August 2011

5pm Class warming up in the Yard

Well, it is August and the last official month of summer has started.  While I know we have all been enjoying the Summer Camp feel of CFO these last few weeks, we want to get back into the building.  To that end, we have been working very hard to gain legal access to our indoor facility so that we can have a bit more choice as to where we hold our WODs.

So where are we now?

Last week the City's Planning Department unanimously granted our Conditional Use Permit.  This was a very positive step as it demonstrates that the City of Emeryville sees our establishment as a positive addition to the community. 

However, there were several major conditions attached to the permit, which is why we are not yet allowed to conduct our workouts inside the building.  Fortunately, we were aware of these conditions and have been working to satisfy them over the last few weeks.  We feel we are very close to presenting a complete package to the City and have requested a Temporary Certificate of Occupancy.  If all goes well, this TCO will be granted very soon and allow us to occupy the building while we satisfy the remainder of the conditions listed in our use permit.  When we have a solid date, we will be sure to let everyone know right away.  We'd love to be able to give you a specific date right now, but thus far, we've had to revise our timeline every couple of weeks, which can be frustrating (to all of you as well, I'm sure).

Besides Mike and myself, there is an entire team involved in the various pieces of this project.  We cannot express our gratitude for all of this assistance as well as the patience and understanding of our wonderful clients.  We are scheduling quite a few fun, helpful, and free offerings over the next few weeks and will publish details on this blog as well as our Facebook page.  The first one is coming up next Tuesday, and we'll be posting details on it tomorrow night.

Keep on sending those positive vibes and getting your Prison Yard fitness on and as always, send any questions or concerns over to info@crossfitoakland.com.

Reminder:  If you're going to the Strength Saturday class tomorrow, you need to email to reserve your spot.  The class is now limited to 8 people.  See this post for more information.

The CF Games just finished, yet already there are competitions kicking off all over the place.  Next Saturday is a big one for the women of CFO:  Femme Fit!  We'll be posting about Femme Fit on Monday, so stay tuned to the blog for more information on this great event.

For now, there's another competition going down tomorrow, Saturday, August 6th:  The CF Solano Summer Slam.  This looks like a brutal team competition with some nasty workouts.  It will be great pre-Games-season test.

CFO will be sending two teams to represent the gym, as follows:

Team 1:

Brandon
Lydia
Blaire
Armando

Team 2:

Manwell
Tom S
Candace
Joey

To read up on the workouts (4 of them), read the following post on the CF Solano blog:

www.crossfitsolano.com/crossfit_solano/2011/07/summer-slam-is-in-two-weeks.html

Get some, Team CFO!

Here's the recipe in case you don't feel like watching the whole video:

Ingredients:
1 apple, grated
1/3 cup coconut oil, melted
2 1/4 cup almond meal (in the baking aisle @ whole foods, Berkeley bowl)
1 ripe banana
1/2 cup walnuts, chopped (or more if you'd like)
1/2 cup raisins (or more if you'd like)
1/3 cup water
1 tablespoon cinnamon
1/2 tsp baking soda
4 eggs

Directions: Use a fork to mash the banana in a large mixing bowl.  Add the remaining ingredients and mix well.  Scoop batter into well greased muffin tins filling only 3/4 way full. Bake at 350 degrees for about 20 minutes. 

Reminder:  Dawn will be holding a free shoulder clinic Tuesday, August 9 from 6:30pm to 7:30pm (in two half-hour sessions).  Don't miss it!

We're less than a week away from Femme Fit, the only all-women's competition of its kind.  And this time around, it's even more special because we have 14 women from CFO competing, and for many of them, it's their first competition since the CF Games Open back in the spring. 

Let's give a big shout-out to these 14 women:

Connie
Sierra
Joey
Carrie
Theresa
Ann G
Sarah K
Holley
Hyo
Journey
Tamara
Lydia
Michelle M
Mune

Talk about some strong representation!  Get some!

