Calling all Koda Competitors

I am extremely happy with this weekend’s competition. We took a 4 person team down to Ft Worth to compete in the “Texas Barbell Massacre” hosted by GSX CrossFit. There were 5 group workouts and 3 individual “floater” challenges spread out over the weekend. I want to add that the team we took down had zero experience competing in the team division and was up against several high caliber teams that included 2012 regional’s and game’s competitors. Of the 8 events scored this weekend Team Koda scored in the top 50% in all but 1 event while scoring 1st in one event and 2nd in two events. We got 4th in the max Clean and Jerk workout and ended the weekend in 4th place, narrowly missing the podium.

Through all the yelling, slamming of loaded barbells, and general chaos that surrounded this weekend’s events there was something that kept sticking out to me. In past events I was selfishly only concerned with the other competitors in my division and I rarely took note of performances in any other divisions. I think that this has changed since I have become a gym owner. Countless times this weekend I caught myself watching the top performers in a particular heat and comparing them to clients we have at Koda. The crazy thing is that I believe we have several people that would have placed very highly this weekend in the Masters, Team, and Individual divisions.

This revelation, combined with the newly acquired floor space at Koda, has inspired me to start to develop competitors programming. Since Koda’s middle room will be available for open gym and elements classes I plan to post daily workouts on a separate white board for those who would like to push their skills to the next level. My goal will be to create workouts that can be completed within a 30 min window allowing the “Koda Competitors” to do the extra work before or after the regular class. They will cover the skill and strength movements that are typically seen at CrossFit competitions and local fitness challenges. The programming will taper down to more muscular endurance and lactate buffering style WODs as we get closer to some of the big competitions (ACO, the Fittest Games, and the Open).

I hope that we have a good size group participating in the program throughout the day but I completely understand if you do not want to commit the extra 30 min on top of the hour long class that you are already attending. That being said, I expect the ones who are participating in this program to be taking care of themselves and their issues. That means having your diet and mobility in check. Extra work can easily lead to injury if your issues are not addressed regularly.

Before we start on this adventure I would like to compile a list of movements that seem to give us the most trouble. If you want to participate, please post a couple of your “goat” movements in the comments sections. These can be strength, skill, or stamina deficiencies that you feel need work. This will allow me to get an idea of how many I need to plan for and some areas to focus in on.

I am excited,
-Brice

Halted at 90kgs

This last week of training started off with one of my most dreaded workouts…. Murph. Long running and a ridiculous amount of body weight movements are not exactly my strong suites. I was planning on going through the workout at a mediocre pace until I started to get caught by a 40 year old dentist that looks like a skinny Kimbo Slice. Tuesday was our 5th 20 rep squat attempt at Koda. I made it through a painful 19 reps with 335 only to fail on rep 20. I would like to blame Murph but I am going to attribute 50% of the loss to mental weakness. Even though I missed 335 I am going to keep going up and shoot for 345 on Wednesday. This will be the final week of the 20 squat challenge at Koda. I have not released what the next cycle’s heavy mover will be but I can tell you that Jared and I found our 1RM thruster this week and are testing out EMOM percentages.

So after 3 months of training with Steve Miller he has finally allowed me to start snatching from the floor. I was pretty pumped. Steve’s professional coaching style allows no deviations in efficiency and since my form was extremely inefficient it took FORVER for me to move through his snatch progressions. We started at the very top of the second pull and have slowly been working backwards toward a full snatch. I thought that, now that I was going from the floor, I would be able to go all out on my efforts and see what my true max was. Well I reluctantly report that Steve is not letting me get anywhere near my true max. This week he found issues with my form at 90 kilos. Now I DRILLED this weight at least 10 times with not a single miss but I was not allowed to increase the weight. I was either pulling my head into the clouds at the end of the second pull or I was leading the first pull with my hips instead of my chest. He was not going to let me go up until I was able to get both of those things correct on a single lift. At the time I was a little frustrated. Obviously I could handle more weight than this but I know that drilling technique now will pay dividends in the future. If I can’t get 90kgs perfect I will never get 110 at all. These are the times that help me remember that everyone needs a trainer.

Here is a link to sign up for Steve’s Oly Lifting Seminar at Koda on 6 Oct. Since we are in the creation process of his Olympic Lifting for CrossFit Seminars it is only $150 per person ($700 for CF Oly). I highly recommend signing up!

http://www.kodacrossfit.com/class-rates

-Brice

MANAGING YOUR PAIN-

I would like to take some time to go over a few concepts concerning injury prevention. Actually, a better term for this would actually be injury "mitigation". It is important for you to understand that you are currently in a fitness program that is built to push you toward the limits of your physical capabilities. As with any method that elicits this type of response there is going to be bumps, bruises, scrapes, sprains, pulls and tears along the way. Here are a few things that I use to minimize my potential for injury and to manage injuries when they occur. As you read over these think about your own issues and start devising a maintenance plan to keep you training.

