Big and Strong or Small and Fast??

So here's something I've been contemplating for a while. CrossFit is a sport that claims to punish the specialist. Our specialty is not specializing....or as Greg Glassman (founder of CrossFit) would put it, "We do your stuff almost as good as you. You can't do our stuff at all and we do stuff neither of us does way better than you can." But I've come to wonder if that is necessarily true all of the time.
As far as I'm concerned there's two types of CrossFitters....Big and Strong or Little and Fast....Now that's not to say that there aren't people who are both (Hello Chris Spealler) but those people are considered the elite. So for all of us working hard to get to that elite status....which is a better starting point? Is it better to be Big and Strong already and to work on your speed? Or is being small and fast a benefit in more ways as far as CrossFit is concerned? I really can't tell you the answer to that, I've just been thinking about it for a while.
I've never been little and fast. True, I was a sprinter on the track team....in Junior High!...but once I started actually growing into my body, it was pretty obvious that I wasn't going to win many races. So I started out my CrossFit career with a huge strength bias and have been working on my speed ever since. Many days, I don't really let it bother me, but today we did a sic WOD over at CrossFit West Houston just for a little fun. It was....

1 Round of
3 Rope Ascents
1000m Row
15 strict Handstand Push Ups
5 Deadlifts at 185#

Some people might look at this workout and think that's it a strength biased workout.....which it is BUT I definitely think it favored the small and fast who have less body to haul up the rope and push up out of the handstand. The whole time I was struggling up the rope and failing at the HSPU's I wondered....if I didn't weigh 160lbs would this stuff be easier??? Now, I'm never one to really care about my actual weight. I think the way you look in your Lulu's is a much better indicator than the numbers on a scale. But every once in a while I still find myself wondering does being as big (and strong!) as I am help me more than being able to run multiple 400's at a 1:30 pace.......so, big and strong or little and fast? Which one would you rather be?

CrossFit Showdown at CrossFit Beaumont

Yesterday the CrossFit Katy crew and I traveled to Beaumont for the CrossFit Showdown at CF Beaumont. Beaumont isn't that far from Katy so most of us opted to drive in the morning of, but man 5:30 AM drives to Beaumont are NOT fun! :) At least Neal and I had plenty of company on the ride (thanks Lezlie and Adam).
When we got to Beaumont, we checked in and got to find out which heats we were in. Luckily for me, I was put in a heat with Adrian Sanders (one tough chick from CrossFit Houston). It's always good to be put in a heat with a top competitor because it pushes you to be your very best. I was also pretty excited that all the other CF Katy athletes were in different heats so I got a chance to watch everybody perform. The day consisted of three WOD's with no eliminations. Points were awarded to athletes according to how they finished. (First place gets one point, second gets two, etc.) At the end of the day, the athlete with the fewest points wins it all!
WOD #1 looked like this:
5 Rounds of
5 Ground to Overhead (75#)
25 meter Overhead Carry (75#)
It looked simple enough but those overhead carries got pretty crappy pretty fast! Anything overhead is always a problem for me because it emphasizes my lack of mobility in my shoulders. I have very limited range of motion and to overcome that, I compensate by arching my back to stabilize the weight overhead. Yes I know....NOT a good idea! I desperately need to improve my mobility and I am working on it, though relatively half-heartedly lately. But I know that if I want to improve as an athlete it must be done! Anyway, I finished the workout second in my heat (right behind Adrian) and ended up second overall after the first WOD.

WOD #2 was
4 minutes to find your Max Clean then one max set of pull ups (for every pull up, two pounds is added to your clean weight)
Pull ups aren't my best CrossFit skill but I LOVE the clean. For an early birthday present, Neal bought me a pair of sweet Pendlay 2010 Weightlifting shoes and yesterday I got to try them out for the first time! I PR's with 175lb clean....AWESOME! I actually got under 180lbs but couldn't stand up with it. Looks like I'll be working on my front squat in the near future! I only got 15 pull ups so I wasn't too happy about that but my clean weight was still enough to put me in first place for that event.
After the first two WODS I was sitting in first place but only by 4 points! If I wanted to keep that position, I was going to have to book it in WOD #3.

WOD #3 consisted of
10-15-20
Deadlifts at 135#
Burpees
Kettlebell Swings
For some reason, the deadlift has been giving me some serious trouble ever since I maxed at the BCS Games in College Station and my burpees haven't been that great lately either, but the weight was really light for me so I was pretty confident that I could rip through this workout pretty quickly. I think there's this unwritten CrossFit rule that the easier a workout looks, the harder it is because this workout gassed me! My burpees were slow and that set of 20 deadlifts was tough! I definitely need to work on more lightweight, high rep metcons because I barely made it out of this WOD in the top 4!