CFO Closure

Because Femme Fit is going on, and because it would be great to get as many screaming CFO fans out to the venue as possible, we're going to close CFO this Saturday.  We'll be back to normal hours on Sunday (8am, 9am, and 10am).  Hope to see you guys out at Femme Fit...just look for the CFO Jameson tent!

About Femme Fit

The Venue:  Alhambra High School Track

The Workouts:  Femme Fit Workouts and Standards

Thanks to all of you who showed up on Tuesday night to work on your shoulders.  I know it was uncomfortable, but it would do you good to do some of the things you learned at least once a week.

If you missed the clinic, here is a basic overview of what we did: 

1. Myofacial release for the shoulder girdle

2. Stretches for the important muscles in the shoulder

3. Strength exercises for the muscles that are often weak in the shoulders.

Tonight I will go over the stretches.  The strength exercises I will cover next week.  

First off, let me say that you can do the stretching and rolling every day or once a week when your body is warm (after a warm up, or after finishing a workout).  If it makes a difference in how you feel, doing it more often would be better.

In class, we did some trigger point release, and two foam roller moves.  The trigger point information doesn't photograph well at all.  If you are interested, I can send you a copy of the moves in a pdf file.  We used the foam roller to go over the lats and rhomboids--click on them for a video demonstration.

Prone Internal Rotation Hang

Lie on stomach with one arm on your back.  Let your elbow drop to the floor while mentally pulling your shoulder away from the floor.  Hold 2-3 minutes, 2-3 times.

Sleeper Stretch

Lie on your side with your arm 30-90 degrees out from your body.  Have your palm facing the floor.  Lightly push your hand toward the floor.  30-180 seconds, 3 times.

The CFO tent in full force at Femme Fit today

Femme Fit went down today and CFO definitely represented.  What a great event and awesome performances by all the women who competed.  We'll have much more on this in a follow-up post (including final results), but for now just know that every woman who competed got at least one major PR in either a timed workout (compared to practice runs) or on the clean (there were clean PRs happening all over the place).

Thanks to all the CFOers who came out to cheer and lend support.  

Thanks to Nabil, MJ, and all the judges and volunteers who made Femme Fit a blast.

And finally, for all of you who were there, let's shout it one last time:

Let's Go Oak-Land!

It's that time of year again:  meat ordering time!

This is the last call to get in on a 40-lb box of Prather Ranch organic, grass-fed beef for $240.  Each 40-lb box contains around 20 lbs of ground beef and 20 lbs of various cuts of beef (NY strip, London broil, tri-tip, etc.).

Here's who I have for an order thus far.  And remember, you can split a box if you want to get in on the order but think 40 lbs is too much.

Justin
Brian C
Tamara
Joey
Shirley
Kirsten & Gary (Split)
Gabriel
John P
Ev
Brendhan
David R
Leigh

I'll place the order with Prather on Wednesday, so if you want in, I need to hear from you by then.

Sierra pulling a PR 120# clean at Femme Fit

The article below, from Charles Poliquin's site, covers a lot of territory, and is written by a former strength-and-conditioning coach for a D1 college football team.  Although the article specifically addresses what to do with in-season training for a football team and its inherent challenges (balancing a weekly game and all of its demands with an off-field training program), there are nonetheless some take-home points that may help with your own training.

Some of the key points:

• Percentages, and percentage-based training, are important, but not the gospel.  Some days you might be stronger than what the percentages suggest, and some days you might not be.  Training heavy consistently is the key to getting stronger, whatever heavy may mean for you on any given day.
• The body's only capable of so much.  If you're pursuing other endeavors (another sport, CF Games training) beyond strength training, you can still keep up your strength levels by reducing volume but keeping the intensity high.  For example, as you increase the number of CF metcons you're doing, instead of hitting 3 sets of 5 on the back squat, go for a single set of 5 (5-rep max).  Tweaking and manipulating volume is going to be the key to sustaining progress in the lifts.

Read the full article here:

www.charlespoliquin.com/ArticlesMultimedia/Articles/Article/662/The_Poliquin_Approach_to_In-Season_Training.aspx

Taubes on The Dr Oz show
(Check out what's written on the screen behind them.)

