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Crossfit Seattle

A few Pilates Pullups. Strength exercise worthy of Crossfit.

Jude and I went back to Crossfit Seattle today for the 1st time in a year and a half. We’ve been going to Crossfit 206 with Fran because it’s closer and 206 feels like our crossfit home. But I was reflecting on how long I have been doing Crossfit. I know I started at least in 2007 if not slightly before. Crossfit Seattle was then Crossfit North and was out in one of the hangars at Magnuson Park. It was definitely a funky space with a porta-potty outside.

I was only going 1x a week (maybe) and wasn’t sure about the intensity of the workout. Definitely an ass-kicker but I wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not. But while I was not particularly regular Crossfit has definitely been in my thinking if not in my body for a good long time.

As a small person, I have always wanted to be and feel stronger. Crossfit definitely fills that for me. I didn’t really like weight training because it felt too segmented with too much muscle isolation. Crossfit is definitely a full form functional movement system although they have very little rotational work and a large percentage of the workout is in neutral spine (a good thing considering the heavy loads one is working with).

But I think one of the best things about Crossfit is their metrics or assessment tools. Everyone keeps a book or log of how much weight they are lifting on the various lifts: Back squat, Front Squat, Deadlift, Overhead Squat, etc. as well as their recording of the various set workouts. These workouts, as I have referred to before, are often named with womens names: Fran, Chelsea, Grace, Elizabeth, Helen, etc. Each workout has a proscribed weight to be used. Most of us will modify but we all know that we are working towards the Rx workout.

The ability to compare my ‘Cindy’ time (As Many Rounds As Possible (AMRAP) in 20 minutes of 5 pullups, 10 pushups and 15 squats) from a year ago or a couple of months ago and see how I have improved feels really great. (I think I have gone from 16 rounds to 21 rounds BTW). And then I can compare myself to others at my gym or any other Crossfit gym and see how ‘stack up’.

Pilates needs these assessment tools. We measure our progress by a. less pain in an injured area, b. better feeling in our body (very subjective) c. how we look in our clothes. But all of these are more or less subjective. I have tried to inject some assessments at our studio but we haven’t really continued to check in with them. I need to create more Pilates metrics. While we could use the classic ‘levels’, that doesn’t always work for everyone based on some injury. But in the next couple months, I am going to figure out some metrics that work very specifically for Pilates. I think so many of my clients have no idea how strong they have gotten. I need to take more pictures of my clients arms (mostly women) so they can see how sculpted and beautiful they have gotten. More importantly, how much more functional their fitness level is for their everyday lives when their gardening or lifting kids, traveling and having to lift carry ons in the stow bins. And strength in the gym will translate to less likely for injury elsewhere.

Frog in the air.

Frog in the Air

This is one of the exercises from the L5 Workout. The shoulders are working like crazy to keep your body up as high as possible while your abs are working equally hard to keep the spine in as straight a line as possible. Ultimately. you are able to take the body out at a 45 or so degree angle without collapsing in the lumbar spine. However, if you aren’t careful about the low back neutral spine, you can really do a number on your back. Oh yes, your inner thighs, glutes and quads are also working plenty hard for the ‘plie’ in the air in order to maintain the turnout throughout the bend and straighten of the knee. Contrology (the original name for Pilates) at its best!

Advanced Pilates

I did the level 5 Reformer workout this afternoon. Of course there are some variations from studio to studio but generally this would be the accepted highest, most advanced Reformer exercises. I used to do the L5 every week but have been mixing it up a lot for the last year or so.

I was very pleased to see that:
a. I remembered all of the springs and set up for each exercises,
b. I was able to do all of the exercises and all of the transitions (more or less on the transitions),
c. my strength gains from Crossfit and other workouts have really helped with this workout and,
d. my flexibility had not really diminished that much.

The level 5 eventually becomes a body ‘rebalancing’ for range of motion and flexibility. It keeps moving through the 60 some exercises with few reps and lots of different movement patterns. It doesn’t really isolate any muscle groups but everything is working fairly hard.

