The Banana Stand

Well let's see what have I done this past week. I saw the Twins beat the Red Sox last night, that was a good time! Also I ate a giant thing of nachos and drank a refreshing beer. Pretty solid baseball experience all in all. Memorial Day weekend was nice. I took Friday off and laid outside and got way more sun than I expected. So I was a little burned the rest of the weekend. Got a few good workouts in. Ran with Girtz on Saturday. Celebrated Girtz's birthday on Saturday night. Good times, but I am pretty much over the downtown scene. At least after 10 PM or so anyway. Monday as part of my personal Memorial Day tribute I did the Murph workout: 1 mile run, 100 pullups, 200 pushups, 300 squats, 1 mile run. It was absolutely terrible. I knew I would have a hard time keeping track so I actually got my mom to do it for me, haha. It ended up taking about 47 minutes and I was absolutely wrecked afterward. I'm still a little sore today. Also I ordered some kettlebells from Rogue Fitness last week and they came in today. So today I went to the park and made up my own little metcon:
AMRAP 20 minutes
-10 clean and press each arm (35 lb KB)
Run 200 meters
I think I got about 6 rounds in. And I was gassed at the end. But it was fun to do it outside. Then after a little break I did a mini Barbara (Barbie!):
5 rounds
-5 pullups
-10 pushups
-15 situps
-20 squats
Rest 3 minutes in between rounds. If this was the only workout I did today I would've scaled up to the full thing I think. As it was I completed each round in about a minute or so. Wasn't too bad, but felt good to do a little extra.
So tomorrow may be the beginning of a long journey. I am heading to CrossFit MSP to talk with Michael there about my goals and probably join up with that affiliate. I really think that if I trust in their coaching I can make some great strides this year. I am pretty excited about this possibility.

I wanted to post my Twitter page, since I have been twittering some of my WODs and times. Go there for more frequent updates.
I am thinking about picking up a set of kettlebells (1 pood, 1.5 pood, and 2 pood) for workouts in the park this summer. One thing that I still like to do is get outside and it'd be nice to have something to use besides just bodyweight workouts. The only issue is cost. One place I found online was about 410 for the 3 including shipping. The shipping for these things is ridiculous, which I guess is understandable.
Also, yesterday's WOD:
4 rounds
400 meter run
50 squats
Completed in 95 degree heat in 12:07.
Today should be a day off if I'm doing 3 on, 1 off. So maybe I'll do some strength work today. I'd also like to go for a bike ride at some point, now that my bike is all good to go thanks to JV.
Also I am taking tomorrow off of work for no reason. I cannot wait. I think the weather will be reasonable so I will probably enjoy laying by the pool for a while. Ahh. And also very much looking forward to getting together with a special someone tomorrow night. Should be a great kickoff to a long weekend!

Well in the interest of working towards possibly competing at the regional qualifiers for the CrossFit games in May 2010 I have started rotating in some metcons again. I think the Starting Strength stuff has really helped. In fact, last week I did one of the workouts from the eastern Canada qualifiers:
21 1.5 pood (53 lb, I used 55 lb) swings
21 burpees
15 swings
15 burpees
9 swings
9 burpees
I was exhausted afterward and finished in 5:30 or so. I was curious so I looked up my time in comparison to the men's competitors. I wouldn't have been last at least! There's room for improvement, but I think for a first attempt, that was good to figure out where I stand a little bit. Also completed the other following WODs:
Cindy in the park:
AMRAP (as many rounds as possible) in 20 minutes:
5 pullups
10 pushups
15 squats
I always lose count with Cindy. I think I got upwards of 15 rounds, but I really have no idea. I was doing pullups on the monkey bars with a neutral grip and that really killed me. All pullups were from a dead hang.
Also did this WOD yesterday and finished in just over 20 minutes. I scaled to a 135 pound bench press because I didn't want to have to deal with a spotter. The 2000 meter row at the end was just brutal.
Sunday I just did a run around Lake Nokomis, stopping for some pullups and pushups here and there. Tried to keep it at a pretty uncomfortable pace.
And today I was inspired by a Twitter post to give Helen a shot:
3 rounds
400 m run
21 1.5 pood (53 lb, but I used 55 lb) swings
12 pullups.
I finished in just over 13 minutes. My kipping pullup technique needs a lot of work. At the end I could barely do 1's and 2's of pullups. The swings weren't too much trouble. First set was unbroken. The 2nd two sets were broken: 16 straight, quick breather, 5 more to finish.
Feeling pretty good about where I'm at. Tomorrow's WOD is 4 rounds of 400 meter run, 50 air squats. I can already feel my legs aching. Awesome!
Still debating what to do about joining a CrossFit gym. I could definitely use the competition and camraderie. CrossFit MSP would be my first choice; over in St. Louis Park. It looks like there is a CrossFit Minneapolis opening in a couple weeks over on Broadway which would be REALLY convenient. I'll have to wait and see I guess. Anybody want to join me for this journey?? 3,2,1, this is gonna suck, GO!!!!

