Niall's Blog

This update is a bit overdue, I've been pretty busy finishing up things before I left my job and planning a backpacking trip before I start my new one. Still been training though!

Friday 2010-02-05
Rest day.

Saturday 2010-02-06
WOD: 5 rounds of: 10 burpees, 5 deadlift @ 275. My time: 3:55. Deads start feeling pretty heavy!

Also went down to Catalyst Athletics in Sunnyvale for some Olympic lifting coaching. There were four of us in the group and we had an hour long session with Steve Pan. It was very useful coaching. We worked on snatch technique. The two big pointers I took away from it were a) holding that solid starting position in the initial stages of lift (e.g. a snatch-deadlift) and b) moving feet lightly, avoiding any "donkey kick". I will be going down for coaching on the clean & jerk soon.

Sunday 2010-02-07
Rest day. I really needed a break.

Monday 2010-02-08
Did some shoulder-strength/rehab type work. A bunch of Turkish get-ups at 1.5 pood, presses and behind-the-neck presses. The behind-the-neck presses seem to have a very therapeutic effect. Strangely my hand and wrist pain has decreased greatly - in addition to lessened shoulder pain - since working them. I do pretty light weight (65#).

Tuesday 2010-02-09
WOD: 3 rounds of: 3 Muscle Up, 5 SDHP @ 95#, alley sprint (100m uphill). my time: 6:09.
Went into this one thinking I'd get stuck on the muscle ups, but in fact I felt much stronger doing them and had no problems. Felt a lot easier to get through the transition point.

Wednesday 2010-02-10
WOD 5 rounds of: 10 box jumps, 7 deadlifts @ 185#, 5 hand-stand push ups (on parallettes). My time: 6:49.
HSPU were definitely the slowest part of this for me - its tough to do them for reps. The deadlifts did start to get tough toward the end. Box jumps were easy.

Thursday 2010-02-11
Rest day.

Friday 2010-02-12
More shoulder work - Turkish getups, behind-the-neck presses, etc.

Saturday 2010-02-13
Run 5k. My time: 26:30 (urban route - lots of stopping at lights etc).
-Rest-
3-3-3-3-3
Overhead Squat I did pretty well on the OHS: 125-135-140(f)-145-155. 155# for 3 reps is a PR!

Sunday 2010-02-14
Turkish get-ups, behind-the-neck presses, etc.

Monday 2010-02-15
WOD:
8x100m sprints, rest in between.
2x400m run, 2 mins rest in between.
1x800m run.
The alley sprints were hard. Very difficult to go all-out eight times like that.
- Rest -
Shoulder press 3-3-3-3-3.
I did: 115-125-135-140-145(f). I think 140# for 3 reps is not too bad.

Tuesday 2010-02-15

WOD:10 Rounds: 10 Kettlebell Swings 1.5 pood, 10 Pull-ups. My time: 9:11.

After about round 5, grip starts weakening. Final few KB swings took everything I had just to hold onto the damn thing!

rest

3-3-3
Snatch Balance. Just went light with this, working speed. 65-75-95.

3-3-3
Bent Over Row. Still getting used to this exercise. 95-135-155.

Niall O'Higgins is an author, event organizer and software consultant. He wrote the book MongoDB and Python, published by O'Reilly. Events he organizes include We Have Tablets, the #1 Bay Area Tablet Computing Meet-up and PyWebSF. He also offers consulting services for Mobile, Tablet and Cloud Computing.

