Gympressions

Ciao, 2011!

Gym Belle — Sat, 31 Dec 2011 21:55:36 +0000

Ring dips at CrossFit Metropolis2011 was a big year. I ran the New York marathon and the Vienna half. My sister became an Ironman. I tossed an old lady. I participated in my first CrossFit competition - and then did a few more with Team Metropolis. I won a trampoline. I wrote a poem. There were lots of PRs and epic fails. And the year's going out with a bang - a ginormous bruise/scrape from (yet another) box jump fail this morning.

Resolutions really aren't my thing. Goals I like, though. So, here's what's on the shortlist for 2012:

To beat my best half marathon time (1:57:36) in the NYC Half in March.
To do a muscle up.
A 200+ lb deadlift (still at 190...since March).
To string together more than two consecutive double-unders. This is long overdue.
To do Fran as Rx'd in under 30 minutes.

I'll keep you posted. Happy New Year, everyone!

-Gym Belle-

Gym Belle's Holiday Gift Guide for Gym Rats

Gym Belle — Sat, 10 Dec 2011 19:53:55 +0000

Lately I've been answering lots of questions about holiday gifts. What should I get my brother who's really into CrossFit? What do I get for my sister who's just started running? So, without further ado, here is my quick and dirty gift guide for gym rats of all kinds.

Bondi Bands Bubble Dots Wicking Headband

Bondi Bands are still my all-time favorite headwear for working out. The wicking variety stay put - pretty much no matter what. Handstand push-ups? Not a problem.

Sugoi Sonic Arm Warmers

Sleeves are a great gift for runners and bikers. IMHO, Sugoi makes the cutest ones.

Strength Wraps

I bought a pair of these at the CrossFit Games and have been obsessed ever since. If your athlete tapes their wrists for workouts, these will change their lives.

Lululemon Scuba Hoodie

It's a classic. Need I say more?

Khataland YoFoMat folding yoga mat

I don't own one of these yet. But the concept is brilliant.

Lululemon No-Brain Mat Strap

I do own this. Nothing ruins a hard-earned savasana like a fight to stuff your mat in a bag. Preserve your om.

Trigger Point Ultimate 6 Kit

If your gym rat is always complaining about tight hips or other ouchies, I highly recomend a Trigger Point set.

Wicked Fit Love Tank

I have this in pink. I think it's my favorite workout tank.

Rx Jump Ropes custom length jump ropes

Length matters.

Under Armour ColdGear Compression Mock

Baby, it's cold outside. Unless you're wearing one of these.

http://demonbells.com/

And for the gym rat who has everything - kettlebells with attitude.

Did I leave anything out?

-Gym Belle-

An Rx of Their Own?

Gym Belle — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 17:22:54 +0000

In a recent CrossFit Journal video entitled Prescribed Scaling for Women, Tony Budding and Katie Hogan discuss the oft-noted absence of prescribed weights for women in CrossFit's mainsite WODs. The topic is a somewhat controversial one in the CrossFit community, and these discussions tend to be punctuated by accusations of sexism flung in both directions. Inflammatory rhetoric aside, this debate actually raises some interesting questions about how women approach CrossFit, and I'd like to share my thoughts on the topic.

Men are stronger than women. That disparity is more pronounced in the upper body, but it is significant throughout. It's certainly true that some women are stronger than a heck of lot of men, but, on average, men are considerably stronger.

When CrossFit designs workouts and posts them on its daily blog, there is one "prescribed" weight - and it's selected with the fittest men in mind. (Some claim the numbers are unisex; I think they speak for themselves.) The expectation is that athletes will either do the workout as prescribed, or scale it down to accomodate their abilities and training needs. CrossFit does not prescribe a weight for women for mainsite WODs. In fact, the only time that CrossFit specifies a women's weight for a workout is in competitions. Many individual gyms actually do specify an Rx'd women's weight for their athletes (typically about 2/3 of what the men are doing), but CrossFit doesn't endorse this practice.

"Rx'd" has real cache in the CrossFit world. Doing a WOD as it is prescribed is perceived and treated as an accomplishment. Merely by way of example, my affiliate, CrossFit Metropolis, sells shirts that say "As Rx'd" on the back, and at our last Fight Gone Bad competition, we gave out certificates for, among other things, completing the WOD as Rx'd. If doing a WOD as Rx'd is the goal, or even a goal, then setting a standard that is significantly more difficult, if not physiologically impossible, for women to accomplish just isn't cool. Whether or not its intended, the message communicated is that to be truly fit, to truly succeed at this sport, you pretty much have to be male. This is massively demoralizing and undermines the legitimacy of women's accomplishments in the gym. In my mind, the argument in favor of prescribed weights for women boils down to this: success is hugely motivating, and women deserve a comparable opportunity to achieve these milestones. Women are entitled to a target that is equally as attainable for women as the official Rx'd weights are for men.