EVERYDAY-
It is extremely important for both injury prevention and power generation/performance that you identifying your own tight joints. These are the areas that you find are limiting factors on some of the basic movements like dead lift, shoulder press, and squats (back, front, and OH). Tight joints will be ones that you find have a limited range of motion and hinder your ability to demonstrate your true strength. One of the best examples of this would we watching a guy try to overhead squat with poor shoulder mobility. As he lowers into the hole his chest inclines forward and the weight he is holding overhead shifts forward as well. Since he does not have the shoulder ROM to pull the weight back over his mid-foot he is pulled forward by the weight and is not able to OHS much more than half of his body weight. The guys that I typically see in this scenario are easily strong enough to overhead squat the weight but are limited by range of motion issues (mainly in the shoulder but sometimes the hips and ankles as well).
I am not going to go into all of the tests and trick that we use to identify issues at Koda. If you do not know yours get with your local trainer to help you identify the ones you need to work on. I should take the time to say that there are a few people who have been gifted with genetic flexibility or where dancers for the past dozen years.
After you have identified your tight joints you need to develop a daily strategy to slowly correct the issue and, in doing so, avoid future impingement. I recommend setting up a quick warm-up and cool-down that includes some fascia manipulation followed by some ROM work under tension/load. "Fascia manipulation" is anything that digs into a relaxed muscle and breaks apart the sticky fascia that is holding individual muscle fiber together. When your muscles are tight the individual fibers are glued together by the fascia and resemble clumps of clay. Ideally, our muscle fibers should be supple and move past each other like silk on silk. Fascia manipulation greatly resembles a deep tissue massage and uses tools like a foam roller and lacrosse ball. "ROM work under tension/load" refers to placing the joint into its end range of motion and allowing some external force to push past it. This could be as simple as getting into a deep squat with the barbell in the racked position and allowing the weight of the BB to force a deeper squat than would be achieved by and ordinary air squat. By doing the fascia manipulation first you will allow your joints to be in a better position for the ROM work. I know that this sounds a little confusing so here is an example of what I am talking about.
Braden is a jacked, 25 year old beefcake that can squat the house and curl a ¾ ton Ford. He has huge traps and reminds all the girls in the gym of a real life Ken doll. On the surface Braden looks like a killer CrossFit competitor. That is, until you get him to squat while holding weight overhead. At that point he looks like he had never lifted before and loses all his previously mentioned sex appeal. In order to get Braden the shoulder ROM to have a respectable OHS we need to follow the 2 steps discussed earlier.
First, I will get Braden to work the muscles around his scapula by lying on the ground and rolling out with a lacrosse ball. This is the "fascia manipulation" step of the process and will create more available length in the muscles that were previously holding his scapula down (without scapula rotation the shoulder joint is not able to direct upwards and a stable overhead position is not achieved). After he worked one scapula for 2-3 minutes I would have him stand and place his arms overhead so that we could see if his treated side was able to get into a better position than his untreated side. Braden could also use the lacrosse ball to work his pecks and the roller to work his lats and t-spine as each of these will create space within the shoulder joint.
Now that Braden has finished his fascia manipulation step I would have him move on to ROM work under tension. My go-to move would be the "Dolf Stretch" (named after the famed, Kristen Dolf) using a stretch band to apply tension. We want to focus on creating good external rotation of the shoulder while adding pressure at the limits of his current ROM. Over time he will be able to see his ROM slowly increase as his overhead position gets better and better. There are other alternatives to the Dolf Stretch and I would have Braden rotate between a few of those for his warm-up and cool down.
By adding these two techniques into his warm up and cool down routine Braden begin to see marked progress in his shoulder ROM and his ability to control weight in the overhead squat. I follow this same process for my shoulders, hips, and ankles almost every day and vary the focus depending on the movements that will be in that specific workout. Devise your own warm-up and cool-down routine that targets your tight joints and you might see your chance of injury decrease while your performance increases.
-Brice

