Crossfit Workout Thread

[XtrPickels]

That the actual training benefit is dubious.



This is the only study I have seen, there may be others out there so it may be worth poking around to see if anyone has published contradictory results.

Having only read the abstract you linked to:

Research is a funny thing. The easiest thing in the world is to read the last line and take that as the gospel. However, you can view the research with a critical eye and apply the information. The rest of the abstract has a few interesting points:

1. Small sample size of "elite" (who's to say that college soccer are elite?) athletes: can we transfer this research to all user groups?

2. What were their normal conditioning exercises that the experiment supplemented?

2.5. What exercises did they do in the experiment?

3. Were the control and experimental groups controlled for workload? IE. did each group lift as much as they were able to... which would mean the flat grounded controls would lift more weight than the UST experimentals OR was their resistance dictated to them.

4. "Inflatable rubber disks" are probably Dynadiscs, which are incredibly different from a BOSU.

5. Their choice of performance tests is based upon power and speed. Although people label a T-Test as agility IMO its more speed dominant than agility.

So what can we learn from this?

I think the number 1 flaw in the design of the study is that the performance measures they chose did nothing to measure the gains by using the UST. That's like saying that doing squats do not improve strength when all you measure is how many bicep curls you can do. Maybe better measures would have been bilateral weight distribution. Maybe they should have done EMG studies to see alterations in muscle activation. Maybe they could have looked at ankle / knee / hip stability... The things training with UST are meant to achieve.

Training for stability is not likely to improve strength based performance in individuals with a certain amount of base strength to begin with. Why? To get strong, you must lift heavy things. When you squat, you can lift heavy things. When you squat on a UST, you must reduce the load. Obviously this will impair strength development. Once that's obvious you can understand why that would decrease strength based performance measures.

The dynadisc pillows it sounds like they are using are in a sense more challenging that a BOSU. I can see them limiting the amount lifted drastically. A BOSU, however, is a fairly stable platform. I'd say that training on it would be more similar to "regular training" due to the ability to lift a decent amount of weight on it.

In regard to butterscotch: The BOSU squats he's doing are in addition to other strength movements. I do not think that they will hamper his performance in the least.

The mantra of crossfit is "If we think of something really hard to do, it must make us better.... right?".

Therefore, crossfitters should embrace doing everything on the BOSU

[XtrPickels]

Now a question: so I am creeping eerily close to 210 (which will be 25 lbs lost). This was my ultimate goal and actually happened a bit quicker than I anticipated. I really dig on the paleo diet, but really would prefer to switch over to more of a "maintenance" diet, but having a hard time quantifying it.

Why do you want to switch to a maintenance diet?

Is paleo becoming too restrictive and you want to expand your food choices?
or are you afraid to lose any more weight?

[Rontele]

Is paleo becoming too restrictive and you want to expand your food choices?
or are you afraid to lose any more weight?

Not at all. In fact, if I didn't lose another lbs, I wouldn't stop doing paleo due to the other benefits (constipation aside, but that is TMI). Since I made this post, I became less concerned about "losing too much weight." Rather, I figure that my body will just find an equilibrium weight. Whether that is five more lbs, ten more lbs, or nothing...

[XtrPickels]

^^^ Sounds like a good way of looking at it.

[butterscotch]

damn. good comments and info. thanks all, especially DTM and XtrPickels

[XtrPickels]

After re-reading my post, I want to be sure to say that I am not directing anything toward DTM or others who said anything about training with the BOSU. I'm not necessarily trying to say its a good training method either. Personally its not one that I use on a regular basis but have done to spice things up a bit.

Its just that its basically been my job for the last few years to be critical of research and sometimes its hard to turn that off.

[RootSkier]

I would never base any of my ideas on fitness on an NIH study.

That said, I feel like I try to be pretty open minded about a variety of workout regimens and there is surely a huge variety of programming that works depending on one's goals....but still, I fail to see the value in squatting, with weight, on a bosu ball.

Strength and balance can be combined in many ways that are proven to work in exercises with far less potential for injury and far more potential for athletic gain. Like the snatch.