Exercise more and eat less.  It's the one piece of advice you can always count on at your doctor's visit.  We've all heard it at some time or another.  And not just from our doctors, but from neighbors, friends, mothers, and sisters.  Today, it's conventional wisdom that in order to lose weight you must keep your calorie intake low AND put in extra time at the gym. Makes sense, right?  Today I'm going to share a completely different take on the weight loss debate. 

A few months ago I read science writer, Gary Taubes' most recent book Why We Get Fat And What To Do About It. You may remember Taubes for his recent piece in the New York Times entitled "Is Sugar Toxic?" or his highly controversial NYT Magazine article that rocked the low-fat dieter's world.  Since his 2002 article, Taubes has been on a mission to expose the real culprit of the obesity epidemic and put all this low-fat business to rest.

He spent the next 5 years researching what really makes us fat and in 2007 published, Good Calories, Bad Calories.  It wasn't long before his followers demanded he write a shorter, more condensed version of this 500 pg-bad-boy, and in 2010 he came out with Why We Get Fat, a more accessible manual for the lay person.  In this book he challenges the archaic calories in, calories out paradigm and brings forth research that calls into question everything we thought we knew about weight loss. 

Here are some basic take-aways from the book:

1.  Your body is not a bank account. 

We've all done it. We indulge in some sugary treat and then justify it by saying, "oh well, I'll just burn it off later".  Unfortunetly, it's not that simple.  It's the hormonal effect of eating these foods that's the problem, not so much the calories that's in them.

I know most of you have heard me say this a million times, but here I go again...when we eat foods that are high in sugar or high in refined carbohydrates (e.g. pasta, cereal, bread) these foods are rapidly converted into sugar and enter the bloodstream where they cause our blood sugar to sky rocket (this is where the term "sugar-high" comes from).  However, having massive amounts of sugar in the bloodstream can be quite dangerous and the body immediately steps in to bring your blood sugar back down to normal levels.  This is where insulin steps in.  Just the thought of eating that chocolate cake signals your pancreas to release a huge blast of insulin who's job it is to pull the sugar out of the bloodstream and into your cells.  This is the crucial step.  Sugar and refined carbohydrates, will drive up your blood sugar levels which drive up insulin and cause you to store fat. 

So even though fat has twice the amount of calories per gram than carbohydrates do, it doesn't cause the fattening insulin spike that sugars do so you don't really need to worry about your intake. 

I should mention that in an interview Taubes does cautions readers, that even though carbs/sugar are the primary drivers of insulin, this doesn't necessarily give you a free pass to eat copious amounts of fat and protein.  In other words, it's about quantity and quality.       

2.  Severe calorie restriction can backfire. 

When we simply cut back on calories, the body adjusts by down regulating your energy expenditure.  In other words, if you cut your meals in half, your body will get the signal that it needs to slow everything down and conserve energy in order counter balance the loss of energy (food) coming in.  The result is a metabolism that's moving a snail's pace and hanging on to every ounce of food it takes in.  Even if you keep your exercise regimen the same, your performance will likely suffer and your body will try to expend less energy while you are at rest making you feel more tired throughout the day.  And finally, severe calorie restriction can have long-lasting and damaging effects to the metabolism resulting in significant and rapid weight gain the instant you return to a "normal" way of eating. So even though you may lose weight initially you're likely to gain it all back and some.

3.  You can't cardio your way to weight loss.

This lesson is probably the hardest for people to swallow.  Taubes goes in to a lot of detail discussing the role of exercise in weight regulation.  The message here is twofold. First, doing tons and tons of cardio without adequate recovery may burn a lot of calories but it's also a great way to jack up your stress hormones.  One of the main jobs of stress hormones like cortisol is to release stored sugar into the bloodstream to help provide your body with the fuel it needs to escape danger.  And we all know how slimming high blood sugar can be, right?  The second reason lots of cardio can hamper weight loss is a no-brainer: it increases our appetite.  Duh?  We've all experienced this.  Why do you think there are so many "turkey trots" on Thanksgiving day?  It makes perfect sense.  Think of it this way:  after a hard workout or on a hot day when you've worked up a good sweat, you feel thirsty.  This is your body's way of replacing the water it just lost.  The same thing happens when you work out.  You work up an appetite so you can replenish the energy stores that you've just used up on your 10k run.

