Sunday Aug. 24, 2008
Today is Day 1 of our Burpee Challenge!!
Today we are starting our 100 day Burpee Challenge. For those of you that frequent our Message Board you may already be aware of this. For those of you that aren’t, we are challenging all CrossFit Edmonton members and anyone they want to bring along to 100 days of Burpees. The full event details are here on our Burpee Challenge Page. Please register at the bottom of the page.
This page is accessible through our new Events page that you may notice in our Navigation bar at the top of the page. This Events page is to inform you of all current and upcoming events for CrossFit Edmonton. Please check it out to see what’s happing over the next few weeks at CrossFit Edmonton.
This weeks discussion is about training certain body parts too frequently. Since we are about to embark on training burpees every single day for nearly a third of a year I thought it fitting. We get many complaints when we happen to prescribe too many leg workouts or too many pull up workouts in one week. Is it wrong to do that? Do we need to spread it out a little more? Please watch this video (wmv) from CrossFit.com today and post your thoughts to comments.
I think it is fair to say that no one enjoys pain, or actively seeks it out. We have been conditioned to avoid pain as a survival mechanism. I think that humans often confuse pain and discomfort. Repeated use of the same muscle groups does lead to discomfort. Injury leads to pain. What is important is to have some intelligence behind the program, to avoid injury while focusing on functional improvement. With Crossfit and our excellent coaching staff, I know we have it.
I recall last spring we did a series pull-ups, cleans, presses, jerks, all in a period of two weeks or so. I was sure I could hear my shoulders grinding whenever I shaved for days after. Was I in pain? No. Was I in discomfort. Yes. What was the solution? In hindsight, the solution seemed to be 3-2-1-GO. Pull-ups are better. Clean and jerks numbers are up. And, I am getting a much smoother shave.
Or, in the words of one our own Crossfitters to her husband (not me) “F%$k Off dude. Just do it.”
To me crossfit is all about adapting and evolving as an athlete. Often times it is easier to train the body because it is quite “adaptable”. It’s not so easy to train your mind. I’m sure that at day 20 of the burpee challenge I’m going to complain, swear, and curse the burpee because for the most part I just did it yesterday and the day before that and so on. Now imagine day 100, burpee number 100. My thoughts will be in this order. “Stupid f%@kin’ burpees thank god we’re done”, “that was mentally draining”, “wow, I did it!!!”
For me, frequent training is as mentally exhausting as reading Wuthering Heights for English class. BUT, at least with crossfit I know my results will improve because it’s all relative (meaning any book is better than Wuthering Heights). Think about it; You’ve just completed the burpee challenge and next week there is a WOD with 25 burpees. Piece of cake right? You could probably even do weighted burpees….
Having said all that, Chad, Auty, if after the burpee challenge is over and you think it’s funny to do a burpee WOD, I will still call in sick that day.
I have often questioned the timing of workouts which work the same muscle groups without much rest. As much as I have thought it was insane to try to use those same muscles in successive workouts, each time we do it I am surprised how quickly the muscles get into the act with little or no pain. For the most part, the anticipation of what it will feel like to do the workout is worse than anything the actual experience brings on.
Whether or not the discomfort is prolonged by working the same muscles repeatedly really doesn’t matter because if it wasn’t the same muscle group providing some level of discomfort, it would be a different muscle group from a different workout.
I might whine and complain about muscle soreness or stiffness, but just as often, I will be happy to tell people I meet about how good I believe the crossfit experience is for me.
After watching that video, I completely agree that it is all a big sham we have been led to believe that we cannot work more than one body part two days in a row, or got forbid, three!
The real truth is…adaptation, adaptation, adaptation. That’s the reason for pushing with another heavy leg wod. Stretch your body physically and mentally, beyond what you think is even possible. Super saturate the nervous system if you will, and watch your xfit performance, speed, technique, and your body, change.
Yes, it may suck to see another workout heavy on squats, lunges, thrusters..right after we just did one the day before. But I actually feel better afterwards, as strange as that may seem.
So the next time you may think or want to say…pull-ups/squats/push-ups again-we just did them?…..perhaps we can use this as an opportunity to reprogram it to…bring it on,coaches!
That video definitely hit the nail on the head. So many of us are athletes and CrossFit is our sport. Sports and life are unpredictable and sometime repetitious I love his analogy of the swimmer asking not to swim. Too funny.
I don’t always like doing squats the day after I do lunges. Sometimes I take an extra day off to avoid doing it but after watching that video clip and reading the other postings I think that I should be aiming to stick to my 3 on 1 off schedule regardless of the WOD’s.