Really debating putting this on the road map for the next year... Can I get there?
CrossFit Games
One year to reach this status. I need probably 100-150 pounds on my 1RM deadlift. And maybe 100 pounds on my back squat. I have to have something to train for. A competitive drive is smoldering inside.

I figured I should update this beast. It has been about over 2 months. So here's the progress:
My weight is up to ~181/182. So I've gained over ten pounds. I don't think I've gained much body fat though based on absolutely nothing other than my own estimation. I'm not sure if 10 pounds of muscle in 2 months is reasonable. Here are the current numbers as of my most recent workouts:
Squat: 3x5 @ 205 lbs
Bench press: 3x5 @ 200 pounds (this was my max, I went back down to 185 as I was feeling some shoulder issues. I don't really feel like I want to be able to bench much more anyway).
Press: 3x5 @ 140 pounds (Tonight I went to 145 and got 1 set, plus about 4 reps, then my arms just wouldn't do anymore.)
Deadlift: 1x5 @ 225 pounds (new PR as of tonight. My back felt pretty good. I think my form is getting better.)
Pullups: I'm not sure what my max is right now. I have been trying to pull back the volume a little bit and do some more weighted chins and pullups. Felt a little twinge in my elbows, so I want to keep sets to 5-8 I think. Did some towel pullups tonight. Just killed my grip but that's good because I think my forearm strength is a little weak.
Nutrition has been good since the weather has improved finally. I pretty much have some type of protein every night (grilled chicken or beef). A fair amount of dark, leafy greens and usually some cottage cheese for added protein. I think I've kind of got the nutrition dialed in the way it should. A few weeks ago I was having more carbs at night then I probably should have and I could definitely see it a little in my appearance. So now I know that I'm relatively sensitive to carbs at night. During the day I really don't sweat the carb intake. I don't go nuts, but I'm not worried about a sub sandwich or a burger or whatever.
Taking a look at my goals for 2009:
-Squat: 5RM @ 225 lbs. This should be doable as I'm about 20 pounds away right now. I think my depth has been good; getting below parallel. It'd be nice to have a second set of eyes to double check.
-Press: 5RM @ bodyweight. This could be tough. I'm still about 40 lbs away. I think a 1 RM @ bodyweight is a reasonable goal though. I think last time I checked I was about 155 lbs or so on my 1 RM. 30 pounds in the next 7 months should be in reach.
-Bench press: 5 RM @ 210. This is probably possible too, but I'm not sure if I care enough to get there. Recently I did 3x5 @ 200, so one set of 5 at 210 is probably there even now. But I don't want to mess my shoulders up. I'm doing my best to be very strict with form (retracting the shoulder blades). But I can still feel it a little bit. Also I hate going to heavy on bench because that means I have to ask for a spot which drives me nuts. The last time I did, the well meaning dude I asked screwed everything up. He passed the bar off and then proceeded to keep his hands RIGHT ON THE BAR the entire time. It really threw me off.
-Deadlift: 5 RM @ 340. This could be very tough as I'm over 100 pounds away. Again this might be reasonable for a 1 RM. Five reps at this could be very tough though.
Honestly what I would like is a CrossFit total of 1000 (1RM squat+1RM press+1RM deadlift). This is a long term goal, but a very good indicator of strength. I'm also not sure if I can get there without some one on one coaching on my lifts. It might be a good idea to get a refresher. I'm thinking if I keep at things, sometime in 2010 I could get there. Haha, that sounds so far away. Actually talking about this kind of makes me want to get a membership at CrossFit MSP. It's the newest affiliate in the area and it's run by a guy that coached me at CrossFit Minnesota in Eden Prairie. Really nice guy and it sounds like their gym is devoted to building strength. That's one thing I feel is missing from CrossFit. For beginners that just can't do the workouts as prescribed it's tough to get stronger. The WODs are so varied, you will just never get there unless you specifically train strength too, in my opinion. Of course I could be wrong.
Also with the nicer weather I've been rotating some running in again a couple days a week. Usually I do one day of intervals (usually like 8x1/4 mile sprints, trying to hold a 1:30 time for each) and one tempo run at a distance of ~3 miles. The good news is as I have put on some muscle I have kept speed and endurance for the most part. The intervals leave me completely whipped but I can pretty much hold the 1:30 for all 8. And last Tuesday for my tempo run I was able to do 3 miles in 22 minutes which I was pretty pleased about. That was absolute maximum effort. I'm debating signing up for the Urban Wildland Half Marathon in August. That was a really nice course last year. Of course it would be fun to find somebody else to train with me... Anybody? Anybody?
Anyway, in general, feeling pretty good about where I'm at fitness-wise. Obviously I always like to improve, but I think I'm on a pretty good path. I have honestly become addicted to it. It's like therapy for me. Might be kind of sad, but the ~3 hours/week I spend in the gym have become some of my favorite hours spent all week. Haha. Oh well. I guess it's a hobby, which is good, because I think that's sort of what I have been missing in recent years.