Arguably, CrossFitters - men and women - are entirely too focused on "Rx'd." Those numbers are intended to be reference points, not status symbols. And just because you can go Rx'd in a given WOD doesn't mean you should. When you're training, you should focus on improving your weaknesses. That might mean stripping some weight off and speeding up. It might mean piling on more pounds. Still, the perception is that Rx'd equals badass, and this isn't likely to change.

One argument I've heard against prescribing women's weights is that it's too hard to do. The two-thirds rule doesn't always work. The weights selected for women would be arbitrary. This is bunk. It shouldn't be that much more difficult to pick a number for women than it is to pick one for men. Yes, women come in all shapes, sizes and strengths, but so do men. It's certainly no less arbitrary. In the interview, much is made over the fact that the elite female athletes keep getting stronger. The same is true for the men, though. Over time, we've seen mainsite prescribe heavier weights for men; no one's suggested that we should stop prescribing weights because of this. That wouldn't make sense.

What's not articulated by Tony or Katie but seems to underlie their more interesting comments is a concern that female athletes would treat Rx'd weights differently than their male counterparts do. There seems to be a concern that women would see their own Rx numbers as absolute limits and not venture beyond them even if they were physically capable of doing so. This is interesting. It wouldn't totally surprise me if women were actually more ambivalent about reaching the Rx'd weights, or more likely to categorize themselves as capable of "something less than Rx'd" regardless of what that Rx number is. If that were true, then the absence of a lower target for women might actually foster greater strength gains. It's a fascinating theory. If someone were to really study this, perhaps I'd be convinced that prescribed weights for women would actually be counterproductive.

In the end, I don't think there's an urgent need for official prescribed weights for women because most of us really do put stock in the unofficial numbers. (When I do Fran at 65lbs, you'd better believe I'm saying I did it as Rx'd!) But doesn't that speak volumes about what the community believes is most effective? I won't claim to have exhausted the literature, but what I've read so far has failed to convince me CrossFit's really got this one right.

My perspective is arguably different than Katie and Tony's. I'm no elite athlete. Those "unofficial" women's Rx'd weights are, for the most part, still years away for me and the men's weights are utterly unfathomable. Maybe if they weren't, I'd feel differently. I don't know.

So I'm curious, what do you think?

-Gym Belle-

The Things We Do For Boobs

Gym Belle — Sat, 29 Oct 2011 23:14:08 +0000

It wasn't that I hadn't heard that today would be cold and rainy and snowy. I had. It just didn't totally process. I mean, I got that I my Barbells For Boobs outfit would need tweaking. (I wouldn't be wearing my Love Hope Cure knee-highs with my little pink shorts to workout in the snow.) And I thought to pick up hand-warmers for the team. But it didn't go much farther than that. The organizers for the Mammograms In Action fundraiser were bringing in a tent. We'd deal.

And then I stepped out into the gross, gray wet that was this morning.

All week long, I had been debating what weight to use. The workout was Grace, 30 clean and jerks for time at 135 lbs for men and 95 for women. That's too heavy for me, so I'd be scaling. 55 lbs seemed a little too light, but if I went 65 I'd risk being sore for my 10 mile run the next day. A week before the marathon, I didn't want to be messing with sore.

By the time we arrived in Long Island City, I had a whole new concern: slipping. There was a tent for us to hang out in, but the workout was still being done outside by the water. Yesterday, this would have been ideal. Today, it kinda seemed dangerous. The barbell would be freezing. It would be windy. My cute gray and pink Inov-8's are meshy on top, so my toes would be numb.

The event had yet to begin and we were all wet and cold already. Our first competitor would go at 10:15, our last at 2:30. We were looking at a long day.

And then one of our men - let's call him Janitor - had a brilliant idea: we'd go back to our gym and do this thing inside. Yes, we'd be missing the event, but we'd already raised the money and it wasn't going to be fun in those conditions. Surely no one would PR. It didn't take long to get everyone on board.

In the end, I did a sensible 60 lbs in 4:14.

And then we had brunch.

Fingers crossed that the weather is a million times better next Sunday for The Big Day.

