A few months ago, Dallas and I had the opportunity to do some nutrition work with Dutch Lowy – competitive athlete, CrossFit trainer and host of his own Performance Development Seminar series.  We’ve long admired Dutch’s work within the community, and were stoked to be able to offer him some support on the nutritional front.  So when we booked a series of Whole9 workshops at CrossFit Denton County (right in his backyard), we happily invited Dutch to attend as our special guest.  And then we got to thinking… maybe we could bring Dutch to the front of the room, and ask him to share some of his experience and advice with our Trainer’s group?

One discussion led to another, which led to today’s awesome announcement.  We’ve got something special in store for those trainers, coaches and gym owners (both present and future) who attend our  CrossFit Denton County Trainer’s Workshop event… not one, but two presentations designed to make you a better trainer, coach and mentor.

Whole9 is teaming up with Dutch Lowy for a special one-day workshop event. Spend the first half of the day with Whole9, learning how to build good nutrition practices with your clients, gym community, friends and family members.  Then, special guest presenter Dutch Lowy will speak on goal setting, programming, scaling techniques and sustainability applicable to both a group and one-on-one setting, all designed to make you a better trainer, programmer and leader in your gym.

A full outline of Trainer’s Workshop materials (both from Whole9 and Dutch Lowy) is available on  our registration page.  Space is limited to only 20 people (and our Foundations workshop remains a pre-requisite), so register early and secure your seat for this special event.

Got a question for Whole9 or Dutch?  Drop ‘em here and we’ll tell you what to expect from your Denton County Trainer’s event.

M:  Hey Dallas – do you know what this thing does?

D:  (Eyes light up.)  Yep.  And you’ll be sorry you asked.

M:  Crap.  Want the good news?

D:  What’s the good news?

M:  They’ve got MORE THAN ONE.

D:  Crap.

Ladies and gentlemen, meet the Power Wheel.  It’s similar in nature to an ab wheel, designed to work core strength and stability.  The difference is that you you strap the contraption on your feet instead of holding on to it with your hands.  Which, in a scientific study recently conducted in Bellingham, WA, increases your suffering by 72.4%.

After my deadlift 5×5, I grabbed what will henceforth be known as the Wheel of Doom and awkwardly strapped it on.  I assumed a push-up position and, bringing my knees in towards my chest, worked reverse roll-outs in sets of 10.  Which quickly turned into sets of five, as I realized the the tension needed to keep yourself from tipping to one side (and keep the wheel rolling in a straight line) was significantly more demanding than traditional hand-wheel roll-outs.  Dallas worked some pike position roll-outs while I played with my scaled version for a few more sets.  Then it was time for our cash-out.

Jogo gym is long and narrow, leaving plenty of floor space for walking lunges, farmer’s walks, and… bear crawls.  And on that morning, our crawls were sponsored by the Doom-Wheel.  Push-up position, slightly hollow, tight core and tons of cross-body tension… and crawl.  I made the length of the gym (maybe 30M) once, and had to break up the next two rounds.  It was just as awkward as a kettlebell bear crawl, but the cross-body tension required to keep your body in line and the wheel going straight was by far my limiting factor.

I was about to head back up the gym for a self-imposed Suffer Round when Dallas stopped me.

D:  I don’t mean to sound condescending, but you should stop.

M:  Oh.  Really?

D:  Yeah.  Really.

M:  Um, am I gonna feel okay tomorrow?

D:  I think you just gave yourself a new ab.  And you’re not going to want to laugh.  At all.

M.  Oh.  Okay.

The next day wasn’t quite as bad as predicted, although my abs did hurt in a way that only heavy front squats and one leg renegade rows can duplicate.  I can imagine doing these bear crawls as a regular part of your met-con, cash-out or track workout, but a word of caution to start slow and carefully.  I suspect based on my experience that a 400M Power Wheel crawl has the potential to cripple you for days,  and a saggy, twisty back would seriously compromise your spine as you get more and more tired.  The key is to maintain core stability, a solid hollow position and cross-body tension at all costs, and work sets in short bursts with perfect form.  (Google “Power Wheel Roll-Outs” for training tips, exercise ideas and scaling options.)

Thanks to Emilie and Jogo for the hospitality, and the opportunity to play with something new.  We’ve got a Power Wheel on order as we speak – my seventh ab can’t wait to give it another go.

