Recently in Challenges Category

Caitlin takes the win.

---

The Science of Winning According to Vasili Alexeyev

Note he sometimes trained with 80,000 tons per session! Even with "special vitamins" this is amazing - shall we do some WODs with 500x315# DLs?

---

Check out the new improved records page.

It would be great to fill in some of the blanks. If you would like to do so you should have a witness: Maximus, Daniel, Apollonia, Gita, Ynez, Hodges, Andy, Elaine, Bex or Doron (basically trainers + Team CFEB 2009).

---

WOD 091119

Three rounds for time:

Run 400 Meters
21 Double-Unders
12 Deadlift 225/155

Post time to comments.

WOD 0909227

Noon:

Deadlift 5-5-5-5-5

1PM:

CrossFit East Bay Power/Weight Challenge Part Two

You may self-report your stats on the challenge page in comments, below. You will have to use a different method of ascertaining lean mass and bodyfat if you are self-reporting. Use the calculator here:

http://onrockrockon.blogspot.com/ - This calculator is NOT accurate for athletes, but it will measure the difference just fine.

You will have to use the same method at the conclusion of the challenge.

Please report:

1. Bodyweight
2. % Bodyfat
3. % Fat Mass
4. % Lean Mass
5. Max Rep Deadlift @ 1.5X BW in One Minute
6. Max number of C2B Pull-Ups
7. Max number of Static HSPU
8. Max number of muscle-ups
9. Max number of static muscle-ups

See standards, below.

Here
is the format for the Power/Weight Challenge: This is specifically NOT
a weight loss challenge, those might be fine for TV, but focusing only
on weight lost is simplistic and not for athletes, some of who need to
gain, not lose, weight.

Losing "weight" is really, really easy.
Losing fat mass, without losing significant lean mass (muscle, bone) is
difficult. Losing fat mass while gaining muscle mass is quite difficult
indeed but by no means impossible. Gaining muscle for some is just as
hard as losing fat is for others.

So: each participant will pony up $50.00 for each 5 week challenge, winner take all.
Here is part two of the body comp challenge. Please note the changes.

Stats
will be taken at the beginning and end of each challenge, including
lean body mass/body fat using a decent bioelectrical impedence scale.
Come fully hydrated for each test to minimize the error of the scale
(it actually measures total body water and extrapolates LBM from that).
Picture optional.

Challenge "A" will run from Sunday, July 27th to Sunday August 30th
Challenge "B" will run from Sunday September 27th to Sunday November 1st.

Each participant will choose a goal:

"Beanpole" - gain weight
"Chubs" - lose weight

Points are assigned thusly:

Beanpole - 1 point per pound of mass gained.
Chubs - 1 point per pound of fat lost

1.5X BW Deadlift
One point for each additional point above baseline, including zero.

C2B Pull-Ups:
One point for each additional point above baseline, including zero.

Static HSPU
One point for each additional point above baseline, including zero (first HSPU may be kipped all subsequent reps must be static).

Muscle-ups:
Two points for each additional point above baseline, including zero (first muscle-up can be from bent arm, all subsequent reps must be from full lockout).

Static Muscle-Ups
Three points for each additional point above baseline, including zero.

Achievements:

Tracker: weigh and measure and count calories/macro-nutrient ratios of all food consumed (estimate at restaurants). Provide proof in the form of a journal or printed Fitday or similar software pages : 1 point
Blogger Bonus: share your intake and WODs with the world: 2 points (3 total including above)
Zoner Lite: Eat in "The Zone" 5.5 days per week - 1 point
Hardcore Zoner: Eat in "The Zone" all but one meal per week - 2 points
Fanatic Zoner: Eat ALL meals and snacks in "The Zone" - 3 points
Sweetie: No sugar, no sweeteners of any kind, same rules as No-Sugar Challenge - 1 point
Paleo Lite: No grains or sweetners of any kind - 2 points
Pure Paleo: No Dairy, no grains, no sweeteners, no legumes, no tubers, no coffee, no alcohol - 3 points
Performer: lose all fat and no muscle or gain muscle without gaining fat - 2 points.

