Body Talk

You know the saying, "Listen to your body." Well, seems that if you don't listen to your body, it might scream at you in return like a child's temper tantrum. Other times, it'll just throw the tantrum anyway, even if you are listening.

Case in point:

- Last weekend's long run of 12 miles. It was a night run and it was a 2 mile out-n-back repeated 6 times. The last round, I could feel the drain and my last two miles were reflecting a decline in performance and effort. The tantrum: FEED ME! FEED ME! GIMME CAFFEINE GOODNESS! Guess that's what I get for going out with water only.

- Skipped the two mid-week runs this week and chose to nap. The tantrum: SLEEPY! NO!!! NO RUN, SLEEP!!!! Looking at the last few days, I've been getting less sleep at night, so this is turning into a necessity for now. As long as I keep the long run though and maintain the strength-bias period, I should still be okay despite the mid-week run skips.

- My ability to zercher & front squat has taken a backseat to back squats using the sandbags. The tantrum: NO!!!! TOO HEAVY!!!! NOT GONNA DO IT!!!! OOPS-SIE! I MADE YOU DROP THE BAG!!! Seems my limit for now is 125-130 lbs to get into the zercher position. But the good thing is that I'm still able to do some kind of heavy squat and I'm at 140 lbs now, going to 145 lbs later this morning. Personally, I think that my 1-Rep Max for the backsquat might actually get close to 300 lbs...but we'll see if that's the case when I get near the end of the cycle. I still need to buy some heavier plates for home.

- My overhead press ability with the sandbag seems to have stalled out around 75 lbs where I can do a full 5x5 @ 75 lbs; all weight after that, I can do a 3x5 before starting to fail. The tantrum: SEE PREVIOUS TANTRUM!!!! WAH!!!!!!! Now, it could be the fact that it's a bag and not a bar. I think this goes back to the "Raw strength vs Barbell strength" thing that Rob Shaul talked about in a post awhile back.

- My clean could use some work (No body tantrum on this thankfully). But in the defense of cleaning a sandbag, I don't think I've seen anyone with 100% perfect form like you would have with a barbell (can you say CrossFit Slop?). The bag is awkward and there are multiple ways of getting yourself into position for it. Zach @ UndergroundStrengthCoach.com has a really good video here showing a good Power Clean example with multiple styles of sandbags - Military & the Josh Henkin bag.


Coming out the other side

Nearly done with this cycle and I've got 5 weeks to go after this week is over, YAY!!!

Trying to figure out what to program in for the next cycle is proving to be more difficult though. I'm limited in what I can do due to the equipment and time. It might end up being where I do two WODs in a day - one at work, one at home. However, we'll see what happens. I know I can't program it in the typical CF fashion since the week is setup so differently compared to a standard 3/1 or 5/2 format. But I'm sure I'll get something banged out in the next month.