Made me think that I would like more of my clients to work towards a L5 workout ability. Maybe we’ll just start with the classic L1, 2, 3, and 4 and see where some of my clients are at. We’ll call it the “Level 5 Project”

I wonder how sore I’ll be from the stretching tomorrow.

Technique or Intensity

Here are some excerpts from an Article written by Dallas Hartwig – a Physical Therapist and Crossfit instructor (@ Whole9life.com). He makes some very good points about how much technique should be allowed to degrade in an intense workout (whether it be Crossfit or Pilates or some other hardcore class).

Food for thought and I must say, I think he is right. I have often told myself to really focus on technique when I get into these intense workouts. It weird that some silly sense of competition would trick me into doing myself harm but it happens. And more than once I have caught myself degrading to 60% technique in order to get finished faster. Mea culpa.

He writes:
Performing exercises properly and paying attention to the subtleties of the movement will determine whether my client sees an increase in physical capacity, or is plagued by injury (now, or in the future) as the result of the reinforcement of incorrect and unsafe motor patterns. . . . But given my professional experience, I’d rather err on the side of exceptional technique than prioritize maximal intensity at the expense ofquality of movement.

According to a Crossfit certification seminar on intensity, “Unsafe is unacceptable, but so is perfect form.” The instructor explained, “If you’re doing high-rep deadlifts and your back starts to round, that’s unsafe and unacceptable. But if you’re doing that same set of deadlifts with perfect form on every rep, that’s also unacceptable. You’ve either gone too light (in weight), or you’re not working hard enough.” This ideal is referred to as ‘CrossFit slop’.” The ‘slop’ ideal is often cited within the CrossFit community as 20% form degradation (compared to 100% perfect form). According to CrossFit theory, that’s the optimal balance of effort and safety. “That’s where intensity lives. Technique has to be good enough to increase intensity, but you should never strive for perfect form.”

Hartwig writes:
And here’s where I take issue with this concept of “intensity is king.” In my experience, the 20% ‘slop’ advocated by CrossFit often devolves into a 50% slop in practical application, especially with longer length, high-rep met-cons. (Lighter movements, like those usually prescribed in a chipper workout, can almost always be completed any which way, even with form that makes your eyes bleed.) I’ve seen patellar tendonitis from high-volume air squats, strained shoulders from shoddy thruster technique, and tweaked lumbar spines from high rep deadlifts pulled with careless form, all driven by the pursuit of “intensity”.

At the Whole9, 20% slop isn’t good enough. You don’t get to move up in weight – or go faster – unless your form is really, truly solid. (I use my “A-minus” grade as a subjective criteria – not perfect, but pretty darn good). In addition, your “max effort” pulls will not count here if they’re hideous. And don’t give me the “in the real world, it doesn’t have to look pretty” argument, either. Sure, I’ve seen 500 pound deadlifts PRs that look like question marks… but those strong dudes didn’t get that way by training with that technique. That degradation in form is acceptable when it matters, like lifting a fallen tree off a family member, carrying an injured comrade out of harm’s way, or even non-emergency, one-time situations like competing in a lifting meet. But folks, your everyday CrossFit workout is not that time. Imperfect form in the desperation of an emergency or during a real-world, functional “test” does not justify that level of form degradation during your training.When we train, our goal is to build the strength, practice good technique, and reinforce only proper movement patterns. And despite what your ego may be telling you (go heavier, tough it out, rip it up), I assure you that our approach will serve you well when it’s time to pull a max effort clean, some fast met-con deadlifts or give Grace a go. Your technique will be solid, your times will improve and you’ll walk away from the gym stronger and fitter, instead of broken and hurting. Still choose to operate with that 20% margin of “CrossFit slop”? You can certainly work harder, produce more power, and maybe even be fitter than me with that approach. But you’re sure as hell going to be injured more often too. I have yet to hear a patient tell me, “Well, my shoulder has been hurting pretty bad for the last 3 weeks, but I sure am glad I cut 7 seconds off my Fran time.” How hard can you train when you’re All Banged Up? I’ll answer that for you, from personal experience – not hard enough to maintain the well-rounded fitness we seek.