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This week was a bit stressful and intense due to resigning from my job (a move I feel good about though - onto new and different things!), so it was great to have some solid training to help deal with that. I'm definitely pretty tired after all this! Tuesday 2010-01-26 WOD: Filthy 50s 50 Box jump, 24 inch box 50 Jumping pull-ups 50 Kettlebell swings, 1 pood Walking Lunge, 50 steps 50 Knees to elbows 50 Push press, 45 pounds 50 Back extensions 50 Wall ball shots, 20 pound ball 50 Burpees 50 Double unders My time: 21:30. [caption id="attachment_811" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="This overhead position is tough for me"][/caption] Wednesday 2010-01-27 I like the shoulder press because its a slow, controlled movement, but the faster overhead lifts can really hurt my shoulders due to flexibility issues. Its like some part of my shoulder is banging against something - which it probably is - and the resulting sudden pain when the heavy bar is flying up overhead causes me to drop the damn thing! So I end up having a shoulder press not much lower than my push press and push jerk, which sucks. Hoping I can address this over time, with practice. If anyone has successfully resolved this particular issue please let me know :-) 100 Double-Unders. I find these fairly easy, knocked them out in 46 seconds. - Rest - 1-1-1-1-1 Shoulder Press: 115# - 125# - 135# - 145# - 155# (fail) 3-3-3-3-3 Push Press: got up to 160# 5-5-5-5-5 Push Jerk: got up to 145#, dropped down to 115# to practice. shoulders hurt. Thursday 2010-01-28 Rest day Friday 2010-01-29 Couldn't make it to the gym for burpees + box jumps, so I modified it slightly at home. WOD: 10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1 Burpees, 1.5pood kettlebell swing. This was pretty fun actually, the burpees and swings really make you breath! Saturday 2010-01-30 WOD: 1 Pood kettlebell snatches (left AND right), hand stand pushups (15-12-9). The HSPUs were the toughest part. We are working them on parallettes, which I like more than without because it saves my wrists, but it does make them harder. I could knock out a few with reps but after that I had to do them in singles. Interesting to contrast the HSPU with the Shoulder Press - roughly the same weight but so much more stabilization required for the HSPU - I guess humans have legs for a reason! - Rest - Open water swim in the San Francisco Bay again. This is so much fun - 48degF water followed by a good sit in the steam room. Truly great for recovery. Sunday 2010-01-31 WOD: 10 rounds of: 15 x Deadlift @ 135#, 15 pushups. My time: 15 minutes. I'm not sure what it was (maybe that I ran the WOD at 10pm) but I felt pretty weak toward the end. I had to break the deadlifts down to sets of 5. This one really makes your hamstrings scream. Monday 2010-02-01 Rest day. Tuesday 2010-02-02 WOD: Run a 5k. Much more than 5k and I start to get bored, but 5k is ok. Hamstrings were still sore from the 150 deadlifts on Sunday night! - Rest - Front Squat 5-3-3-2-1. Felt good with the squats, did 185#-205#-225#-245#-255#. Wednesday 2010-02-03 This was pretty tough - and fun! WOD: As Many Rounds As Possible in 3 Minutes 5 Kettlebell Swings 2 Pood 5 Push Press 95# 5 Pull-ups Kinda like Fight Gone Bad I suppose. First time doing the 2 pood swings, I found them easier than I expected, although toward the end my grip was very tired. My score: 3-4-3-3-3. It was OK, I slightly miss counted at one point, but I only would've gotten maybe one more round, so not a big difference. - Rest - 3-3-3 Power Cleans My numbers: 135#-155#-175#(F) Didn't have enough time to rest between sets since parking meter was running out, I blame that for failing on the 175# cleans! Thursday 2010-02-04 Feeling a bit wrecked at this stage. No WOD prescribed, so I did 75 reps of Over Head Squat @ 95 lbs. Not in a single set :-) I'm looking forward to resting tomorrow!

Niall O'Higgins is an author, event organizer and software consultant. He wrote the book MongoDB and Python, published by O'Reilly. Events he organizes include We Have Tablets, the #1 Bay Area Tablet Computing Meet-up and PyWebSF. He also offers consulting services for Mobile, Tablet and Cloud Computing.

