Motivation

If you have time.

If you have energy.

If you have food, shelter, safety.

What is your excuse for not becoming the best you can be?

We are all fortunate.

Do justice to your talents.

Cam

Muscle Up Technique and Training

I recently discovered this excellent video (see bottom of post) of all-round awesome Annie Sakamoto performing muscle ups in slow motion at the 2011 CF Games.  There are many styles of muscle up technique now practiced, Annie has more of a classical "pull" style which is the same one I typically employ under fatigue.

Watching the video has validated the training advice I give to people who are learning the muscle up or are looking to improve their rep numbers in it - practice hard ring rows (with/without false grip) and deep dips. 
I once heard a gymnastics coach describe the muscle up as "the highest pull-up you've ever done into the lowest dip you've ever done".  This does describe some muscle up variations quite well (i.e. the stricter forms), however you can clearly see that Annie isn't really performing a pull-up in the usual sense of the word.

For Annie, the real "pull" motion occurs with the body virtually parallel to the ground (i.e. not vertically positioned) which is "rowing" strength and power as opposed to pullup strength and power.  Once she flips her shoulders forward though, the dip position she achieves is VERY deep - note that the upper arms are well below the top of the rings... (also influenced by the size of her arms - Annie is not the tallest athlete). 

As you get fatigued and height of pull decreases, the only thing that will save your muscle up is fast action forward and strength from a low dip position.  It is worthwhile then to really extend the depth of your ring dips when practicing for muscle ups.  A drill that is particularly useful is repeatedly lowering into the deepest dip you can control and practicing letting the rings drift slightly away from your body and then drawing them back in before pressing back up to full arm extension.  Only perform this if you are strong in ring dips and have healthy shoulders.

The other video links in the youtube sidebar (all from user "hookgrip") show some of the other women performing muscle ups also.  There are variations in technique which typically involve different lowering strategies and size of kip.  Depending on the technique used, the dip may be as low as Annie's or may also be higher but all of the women pass through the parallel or close to parallel body position and therefore are pulling in a "rowing-horizontal" direction. 

So the short advice is - if you employ a "pull" technique similar to Annie, invest some time in getting some ring rows done (make them hard - 4-6 reps max) and work a very deep dip and some ring holds in the bottom dip position.  Your muscle up numbers will soon improve and you will save more reps that you may have lost before!

Cam

Programming

(nice quilt)

Most people think 'programming' means simply making up workouts.  It doesn't.  Programming is a systematic and thoughtful arrangement of sessions towards an end result.

I liken it to making a quilt (something I've never done but I understand the process of).  Ideally, you have a design for your quilt and then you work backwards.  With a design you will know where each square of cloth gets placed and how to interlock them to get the desired effect.

Two things are necessary for this to happen: 

1.  You have to know what you want the quilt to look like (so in our case, what is the desired outcome of the program).

2.  You have to know which squares (training methods and modes) to use and how to assemble them.

It takes an understanding of the physiological effects of training and years of solid strength and conditioning experience to accomplish 1+2 together. 

If one or both of those components are lacking, then the programming will suffer, typically resulting in a disjointed day-to-day approach (i.e. we did squats on Monday, so we shouldn't do them on Tuesday!).  In these circumstances, who knows what the quilt (or resulting fitness) will look like.

I should mention that for a lot of Crossfitters, this simply doesn't matter.  They just want to turn up and crush themselves.  However as an affiliate owner or coach you have a responsibility to offer high quality service to your membership (they are paying premium prices after all), and that should involve a thoughtful, reasonable, and effective approach to programming.

Keep fit and have fun,

Cam

Age and muscle loss?

Check out these images from sweatscience.com...
The incredible unaging triathlete

Definitely it's not the whole story as a multitude of factors can intervene and these aren't the same (or matched subjects) under different conditions but pretty powerful nonetheless!

Speaking Volumes

The 2012 Reebok Crossfit Games Open is 40 days away.

Last year's motto (for me) was "I will not be undertrained" - you can probably guess what happened as a result.  My weekly training sessions from November 2010 through to Regionals in May 2011 averaged just over 8 (range 5 to 12).  I got in very "fit" condition but burned out early (dropping strength into the Regionals) and developed bilateral knee tendonitis that only started easing off a few months ago.

This year's motto is "Do more with less".  My prior 6 weeks of training featured 5.5 average training sessions per week, this current 6 week phase is capped at 5.  Less volume requires a more focused and accurate approach - I can't afford to spend time on activities that aren't directly contributing to a specific aspect of my competition fitness.  As a result, there is a lot of structure to my weeks and I know exactly what characteristics I am training each day.

So far, my body feels great.  I'm doing weekly tester wods for both a training effect and to monitor my metcon status as compared to last year, so it will be interesting to see where I stand on those.

I have confidence in my approach - both from the standpoint that I believe I will compete strongly once competition time comes and also that I will be in a healthier (and more sustainably healthy) state.  This is a manifestation of another transition in my fitness training that has more of a longevity component to it, but more on that later.

The target is to make Regionals and place better than last year.  If it works, maybe I'll drop down to 3 sessions a week for 2013!

Good luck to all those who are prepping for the Open - I'll see you online.

Cam