A family affair:

Bill, age undisclosed, (foreground) got his first ring muscle-ups on Friday.
His son Matthew, 15, (grey shirt) was the winner of our power/weight ratio challenge. in one month Matthew:

Added four pounds of muscle mass
Muscle-ups (static from full lockout) from 7 to 12
HSPU from 10 to 16
C2B Pull-Ups from 24 to 30
OHS 1x BW (unchanged, but at higher BW)

Family friend Johnny (green shirt), 15, came in third of eight in the challenge:

Added two pounds of muscle mass
HSPU from one (kipping) to two static
C2B pull-ups from 16 to 20
Mucscle-Ups from 0 to 1

---

Social Climbing at BIW 6-9PM

Come climb with the CFEB crew. If you don't know how this is a great opportunity to learn to top-rope: you don't need to own equipment, but there is a nominal fee for harness and shoe rental.

Post routes completed or attempted to comments.

WOD 090830

Noon

In this workout you move from each of five stations after a minute. This is a five-minute round from which a one-minute break is allowed before repeating. We've used this in 3 and 5 round versions. The stations are:

1. Wall-ball: 20 pound ball, 10 ft target. (Reps)
2. Sumo deadlift high-pull: 75 pounds (Reps)
3. Box Jump: 20" box (Reps)
4. Push-press: 75 pounds (Reps)
5. Row: calories (Calories)

The clock does not reset or stop between exercises. On call of "rotate," the athlete/s must move to next station immediately for good score. One point is given for each rep, except on the rower where each calorie is one point.

1PM

Power/Weight Ratio Challenge results Part "A".

- If you cannot be there, post your results by 2PM August 30th or forfeit.

Challenge "A" will run from Sunday, July 27th to Sunday August 30th
Challenge "B" will run from Sunday September 27th to Sunday November 1st.

This will give us time to concentrate on FGB IV training and also not have our metabolisms spun down much. Done correctly this will result in significantly improved athletic ability, not to mention looking better naked.

Each participant will choose a category (I will not allow gaming, you must choose the proper category, If you don't know, I will guide you):

Ninja AKA Hardgainer AKA Ectomorph
Tank AKA Chubby AKA Endomorph
Hybrid AKA Everyone Hates You AKA Mesomorph

Points are assigned thusly:

Ninja - 1 point per pound of mass gained.
Tank - 1 point per pound of fat lost -.5 for each pound of muscle lost
Hybrid - 1 point per pound of muscle gained, 1 point per pound of fat lost

Overhead squats:
from .25 to .5 BW 1 point
from .5 to .75 BW 1 point
From .75 to BW 1 point
Each additional rep @ BW 1 Point

C2B Pull-Ups:
One point for each addtional point above baseline, including zero.

Static HSPU
One point for each addtional point above baseline, including zero.

Muscle-ups:
Two points for each additional point above baseline, including zero

FGB IV Details to follow, please check back tomorrow.

090817

Social Climbing at GWPC 6-9PM

Come climb with the CFEB crew. If you don't know how this is a great opportunity to learn to top-rope: you don't need to own equipment, but there is a nominal fee for harness and shoe rental.

Post routes completed or attempted to comments.

Unless there is massive outcry I am changing social climbing to a GWPC venue. It seems to work better for a variety of reasons, not least is proximity to our actual box.

090817

6PM

Track workout in Berkeley: 4X400 Meter Sprints

6 pm. we will choose between the king school track and the Clark Kerr track, depending on the state of renovation at Kerr. Daniel will recon and let us know if it a go.

Any interest in the second annual Fran-Off at CrossFit Sweat Shop this Saturday? If so please reserve your space in the comments section of CFSW and also post that you have done so here on CFEB so I can gauge interest. I can think of a few folks who have a chance of being on the winning team (see rules): Polly, Gita, Alex, Elaine, Andy, Matthew, at the least. There is some luck involved. For example If I was paired with someone with great pull-ups, I might do OK doing all the thrusters.

Details:

Reserve your spot

Monday, July 20, 2009

I am the classic "hardgainer" - tall and skinny with a high metabolism, losing weight is a default state for me.  I have to consciously watch my diet to maintain weight, and take some pretty extreme actions to gain any.  Over the past three years, since I got serious about fitness, I've made several serious attempts to gain muscle mass - most of them have failed.

A few months ago, I tried again with a 12-week strength cycle that was my most successful venture yet:  I put on 16 pounds, about 8-10 pounds of which was muscle.  For those of you interested in putting on some muscle, I will share what I've learned.  None of this is a secret:  it's all freely available out there on the internet.  But it takes some experimentation to separate the wheat from the chaff, and then you actually have to DO it, which is the hard part.