We receive a lot of questions about “suitcase deadlifts”, including where we are traveling and why we needed to pack so much stuff. Melissa shot some quick and dirty video of a DL session, including one set of suitcase DLs.

Take away the barbell, and these should look exactly like your normal deadlift. Same set-up position, same lumbar curve, same shoulder/scapular retraction. Because these are unilateral, however, they add a new dimension to the pull. You can’t allow your back to twist, and it’s even more challenging not to let that shoulder drop into the weight. These work your core in a serious fashion – you have to maintain a ton of tension so the weight doesn’t adjust your position throughout the movement.

Finally, while you can use a kettlebell or dumbbell for these, we prefer to use a standard barbell.  The length of the barbell provides yet another challenge, in that you have to manage the weight from the middle, and keep the weights from tipping in either direction. This works your grip in a way that a kettlebell never could. In fact, grip is often a liming factor in this exercise, especially when performing them after a full set of normal deadlifts.

Start adding these in as an assistance drill, or as a buy-in or cash-out durning your next deadlift day. And feel free to check off “constantly varied” that day.

No fun music or titles on this one – just a quick demo, with 75#. We cut the clip to show just one side, but obviously you want to do these both left and right. Also, it looks like Melissa is doing this little cheerleader shrug at the top, but she’s not. What she is doing is cranking down on her tricep and lat, to try to keep the bar from tipping forward or back.

.

We got more than we bargained for.

We spent the first 30 minutes working gymnastics skill movements – handstand holds, ring dips, and pull-ups.  When it came time for the met-con, gym owner Greg Adams started dragging stuff out into their huge parking lot and Dallas kept avoiding my eye contact.  At that point, I knew I was in trouble.

Whole9 readers, meet The Prowler.

Those handles are as convenient for resting as they are for pushing.

If you haven’t had the pleasure, a prowler is a metal sled designed primarily for suffering.  And by suffering, I mean, general conditioning, strength and endurance.  Normally weighing in between 75-100#, you can either leave it stripped or throw additional weights (plates) on top and, well, push.  Yep, you just push it, usually across parking lot asphalt, dirt, or some other nasty surface with lots of friction.  You can push it vertically, using the tall vertical posts, or push it horizontally (which we did), using one of two horizontal bars.  The horizontal push requires you to get your hips lower to drive the sled forward, and is considered a bit more demanding.

I’ve pushed a Prowler once, vertical style, a very short distance.  It messed me up for a solid ten minutes.  So I was scared out of my mind thinking about facing this thing down under the hot Utah sun.  Dallas made the Prowler the majority of our metabolic conditioning for the day, and chose two other movements designed to give me time to breathe between sled pushes.  The workout he put together for me looked like this:

3 rounds:

• Length of parking lot and back* Prowler push (Prowler + 50#)

• 7 ring rows**

• 10 calories on the Airdyne bike

*Turns out it’s 420 feet round trip – or 128 meters.  Holy Mary, that’s almost a quarter mile of Prowler pushing.

**Dallas did 25 meter 95# snatch grip overhead carries instead of ring rows, and threw 140# on the Prowler.

Hot parking lot tar = extra friction

By the end of the workout (16 minutes later), I had pretty much given myself asthma. And more than any other workout I’ve ever done, my central nervous system was messed up six ways to Sunday.  I could do nothing but sit for a solid 20 minutes while Dallas got his gear ready, and couldn’t shake what will henceforth be known as the “Prowler Wheeze” for at least another hour.  Metabolically demanding?  Check.  Muscular-ly demanding?  Check.  Mentally demanding?  Check.  Different than almost everything else I’ve been doing in the last six months?  Check.

The conclusion?  More Prowler, please.

Thanks to Greg Adams and Ferocity CrossFit for the hospitality, and the butt-kicking.  And to The Prowler, I’ll be seeing you again soon.  I just hope that new, sticky tar in the parking lot is dry by then.

Texas Truck Stop - Whole9 style

On our way out of Texas, we stopped at a road-side picnic area just west of Fort Stockton, ready to get our sweat on.  With only a few truckers to keep us company, we set up our rings, mapped a sprint course and set our KBs up for action.  We got a few honks from the truckers and more than a few quizzical stares from passers-by, but we managed to pull off a fantastic met-con in the most beautiful location the side of the road in West Texas has to offer.

