Thursday 04 August 2011

Weighted Pull up
one rep max

Push up
3 sets for max reps

Complete as many rounds in 15 minutes as possible
7 Muscle ups
run 400m

If you don't have muscle ups yet then do 10 pull ups, 10 push ups

WOD Tuesday 02 August 2011


Clean and Jerk
one rep max, warm up as you feel you need to and take up to three attempts at setting a new 1rm


For time:
100 double unders
50 burpees
30 kettlebell swings
rest 3 minutes
30 Kettlebell swings
50 Burpees
100 Double unders

Bringing it all together

After well over a year of having The Caveman 2.0 Blog and expanding into three pages, I figure it's a pain in the ass trying to maintain three separate pages. I tend to pay too much attention to one page at a time while other pages get neglected. So I'm amalgamating all three into this main page. Will be lots of updates...... check in frequently

WOD Monday 01 August 2011


Deadlift
1 rep max
-315
-335
-355
-375
-395*fail
385*fail I figured I'd try deadlifting in my new weightlifting shoes. This was a mistake, weightlifting shoes have a raised solid heel made for olympic lifts. This is not good for deadlifts or low bar squats where you want to be as low to the ground as possible and on a flat heel. Oh well now I know better.

"Crossfit Jackie"
Complete for time:
Row 100m
50 thrusters, M45/F30
30 Pull ups
                   7:34 unbroken all the way through. I'm definitely happy. My goal during metcon is now to    go as long as I can without breaking up sets.

CaveMan Babies Part one: The pregnancy

Wow it has been a long time since my last post. Much has happened since then so where do I begin...?

My wife and I have welcomed a wonderful new addition to our family on Friday June 17 at 3:49 pm. Her name is Gwendolynn and she is absolutely perfect. Which leads me on to today's topic. Paleo Pregnancy.

My wife Meghan and I have been following what we affectionately call the CaveMan2.0 lifestyle for over three years now. We have been eating very cleanly and exercising intensely the whole time and I feel I can say that Meghan firmly established a good solid fitness base before getting pregnant.

During her pregnancy Meghan made very few changes to her lifestyle. The first thing she did was to include whole milk back into her diet. She found she started craving it shortly after conceiving.  She did start taking pre-natal vitamins and folic acid, on top of the vitamin D and omega 3 fish oil which she continued as usual.

We continued with our workouts the same as always at first, Meghan did switch to Crossfit mom or start scaling the workouts I prescribed after about six Months. She continued to do all her strength work but found she had to back off on the weight she lifted after about three months. As her belly grew she cut out moves like sit ups and handstand push ups, replacing them with  dumbbell shoulder press and knees to elbows, but kept doing mostly the same movements all the way through.

The pregnancy itself was without any complications and I definitely do attribute this to our lifestyle. Megz did notice she felt more tired and didn't have quite as much go in the tank pretty much right away. it bothered that she couldn't hit the same weights on her strength moves but she kept going anyway and resolved to do what she could.

One interesting thing we noticed very early on is that Megz had to back off on our cheat meals. Usually we would be super strict on our diets all week and then the gloves would come off every Saturday night. Megz quickly discovered that she couldn't eat nearly as much sugar or processed carbohydrates. If she did she would most definitely be throwing it back up in a couple of hours. This is very interesting because she could still pack away as much healthy food as she wanted, but her body would reject that which we consider "cheat foods". Our Saturday night cheat meal was whittled down to about half as much or less. We didn't really mind because we knew it was her body taking care of the baby growing inside of her. So we resolved to reign in our cheat meals a little bit for the remainder of the pregnancy.

In the absolute latest stages of pregnancy Megz was definitely tired, she put on about thirty pounds and was feeling the difference. It was all in her breasts and belly though and didn't show any signs in her face or other areas until the last few weeks. She continued to work up to the last month and did notice some swelling of her feet only after being on them all day working retail.

She continued to go to the gym every chance she got. By the ninth month she was doing drastically reduced workouts but was still going and was still able to link together 5 pull ups. Mostly though, the last month was spent doing mobility and skill work with some supplemental strength work. She also spent a lot of time after her workouts hanging out in the bottom of the squat position, teaching those joints how to work in the position required. Megz was in the gym right up to two days before the birth of our Daughter. The only reason she missed the day before was because it was a scheduled rest day.

Doctor's check ups the entire time were pretty much textbook. Blood pressure remained perfect, heart rate remained perfect, blood sugars remained perfect. Baby was strong and seemed to be developing quite early in all respects. We found the heartbeat at 10 weeks and the doctor was amazed at how strong it was. Usually they won't check until 12 weeks but we were curious. I had to be at work for this so Meghan recorded it on her phone and messaged it to me. I was floored. it was incredible.