Why We Get Fat is a book I'd recommend to anyone who would like a primer on how the foods we eat affect our body composition (either favorably or unfavorably).  It would especially be helpful for friends or family members of yours who are sedentary.  That being said, if you're currently training at CFO and are familiar with the type of eating we recommend, you're already well on your way to understanding Taubes's material firsthand.

In case you have forgotten them, here are the exercises that we covered in the shoulder clinic.  These exercises will not hurt you, but they are not specific to any certain injury, so they may or may not be beneficial to you.  If you have particular questions about a shoulder problem, please post to comments or email me.

Do these exercises 2-3 times a week, with at least one day in between.  Start with 2 sets of 6-8 reps each, work up to three sets of 12, then add weight and start at the lighter rep scheme again.  The weight should be challenging, but not so much that it hurts to do the exercises or that you are doing them incorrectly.

Thanks to Coach Tamara Holmes for her modeling time!

One Arm Row

Please click Read More for the rest!!!

Sarah getting ready to stand up out of the bottom of a clean

A couple of items for you...

The Latest on the Building

Although we're still working out in the Yard, there has been a lot of work happening behind the scenes to make getting into the building a reality.  One of the biggest items on the list that we're working on is getting approval from the City on the fire detection system that we've installed in the building.  I won't bore you with the details of what this system does, but the final piece of the installation process was completed last week, when a dedicated telephone line was connected to the system.

The only piece left for us involving the fire detection system is getting approval by the City.  The inspection is imminent and will most likely happen within the next couple of weeks.  It could happen at any time, and we're shooting for getting the inspection done this week.  But it will all depend on the schedule of the person doing the inspection.  

As soon as the inspection happens, we'll be sure to update you with the results.  This piece is one of the major checklist items for getting back into the building and we'll be glad when it's done with.

I know that you all want to get back into the building.  We do, too.  You all have been so great with your support and we can't wait to pay back your patience with a great indoor facility.

Free Seminar for CFOers:  Getting the Most Out of Your CrossFit Training

I wanted to let all of you know that I'll be doing a seminar on Saturday, September 10, beginning at 11am.  This seminar is free to anyone from CFO, regardless of whether you're just starting or have been with us since CFO 1.0.  I've tried to come up with a title for the seminar that sums it up in a couple of words, but I just can't.  So here's my attempt at describing the seminar, its origin, and its purpose.  This is a little wordy, so if you wanna skip down to the very end of the post for a quick read, go down to the part that is titled "What You'll Get from the Seminar."

So many people come up to me and ask what they should do to get x, y, or z (a muscle-up, a 5-minute mile, etc.).  I'm always willing to answer these types of questions and I love doing it.  But many of you out there may think you're bothering me, or that I might not have enough time for such questions, or anything along those lines.  In addition, often times I receive the questions right before or during a group class, which limits the amount of time I can give you to answer the question to its fullest (often times I just tell you what to do without giving an explanation).  So with that in mind, I wanted to do a seminar on setting goals for any fitness-related pursuits you may have.

Before getting into goal-setting, though, it's important to understand what we're after in terms of fitness as it relates to the CrossFit model.  As such, I'm going to define the CF model of fitness and how it relates to what you're trying to achieve with your health and fitness.

Once we've laid the foundation of the CF model of fitness, we can then get to goal setting.  I'll touch on a couple of important points related to setting goals (one of the most important ones will be addition by subtraction, which I'll explain in the seminar).

I'll also make myself available to anyone who attends the seminar for a follow-up 1:1 planning session where we can map out the steps needed to achieve up to 3 fitness-related goals.