Amazingly enough, even with my slower performance in WOD #3, I managed to squeak out a #1 finish! After all was said and done, I won the CrossFit Showdown at Beaumont by ONE point...right behind Adrian! It was awesome! Neil Riley and the whole crew at CF Beaumont put on a great competition and all of the athletes did an incredible job. Special congrats go out to my CF Katy crew. Teresa and Lezlie both finished in the top ten! Michelle competed in her first ever CrossFit Event and did a great job! She even got a new PR in her clean! As for the guys, Ed cranked it out in another tough comp and Adam H. made the top ten in his first individual competition. But I have to say I'm most proud of Neal for taking 6th place and getting a PR in his squat clean by 15lbs! This was his best finish in a CrossFit competition and I am so proud of him!

As for me, I had a blast, revealed some weaknesses and some strengths and am newly motivated to kick butt in my future competitions. The next one on the books for me is the All Cities Open at Dallas CrossFit Central on December 11th and it's going to be epic! All the top competitors will be there and I can't wait to see how I stack up against the best!

Barbells for Boobs!

Yesterday, Neal and I traveled over to Bayou City CrossFit to participate in Barbells for Boobs, a fundraising event for Mammograms in Action. The workout was Amazing "Grace" which, for anybody not in the CrossFit community, is 30 clean and jerks at 95 lbs (for standard girls) for time. The event was great and ran so smoothly. In true CrossFit fashion, there were multiple categories so everyone could participate no matter what your level of fitness and I was inspired, as always, by the strength and determination of all the athletes participating especially the beginners. I had gone into the workout knowing that my best Grace time was 3:05 so I had decided to shoot for a sub-three minute Grace. It's amazing what the energy of a good crowd of CrossFitters can do for an athlete because I flew threw the first 15 clean and jerks and ended up finishing with a time of 2:23! Neal was in the 3rd heat so I got to watch him tackle Grace after my round was up. The last time he had done Grace, he got a time of 3:12 so he was also going for a sub-three minute time. The clock started and he did awesome, finishing his 30 clean and jerks in 2:44! All in all it was another awesome Saturday of CrossFitting....next weekend...the CrossFit Beaumont Showdown!

Oktoberfest Obliteration II

What a weekend! A few months ago, I decided that I didn't think I was going to be ready physically and mentally to take on the individual competition at Oktoberfest Obliteration II. Rumor had it that Matt Munson could put together some pretty mean workouts and I didn't know if I was going to be able to handle them. I had been taking the summer easy and hadn't really started reving up my workouts till early September so instead of stressing out wondering if I'd be ready for the individual competition, I decided to sign up for the team comp instead. Now team competitions are no walk in the park, mind you! I don't want people to get the wrong idea here. Team competitions are tough stuff BUT the difference is you have your teammates to help shoulder the load. You can lean on and support each other which makes the team competitions less mentally challenging for me. So this past weekend myself, Brittany, Neal, David F., and Adam H. went toe to toe with some of the best teams in Texas at CrossFit Champions' Oktoberfest Obliteration II and it was a blast. The rules of the comp stated that you could have three guys and one girls perform each workout so I sat out the first workout and watched my teammates haul a bunch of heavy junk (including a 200lb pipe!) all over the CrossFit Champions property! (For full details on the workouts go to the CF Champions Website) The second workout wasn't until 3pm so I had a whole day to cheer on the other CrossFit Katy athletes, hang out with old CrossFit friends, make new ones and generally just have an awesome Saturday! My team was in the first heat for WOD #2 which matched us up against some heavy hitters like the crew from CrossFit West Houston but we did our best and ended up 3rd in our heat. My team finished 9th overall which I wasn't super thrilled about (I hate not winning!) but I had a complete blast and would definitely participate in another team competition. I love CrossFit weekends! There really is nothing better than hanging out with an awesome group of people while getting in some killer workouts. I'm gearing up now for the CrossFit Beaumont Showdown on October 23rd and I can't wait! Hopefully by then my abs will have recovered from those evil GHD situps! ;-)

Adventures in Weights!