“Texas Truck Stop”

Pick your poison – perform either KB DARC (alternating) swings with a 24K/16K, or ring dips. The burpees and sprinting are non-negotiable.  Sorry.

• Sprint to the end of the line of trucks (about 150M)
• 21 burpees
• Sprint back to the KB
• 21 KB DARC swings, 16K (Melissa) – 21 ring dips (Dallas)
• Sprint
• 15 burpees
• Sprint
• 15 KB DARC swings/ring dips
• Sprint
• 9 burpees
• Sprint
• 9 KB DARC swings/ring dips

Rings and kettlebells - the perfect road trip accessories

CrossFit Affliction lunchtime workshop

Melissa, training like a pirate

After taking the day off from training to hit our workshop on Wednesday, we were more than ready to get back on track.  And when you’re on the road, you take every opportunity you can get to eat, sleep and train as well as possible, which often means making the best of a less than ideal situation.

Since there aren’t any CrossFit gyms in the Keys (seriously!) and all we have with us in terms of weights are a couple of kettlebells, we headed up to the local “box” – Pirate Wellness Center.   We called ahead, so we knew they at least had a few barbells and a squat rack… on the third floor.  Yep, the first floor was the aerobic/yoga studio, second was the floor with all the exercise machines… third floor was the free weight area, with all the barbells and dumbbells.  Um, does that seem weird to anyone else? Anyway, Dallas planned to OHS, and I was due for a deadlift 5×5 and some extra core stability drills.

When we arrived, however, we realized that Dallas would literally put the plates through the ceiling if he tried to do anything overhead, so he moved on to Plan B -  high bar back squats and bench presses – while I stuck with my 5×5 deadlifts.  We had the place to ourselves for most of the morning (hence the impromptu photo shoot with 5# dumbbells on the balcony – note my pirate socks!) until a couple of gentlemen joined us.  And by “joined us”, I meant stood around and watched while discussing the merits of Red Bull versus Sugar-Free Red Bull.    True story.

I was too out of breath to participate in the Red Bull discussion.

A nice squat cage was a welcome surprise.

We skipped a met-con in favor of some skill work (I did alternating and single-leg renegade rows with 30# dumbbells, while Dallas played around with some Janda sit-ups) and then jumped in the ocean for our “cool down”.  We finished off the day by wandering around Key West, checking out the sights, doing a little shopping (new board shorts – score!) and eating fresh, local seafood.

Our next stop is Fort Walton Beach, where we’re doing an 8 AM combined workshop with CF Ft. Walton Beach and Lightning CrossFit on Tuesday, May 18th.  We’ve got a few spots still open (I think!), so register on our sidebar and come hang out beach-side with us!

Captain Tom gets down and dirty with the push-ups

“Cudjoe Key”

• 20 ring rows
• Sprint across to the other side of the canal
• 20 push-ups
• Sprint back
• 15 ring rows
• Sprint
• 15 push-ups
• Sprint
• 10 ring rows
• Sprint
• 10 push-ups
• Sprint
• 5 ring rows
• Sprint
• 5 push-ups

Special bonus sprint:  If rings are occupied when you arrive, complete one extra sprint to push-up station and back.

Oceanside ring rows don't make them suck any less

This morning, we’re off to do a workshop with Steven Bowser and CrossFit Affliction, in Davies (Fort Lauderdale) FL.  A whole bunch of people are playing hooky to attend our event from noon to 3 PM.  (Don’t worry, we won’t tell.)  More on our trip tomorrow, but in the meantime, post your favorite on-the-road met-con to comments. If we like what you’re throwing down, we’ll post our results on the blog!

Thanks, Guerrilla Fitness

Dallas has been working his own Olympic lifting technique programming, so he’s making up his drills as he goes.  As for me… after six weeks of crazytown (wrapping up my job, traveling for workshops, packing, moving and working on the Whole9), I find myself a little behind in my big lifts and skill work,  and back to cherry-picking my own programming based on what I feel like doing that day.  (Translation:  nothing but power cleans and deadlifts.)  So I’m back to a serious strength focus, and Dallas is back to programming for me full-time, no excuses, no substitutions.  I’ll be posting my workouts here for the next few months, so feel free to steal any of D’s brutally evil post-strength training met-cons.