Other life stuff: It's all good. :)

I've been remiss in not updating this blog... I need to keep at this regularly. I'm thinking at this point, I'm just going to use this to document progress for myself. Not that anyone reads this anyway. This blog will cease to have boring lame introspective content and will now begin to have regularly tracked fitness progress.
I'm not really sure why I've gotten into this again, but I guess it's just something that I've always enjoyed but got away from it for some reason over the past couple years. It's been a lot of fun re-dedicating myself to it.
So currently here are the stats:
Weight - 170 lbs (probably a little small, I think I'd like to be closer to 180, but with the same BF that I'm at now)
Bodyfat - Between 14 and 15%
Shoulder Press - 5RM @ 115 lbs
Bench Press - 5RM @ 170 lbs
Back squat - 5RM @ 115 lbs
Deadlift - 5RM @ 200 lbs (might be some rounding of the back, I think I might stay at this weight for the next couple weeks)
Pull-ups/chin-ups - Max set of 10, either overhand or underhand grip
I've been doing a Starting Strength type split, which looks like the following:
Monday - Warmup, then 3x5 Back Squat
-Warmup, then 3x5 bench press
-3 sets of max pull-ups
Wednesday - Warmup, then 3x5 Back Squat
-Warmup, then 3x5 shoulder press
-Warmup to 1x5 deadlift
Friday - Warmups, then 3x5 Back Squat
-Warmup, then 3x5 bench press
-3 sets of max pull-ups
On off days I try to do some kind of cardio, usually some HIIT (high intensity interval training). Current 400 meter split is somewhere around 1:21-1:24 based on the day.
Some thoughts: Obviously I need to increase my squatting strength, because there's no way I should be able to put more weight overhead than I can squat. That was one of the reasons I chose this sort of plan, because I could work on squatting 3 times a week. Also, with the program, the goal is to increase your weight every single time in the gym. The problem is that I am going to stall out on bench press and shoulder press long before the back squat. I'm not sure how I'm going to handle that yet.
Also, I need to get the diet thing figured out. I tried the anabolic diet for a couple weeks and ended up crashing really hard with no carbs. So I'm giving up on that for now. The other hard part is getting enough protein on a daily basis. I've been supplementing with lots of protein shakes, since it's hard to get 1 gram or more per pound of body weight just from meat. I'd be eating insane amounts of chicken if I tried to do that. So far, I think I have not been getting enough calories in. I think that's why my weight has drifted downward to where it is.
Anyway, goals for the end of the year (December 2009):
-Back squat: 5 RM @ 225 lbs
-Overhead press: 5 RM @ bodyweight
-Bench press: 5 RM @ 210 lbs
-Deadlift: 5RM @ 340 lbs
-Pull-ups: 20 strict (I'm giving up on learning kipping)
I think once I hit these goals I'll jump back into CrossFit. I just realized that my strength was not where it needed to be to get the most out of the workouts and I just felt like I would never be able to get to doing the WODs as RX'ed without some serious focus on strength. Plus I just like lifting weights. I will not miss Cindy and Fran in the meantime, ugh.
I've been experimenting a bit with supplementing also. Right now, for heavy lifting days I usually take some nitric oxide to get a little energy boost going into the workout. And I usually try to get a serving of creatine in each day. As previously mentioned I'm going through a lot of protein powder too. Finally I have been taking a fish oil supplement as well to combat inflammation. I'm not really sure if it's working or not.
Finally, I signed up for Grandma's Marathon. Mark is kind of my partner in crime for it. Neither of us has really started our specific training for it. I get kind of a knot in my stomach just thinking about it. Once the weather gets nice I'll probably get back into running regularly, but it's just too hard when the track or treadmill at the gym is all you can do. We'll see if Grandma's is going to happen. The memory of TC marathon is still fresh in my head.
Anyway, that's it for now. I've got my official yard marker now. Hopefully this will help hold me accountable.