Doctor's appointments continued to be like this the entire time, at one point the doctor megz to "Lay off the sweets" as she couldn't understand why Megz seemed to put on almost all the baby weight at once.  She pretty much put on all thirty pounds in the first six months and then leveled off and it was all out front. Then the Doc would check her out, find that everything was coming along perfectly and be satisfied that we don't eat sweets. 

All in all I'd have to say that the pregnancy went as well as it could go. We definitely attribute it to being because Meghan is so fit. Gwendolynn developed perfectly and was two weeks ahead of schedule the whole time. There is no question in our minds that this was diet related. Little gwen had everything she needed to become strong and healthy in the womb and very little if anything that wasn't optimum
baby developing nutrition.

My next post will be on the labour and delivery. I originally wanted to put it all in one post but
a) it would have been too long, and;
b) Gwendolynn showed up in out lives two weeks ago and we haven't slept since so it was all I could do to get through an article this long.

What is wrong with this picture?

I'm sure her intentions are good but who can tell me what's wrong with this video? A free pound of bacon goes to the first person who can point out 3 problems with this video.

Let's talk weaknesses

Well this was an interesting week. I barely had any time to train because I had to do Ruck Sack marches Tuesday and Thursday and I find if I go to the gym after rucking 10 - 12k with 50 pounds on my back I'm wasted the next day. The adrenals have finally succumbed to years of beating them down and I have to be really careful not to overdo it.

You may have noticed that I am just following the Crossfit.com WoD lately. I'll stick to that doing their workouts a day behind. The past year I have been so obsessed with strength that I would barely call what I have been doing CrossFit. It worked for a while but I find that my endurance while performing at a high intensity has suffered. True I have become stronger but to be completely honest, for the little bit of strength I have gained in my squat, I'm not sure if the trade off was worth it. Before leaving for Basic training two years ago I was making wonderful gains following the Main Site and I'm pretty sure I'd be just as strong  today if I never followed a strength bias and just stuck to the main site and ate a ton of good food.

I'm going to follow the main site with a slight bias towards working on weaknesses. I am still going to dedicate a day every week to improving my squat as that is the single most important exercise there is to building total body strength. Also I am going to concentrate more on my particular weaknesses. Not spending time on my weaknesses was my undoing this open sectional. I attribute my mediocre performances not to lack of conditioning or strength, but to having one skill in most of the workouts that I have not developed. First it was double unders, then it was box jumps, and  this week it was wall ball. I know what I have to work on for next year and i plan on going into the sectionals with no glaring weaknesses. It is frustrating being held back by being under developed in a particular skill when you have tons of gas in the tank. There were times on Saturday when I had no rep called three times in a row because my aim was terrible. This will not happen again.

All in all the sectionals have been a great learning experience so far. As frustrating as it has been I have learned that having a huge gas tank won't get you very far when you keep tripping on your rope or can't aim the wall ball. But it's ok. I know exactly what I have to do to become closer to the athlete I want to be. This was my first year competing next year will be completely different.

Let's talk competition

Sometimes the judges and spectators can be the heaviest burden you'll have to bear

CrossFit Games open Sectionals. WOD 11.4
Complete as many rounds in ten minutes as possible.
60 Face to bar burpees, each burpee starts facing a loaded barbell and finishes with a jump over the bar
30, 120lb overhead squats
10 muscle ups

Let's talk a little bit about competition.

As I have stated before, I have been doing the CrossFit Games Open Sectionals. Up until today I have been very disappointed with my performances. It seems as though I have been playing mind games with myself.
Every WOD up until today I have come out of it wondering why I couldn't push harder when I know I was capable. How come I haven't pushed as hard in competition as I do working out on my own?

I strongly feel that when you choose to compete in your sport, it becomes an entirely different beast altogether. You suddenly have a massive group of people all cheering for you who who all expect a performance from you. They know what you are capable of.
But they will all witness your shortcomings as well. The fear of letting them down can cause one to hold back. It can make you afraid to give it your all and suddenly crumble. So you hold back, because giving a strong performance somehow seems better that giving it your all and falling apart.

This is a tough hurdle to overcome. I think almost everybody we competes at any level has experienced the exact feeling I am talking about. Some call it fear of failure, some call it wrestling with your inner demons. It's that voice that says everybody here is going to see you fall apart and it is the loudest voice you will ever hear. The scary part is that not a single person in the arena can hear what it is saying to you. Seasoned veterans can see it in you though.

4 Weeks in, I was finally able to single that voice out in the crowd and tell it to shut up. I decided this morning that I was going to perform to my best. I voiced my my intent to the universe and turned out what is to me an incredible performance. one full round and 14 burpees. Sure I feel that I could have done better. Everybody feels that way after a WOD. But no matter what I placed on the leaderboard, my biggest victory was over myself.