-Gym Belle-

Marathon Nightmare & Update

Gym Belle — Tue, 30 Aug 2011 21:20:11 +0000

Last week I had a nightmare. I was in an outer-borough; I couldn't say which. The New York City Marathon had just started, but already I was so behind that I was running with just a few stragglers. We had lost the group and couldn't figure out the route.

I thought it made sense to look for a bridge, but the straggler I was running with couldn't keep up with me. Once or twice, I walked with her. Then I got frustrated and set off on my own to find the bridge. I thought I had it, but the first bridge I found was a dead end. It didn't go all the way across the river. When I doubled back, I found the group of stragglers again.

I spotted a race official on the far side of a nearby fence and led the crew towards her. She told us that we hadn't gone that far off-course. We just needed to head to a sky scraper down the block, take the elevator up to Tavern on The Green (who knew it relocated?) and cross over to a parallel road on the other side.

And then I woke up.

I'm not actually worried about getting lost during the New York Marathon. I'm pretty sure that's impossible. I am worried about not finishing, though. I could cramp, I could go too hard too early and run out of steam, I could not go that hard and still run out of steam, my shoes could hurt, I might not eat enough... the list goes on.

I'm sure that everyone feels this way at some point. But still, I'm a little freaked out.

My training got off to a rocky start. I started out thinking that I'd follow a modified traditional training plan. I'd do my long runs on the weekends leading up to one or two 18-20 milers, and I'd do some shorter runs during the week. I knew from the get-go that running four days a week would be too much for me, but I figured that, with all the CrossFitting I do, I'd be fine cutting back on the weekday runs.

As I got into it, though, my training began to feel disjointed. The CrossFit world was telling me that I'd be better served (both in terms of overall fitness and for the marathon) by less running - at least cutting out the long runs - and more CrossFit. The marathon world was telling me that I needed to run more. I had hoped to compromise, but instead I felt like I was half-assing everything.

So, a few weeks ago, I hooked up with NYC Endurance and I'm taking a totally different approach to my marathon training. My new plan includes seven to nine workouts a week with one rest day. Three sessions are endurance workouts, and the rest are CrossFit metabolic conditioning and strength training workouts. The endurance workouts so far have been short and long intervals, with some longer time trials and tempo runs. It's an intense plan, but so far I love how cohesive it feels. I'm also psyched to be concentrating on intervals and to have a real plan for them with specific speeds.

The freakiest/coolest thing about the Endurance plan is that there are no long runs. Zip. Zero. Zilch. In fact, the very first time I will ever run more than 13.1 will be on race day.

On paper, it doesn't look like I'm working out much more than I was a few weeks ago. It feels so much more intense, though. Two-a-days take a lot out of me. My biggest challenge so far is knowing how hard to push myself during the non-endurance workouts. I need to strike a balance between really pushing myself and being totally ready to go for the next workout.

With just a little more than two months to go, I'm relieved to finally be settling into a routine that I feel good about. Hopefully (maybe?) now the anxiety will dissipate. I'll keep you posted!

-Gym Belle-

Gym Belle Q&A: Is CrossFit for me?

Gym Belle — Wed, 24 Aug 2011 02:00:48 +0000

Gretchen asks: Do you think CrossFit would work for an overweight 40-something?

One of the truly beautiful things about CrossFit is that people of all body types and fitness abilities can participate and reap the benefits. On any given day, everyone does the same workout. All of the workouts are scalable, though, so you do the workout at your own level. Sometimes that means using less weight or no weight. (Tonight, for example, I did a workout where the prescribed weight for women is 65 lbs. That weight would have slowed me down too much, so I substituted 45 lbs.) Sometimes it means substituting in a less advanced movement that has a similar movement pattern. (Until I was able to do pull-ups, I'd do ring rows or use a rubber-band.)

I've watched a lot of people start CrossFit and make some pretty dramatic changes in their strength and overall fitness. I would say that most people surprise themselves in terms of what they find they're able to achieve. I've seen people lose fat and gain muscle, though I'd say that most of the significant weight changes that I've seen at the gym owe a good deal to diet.

If you're curious, absolutely check it out!*

-Gym Belle-

*after consulting your doc, of course :o)

Gym Belle Q & A: How to Handle Paleo Haters

Gym Belle — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 02:06:45 +0000

@jacazia (the lovely blogger behind The CrossFit Foodie) writes: Kind of annoying when a coworker tries to sabotage attempts at my paleo lifestyle. Any words of wisdom?