Elongating your muscles

Everywhere people talk about how Pilates builds long lean muscles and you will be taller as if Pilates worked on the body in some unique manner. There is only partial truth to that statement. Muscles can essentially ONLY contract and release. They cannot somehow grow longer or expand their length. However, if our muscles are tight and ‘held’ in a shortened position, the stretching and full range of motion that Pilates provides will help release those tight muscles allowing the muscle tissue to go to their full natural length.

In addition, as I understand it, our bodies have fast twitch and slow twitch muscle fiber. Fast twitch is sprint and explosive power muscle. Those muscle cells are shorter and fatter and therefore bulkier. They tire quickly but can produce lots of power.

Slow twitch fiber, which tends to be the kind of muscle fiber that Pilates taps into, are thinner longer muscle tissue. They are endurance muscle (think of the muscles of a marathon runner versus a sprinter). They don’t have nearly as much power capacity but they can keep going forever (well not literally). In Pilates, because we do exercises in a slow, controlled fashion and because we are not putting our bodies under the kind of loads that weight training does, Pilates does tap into that slow twitch fiber.

The upside of Pilates is the control over the full range of motion of the body. Those slow twitch fibers do make for a leaner look. The downside is that when trying to generate power – whether explosive or under heavy load, Pilates bodies are generally found to be WEAK! So if you are training for an explosive sport (most sports are explosive) from soccer to tennis to, of course, football and hockey, Pilates will help with control throughout ranges of motion, but it will unlikely make you stronger unless you put the body under heavy load or train explosive movements.

When I started Crossfit many years ago, I found I had very good form and technique even on unfamiliar exercises. But I quickly fatigued and my Crossfit teacher bluntly told me that I was weak. He was right. Now with both Crossfit training and Pilates in my exercise routine, I feel I am getting the best of both worlds. And by the way, while I may be somewhat bigger, my genetics are such that I will never be huge.

At Mind and Body, as a result of that experience, we include explosive movement in our workouts and try to put the body under heavier loads than you would find in other Pilates studios. No, not to make people bulkier but to help them train for their particular sport and to train explosive movement in a controlled fashion. And we always stay true to our Pilates roots of controlling all movement patterns without sacrificing technique for speed. We also always incorporate larger than usual ranges of motion to keep our muscle tissues from tightening up and staying short.

Long and lean – probably. But stronger and more stable – for sure!

“There is no balance, there is only Strength”

Many clients want to, or are told to, work on their balance as if it is some mysterious aspect of fitness that can be improved by closing your eyes and standing on one leg and repeating this as often as possible. My experience and my belief is that this is a total waste of time and an exercise in frustration. If you want to improve your balance, you must improve your STRENGTH!
All of those little muscles in our feet and calves to say nothing of the bigger muscles in our upper thighs and especially our glutes (aka ‘ASS’) need strengthening, fine tuning and training to improve balance. If you can’t stand on one leg on the floor, for heaven’s sake don’t go stand on a BOSU ball or any wobble board. Those Toys are for people who want more challenge – who are bored standing around on one leg like a flamingo. If your body is just randomly firing muscles so that you don’t fall down, your balance won’t improve. BUT, if you find exercises that tire out your leg and foot muscles, your body will get stronger and your balance will improve.
In our studio, we regularly do one legged squats to help build that strength. Some people use the wall to help them balance, some people don’t. Some people do it on a foam roller and some people hold weights in their hand. But they all feel muscular fatigue. And muscular fatigue means muscle strength and muscular strength means better balance

Sore Again

Jude and I did Crossfit on Friday noon and then again on Saturday morning. I was not too sore from earlier in the week but Jude was pretty sore from CF on Thursday night and then Cardio Pilates on Friday Morning.

To finish off the week, we did ‘the stairs’ on Capitol Hill. Seattle has lots of outdoor stairs because we have so many hills. And these particular stairs are popular for getting a workout. Actually there is a pair of stairs a block apart each going up about 13 flights although I am not sure what that actually elevation change is.