[4-TEEF'S Ghost]

I tried something new today. Well... new for me but they've been around for a while. I did "Box Squats". They're squats but at the bottom of the squat you sit down on a box that puts your ass a little less than parallel to the floor. You sit for a second and then you push up off your heels and do a squat.

I never knew why people did box squats but I know now. When performed properly it is arguably a "better" exercise at moderate weights than normal squats and it's a very good way to teach squats. The key is that you have to lower your ass down to the box gently and then take all the weight off your feet. Getting up is harder than when doing the "bounce" at the bottom of a normal squat and it uses a lot more abdominal muscles when doing front squats.


Warm up with joint mobility, neck, shoulders, stretch
Then…
20 x jumping jacks
5 x push ups
10 x squats
5 x jump squat
5 x burpee
3 sets
Then…
10 x front “box” squat @ two x 40lb KBs with 18” box
10 x bench press @ two x 40lb KBs
10 x dead lift @ 135lbs
10 x decline push-up @ 12” box
1 min rest
3 sets
Cool down with 1/2 mile walk

[MassLiberal]

Root- Are you mostly focusing on oly lifting these days?

My box has moved to a heavily focused strength program focusing on oly lifting, and I've been amazed by the results. Cutting met con workouts and focusing on strength has allowed me to cut times on benchmark wod's pretty significantly (ex fran from 6:33 to 4:38). It's good stuff, that oly.

[Rontele]

I might try climbing 35 flights of stairs today with a 30 lbs. sandbag unless I can find another, more appealing WOD.

[hafilax]

First workout since seriously straining my neck which required physio to straighten out. Working on posture correction now so that it doesn't happen again.

Anyway, the workout today was inspired by Death by 100m. It's a good one if you can't get to the gym.

1st minute do 2 pushups, 2nd minute do 4, next 6 until you can't do the number of reps under a minute. In the next minute do 3 situps, then 6, then 9 until you fail then do 4 squats, 8 squats, 12 etc until failure. I subbed leg raises since I am wary of not supporting my neck. Failure comes pretty suddenly as the reps increase and the rest decreases.

Neck feels good and I hope that releasing the tension between my shoulder blades starts working so that my upper back returns to functioning normally.

[Dantheman]

After re-reading my post, I want to be sure to say that I am not directing anything toward DTM or others who said anything about training with the BOSU.

Good to know, I was all ready to write and "easy there buddy" post. I ran across that abstract complete by accident so I am definitely not just out to bash BOSU/UST, and I definitely agree that the metrics they chose make no sense.


11:20 Helen last night, not bad, my 400m course has about 50ft of elevation gain so that slows me down. I am about to go on a serious CFE kick. I am registered for the Wasatch Speedgoat 50k on July 31 and will probably start training by April. Their prescription is 4-6 anaerobic WODS and 3 CFE WODS per week so I think the schedule will look something like this:

M: Anaerobic, CFE
T: Anaerobic
W: Anaerobic, CFE
T: Rest
F: Anaerobic, CFE
S: Vertical day
S: Rest

Should be enough volume and leave 2 rest days for family and overtraining insurance. "Vertical day" will be putting down 3-6k+ on the steepest trails around because the course has 11,000 vert at 8,000-11,000 ft. Thinking Grandeur and Olympus a lot early on, any suggestions from Utards would be appreciated. Also, at least one and hopefully two of the CFE days will be on dirt (tempo/TT for sure, one interval if I have time).

[XtrPickels]

11:20 Helen last night, not bad. I am about to go on a serious CFE kick. I am registered for the Wasatch Speedgoat 50k on July 31 and will probably start training by April. Their prescription is 4-6 anaerobic WODS and 3 CFE WODS per week so I think the schedule will look something like this:

M: Anaerobic, CFE
T: Anaerobic
W: Anaerobic, CFE
T: Rest
F: Anaerobic, CFE
S: Vertical day
S: Rest

Should be enough volume and leave 2 rest days for family and overtraining insurance. "Vertical day" will be putting down 3-6k+ on the steepest trails around because the course has 11,000 vert at 8,000-11,000 ft. Thinking Grandeur and Olympus a lot early on, any suggestions from Utards would be appreciated. Also, at least one and hopefully two of the CFE days will be on dirt (tempo/TT for sure, one interval if I have time).