When faced with skeptics, I remind myself that it took a fairly lengthy period of exposure to the paleo diet for me to stop thinking that it was totally wacky and consider giving it a shot. When you're paleo, you focus on what you eat (lean protein, healthy fats like avocados and nuts, oodles and oodles of veggies, some fruit, etc.) There's nothing extraordinary about this; we eat good stuff. What's striking to the uninitiated, though, is the list of verboten foods. Grains are out. Legumes are out. Dairy (for most) is out. Life without grains is unfathomable to many. I get that. Until I tried it, I had no idea that I could function without pasta. Bread was my absolute favorite food, and I truly thought that grainy foods made my brain work better. What's obvious to me now about the way my body reacts to different foods was not at all apparent before I was several weeks into my paleo lifestyle, so I can't fault anyone for not "getting it."

Moreover, I don't need anyone to get it. I'm paleo (really, 90% paleo/primal 90% of the time) because it works for me. I have no idea if it would work for anyone else. To each their own.

I don't know what type of sabotage you're facing, whether it's truly malicious (incessant badgering beyond mere curiousness), inadvertent (daily offers of freshly baked cookies) or something else entirely. If someone is deliberately dogging you, though, it's their issue, not yours. I quote the wisdom of Scott Stratten (@unmarketing) when I say, "Don't try to win over the haters. You are not the jackass whisperer." In other words, don't get suckered into a false debate. Just make it clear to your co-worker that you're not going to hear attacks on your diet; it's your business. Hopefully they'll drop it.

If it's innocent sabotage of the cookie variety, I would thank your co-worker for their thoughtfulness, but explain that you don't eat that type of treat. If you're lucky, they'll learn to skip you when they pass out the goodies.

If someone's genuine, but perhaps excessive, curiosity (or concern for your health) is bugging you, consider pointing them to Lauren Cordain's site or Mark Sisson's for more information.

Maybe the best advice I could give you is to seek out a paleo friend or two. They've probably encountered similar situations and likely have some good recipes. If they live close by, that's even better. Sometimes it's nice not to be the only freak at the table ordering the turkey burger with no bun.

Any other thoughts for @jacazia? Have you ever had someone attack your diet?

-Gym Belle-

T-Shirt of the Games

Gym Belle — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 02:04:14 +0000

The CrossFit Games 2011 Finals...Live!

Gym Belle — Sun, 31 Jul 2011 14:21:34 +0000

Hey all - I'll be live blogging from the games today. This is my very first live blog so cross your fingers!!
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Staked out a great spot! Waiting for the women's individuals to start!
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Amazing first heat... Katie Hogan moved that sled (+ 275 lbs!) like it was nothing.
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Sorry! Got way too into the action to blog. First WOD is done. Annie T. dominated for the women and is now in the #1 spot, followed by Kristen (duh). Josh Bridges killed it and is now in 2nd after Rich.

So, so far at the games I've learned several things:

1. Annie T. is unreal to watch. Just amazing.
2. Chris Spealler could do a weighted pull-up with me as the weight.
3. I want a six pack at 60.
4. These athletes have heart like no other - pushing till the end, finishing it out after time is up just cause, cheering on the competition - the list just goes on.
5. CrossFit fans rock. The crowd support here is truly phenomenal.

Almost time for the masters!
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The masters were awesome. So so inspiring. Now we're a few minutes away from the team finals. They decided to wipe the slate clean for the top 6 teams, so whoever wins this last relay will win. I don't know how I would feel about that as a competitor but it will make this a very exciting event!
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It has been an amazing but very long day at the Home Depot Center. The sun has been STRONG! It's been worth it, though. The final events did not disappoint.

CFNE totally crushed the other teams, finishing minutes before the competition. The best part, however, came after time was called when Rocklin CrossFit finished out the WOD just to finish. The crowd went crazy at the 150th wall-ball.

The last individual WOD was especially brutal, but everyone pulled through. It was particularly cool to see Samantha Briggs not only cheer Kristen Clever on after her win, but actually coach her on how to pull the sled more efficiently. This really is the coolest sport ever; no one does community like CrossFit. While on line for my millionth bottle of water, I heard one woman remark that her box isn't her gym; it's her home.

About 30 minutes from now, the closing ceremony will kick off. I hope I have enough camera battery left! All the pictures are/will be on the Gympressions Facebook page. (I'll get some up here soon, too.)

The CrossFit Games 2011 Finals...Live!

Gym Belle — Sun, 31 Jul 2011 12:21:43 +0000