Anyway, we are training for the Columbia Tower stair climb (Bigclimb.org) in March. It is 69 floors and it ends up being mostly a sprint. I did it 2 years ago with a 12 minute time. My goal is to cut that down to at least 10 minutes. So I have been sprinting up the Capitol hill steps for the past few weeks getting back into shape. Yesterday, I did 12 ‘laps’ – some sprinting, some walking but all taking 2 steps at a time. It is a great workout!

Today, I am not sore in my legs but my triceps and upper body is a bit sore from Crossfit yesterday. I’ll stretch it out when I do my Pilates workout with a couple of clients.

Long Time Coming

It’s been several months since my last entry. You can just assume a combination of busy-ness, laziness and neglect. But I have not been idle in that time.

I have continued my Crossfit workouts and have really started to see and feel changes in my strength. But as I was telling a Pilates client yesterday, “If you really want to make changes in your body, you have to really work hard. I mean the kind of workout that leaves either laying on the floor panting or crying.”

Other workouts, Pilates included, are going to change one’s body but just not as fast. Our bodies crave stasis to conserve energy and as such they will try to sabotage our efforts to make changes. I feel a bit of anxiety every time I go to Crossfit because I know that I am going to be wiped out. But the rewards of having done something you didn’t think you were capable of are great.

And lately, because of Crossfit, I am finding Pilates so incredibly valuable for its complexity, flexibility, range of motion and requirement for a complete body integration. After all Joe Pilates worked a lot with dancers in NYC; a dancer already has a level of fitness and strength so the classical advanced Pilates reformer work can be viewed almost as a restorative – getting the body back in balance with itself.

Precision versus Speed?

I just came back from Crossfit where, as usual, we had an intense workout: 8 rounds of 20 second intervals(with a 20 second rest in between each exercise) of: Deadlift high pulls, Push-ups and v-ups (teasers by Pilates terminology). Doesn’t sound like much but I was grunting and swearing up a storm. During my rest intervals, I was observing the other Crossfitters especially the really strong power boys. I realize that Crossfit tends to choose power and speed over technique and precision where Pilates emphasizes just the opposite. Is it better to choose one over the other? I don’t honestly know. Because I teach Pilates, the technique choice makes more sense to me in the long run.

During the push-up sequence, I was really paying attention to my technique because when I was working with my trainer at Athletic Engineering, we discovered that the lower fibers of my right Serratus anterior (kind of the armpit muscle) are not engaging which makes my right shoulder ‘wing out’ and have started causing some impingement problems. So I was really getting to full extension on my pushups and really focusing on my armpit area. It made the work so much harder and I think once I get over being sore in the next few days, it will make my shoulders function so much better.

Clearly, power and speed and precision and technique are all critical. My hypothesis is that by doing both Pilates and Crossfit and Yoga and Functional training, I will continue to work on my body in all of the ways necessary to keep me healthy and functional and strong and flexible as I age. ‘Cause I ain’t getting any younger!

Workout Myth #1- Recovery time?

It’s Friday and I woke up feeling pretty good. I usually am a little muscle sore from my various workouts and it feels good – makes me feel alive and like I am working towards something. Yesterday ended up being a 3 workout day: 2 Pilates workouts and a Crossfit workout.

Now I know a bunch of people get alarmed when you tell them you workout everyday and more than an hour a day. That doesn’t make sense to me. Any Olympic athlete, gymnast, ballet dancer or any professional athlete didn’t get to where they are on one hour a day 5 days a week. They push themselves. Even Madonna or an actor training for a physical role will workout like crazy to get ready.

But don’t you need a day to recover? My response is: If your legs or arms or glutes are fried then yes you need some time to recover but that is just logical and listening to your body. Abs can be cranked on every day because there is so much blood running through them to help with recovery.

So some days I wake up and discover that my hamstrings or glutes or arms are super sore so I give them some time to recover. I also try to get a little extra sleep to help with that process. And then I go at it again. And again, and again.

Today will probably be a no workout day unless I run the stairs because I am going to the ballet tonight to see those athletes work their bodies in amazing ways. BTW, it’s Midsummer Night’s Dream