I should point out that gaining MUSCLE and gaining STRENGTH are not necessarily the same thing.  Plain Vanilla CrossFit is actually quite good for gaining strength, but is not likely to add a lot of muscle to your frame if you're naturally skinny.  How does this work?  Well, when you flex a muscle to move a weight, you're not using anywhere near all of your muscle fibers to accomplish this task.  Regular training will train your Central Nervous System (CNS) to recruit more fibers from the muscles you already have, which will make you stronger without actually adding any bulk.  If you're a climber or otherwise averse to additional mass (muscle or otherwise), this can be great, but there are diminishing returns - you'll never get to 100% recruitment, and at some point you will need to add more fibers to continue to make gains.

Just like losing weight is a hormonal event, so is gaining muscle.  Your primary job is hormone manipulation:  stimulating the ones you want (hGH, Testosterone) while keeping the detrimental ones (insulin, cortisol) at bay.  There are essentially two places you need to make changes to make this work:  the kitchen and the gym.  I'll cover them separately.

The Kitchen

Not surprisingly, the most important thing you have to do is EAT.  A lot.  Way more than you think you should be eating.  More than seems reasonable, or maybe even safe.  You see, while you CAN get stronger without getting bigger (see above), you cannot gain MASS without a regular caloric surplus.  It takes a lot of energy to make new muscle fibers, and unless you're a teenager your body is reluctant to make that investment.  You need to convince it that it is flush with resources, and can afford new cells.

Living in caloric surplus, some amount of fat gain is inevitable.  Sorry.  You'll just have to lose it later.  Body builders refer to the cycles of gain and loss as "bulking" and "cutting," and wil frequently do what's called an "uncontrolled bulk," where they simply devour everything in sight, with no regard to macronutrient ratios or quality or caloric content.  Easy, but lazy, and can have some disastrous consequences on your performance when you gain 3 pounds of fat for every pound of muscle.

Better, in my opinion, to do a "controlled bulk" - where you ride the edge of just enough caloric surplus to put your body in growth mode, but keep fat gain to a minimum.  It's difficult to do, but your friends won't start calling you "Chubs" and you'll still be able to do a pullup.  Here are some tips:

• If you know your BMR (Basal Metabolic Rate - the amount of calories you need to take in each day to roughly balance the amount you burn), aim for at least 500 calories above this.  Shoot for between a half-pound to a pound of weight gain per week - any more than that and you're piling on too much fat.
• Keep the carbs low, and low GI on the carbs you do eat - insulin spikes will just deposit all the energy you take in as fat.  I would aim for no more than 200g/day of carbs, on average.
• This leaves protein and fat.  Consume mass quantities of these.  Animal protein is far superior to vegetable protein in terms of bioavailability, and the most efficient source of protein (both in terms of bioavailability and price per gram) is the egg.  Omelets, frittatas, scrambled eggs etc are all your friends.  I would make meals out of nothing but rotisserie chicken, slices of cheese and nuts.
  
• A common technique, particularly among CrossFitters, is GOMAD (Gallon of Milk a Day).  This is a great way to add a couple thousand calories to your daily regimen without too much fuss or expense.  The only downside is that you have to actually drink a gallon of the stuff each day, which can be intimidating.  If you go this route, the milk should be whole and organic, and you should be under 25 years old - over that and you're likely to get chubby from all the carbs.  This technique is really designed more for Matthew and Jonathan than to the older among us.  I went with QOKAD (Quart of Kefir a Day) instead, and it served me very well.
• Keep food quality HIGH.  You don't want to be pumping chemicals into your bloodstream in large quantities, as your body will just have to filter it all out - and you want it focused on one task.  Eat your veggies with plenty of olive oil and butter, and avoid packaged foods, artificial sweeteners, and anything that comes in a tub with a picture of a ripped athlete on it.  That isn't food.
• Which brings me to supplementation.  Normally I avoid it, but in this case I did have a spoonful of Creatine Monohydrate a day (mixed in my kefir).  It's cheap, been around for ages, and has proven results.  It will cause you to retain more water, though.
• Stop eating 2 hours before you go to bed.  Large meals of any variety (high carb, protein or fat) have been shown to diminish the body's growth hormone response.  Human Growth Hormone (hGH) is the single most important chemical in this endeavor, and you really want to maximize it.  The body releases hGH in waves throughout the day, but by FAR the greatest release occurs in the first two hours of sleep.  Getting to sleep earlier (ie, before 10) also increases hGH release.
• For this reason, be VERY conscious of your sleep.  Get at least 8 hours a night, in a dark room, early and relatively fasted.