How much experience do you have with "traditional" training for events like a 50K? (e.g. Long runs + intervals + tempos etc.)

I'm interested in hearing your experiences on appropriate traditional training(in other words not just doing long slow distance but supplementing it with intervals) vs. CFE (Which I gather is mostly intervals and little to no true long runs).

[Dantheman]

I did pretty typical training for my first trail marathon (Mid-Mountain Marathon) in 2007. I finished in 4:09, I think the winner was around 3:15. For the GC double crossing last year I did something kind of in between, but I only had about two months to train and my goal was just to finish. Finished in 15 hours.

GC was the last big distance I did, but last fall I was running 6-10 mile distances at near PR paces just doing lots of WODs with 400s in them, not even CFE. 1-3 mile times were faster than ever. I was actually very surprised how well I was running, I developed a pretty good bursitis on my left pinky toe during GC on May 29 and only ran more than 400m a handful of times all summer. Did two 10-12 milers in August, felt great but the toe wasn't totally healed and I aggravated it. Didn't run again until late October and crushed my first run back, 1-2 minutes off PR pace on a 60-65 minute run.

With a new kid I won't have the time to do traditional ultra training so something like this is pretty much my only option (if I want to keep my marriage together anyway). It will be an experiment, but the results from the fall have me pretty encouraged.

[Rontele]

5 rounds for time

10 kettlebell swings 50#
10 kettlebell slashers (5 each arm) 50#
10 kettlebell squats 50#
10 kettlebell lunges (5 each leg) 50#
Run 400m

[DeeAre]

So I've got an ACL revision a week from today (yep, St Patricks day). Obviously, I'll be unable to do any compound lifts involving legs for a while ( ~3 months). Still gonna do my best to keep as active as possible... stationary bike will be me friend for sure. Prob gonna get on the gun show program on the interim ie body building just to maintain muscle mass from the waist up.
This is not my first knee surgery but nonetheless I'm a little gripped, and bummed to be canceling spring.
Would love you guys' advice/encouragement.

[/blog, thanks for reading]

[butterscotch]

After re-reading my post, I want to be sure to say that I am not directing anything toward DTM or others who said anything about training with the BOSU. I'm not necessarily trying to say its a good training method either.

Definitely didn't read it that way. Thanks for the critical analysis.

....but still, I fail to see the value in squatting, with weight, on a bosu ball.

Did some brief research on this. Seems like a lot of people agree that unstable surface training has little value.

The mantra of crossfit is "If we think of something really hard to do, it must make us better.... right?".

This was my initial thought process. Here's a study that looked at muscle activation: Muscle activation patterns while lifting stable and unstable loads on stable and unstable surfaces.

[Mani_UT]

11:20 Helen last night, not bad, my 400m course has about 50ft of elevation gain so that slows me down. I am about to go on a serious CFE kick. I am registered for the Wasatch Speedgoat 50k on July 31 and will probably start training by April. Their prescription is 4-6 anaerobic WODS and 3 CFE WODS per week

Oh nice Dude. I am also registered for the Speedgoat. May be we should hook up for some training days!

[Dantheman]

Oh nice Dude. I am also registered for the Speedgoat. May be we should hook up for some training days!

Hell yeah! I'll shoot you a PM in a month or so when things get rolling. I was actually registered for it last year but the toe bursitis kept me out, so being a hell of a guy Karl is letting me race this year free of charge. Gonna try and talk Jamon into doing this again too.

[hafilax]

Did some brief research on this. Seems like a lot of people agree that unstable surface training has little value.

This was my initial thought process. Here's a study that looked at muscle activation: Muscle activation patterns while lifting stable and unstable loads on stable and unstable surfaces.

(Sorry for the crappy quote but I didn't have time to format)
I wouldn't generalize that unstable surface training has little value. If you compare ring dips to fixed stand dips or ring pushups to strict pushups you are training different things. If you want to be good on the rings then training on the rings will have a better skill transfer.