P.S. Get signed up for Steve dMiller's Olympic Lifting Seminar

Holly

Last week marked the half way point in the Koda 20-rep squat challenge. Even though Alex, my typical back-squatting partner, was AWOL I managed to pull through the 20 reps at a current PR of 315. I have to admit that the 20 reps at 315 felt better than 3 weeks ago at 285. Hopefully I will see similar results this evening with 325.
I have been VERY proud of all of the Koda athletes. They have been tackling this 20-rep squats series like Ray Lewis in a junior high football game. Each set for every person has been a struggle worthy of praise but there was one set of 20 last week that I cannot stop thinking about. Even as I am writing this post I am getting pumped up thinking about it.
In order to protect the innocent I will call the client in this story “Holly”. Holly is 27 year old business woman with little athletic background and hates to run. She has been CrossFitting for a couple years now but does not consider herself a competitor by any means. She is very social and uses CrossFit as a way to hang out with her friends while throwing in some physical activity. It is easy to get a smile out of Holly but getting her to push past her comfort zone has been much more challenging.
I was lucky enough to be teaching our 6pm class last week for the 3rd attempt at our 20 rep squat max. Jared has affectionately nick-named this class “ChickFit” because there is a very large majority of girls that attend this class on a regular basis and Holly is a ChickFit regular.
After warming up the class I released them to start prepping the bars and their legs for last week’s attempt. I warned them a few times that this was going to be a battle and that they needed to get themselves mentally prepared. I do not remember what weight Holly was using that day but I it is not important. When she took the bar off of the rack I could tell that she was under a load that she was not accustomed to. Although her form was near perfect, the first 6 of her 20 rep were the slowest of the day. From watching many others attempt this feat; I did not believe that Holly was going to make it past 12 reps. Typically, people are able to make it between 8-10 reps before they need to break up the set and even then not everyone makes it to 20. Holly broke at 4 and was doing single reps afterwards. It felt like it took her 2 minutes to get from 6 to 15 reps and each one was a struggle. By the time she had gotten to 15 the whole gym was cheering her on. Students from the other class were poking their heads through the door to see what all the commotion was about and I was yelling everything I could think of that would give her the encouragement she needed to keep going. She painfully muscled through the last 5 reps with the class on the edge of their metaphorical seats. Each one was a near failure and the last one took a solid 7 seconds for her to stand from the bottom of the squat. She finished the set of 20 and bailed the weight off of her back while the class cheered and congratulated her. It was one of the proudest moments I have had at Koda.
I think that this demonstrates the power of the CrossFit community and gym family. I can say with 99.9% certainty that Holly would not have ever squatted that much weight 20 times if she was not a member of a CrossFit gym. I love seeing the team environment created by social fitness and I feel bad for anyone who has not experienced it.
Along with encouraging our own gym family we need to make sure that we get out and participate in community challenges whether they be associated with CrossFit or not. I think it is our fundamental duty to promote health and fitness within our local community. Not only does it inspire others but it also allows us to break the monotony of our regular training schedules. And there events do not have to be competitions either. There are loads of 5k runs and fundraising events available. SIGN UP!

Plateaus

Last week I wrote about my revelation dealing with my 2nd pull and how I hypothesized that I would be able to improve my snatch by focusing on power snatch. I was hoping that taking out the 3rd pull (fully under the bar) would eliminate some of the complexity and allow me to focus on setting up a good position with the 1st pull and violently exploding in the triple extension on the 2nd pull.

I am proud to announce that the result was monstrous. I was doing one
of “Outlaw’s” strength sessions that included a 7 min EMOM of 2
snatches at 85% followed by 1 rep at 95%. I know that when Rudy calls
for “Snatch” he means full snatch but I modified mine to 1 power snatch to work pulls 1 and 2 then 1 full snatch to put all 3 pulls together. With my current 1RM at an estimated 205, I did the EMOM at 175lbs. I felt fast and explosive all the way through the 7th set. Then I loaded the bar up with 195 and went into my 1 rep at 95%. The
movement was effortless and I caught the bar higher than I ever have with that weight. I want to mention here that this is the weight that cost me $1000 and a 2nd place podium finish in the Asian Regional’s. After crushing 195 I knew that I could not stop there. I quickly added 5lbs plates and hit 205 with as ease, then 210, then 215.
Filled with excitement, I loaded up 220. It went plenty high but I left the weight out in front, causing me to miss the rep. I thought back to what Steve Miller told me about lat activation throughout the first 2 pulls and shot up a successful rep with less than 15 seconds of rest from my missed attempt. At this point I knew there was only I thing to do. I had to hit 225.

For those of you who do not know me well, I snatched 225 over two
years ago at the 2010 regional WOD #1. My form on that day was
abysmal at best but the adrenaline took over and I was able to get the
weight. Unfortunately, I have not been close since even though my
strength numbers have gone up and my fitness has greatly improved.
The only way I can describe my progress in the snatch over these 2
years is “overwhelming disappointment”. I had not only stalled, but against all of my best efforts, gone backwards.

I hit 225 again, for the second time in my life. With only 7 days of power snatch focused work I was able to find my sticking point. I know some people reading this will think that the solution should have been obvious. But the truth is that solutions are never obvious until you know that they are solutions. I was trying all kinds of things that kept getting more and more complicated. But the real answer was for me to keep it simple.

