WOD 9/5/10

REST DAY!

Enjoy your time off. For those of you who are hardcore and need your fix THE GYM WILL BE OPEN ON MONDAY, REGULAR HOURS ALL DAY!! Thanks to Rob, Andy, Jennie and Trent who graciously gave up their action packed Labor Day to watch you all sweat! Allison and I will be MIA for the day as we take the kids to the San Fran Aquarium so Dakota can dazzle us with his shark knowledge and Dawson can punch some hapless stranger kid for no reason.... It'll be a hoot!

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Fight Gone Bad 5 is quickly approaching. We have a handful of registrants thus far. If you have never done it before, the event is a charity based workout/competitiion at CrossFit affiliate gyms on September 25th. You can choose to participate in the event, or if you don't feel up to it, you can donate and come on down to count reps and judge folks. We will be holding our own event this year at CFC on 9/25/10 at 10 AM. You can donate/register using the CFC logo link on the left.  Be there or catch a beat down from Ivan the Terrible!

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I am looking at a change in assignments in my current job. This is good and bad, but nonetheless it will have some minor impacts on operations at the gym. It shouldn't be too big a deal, mainly scheduling issues between the trainer staff. What you will notice is we are most likely going to change our hours slightly, by moving everything back a half hour for the afternoon classes only. They would now start at 430, 530 and 630.. This would help me be a bit more reliable with the new shift times of my job and hopefully accomodate some of you better. We will probably go to this in the next couple of weeks. Please send us an email or comment about this change if it works better for you or not!! We really need to know if this will be good for all of you, so PLEASE let us know ASAP.

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You all have figured out by now that CrossFit is defintely not your mom's workout. It is more beneficial in many ways, yet being more athletic it can also lead to the occassional ache and pain here and there. So what do you do? First, use common sense. Are you hurt or are you injured? There is a huge difference there, but don't try and push something that is a little tweaky into full blown injury. But also don't be a complete Nancy and punch out because you're a bit stiff or achey somewhere. Work around it and scale back, but do something. It's better than sitting on the couch all day surfing the TV and eating. I would rather have you come into the gym and do some other work around the issue. Don't hesitate to come on in, even if you have something out of whack. we can work around it.

Recently Jim Wendler, powerlifter and strength coach extraordinaire, wrote about this in part of a Q&A column he regularly writes on T-Nation. He tends to be rather blunt and non-PC (my kinda guy). Here is the excerpt:

"TN: I always get a kick out of reading about Dave Tate's laundry list of injuries. The fact that he can be so beat up and still kick so much ass is inspiring. Lately, I've been dealing with a shoulder impingement and a lower back that gives out about once every four weeks. What advice do you have regarding training around injuries?

JW: Your back gives out monthly? Have you considered switching from oral contraception to an IUD?

Sorry, not trying to call you a pussy or anything (okay, I am), it's just that your injury list sounds like a typical powerlifter on a GREAT day. If you're looking for sympathy from me, you're going to be seriously disappointed.

Here's the deal: there's a difference between being hurt and being injured. You sound like you're injured. Boo hoo. I'm injured too, but I wish I had your monthly menstrual-like injury problems: I have a shoulder that's so messed up it hurts to even think about jerking off, and as of yesterday, a gimp hamstring. So I'm limping around with a dead arm to boot; I feel like I've been playing football again.

Now it's easy for you and me to sit around and feel sorry for ourselves; it seems that this is very common amongst people of the world. But since I live and breathe training, I can't imagine sitting on my ass for months and just wait for it to get better. Nope. And I'm not going to resort to some pussy workouts, either. I may be injured, but I'm not hurt.

So what's a man to do? Grow a proper set of nuts and train what is trainable. I learned this from the nomadic strength coach, Buddy Morris (now at the University of Pittsburgh) and it's stuck with me to this day. So instead of completely ignoring my upper body (or now, my lower body), I put myself through some tests to see what I possibly COULD do. This allowed me to focus on something positive, as opposed to the usual pissing and moaning.

So with my ridiculously screwed shoulder, I can do the following:

• Chin Ups/Pull Ups

• Rows (of various types)

• Alternating DB upright rows (barbells and cables seem to hurt, but this variation is completely pain free)

• Triceps Pushdowns

Now my hamstring injury is relatively new so I'm not sure what my limits are, but I'll test them out today. I know I can't deadlift or clean (and barbell rows might be out), but I can do bodyweight squats with no pain, so that might be in the cards for me.

I won't be able to run hills, but I can walk, so weighted vest work is not out of the question. I'm not sure about the Prowler, but who knows? I'll test it out. I might be able to walk up and down steps with the weighted vest for conditioning work, and I'll likely be able to do leg extensions, too. Of course, ab work is always an option. I may be injured, but I'm not hurt.

Whatever the case, you have to find and experiment with exercises that you CAN do without aggravating the existing injury, and then do them with the same intensity and balls that you approach the "big ones" with. In other words, you have to keep the motivation and the importance in the training. Being injured is not an excuse to trade in your training log for a sweater vest and a walker. There are guys training in the gym who are missing limbs or don't have the use of their legs; what the hell was your excuse again? Your shoulder bothers you?

I'm still a realist and believe in resting injuries until they're healed; there's no point to beating a worn out joint or muscle. But I'm not a fan of sitting on the sidelines and falling victim to the usual woe-is-me trap of self-pity, ice cream, and reruns of House (how bad has that show become over the years?).

So learn the difference between injured and hurt. If you have something that's injured, train what's trainable. Attack it with the same attitude and mentality as you would a squat workout.

Let me rephrase that: Attack it with the same attitude and mentality as you should attack a squat workout."

So, hopefully that keeps you all on track and thinking about what you can do, rather than what you can't do when things aren't feeling great. Be smart though, but still train hard. Always let us know if something is bugging you and we will note it and help you work around it. Get some!

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