Sunday 7.03.11

This is a pretty cool website called The Art of Manliness.  It discusses things every man should know or be able to do.  Things our grandfathers and great grandfathers did, but maybe have been lost in the modern era of convenience and technology.  There are even fitness related articles that suggest among other things that everyone should be able to save his or her own life if necessary by being able to:

• Swim a half mile or more
• Run at top speed for 200 yard or more
• Jump over obstacles higher than your waist
• Perform at least 15 chin ups/pull ups
• Perform at least 25 dips

Take a look at yourselves and see how you measure up.  Do you possess the kind of fitness you might need to save your own life?

This past week we tested ourselves in the CrossFit Total, the 5k run, and Fran.  If you missed any of these important benchmarks, try and make them up next time you're at the gym.  We do these same workouts at the end of every three months in order for each of us to gauge how our fitness compares to where we were three months ago.  Hopefully it is always moving in the right direction!

I personally witnessed many PR's this week, some in strength, some in endurance, and some in just doing things as rx'd for the first time.  All of these are great accomplishments and you should be proud of yourselves.

One of the changes we made to the programming that I feel is a big help is that over the last 6 weeks or so we have adopted a more fixed strength training template.  Every three day cycle we do a push movement, a pull movement, and a skill movement for our SWOD's.  You will notice that on Mondays and Thursdays the exercises are primarily pushing (all types of squats and presses).  Tuesdays and Friday are pull days (deadlift, cleans, snatches, pull ups, rows, etc.) and Wednesday and Saturdays are skill work (handstands, rope climbs, pistols, etc.) 

We feel the introduction of this type of programming has allowed people to recover better and more quickly, and to add strength in needed movements.  I also feel that skill development has increased as a result.  So keep this framework in mind as we start a new three month cycle.  At the end of September we will test on these workouts again.  Will you be stronger, faster, and leaner than right now?  bc