Guerrilla Fitness, Monday 03 May 2010

Buy in:

• Pull ups x 15
• Again Faster squat drills (pry squat, goblet squat)
• Low bar back squat technique work

Training:

• LBBS 5×5

I haven’t LBBS in at least a year, but we’re going to use this version for a while to get my strength up faster.  Today we went light (working up to 105#) so I could re-learn the movement after a year of high bar squatting. I wish I had a dollar for every time D said, “Get your butt back.”

Cash Out:

• AMRAP in 7:00
• 10 wall ball (14#)
• 15 sit-ups (unanchored)

The first round was tragic – my coordination was terrible, I wasn’t standing close enough to the wall and I couldn’t catch my rhythm.  They went better after that, but I spent a full 1:40 in the first round being an athletic disaster.  Total 5 rounds + 10 wall-ball + 2 sit-ups.

Big thank you to Gregg Arsenuk and Guerrilla Fitness for the hospitality!  Our next stop was Live Long Fitness in Ocean City, MD (last night), where we met web designer extraordinaire Adam Kayce to do some training, and conducted a workshop on Tuesday afternoon.   (Details on that in the next post.)  You can keep an eye on our route and timeline on Whole9 Tour Map, linked on the sidebar.  Post restaurant recommendations, roadside met-con ideas or invitations to visit your box (please?) to comments.

Dallas has been working his OHS *hard*. (This one's for you, Donna!)

Melissa's first set of low bar back squats in, like, a year.

Dallas worked with Coach B on his split jerk, focusing on getting his front leg forward (and splitting more evenly), while I took advantage of the situation by working on my snatch. I’ve only snatched with a coach a handful of times – first with EC Synkowski at CrossFit Boston last April, and then a few times with Dallas. But after the infamous Snatch Incident of 2009, I sort of shied away from the movement. (Explosively hitting yourself in the face with a barbell makes you a little bit scared to explosively pull said barbell off the floor again.) Dallas reminded me, however, that I simply could not pass up the opportunity to work on the movement with Coach B, so I grabbed some PVC and started with the Burgener Warm-Up.

It took Coach B. about four seconds to see ALL of the things Dallas has been trying to coach me towards over the past few months – fully opening my hips during the pull, keeping the bar close and getting more aggressively underneath it. Literally, he watched ONE hang snatch with PVC and immediately knew what my (admittedly common) faults were.

We started by working on the jump – both from up on the toes, and then finally from the floor. He had me do nothing but tall snatches – pulling from zero hang, and dropping under the bar as fast as possible. That layback position he was coaching me to hit was totally foreign – I fell backward more than once – a testament to the fact that my hips have probably never fully opened on a snatch, ever. But with some tactile cues (with Coach standing behind me, and my shoulders hitting his hand during each jump), eventually, I started to get the hang of it. When my pulls were starting to look better, he then had me start to drill “jump, jump, tall snatch”.

At that point, however, Coach B. realized what Dallas has been up against for the last four years. During the first tall snatch, Coach said, “Go”, and I did… after a 5.2 second pause. Which made him shake his head. I did NOT like Coach B. shaking his head at me. It’s not that I was trying to be difficult, and Coach recognized that. “You think too much,” is all he said… and he was right. In every movement, during every strength workout, I unconsciously allow myself a full-blown mental review of every aspect of the movement, in detail, between every rep. Which is why a clean and jerk set of three can take me in the neighborhood of 17 minutes to complete.

See, I’m good about taking direction. If I’m told to pick a spot with my eyes and stay there, I’ll do it perfectly on the next rep. The trouble starts when the next cue is added – say, for example, making sure I’m “jumping” during my pull. I’ll invariably take THAT cue, add it to the prior cue, and then throw in a cue of my own (like “pockets” or “fast finish”) to boot. Which means I’m now trying to think about three big things, instead of just the one cue my coach has told me to focus on. The further along in my session, the worse this gets, until I’m literally spending a full minute THINKING about a movement, instead of just allowing my body to FEEL it. Lord knows after an hour of practice, my body probably KNOWS what to do… but my brain likes to jump on board, usually over-riding what my body is trying to accomplish all on its own.