I am writing this hoping that it will inspire others to “keep it simple” when they hit their own plateaus, whether that be performance specific or dealing with body composition. Take a week and try something simple. If you are struggling with pull-ups do 10 negatives every day for a week. If can’t get your diet in line, try cutting
sugar, or bread, or diary for a solid 7 days. If your performance is stalling, try running a couple miles every morning for a week or doing the RX’d programming at your gym. I will not guarantee that you will be successful on your first attempt, but you will be 1 step closer to finding your solution. The important thing is that you go hard! And don’t forget to measure results at the beginning and the end.
-Brice

20 rep squats, Weddings, and Power Snatches

I have to be honest; these last 2 weeks of training have not been a fruitful as previous weeks. I attribute this mainly to taking Thursday through Sunday off of the last two weekends. One weekend off was for my sister’s wedding and the other was for a lake outing with several other fun-loving Oklahomans. Both of these events were a blast and something I would exchange for training 10 times out of 10. I think a lot of people (me being one of them) get too swallowed up by their programming and will not deviate under any circumstances. I am EXTREMELY hyper-active with an addictive personality to boot. It is especially important that I take a step back from the constant grind at the gym and live life.

Tip of the Day: Make sure you are having fun.

The one shining moment of the last couple weeks was Monday’s 20-rep squat sequence. We started a 6 week cycle at Koda where we will be doing one set of 20 reps each week. We are starting at 70% of our 1 rep max back squat and increasing weight each week (assuming that we get all 20 reps). Last week I was able to get 295 with a lot of encouragement from fellow athletes. I know this is not “Drew Hymer status” but I am glad I was able to start the cycle off with a win. I am looking forward to battling 305 tomorrow.

Another big plus is that I am starting to feel the Oklahoma weather cooling down a little. I am extremely nervous writing this because I do not want to jinx every OKC crossfitter (except for CFComplete… they have A/C) but the last couple weeks of training have been unbearable. We should have taken stats at Koda and sent them in for the “Most Sweat Produced in 4000 sq ft” category of the Guinness World Records.

HSPUs are still progressing at a very steady rate. I feel stronger with every EMOM that I do and am trying to keep myself from attempting Diane for another couple weeks.

Again, my excitement centers around the Olympic lifting movements. Last week I was doing one of the Outlaw strength WODs that included power snatch. I noticed that my power snatch was pretty weak compared to my full snatch which led me to believe that I was not properly executing the 2nd pull. I know this does not seem like a huge revelation but I had been focusing almost exclusively on the 3rd pull. I did power snatches for the next several workouts and was able to add 20lbs to my power snatch “max” in no time. I plan to keep heavy-ish power snatches in my oly warm-up from here on.

-Brice

P.S. We are hosting Steve Miller for an Olympic Lifting Seminar at Koda on OCT 6th. Click the link below for details. There are only 30 spots available. https://kodacrossfit.zenplanner.com/zenplanner/portal/event.cfm?CALENDARTYPE=Event&SKIP=false&eventId=AAFD0C74-6F2B-4B60-BEE8-6CBF73342F16&FRAME=false

Snatch gains and GF TGUs

I had a great week of training Koda.
I was able to get in Olympic lifting sessions on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday and make is down to see Steve Miller at USA Stars on Friday. Most of my Olympic work these days is “from a box” that will allow the bar to rest below my knee. Thanks to the half dozen sessions I have had with Steve, I have fixed some of my form errors and was able to hit 205 this weekend. This is the most I have been able to snatch since I left for Afghanistan in March of 2011.

Here is a link to the vimeo clips of my recent lifting progression.
http://vimeo.com/user11819998

I love going back and looking at the progress that I have made since working with him. Still, I have a long way to go. This is an email that Steve sent me last night after he watched my 205 snatch from blocks.

“Okay...when you scoop to the explosion point, you must get there as quickly as possible but when you get there you do not bang or bump that area...you freeze the bar when you barely touch. The body and bar (one unit) will be motionless for a second. This is very important. You are focusing on getting from above the knee to the explosion point as quickly/efficiently as possible.

The trunk whip is carrying the bar out and up way too much. Control the bar.

Both movements must be refined. If you are getting a PR at this point...that speaks volumes about what it will be ahead.”

THAT GETS ME PUMPED!

I was also able to get in 3 WODs at Koda this week which included a C&J EMOM, a Helen PR, some lactate buffering thrusters, and a crazy 18 min AMRAP bear complex.

We have “Meathead Mania” every Sunday at Koda from 9-11. It is basically open gym time for anyone to come in and work on their goals or do a WOD that they missed. Even though there is no scheduled workout, lifting heavy and doing hill sprints is highly encouraged. Not only do hill sprints create elite athletes by eliciting insanely high hormonal responses, they also make you look awesomely ripped. You would think that hill sprints would be included in more training programs, especially programs that are based on measuring performance. The reason you do not see them more often is because HILL SPRINTS SUCK!!! They are painful and make you hate life.

Fortunately, misery it less perceived when shared.
-Brice