So I've had a bit of a revelation this week. I suppose it's a completely obvious one, but I'm kind of hard-headed sometimes so I guess it took me a while. At CrossFit Katy, the way we structure our WOD's is fairly consistent. On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays we do a lift or work on a skill and then afterwards we do a MetCon that usually incorporates that skill or lift. I happen to LOVE M, W, F workouts. I am a strong chick and when we do strength workouts, I tend to finish at the top of the Whiteboard for the day....and hey, it makes me feel good, I like winning. BUT I have come to realize that I no longer fear my strength days. I go into the gym on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday looking forward to crushing a WOD and walking away feeling good......and that, my friends, is a problem. Now, I know my biggest weaknesses lie in the body-weight movements and the cardio-focused MetCons and, yes, I still need to put extra effort and time into those, but I have been neglecting my strength. Actually, I have been taking my strength for granted and that is no way to set PR's. Well, this past Wednesday the CrossFit Katy WOD looked like this:

Strength/Skill:

Overhead Squats

3-3-3

Now Overhead Squats are probably one of my weakest lifts, but I am still probably stronger than the average CrossFit girl. My sets looked like this....95lbs, 115lb, 135(F).....I failed at 135 which means I didn't get a single lift. I would have gone back down to 125lbs but class time was running short.

The Conditioning portion of the workout looked like this:

5 Rounds

5 Overhead Squats

10 Push Ups

20 Double Unders

The prescribed weight for girls was 65lbs and for guys it was 95lbs. I looked at the weight and though in my head "Sweet! It's only 65...I'm going to crush this one even though my push ups are not my strongest skill!" But then I got to thinking...what good is it doing me coming into the gym 3 days a week and blowing through these WODS? I'm not getting any stronger. Sure I may be getting faster, but think how much faster I would be if I was throwing around heavier weight.....(Ok I told you it was an obvious revelation so stop laughing!) I guess I just got caught up in the desire to "Win" at the stuff that I'm already good at instead of trying to get better. So that day, I bumped up my weight to the Men's RX weight of 95lbs. I finished in 8:32 which wasn't the fastest time in the gym...but I'm ok with that. There was a moment in the middle of round 4 where I was staring at the bar and thinking...."Holy crap, I really don't want to pick that thing up!" I had forgotten what that feeling was like and that's the way it's supposed to be! So here's to getting stronger, faster, better! I see big things in the future! :-)

Sleep

So lately I've been thinking a lot about sleep...or the lack-thereof! According to the National Sleep Foundation, there is no "magic number" when it comes to sleep. In a national survey of over 1 million adults that was conducted by the American Cancer Society, people that slept an average of 7 hours a night had less morbidity and mortality than people that got less.....and more! The consensus right now seems to be that sleep is highly individual.....great, that really helps me a lot! So how am I supposed to figure out how much sleep I need? Looks like this is going to be another great experiment of one!

As you know, the CrossFit Katy Train Right, Eat Right, Live Right Challenge is going to be starting on October 2nd and one of my goals as far as this challenge is concerned, is going to be to try and get enough sleep. I guess what set this whole line of thinking off was two things....one, I got hold of a copy of Robb Wolf's The Paleo Solution and to quote Robb...."If you do not sleep you will: 1) Completely cock-block your fat loss. 2) Get fat, sick and diabetic. 3) Get old and wrinkled before your time." I don't know about you but I don't want to "completely cock-block my fat loss!!" The other thing is that I am on my final semester of nursing school and have been given the lucky assignment of working the night shift at Woman's Hospital. Now I actually happen to like the night shift for a few reasons....mostly having to do with more time to learn/practice without the hassle of a million impatient docs and residents trying to finish their day as quickly as possible. The night shift is a great time to learn, but it presents a unique challenge as far as getting the right amount of sleep is concerned. To combat this problem, I have tried to darken my room (but I think I will be investing in some good black-out curtains soon) and I am going to try and get as much sleep as possible during the day before and after my shift. Hopefully this strategy along with keeping my diet dialed in tight and getting my CrossFit on 4-5 days a week will help me get leaner, stronger, and faster! But there's only one way to find out........guess that means we'll talk later!

Nutrition Follow-Up

Well, It's only been a week but I am officially a convert when it comes to post-workout nutrition. Last week I was able to workout 4 days in a row and work on skill work/lifting on my 5th and 6th days. I know that an ideal CrossFit workout schedule is a 3 on 1 off schedule but I couldn't help getting in those extra days because I was just feeling great. So far, I have been using one scoop of Isopure Zero Carb Protein powder mixed with water after any kind of heavy/short workout or after a lifting skill set. On the longer Met-Con days, I have been using one scoop of Isopure Zero Carb protein powder with coconut water for the electrolytes. On Saturday (my 6th day) I did two hours of snatch practice and did not take anything afterwards and I was feeling it later that night and into Sunday. Now, I'm not 100% sure if the reason I was so sore was because I didn't do any kind of post-workout nutrition or if it was just because I am changing up my snatch technique and the new moves pointed out all my weaknesses, but regardless, that was the only time I felt extremely sore this whole week so I will continue with my post-workout protein shakes for now.