Coach B figured this out right away, and started drilling me with the loudest, most commanding, “GO!” I’ve ever had yelled in my ear. In the beginning, it still wasn’t clicking, but as we continued with the tall snatch drills, I began to “GO” faster and faster – and darn if my snatches didn’t get better and better. When we were done, he explained to us some of his coaching strategy and theory, and why it’s so important to keep your brain (and full-blown mental review) OUT of your normal training session.

Lessons learned from our visit with Coach B: Well, first and foremost, I’m pretty sure I need to jump. But from a bigger picture perspective, I left Mike’s Gym with a clearer vision of (and stronger commitment to) what my coaches have been asking of me. Don’t over-think your cues, or, even worse, ADD to the cues your coach is giving you – especially if the movement is new. Trust your coach to tell you what to focus on, and then simply follow directions to the best of your abilities. And remember, with this (as with everything else), practice makes perfect. In between training sessions, I’m going to continue to watch movies, review my own videos and read articles to mentally improve my focus and understanding of the movements. But in the gym, when being coached by someone smarter and more accomplished than me, my only job is to LISTEN… and to GO!

Often in our own health and fitness pursuits, we forget that practicing “the basics” are what got us this far.  Our air squat drills earned us an overhead squat PR, our dead hang pull-up strength bought us our muscle-up, and eating a clean diet full of foods that make us healthy gave us the energy, body composition and performance gains we’ve been so happy with.  Yet when things start to slip – we’re not looking as lean, our energy is flagging, our performance is starting to suffer – what do we do?  We start adding in complicated programs, regimens and protocols, in the hopes of returning to that magical place where everything was clicking. On the nutrition front, for example, we begin to meticulously weigh and measure our food, embark upon fanatically scheduled intermittent fasting or ketogenic protocols, or add expensive supplements in carefully calculated doses, all in the hopes of getting things back on track. Unfortunately, this doesn’t work. In fact, this is where we pick up most of our consulting clients – hard-working and motivated, but frustrated by their lack of progress, despite their efforts to throw everything but the kitchen sink at their health and fitness plan.

Today, we’d like to remind you that most of the time, you can simply unplug and then plug back in… and everything starts working again.

When things start to slow down, when you’re no longer making progress or things start moving in the wrong direction, we agree it’s time to take a good, hard look at your program.  But it’s not usually necessary to complicate things at that point – instead, try going back to the basics. First and foremost, evaluate food quality – is it still super high all the time, or have you started to let some of those “treats” creep back in on a regular basis?  If that’s the case, it’s time for another Whole30.  Are you still eating enough to sustain your new body composition, activity levels, and long-term goals?  If you’ve put 10# on your squat and cut your 5K time by 5:00, chances are you’ve got more muscle and less fat, and you’d better be eating more to accommodate.  Don’t start fumbling with specific macronutrient proportions, though.  Try bumping your protein a bit, make sure your carbs are still supporting activity without leaving you crash-y, and then keep eating more fat until things start moving in the right direction again.

It’s not just nutrition that might be shooting you in the foot, either.  Has your programming grown stagnant, are you stuck on the same exercises week after week, or have you moved in the direction of too much volume or too much frequency?  Are you sleeping less than you used to, or under more daily stress than usual?  Instead of trying to fix it with complicated periodization schemes or extra supplementation for stress management, first try pulling the plug and getting back to the basics.  Give yourself some extra rest, return to the tried-and-true template of strength sets of 3′s and 5′s + short, intense, heavy met-cons, learn some new skills and incorporate new movements into your programming… and get back to that 8-9 hours of sleep every night.   Strip it down and keep it simple, before you start throwing all sorts of complications on top of an already shaky routine.

Some might say, “But I’m doing everything right, and things still aren’t working!”  We’d like to point out the obvious:  If you were REALLY doing everything right, things WOULD be working.  Sometimes you need a hand honestly evaluating your own plan, and that’s when a trusted friend, a coach or a paid consultant might come into play.  But before you start scouring the internet for the newest training methodology, the hottest nutritional supplement, or the most extreme dietary strategies, take a minute to unplug, simplify your routine, and then plug it back in.

We’re pretty sure that’s exactly when things start humming again.