To me, the article that you linked (although I only read the abstract) has more to do with training transfer than anything. If 2 guys want to be able to do a press on a pickup truck going down a logging road then my money is on the guy that did some training on an unstable surface although the bulk of the strength training could be stable exercises. If they just want to get strong and big muscles then the isolation of the stable movement is better.

The point of doing squats on a ball is to get rid of some of the isolation of the movement and to work the stabilization system under load. I could be totally wrong of course given that all of my physical training knowledge comes from Horst's Training for Climbing.

[XtrPickels]

Definitely didn't read it that way. Thanks for the critical analysis.



Did some brief research on this. Seems like a lot of people agree that unstable surface training has little value.

This was my initial thought process. Here's a study that looked at muscle activation: Muscle activation patterns while lifting stable and unstable loads on stable and unstable surfaces.

That article said what I did in my monologue:
Unstable surfaces require the individual to use less resistance so they can successfully complete the lift. If you are lifting less weight, you will need less muscle of the prime movers to do it.

Interestingly, the unstable surface required the recruitment of the erector spinae, suggesting the unstable surfaces activate accessory muscles more than stable surfaces...which is exactly what the point of exercising on unstable surfaces is supposed to do.

As I said, I'm neither pro nor con BOSU ball or other methods. They accomplish their goal. People need to understand whether that is a goal they want to accomplish as well. Choose modalities that will help you achieve success in the areas that are important to you and ignore the modalities that are not congruent with your training.

The point of doing squats on a ball is to get rid of some of the isolation of the movement and to work the stabilization system under load. I could be totally wrong of course given that all of my physical training knowledge comes from Horst's Training for Climbing.

Personally, I use it to teach stance balance. If you favor one side, as most people do, it becomes apparent. Also, with correct for-aft position of the feet you can teach forward - back weight balance as well. Beyond that you can use them to laugh at people who's legs shake like crazy because they're bad at them. If people think they're BA because they can do a squat on a BOSU, up the ante by doing a squat on a physioball. Rince and repeat. This can backfire however: when I was at the olympic training center in colorado springs, I challenged a Greco wrestler to depth jump off a box onto the floor and then onto a physioball. The bastard nailed it the first time...

[Dantheman]

up the ante by doing a squat on a physioball. Rince and repeat. This can backfire however: when I was at the olympic training center in colorado springs, I challenged a Greco wrestler to depth jump off a box onto the floor and then onto a physioball. The bastard nailed it the first time...

I did ten consecutive air squats on a swiss ball once. It's definitely pretty intense, you have to be 100% focused but also ready to bail at any moment. Sticking a landing onto one is beyond my comprehension though.


Can anyone here do a legit one-legged OH squat? Even with a broomstick my attempts were laughable.

[Mazderati]

Are you trying one-leg over-head squats just to see if you can do them, or are you actually trying to incorporate these into your workouts on a regular basis? I'd have a hard time thinking of a more difficult movement.

[Rontele]

Can anyone here do a legit one-legged OH squat? Even with a broomstick my attempts were laughable.

Yes. But thus far, only with the bar. Also, for those folks that are currently doing a paleo based diet, I am happy to report that Ensure is a great recovery drink or something to bring along for bike rides, runs or ski tours.

[BestofShow]

So I've got an ACL revision a week from today (yep, St Patricks day). Obviously, I'll be unable to do any compound lifts involving legs for a while ( ~3 months). Still gonna do my best to keep as active as possible... stationary bike will be me friend for sure. Prob gonna get on the gun show program on the interim ie body building just to maintain muscle mass from the waist up.
This is not my first knee surgery but nonetheless I'm a little gripped, and bummed to be canceling spring.
Would love you guys' advice/encouragement.

[/blog, thanks for reading]

Good Luck. A few thoughts without turning this to gimp central: Ice, Ice, Ice, and Ice more the first few weeks. Best way I found is to wet the end of an ace wrap to get a wet surface around your skin, and then wrap the ice. Oh, and if you wake up and are really hungry...don't eat a tuna sandwich. The nurses will be calling you tuna boy within a few minutes. Blaaaaah!