set of about 6 short prowler sprints (with a mnutes or two rest between) a few times per week??

Peterson said...

Ohh, maybe box jump burpees for a while. Then when you go to regular burpees they're nice and easy!

steph v said...

thank you everyone for the feedback and conversation. I like the idea of doing a ten burpee baseline...i think i will do that!! I think I feel pretty good about what to do with weights and scaling for intensity. Just will look to coaches for time domains and what # of reps i should be able to string before wods to try to gage this.

I have a lot of things to do in the few minutes before and after class... :-) hahaha great thing is i could do crossfit for the rest of my life and still have something to be practicing...actually kind of cool...i get bored easy :-)

Laura Pappas said...

I agree with P and the baseline, you would do repeats in running which is what you are trying for on the baseline, going for negative splits. The other thing to diagnose is why are your burpees or whatever your trying to make faster slow. Do you need to work on movement efficiency, lung capacity, or something else. Then you can figure out where to focus your time, but def do the baseline to see if youre getting faster.

Chris P. said...

6:30 YOWZAHS!

Ryan 12:53 (155)
Sam B. 13:11 (Rx)
Rob P. 18:43 (Rx)
Cindy 10:37 (45)
Jeff 8:54 (135)
Nicole S. 7:30 (85)
Kristin T. 7:50 (85)
Peterson 12:13 (155)
Jason B. 15:54 (155)
Charles 10:53 (75)
Paul F. 7:35 (115)
Todd 6:59 (95)

That's a WOD where you just say "YOWZAHS" afterwards. Good job on keeping things heavy (and if not heavy, focus on form)

Jason Lyons said...

Not an easy answer. Weights should not effect your burpee time that much unless the weights are crushingly heavy leaving you with nothing left. When I did this WOD, the weight is heavy but I was still able to string the 10 burpees and I hate burpees. When I first did 100, it took me 13 minutes, I think I am around 7 now and I can attribute that to a larger lung capacity more than raw strength. So the best way to get better at them is to do more of them like P said. Scaling is important when a rep at 185 takes you 2 minutes, instead of a few seconds because your intenity is not there, the same can apply to pullups when people are just staring at the pullup bar. In my humble opinion, scaling your strength will not make you go faster in burpees.

Gina Fab said...

Aimee,
I dropped to 68 on my second round.

donkey said...

@Jason: So then I must have misinterpreted our discussion. I thought what you said was that holding yourself to Rx standard can hurt you in the long run IF it means you're taking too long to do the WODs, and the main thing that helps you get faster is consistent intensity and managing your speed during WODs.

Jason Lyons said...

@ kong

if the weight is making you go slow, drop in weight. If it is not, don't.

If I am flying through 300 lb deads but the lung capacity kills me on a run, I need to run more, not drop weight.