The Gym

One of the things that makes CrossFit so great is its adaptibility.  With just a little tweaking, you can keep CrossFitting while still focusing on gaining strength and muscle.  The goal here is, again, hormonal manipulation:  you need to send the message to the body that it really does not have sufficient resources to do what is being required of it.  The most effective way to do this is to lift VERY heavy weights in movements that stimulate the largest number of muscle fibers.  Typically, the two movements that are acknowledged to provoke the greatest CNS response are the Deadlift and the Squat.  (I just read an article last week that quoted Charles Poliquin as saying the Snatch-grip Deadlift off a 4" box is the single greatest muscle-building exercise that exists).  There are a couple ways to go about this.

• The most straightforward is probably Max's Simple 3x5 routine for CrossFitters, which he first wrote about ages ago.  Set aside two days a week just for lifting, and do Deadlifts and Squats with a couple smaller complementary movements (ie, Press and Bench Press), and then just go up 5 pounds every week until you can't go up anymore.  People have been doing essentially this routine for decades, and it is tried and true.
• There's been a lot of fuss lately about CrossFit Strength Bias (CFSB), which is an adaptation of regular CF WODs to promote greater strength gain.  It's gotten good reviews, but would essentially prevent you from training with CFEB while you were doing it, which would make us all very sad. 
• CF Norcal promotes Max-Effort Black Box (MEBB), and they proved its efficacy with their showing at the Games.
• In MY latest cycle, I went with a hybrid of CFSB and the 3x5 routine.  It was quite challenging, but wound up putting 30 pounds on my squat and 40 pounds on my deadlift, which I was very happy with.  If you have any questions about this routine, fire away.
  
• You'll notice the common denominator of all of these plans is that they have heavy weights, short rep schemes, and full-body movements.  Whatever you wind up doing, make sure you have these elements in place.
• Avoid high-volume.  Regular metcons are great, but try to keep your workouts under 45 minutes, and don't do any long-distance running/cycling/etc.  Long workouts will spike your cortisol and can actually be catabolic (ie, burning muscle for energy), and will send the message to your body that now might not be a good time to add more mass.

More info

I found these articles to be particularly helpful when I was figuring things out for myself.  If you're serious about putting on some muscle mass, I highly recommend reading all of them through.

• How to Build Sleeve-ripping Arms by Working out your LEGS?!
• How to Gain Weight and Build Muscle
  
• Building Muscle 101
• Hardgainer No More

WOD 090729

AMRAP* in 20 minutes:

5 C2B Pull-Ups
5 Handstand Push-Ups

Post number of rounds completed to comments.

*As Many Rounds As Possible

WOD 090726

Noon

Four Rounds
Run 800 Meters
30 Kettlebell Swings 1.5P/1.0P
30 Burpees

Post time to comments.

1PM

Power/Weight Challenge

Details HERE

Cost: $50.00 to participate, free to audit.

Test:

1. Bodyweight
2. % Bodyfat
3. % Fat Mass
4. % Lean Mass
5. Max Rep Overhead Squats @ Bodyweight or % of Bodyweight 1RM
6. Max number of C2B Pull-Ups
7. Max number of Static HSPU
8. Max number of muscle-ups
9. Max number of static muscle-ups

From a typical nutrition textbook: "When you eat too much you get fat, when you don't eat enough you get thin, everybody knows these simple facts but nobody knows exactly how to account for them". This is an oversimplification with a lot of truth to it.

There are some folks (you see a lot of them at a climbing gym) who have a really hard time adding any muscular mass, and can, for all intents and purposes eat whatever they want in pretty much any quantity without gaining significant bodyfat. These folks are ectomorphs, skinny and often tall: the "98 pound weakling" of yore. They are also known as "hardgainers" and have a difficult time gaining muscle mass or getting strong.

On the other end of the scale is the endomorph, who easily gains fat mass, but generally can easily become strong. Almost all unlimited weight class Olympic lifters seem to be of this type.

Those who are smart enough to have picked the right parents are mesomorphs, like pretty much all of the top males and most females at this years CrossFit Games. They are lean and muscular, a cultural ideal.