And the final piece of the seminar will be an open Q&A session, where you can ask me about anything you want related to CrossFit.  I can even give you fashion advice (this is to see if you've read the post up to this point).

What You'll Get from the Seminar 

Whether you're brand new to CFO or an experienced Games competitor, every person who comes to the seminar will get the following:

1. An understanding of the CrossFit model of fitness
2. An understanding of how to set and achieve fitness-related goals within the CrossFit model of fitness
3. A 1:1 planning session with me to map out the steps needed to achieve up to 3 fitness-related goals
4. An open-ended Q&A where you can ask me about anything you want related to CF training

And finally, there is no time limit on the seminar.  The Q&A session is open-ended and I will not end the seminar until everyone's questions are answered.

Today is David Halperin's 83rd Birthday!  Some of you may not know David (he is the seated gentleman in the middle bottom of this picture).  He has been a member of CFO for the last 3.5 years and attends our Elements class.  I have seen David deadlift over 100 pounds, bench press 70 pounds, and shoulder press 50 pounds.  He tries every exercise, even if I tell him not to, and never complains about a workout.  He has been sick for the last two months, but we are hoping to see him back at the gym soon.  Happy Birthday, David!

Please post birthday wishes to comments.

Schedule Update: Strength Saturday will happen on Sunday this week from 2 to 4 PM. We're all full this week, unfortunately. Email me if you would like to get in next week (9/3).

Mini sent this video my way this evening and while the video above fails several of my criteria for being watchable, the subject of the video, Jennifer Thompson, is truly amazing. Thompson tips the scales at at a mere 132 pounds. In the video above, she squats 315 pounds, bench presses 293 pounds, and deadlifts 419 pounds. Those lifts shattered a number of American records for those lifts in her powerlifting federation (USAPL) and added up to a massive 1027 pound total, also a record.

All of the lifts were performed with nothing more than a singlet, a belt, and some shoes. No squat suits, bench shirts, or knee wraps were used. The squats were deep and there was a marked lack of screwing around during the competition. I was impressed.

Provided you can get around the awful camera work, bad editing, and misspelling of the subject's name in the opening credits (really?), the strength that Thompson displayed was humbling. Her lifts are quite respectable for a man significantly heavier than she is. This woman benched 2.2 times her bodyweight. That is unreal. Few men manage that feat, let alone women.

Time is short this evening, so I cannot expound at length upon some of the issues raised here, which include, most importantly, my hurt feelings over how strong Thompson is. On one hand, this video could be used as evidence that size does not always equal strength. That is very true within certain parameters. However, Jennifer Thompson chose her parents very wisely. Most human beings will never be able to display that kind of strength at that low of a bodyweight. Thompson is amazing and is an inspiration, but very few, if any, will equal what she did at 132 pounds, men or women.

This brings me to another point, that I hear quite often, which is an insistence upon keeping bodyweight as low as possible, especially among females. If you were not excelling at sports from the time you were a child and could not jump higher than almost everyone around you, chances are you are not an exceptional athlete. That's okay. Welcome to the club. Therefore, just because someone is capable of performing a feat of strength at a given bodyweight does not mean that you should be able to do the same. Maybe you can, but maybe not.

If performance is important, then training and diet must accommodate those goals. This might mean muscular bodyweight gain. This is to be embraced and celebrated. Those that insist women must be skinny are not only wrong, they are not entitled to an opinion on the matter and are to be ignored. More on this next week. Lift like Jen Thompson, but be more concerned about the weight on the bar than the weight on the scale.

A very small photo of the New Evolution Diet Food Pyramid

Last week, paleo diet pioneer Art De Vany revealed his version of the food pyramid, the New Evolution Diet Food Pyramid.  Check out his blog post explaining it here:

www.arthurdevany.com/articles/20110825

Also, in case you missed it, check out JP's comment from yesterday's post regarding organic farming, the failure of economic forecasting, and the misuse of said forecasts for public policy decisions.

Plenty of food for thought on the CFO blog these days (cheesy pun, I know).  At the risk of opening a can of worms, where do you stand on these matters?