I agree with Richard, it is amazing how quickly our bodies adapt to the workouts. Even with sore legs once you get a few reps into the WOD you seem to forget about the stiffness and discomfort because you are focused on completing the task at home. So as long as I am only uncomfortable and not in pain I will try and keep my whining to a minimum
Isn’t the reason we do crossfit because it is non-traditional? I couldn’t go back to the Globo gym or LSD training mentality. So I expect that if I follow the 3 on 1 off prescription I will ultimately hit similar muscle groups. Yah, and it sucks. And I bitch, “My hands are torn to crap”…”I can’t extend my elbows!” and on and on. But to really get the most out of the program I think you need to go to that place of pain and frustration over and over again. This is the beauty behind crossfit and CFE, and why I know it is going to be successful for me. Crossfit/CFE is far more painful than running an ultra or marathon.
I have a question though. There seems to be many people working through injuries lately. What’s the theory on this…over-training, poor form/mechanics, to much to soon? What’s up?
Not to exclude myself by the way…I am one of those training through injuries.
Hey Ed – can only address my own injury issues – but definitely a combination of over-training & too much too soon. I can’t blame CrossFit – it has been completely my own doing at home. In my quest to improve pullups, I started practicing every day at home, quickly going to doing 60 strict (or lame kipping) pullups a day. Although I was sore, I was okay (I thought) until one morning I woke up & couldn’t turn my head or lift my arms over my head. That was a couple of months ago & I am now trying to work my way back – it really set me back & has been incredibly frustrating. I don’t think I’ve completely learned my lesson, however, because as soon as I am feeling okay again, I start pushing it and start feeling that neck twinge. I think many of us are guilty of maybe pushing too hard sometimes – I think it’s part of the CrossFit mentality and it’s maybe what appeals to us!?
I have to input my most recent experience with this idea of working the same muscles. It came about two weeks ago when I thought I was overworking my ‘pushing’ muscles.
Day 3 of the three day cycle was a beautiful workout that consisted of 150 Pullups and 150 Ring dips in a 50-40-30-20-10 fashion. I knew it was gonna be fun because I hadn’t done ring dips in a long time. It ended up taking me six minutes longer than I was hoping for (which actually wasn’t too bad of a time). I was grateful the next day was a rest day Because I was pretty sore.
After the rest day, day 1 of the next set of 3, had a little combo of 135lb thrusters and muscle ups. I saw the post and thought it was a joke. I reluctantly did the WOD and the muscles ups were frustratingly slow. Slow from the 150 ring dips two days before. When I was done the workout I thought I tore my right tricep however later that evening it wasn’t feeling too bad.
Sure enough the next day they prescribe Tabata Something Else. “Tabata pushups! Are you beeping kidding me!?!?!?!” Was my immediate response. Again I did the WOD and again it was a slow day in the push realm but surprisingly not too bad. Also, by the next day I had zero soreness! None!
I obviously preach this way of training but I also find it quite hard to practice. This enlightening experience reminded me that it’s actually better to re-use the sore muscles then to just let them rest. Bring it on CrossFit!
Pat (the guy in the video) was at our Cert this last week. Very smart guy. He said some similar things there that also convinced me to get out of the Globo world mindset of training certain body parts. But the swimmer bit… genius and hilarious! Thanks Pat!
Sandra, I am the worst for training through injury. I simply don’t have an off switch–I think it is a neurosis?? You can’t tell a crossfitter not to train.
Yet another lovely combo for the last 3 days of .com. Murph, Front Squat Grinder x10, and then fun with HSPU’s and Burpees. They seriously hate my legs. They must! I went to the police station after and did the Tactical Team PARE. All I felt was the burn in my legs. No fun. Next time I’ll hit it hard!
A note to injuries: a few people are going through some things right now. Honestly I don’t ever think we’ll have a time where people aren’t injured to some degree. Also, most of the injuries don’t happen at CrossFit. Some do obviously but most don’t.
This is a tough one for people. Especially athletes. We don’t like to be slowed down. We don’t like to stop training. We hate being incapable. The hardest part of most injuries for athletes is the mental battle. Yes we want to tough it out and push through, especially as Crossfitters, but is that good? An injury is damage to the physical body and more work can just cause more harm. However, we don’t need to quit completely. We just need to find others paths to take while we rehab the injury.
The other side of this coin is once we start feeling better. Too many of us ‘come back’ too soon and often cause a re-injury. I puts us back and the second time around is even harder. We need to work hard but we need to work smart too. Work through the injury by doing what you can and testing the limits of the injury. Don’t challenge the injury because it will win.