So this equation pretty much sums up CrossFit (this is a pretty simplified version, see here for the more accurate version). The aim is to maximize the amount of work completed and minimize the amount of time it takes to do, thus maximizing power. As the amount of time it takes you to do a workout decreases, your generated power will increase accordingly. Pretty cool stuff.
So let's see, since last week what have I accomplished...
Last week I did some sort of push-press/squat/row 250 m combination. My times are getting better, which makes me think I'm making some strides in the cardio department. I'm not sure how my strength is doing.
On Saturday I did the WOD from Friday that ended up being pretty rough. I scaled to the following:
-Box jumps at 25
-Deadlift x 15 @ 135 lbs
-Jumping pullups x 15
for a total of 3 rounds.
The last round of box jumps was at a more significant height than the first two because some dude took my box to use for something else while I was on deadlifts. I can't remember the time it took to complete.
Sunday was a rest day. I grabbed lunch with Qua at BWW in Plymouth which is always a good time. Capped it off with an epic game of Big Buck Hunter. I think I won by less than 100 points. Also watched my fantasy team do alright. Pretty much all my players played in the early games which was kind of unnerving, but they ended up doing well enough to put me in the PFL super bowl next weekend. Good news is I'm in the money now, runner up gets 75 with potential to get 200 if I can pull off an upset. The big question is the following: Do I play Donovan McNabb or Kurt Warner next week? Warner has been falling off a little lately and McNabb has heated up. Yes I'm soliciting advice.
The rest of the day was spent watching the first half of the Vikings game, sleeping the second half, doing laundry and eating sushi for dinner. The typical do-nothing Sunday that I appreciate so much.
Today kicked off the last full week of work for the next 3 weeks. After this week, we've got Christmas vacation, then the following week, New Year's day, and the week after that is Park City already. Hard to believe it's coming up that soon. Unless the weather changes I won't be getting a chance to get out on the slopes around here before we get on that plane. Ah well, it will be interesting to say the least.
Hit up the grocery store after work and stocked up. I was surprised I spent over 80 bucks on basically produce! What the heck. Maybe that's not entirely accurate, but it felt like I didn't get a whole lot for that 80 bucks.
Hit up the gym afterward and did the WOD for today. I scaled it as follows:
-Deadlifts @ 165 x 5 reps
-10 burpees
for 5 rounds. My time was 7:29. Man my heart was pumping afterward. I'm sure everybody else around me was wondering what the hell I was doing. Kind of funny. Did a few Tabata sprints on the treadmill after that. There was a super cute girl a couple machines over that I'm sure I frightened with my near falling off the treadmill by the final set. Haha. Finished up with some ab-work and worked on some skills. I just cannot get the kipping motion down. I was just trying to swing back and forth on the bar and couldn't do it. I don't think it's a matter of strength I think it's a matter of coordination or lack thereof. After a while I got frustrated and attempted a few Knees to Elbows. I was pretty happy that I was able to do 5 of those without too much trouble. Man that is an ab/back killer. I need to start slipping some more of those into my workouts. Went home in the -whatever degree weather and cooked up some chicken breast and peppers. I threw some salsa on top and a little cheese. It was sort of fajitas sans tortilla. Finished things off with a bowl of diced apple and some berries. The good news is I now have mostly pretty healthy stuff at home so hopefully I'll be able to slim down a little bit more. I think I can be both strong and lean at about 170, maybe a little more. I'm currently around 177 or so.
Well after deadlifting 2 out of the past 3 days my shins are hamburger. They are sore to the touch, but apparently that means I'm doing something right according to everything I can find on the internet. I think I tweaked my back a little bit towards the end of the workout tonight. The bad part is when you get tired with the deadlift, your form suffers and that's when problems can arise. I'll see how I feel in the morning. The good news is that I won't have to do deadlifts tomorrow! Yay! Tomorrow's WOD is a strength day, so that will be a nice break. I'll probably jump on the C2 rower for a while too to get some cardio in.
Joel is headed home on Friday for Christmas so the whole family is looking forward to that. Hopefully this time I'll see him for more than a few hours (his doing, not mine). He always spends a lot of time with his friends, which is important, but it'd be good to hang out too.
I still have a lot of Christmas shopping to do. So that's still on the docket of things to accomplish in the next 9 days. I can't believe Christmas is already that close.
The rest of the week will be spent at work during the day, at the gym at night, and who knows after that. Everybody I know is finally done with school this week, so hopefully people will be up for stuff next weekend.
Also check out the following two joints:
Cafe Maude
moto-i
I checked out both these places this past weekend. On Friday, Dave, Mark and I went to moto-i and got some home brewed sake and awesome Japanese bar food. I highly recommend it. Saturday morning I met Jamie and one of her friends at Cafe Maude for brunch. It was phenomenal. I splurged and got the Eggs Benedict with spicy lamb sausage. Totally delicious.
Hopefully this week Girtz and I will make it to Buster's. I have heard good things. I think he's looking to celebrate being done with the semester. It sounds like it was a pretty taxing one.
Anyway, until next time, thanks to Zach for the current recommended track:
Austin Lucas - Go West (demo)