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Another week, another bunch of training. After last week's CrossFit Sectionals NorCal Training Log 2010 #1, this one was a bit better. Mainly because I got over my cold. However, some stuff was really tough. [caption id="attachment_728" align="aligncenter" width="604" caption="SF Bay Swim 2010-01-16"][/caption] Here's what I did: Monday 2010-01-11 WOD: 30 muscle-ups for time. I could only manage to do eight - which was a disappointment since I could do 30 back in September. I really feel like my upper body strength has taken a hit over the past 2 months. So that sucked. After a rest, we did a 5x5 Back Squat, where I was a bit happier; 165 - 185 - 205 - 225 - 245, good, deep ROM throughout. Being a bit miffed by poor muscle-up performance, I finished off with a bunch of slow, deep ring dips. Hoping that some weighted pull-ups and dips will bring back muscle-ups soon. Tuesday 2010-01-12 WOD: Run a 5k. This was fine, raining a bit and our route through SF's Pacific Heights is very hilly. My time was respectable enough, 26:40. After that I took a rest and worked a 5x3 Power Clean. My max power clean previously was 195lbs, and I was disappointed to only be able to hit 3x175lbs this time. I was having odd sharp pains and spasms in my elbows and shoulders after each rep which I think were from the muscle ups on Monday. So I decided to leave it at that, which was a good idea I figure. Wednesday 2010-01-13 WOD: 3 rounds for time of: 50 double unders, 50 push-ups. My time was 6:46 which wasn't too bad. The push-ups were really what slowed me down. I feel like I used to be a lot faster at push-ups. I guess I just need to do like a 100 every morning when I get up. After a rest, I did a Power Snatch to 5xOver Head Squat progression. I found that my elbows and shoulders were still sore from the muscle-ups and so I had to take some breaks in between each set for the spasms to die down. I made it up to 125lbs Power Snatch followed by 5xOHS, which was respectable enough. Thursday 2010-01-14 Rest day Friday 2010-01-15 WOD: Fairly long lifting session, 5x5 in Back Squat, Shoulder Press and Deadlift. Squat was reasonable I hit 260lbs x 5. Shoulder Press was a bit disappointing, I could only manage 4 reps at 125lbs, where as 2 months ago I was comfortably enough pressing 135lbs for 5 reps. So that sucked. For the Deadlift I started at 275lbs and hit 335lbs for 3 reps, but the bar just wasn't coming up after that, possibly because I ripped a callous at 325lbs which was pretty distracting. Overall not a bad session but definitely not at my strongest at this point. Saturday 2010-01-16 WOD: Swimming in SF bay! Thats where the photo above is from. This was pretty awesome - I actually ended up doing something like a mini-triathlon since I cycled 8 miles (to and from gym) ran 1.5 miles (from gym to bay) and swam for 10 minutes. Felt great, bloody cold though, looking forward to more swimming there in the future. 52F water is great substitute for an ice bath! Sunday 2010-01-17 WOD: 5x5 dead hang pull-ups / weighted pull-ups @ 1 pood. 5x5 Ring dips. Like I said above I think my upper body strength needs some work so I thought this would be a good one. Definitely didn't feel as strong with this resistance as I have in the past, so I think I'll need to do this kind of WOD a fair bit more over the next few weeks. Monday 2010-01-18 Rest day.

Niall O'Higgins is an author, event organizer and software consultant. He wrote the book MongoDB and Python, published by O'Reilly. Events he organizes include We Have Tablets, the #1 Bay Area Tablet Computing Meet-up and PyWebSF. He also offers consulting services for Mobile, Tablet and Cloud Computing.

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Back in Febuary 2009, I got my set of gymnastics rings from Ringtraining.com [affiliate link]. That was at the time when I started thinking that I would like to be able to do a muscle-up. Some of you may remember my post on Greg Glassman's journal article:

"The muscle-up is astonishingly difficult to perform, unrivaled in building upper body strength, a critical survival skill, and most amazingly of all, virtually unknown. This movement gets you from under things to on them. Though containing a pull-up and a dip, its potency is due to neither. The heart of the muscle-up is the transition from pull-up to dip - the agonizing moment when you don’t know if you’re above or below."

[caption id="attachment_607" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="Me at the transition point of a muscle up"][/caption] My own muscle-up story Anyway, as you can see from the above picture, after about six months of trying, I'm now able to do a muscle-up. It was an interesting experience - I had tried a few times over the months to do them, without success. I could only manage a jumping muscle-up which really doesn't count. But the other day, the `30 muscle-ups for time' WOD came up and I thought - ok, time to practice muscle-ups again - maybe I can get one today! Turned out I got not just one, but managed to do all 30! It took me a long time, but hey I did it. The fascinating part for me is that I hadn't been trying especially hard to get it. It had been at least 6 weeks since I'd last even attempted the movement, and all of a sudden I could do it. I certainly wasn't practicing it every day. This is a bit similar to how I got my first kipping pull-up. I was struggling with the movement for some time, then took a complete break from CrossFit and any kind of pull-up for a period of three weeks (I was on vacation in Ireland with family). When I got back to training, suddenly I was able to kip! What I think made the difference for me 1) Full ROM strength Obviously, you need to have a strong pull-up and a strong dip to be able to complete the muscle-up. When working ring dips, especially with intensity, it can be difficult to achieve full range of motion. I see lots of my peers not going deeply enough and of course I've been guilty of this at times myself. However, with the muscle-up, strength through the full range of motion is critical. You are going from a very deep dip, and you need to be strong there. The same thing applies to the pull-up, but I think in general people are getting decent ROM with their pull-ups. In addition to full ROM, I was working a bunch of weighted pull-ups and dips over the months. I found a 5x5 of dips/pull-ups with weight starting at a 1 pood kettlebell to be beneficial. Beast Skills mentions going up to 100 lbs - while I'm sure thats going to give you awesome strength, that kind of weight definitely wasn't required for me. 2) Shoulder flexibility While the muscle-up needs a lot of strength, it also requires quite some shoulder flexibility. Shoulder flexibility has been an issue of mine for some time, especially with overhead lifts, but even in the power clean and front rack positions. It was literally quite painful for me to perform a power clean and the front rack used to be impossible. Previously, every time I attempted the muscle-up, my shoulders would be pretty sore. On the Beast Skills Muscle Up tutorial page there is a note to the effect that the muscle-up is very demanding on shoulder flexibility:

"Shoulder issues can definitely arise from the muscle-up due to the hyper-extension of the shoulder at the top of the movement. If you have problems doing dips in general, but especially low dips, then watch yourself carefully. You may have to forego the skill entirely."

However, I went to see Kelly Starrett for physical therapy a few times, and this was an enormous help. I believe that the same improvements in flexibility which now enable me to comfortably execute power cleans, hold the front rack, and work overhead presses - also gave me enough room to perform the muscle-up. 3) Technique Finally, the muscle-up is a highly technical movement. I guess it comes more naturally to some people than others. I certainly didn't find it easy. Although the cues are easy to remember - keep your elbows tight, push through the 'window' - it does NOT feel easy when you attempt. No doubt its different for everybody, but the most important things for me were to figure out how to grip the rings relatively comfortably, and then to keep your hands pretty close. Unfortunately theres no really easy way to learn other than trying. Like I said, my own experience was that I didn't do any practice for weeks then all of a sudden I could do it. Anyway, I'm very proud to join the ranks of the CrossFit KMSF muscle-up club and I hope this info is of use to someone! Train hard, be patient, and you'll get it.

Niall O'Higgins is an author, event organizer and software consultant. He wrote the book MongoDB and Python, published by O'Reilly. Events he organizes include We Have Tablets, the #1 Bay Area Tablet Computing Meet-up and PyWebSF. He also offers consulting services for Mobile, Tablet and Cloud Computing.

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One of my weaknesses in CrossFit has been in the strength department. Of course, the only way to improve is to practice. I'm pretty happy now with the basic Power lifts - having gone from a beginner's deadlift of about 140lbs in December 2008 to lifting 370lbs (at 165lbs body weight) in June 2009! With a better level of all-around strength and flexibility, I'm now focusing on the more challenging technical lifts - like cleans, front squats, overhead squats, snatches and jerks. Part of this focus has been trying to learn as much as possible about training for this kind of stuff. As part of my learning process, I came across Dan John's excellent free book "From the Ground Up" [pdf]. He talks about a lot of different things, from nutrition to the psychology of an athlete, to lots of discussion about lifting specifically. One of the more interesting pieces I found is a quick list of the lifts which he thinks give the most "bang for buck". Here it is:

1 Clean and Press...if all you did was Clean and Press, you could be awesome 2 Front Squat...flexible, solid and strong 3 Power Snatch and Overhead Squat Combo...Tony Nielson, a young man I coached for a few years, was the smallest football player on the field, yet I watched him run for 200+ yards in several games. His reason: this combo. Easy to learn, difficult to master, excellent long term benefits. 4 Dragging a sled, pushing a car or hill sprints...shoot me, but I believe these are superior to squats for most athletes. 5 Power Clean...'nuff said 6 Farmer Walk...a year ago, I would have laughed at these...now, I don't laugh 7 One arm lift of some kind...they work, they are simple to learn, they work

Niall O'Higgins is an author, event organizer and software consultant. He wrote the book MongoDB and Python, published by O'Reilly. Events he organizes include We Have Tablets, the #1 Bay Area Tablet Computing Meet-up and PyWebSF. He also offers consulting services for Mobile, Tablet and Cloud Computing.

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