These body types can be mixed: meso-endo and meso-ecto. It may be that the different body types have different insulin sensitivity: Dr. Barry Sears in The Zone, thorizes that about 25% of the population have a poor reaction to carbohydrate leading to obesity when consuming a high-carb, especially high glycemic carb, diet. He postulates that significant genetic adaptation may have taken place in about 25% of the population that enables them to eat a high-grain diet with little or no ill effects (they stay skinny and don't get tired even if they eat giant pasta meals). Finally, everyone else is somewhere in the middle: his Zone DIet is designed to work well for all the types.

So what happens in the body to the carbohydrate, protien and fat we eat? It is pretty complicated, but here is what you need to know for fat loss or muscle gain. Please bear in mind the human body is an almost incomprehensibly complex machine: what follows is a vast oversimplification. Additionally metabolism is not fully understood, so this represents what I think is the best understanding we have today.

Our bodies are constantly burning fuel, simply to exist, even when asleep. this is called basal metabolism. Generally this is fueled by a 50/50 mix of fat and glycogen (the product of carbohydrate). Any food over and above metabolic need is converted to bodyfat, or excreted. During moderate-intensity aerobic work, this ratio switches to favor fat burning perhaps 70/30. During intense exercise (short metcon) the body is burning through glycogen at a blistering rate, preferring nearly 100% of energy needs from glycogen. Intense work of this type increases the bodies metabolic need quite a bit subsequent to the actual work, so additional bodyfat may be burned afterward. So given adequate glycogen, fat can be burned through exercise and bodyfat can be decreased. Very little, if any, muscle wasting occurs as long as nutrition is adequate.

However, when we intentionally deprive the body of calories (fasting) the following comes into play: the body can actually power itself quite well for up to about a day on stored glycogen and fat, which are turned into glucose and fatty acids and flow into cells to power them. (this is assuming you are not doing Murph in addition to fasting), however, the brain needs glucose to work, and in the absence of glycogen, the body will begin breaking down lean muscle tissue to create glucose, a metabolically very expensive process. This is why starving yourself will not work. Anything below 1500 cal a day for men and 1200 cal a day for women, on average, is going to result in significant muscle loss. And this is average: most CrossFitters have more muscle and more metabolic demand.

So: without even considering the protein requirement we see that just the right amount of deficit must be created to lose fat and not muscle. One reasonably simple way to get it right is the Zone Diet, the CrossFit diet of choice. Find your block count, and then take 1-4 blocks off of that depending on how fast you wish to lose weight. Of course the more you take off, the more danger you are in of losing muscle. It is ESSENTIAL to weigh and measure everything on this diet, certainly for the first few weeks.

Next: The Hardgainer

 

Here is the format for the Power/Weight Challenge: This is specifically NOT a weight loss challenge, those might be fine for TV, but focusing only on weight lost is simplistic and not for athletes, some of who need to gain, not lose, weight.

Losing "weight" is really, really easy. Losing fat mass, without losing significant lean mass (muscle, bone) is difficult. Losing fat mass while gaining muscle mass is quite difficult indeed but by no means impossible. Gaining muscle for some is just as hard as losing fat is for others. 

So: each participant will pony up $50.00 for each 5 week challenge, winner take all.

Stats will be taken at the beginning and end of each challenge, including lean body mass/body fat using a decent bioelectrical impedence scale. Come fully hydrated for each test to minimize the error of the scale (it actually measures total body water and extrapolates LBM from that). Picture optional.

Challenge "A" will run from Sunday, July 27th to Sunday August 30th
Challenge "B" will run from Sunday September 27th to Sunday November 1st.

This will give us time to concentrate on FGB IV training and also not have our metabolisms spun down much. Done correctly this will result in significantly improved athletic ability, not to mention looking better naked.

Each participant will choose a category (I will not allow gaming, you must choose the proper category, If you don't know, I will guide you):

Ninja AKA Hardgainer AKA Ectomorph
Tank AKA Chubby AKA Endomorph
Hybrid AKA Everyone Hates You AKA Mesomorph

Points are assigned thusly:

Ninja - 1 point per pound of mass gained.
Tank - 1 point per pound of fat lost -.5 for each pound of muscle lost
Hybrid - 1 point per pound of muscle gained, 1 point per pound of fat lost

Overhead squats:
from .25 to .5 BW 1 point
from .5 to .75 BW 1 point
From .75 to BW 1 point
Each additional rep @ BW 1 Point

C2B Pull-Ups:
One point for each addtional point above baseline, including zero.

Static HSPU
One point for each addtional point above baseline, including zero.

Muscle-ups:
Two points for each additional point above baseline, including zero

Interesting study (note it was not done on athletes)