James can be reached at TwinFreaks CrossFit, where he is an owner and trainer. James coaches barbell lifting classes and CrossFit classes. Contact him by email at james@twinfreakscrossfit.com or by phone at 720-204-2631.

Wednesday, August 31, 2011

Fat Loss Update & Finish Strong

It's good that I have a blog because I can look back and see that on July 18th a four site pinch test showed my body fat percentage at 17.5. Yesterday I had the same test, and my results didn't show up on the chart which stops abruptly at 12% as if it's inhuman to be over 30 and have any less body fat. Impolite in our sick society, yes, inhuman, hardly.

I had VP do two more pinch tests, one of which I think came out 9%, and the other 15%, neither of which I believe. I think, comparing myself to photos of individuals with varying body fat percentages, that I'm right around 12%.

Pretty good, and I haven't really started trying yet.

No, this is not the high-performance nutrition blog yet. I only started doing that two weeks ago, so all of this so far is just clean paleo eating.

Oh, if weight matters, and again it doesn't unless you compete in a body weight division sport, I was 192 pounds in mid-July and I'm 178 now.

You might remember that among the reasons I'm doing this is the chance to win a contest at work with more than a thousand dollar pay out. I suspected, and I was right, that I would be the talk of the cubicles today after I e-mailed my results in late yesterday. It was tempting to stroll in today drinking not a pint but a whole fucking quart of heavy whipping cream, but I didn't.

Resolve.

I've recently gone to two-a-day work outs. Optimists say I'm pessimistic which is how I know I'm a realist, and I realized that two CrossFit metcons would kill me. I decided to make my second work out rowing with the idea that it being mono-structural and cyclical, the odds of me being able to adapt and make progress are good. Essentially what I'm doing is CrossFit Endurance now.

Today my second WOD was 3 x 1500 meter rows with a 1:2 work-rest interval. I desperately wanted to row one of these at under a 1:50/500 pace so that I could head into erging season confident that I have a realistic shot at a sub-7 2k, and in fact I finished the first one with a 149.5 pace. I thought I'd hold the next intervals as low as I could but not worry too much about the results.

Rowing, if done right, will always kill you. You are permitted the choice of dying aerobically or anaerobically, but die you must. I only had to accumulate a few thousand career meters before I learned that I will always choose to die anaerobically. It could be that the guys who go down gasping for breath feel every bit as badly as I do, but I have to say feeling my legs take on leaden weight while having the consistency of spaghetti is not fun.

And that started happening in the second interval of the second work out of the day, which I finished with a 1:55 pace.

The third interval, predictably, was even worse. At times my pace was going well above 2:00/500 which I just don't allow to happen unless I'm rowing 6k or longer. The bad part of this for me is that when I notice I'm fucking up, I start thinking about fucking up, and then I fuck up worse.

Rowing is a fighting sport, and though I was dying anaerobically I decided to right my ship and keep fighting. I decided that with 500 meters left my pace would go no slower than 1:55/500, and it would damn well stay there for 500 meters. I was actually able to finish under 1:50 and with an overall pace of 1:57.

Physically, not good. Mentally, stellar.

If you watch me long enough, you'll see that I always do this. I can have the worst WOD of my life, and I'm going to crush the last sixty seconds. Unlike some athletes I never look at the clock. I will not see three seconds left and get a stupid idea like that's not enough time to do one power snatch and one more overhead squat.

I believe accepting defeat and quitting early trains one to accept defeat and quit early. I will not have that.

Sure it only made my third interval a few seconds faster. More importantly it allows me to know that the next time I look at an erg, I am a guy who under any circumstances can row under 1:50/500 and still mount a sprint 150 meters out.

Finish strong.

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