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Six signs that I was over training.

lfischer@bilderz.com (Lance Fischer) — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 16:17:23 -0800

The last few months or so have been a reminder that over training is a very real thing. I guess I bit off more than I could chew the past several months. Sure I was showing lots of progress at first, but then overnight, everything came to a crashing halt.

In hindsight what I was doing, is what we all do, we push ourselves harder and harder trying to attain our goals. In my case I kept upping the training ante, figuring I could do just a bit more, but never realizing that eventually something had to give.

As the months went on, I steadily increased my training regiment; I just kept pushing the envelope a little bit more each time. After a while I adopted the same, five day a week training schedule that I used when I was exclusively lifting. Back then I would work one body part a day, and of course have two days off each week, then start over. The result was that each body part (Chest, legs etc.) had a six-day rest period in between workouts and that schedule worked great (for lifting).

The problem was, that due to intensity level of most WOD’s, there was no way my body could recover with that schedule, but I hadn’t figured that out yet. Eventually I couldn’t take it any more and a whole list of over training “symptoms” started popping up.

These are the signs (which I chose to ignore) that I was over training.

I was exhausted all the time – Normally I am very energetic and ready to take on any challenge. After a few months of constant five day a week workouts, I was done, my body just couldn’t take the abuse that I was putting it through. In hindsight my body never had a full chance to recover from the daily intense workouts.
I was moody – I caught myself getting upset at little stuff. The stress I was putting my body through was having an adverse effect on my moods.
I was getting weak – I just couldn’t figure out why I was losing so much strength week after week. Having the same lifting schedule for years previous to CrossFit had worked wonders in my strength department. Now it seemed like my strength was dropping weekly. Not good, not good at all.
Fat loss stopped – This was my first indicator, but I just brushed it off. It was as if I had hit a wall. One day I’m doing, fine then overnight all my progress stopped. My body told me something, but I wasn’t listening.
I was beginning to dread daily workouts – If you’re like me, you love to workout. So when I began to dread workouts, I should have taken the warning. I didn’t.
I was getting sick a lot – Usually I am the one in the house that doesn’t catch a thing. Yet the past few months, I have been sick more often or stayed sick longer than anyone else in my household.

So what did I do about it?

Well to be honest, nothing for quite awhile. In my mind I thought, you can handle the training, it’s all in your mind, suck it up. Then after a while the lack of progress started to wear on me, so I began doing my own research and came up with all sorts of info as to why my progress stopped.

Much of the info I found indicated that I was not getting enough sleep. I’m not going to go into the science of that, but it made sense that the lack of sleep could contribute to all sorts of problems.

So I did all kinds of stuff trying to get better sleep each night. I started wearing a sleep mask, earplugs and even using a fan for white noise. In the end I did get better sleep, but it never solved any of my training “symptoms”, so I was back to square one.

One day while cruising the net, I logged into Linkedin.com and found a fitness professionals group. Just for fun, I posted a simple question. I wrote, “I’m having trouble losing my last bit of my belly fat, does anyone have any suggestions”?

I can say with all honesty that the responses to that question ranged from the creative, to the strange. In one twenty four hour period I had more suggestions than I could have imagined.

Yet one stuck out.

One personal trainer suggested that I change my routine. Duh, I thought, the answer had been staring me right in the face the whole time, yet I didn’t see it, or maybe didn’t want to.

The same conclusion I had come to about sleep, should have sent off alarms that maybe I wasn’t getting enough rest between very difficult workouts. As a result my whole body was suffering. My body needed rest, and not just during sleep.

His suggestion was to change my schedule to a two on two off, then one on one off schedule.

Well I have, and the results have been remarkable. I have gained my strength back, I feel rested, I am not getting sick, I have a new love for working out, my moods are better and once again I feel like I can conquer the world. Oh yeah, as an added bonus I began losing fat again.

So if your in a rut and don’t know why, maybe it’s because your over training.
Sorry sport, but even though your mind says so, your body might not.

See you in the hills.
Lance

The second miracle of CrossFit.

lfischer@bilderz.com (Lance Fischer) — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 15:31:30 -0800

The other day while doing some shopping at the commissary on Edwards AFB, I glanced at my phone while pushing a cart in the vegetable isle. I caught a post on Facebook, which detailed a lawsuit between the Sportsgrants (Fight Gone Bad) folks and CrossFit. I read the entire lawsuit while my wife shopped and when finished, instantly formulated my own opinion (of course).

During the drive home that evening, I thought about the lawsuit and all the good CrossFit has done. I’m not talking about the fitness craze that it started, or the countless lives that have been altered by it training philosophies, but rather the shear number of charities that CrossFit Affiliates have helped through events, and the lives forever changed by those charities.

When I thought back to the numbers given in the lawsuit (FGB 1-6 generated a whopping $5, 928,011.00 (You’ll have to add the number yourself, but that’s what I came up with. See the doc)) I was floored to say the least. The lawsuit alleges all kinds of stuff, but the fact remains that without CrossFit, it’s athletes and affiliates, FGB would have been just a dream not realized.

During that drive, I also started to think about the hundreds of fitness challenges that take place each week all over the world, most with a portion of the proceeds going to charity.

If one charity event like FGB had raised so much money over six events, what would the numbers look like if you added all money every affiliate had raised for charity worldwide during that same time frame?

This totally changed my outlook on CrossFit. While most see CrossFit as just a mere fitness program, I now look at it as a phenomenon that has transformed countless lives in a way no one could have expected.

Like I said, I read the lawsuit and have my own opinions, but opinions like they say are like assholes, and everyone’s got them, and that is not what this article is about. So instead of giving you my thoughts on that, I’d love to give credit where credit is due.

First off, my hats off to Greg Glassman, an obvious genius businessman, who’s drive and ambition for fitness created a phenomenon that has reached far beyond it’s original goal and has affected the lives of those most in need.

Second and of course not least, the CrossFit affiliates, who together with their athletes give more than just blood, sweat and yes sometimes puke to make the world a better place.

I think I can say that never before has such a diversified group of people anywhere been able to affect the lives of so many others, with so many different causes at one time.

While the Big Dogs fight out whatever they do in court, the fact remains that the second miracle of CrossFit is still happening.

Every once in a while I am reminded that there is still good in this world, thanks!

Way to go, modern day heroes.

See you in the hills.
Lance

CrossFit FTF Fresno-Clovis 3rd Annual Fitness Challenge

lfischer@bilderz.com (Lance Fischer) — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 10:58:05 -0800

Whenever I cover an event, regardless of what it is, I never really know what to expect until I get there. The CrossFit FTF Fresno/Clovis 3^rd Annual Affiliate Fitness Challenge was no exception. My original intent was to shoot some photos, take down some details and head back to the hotel a few hours later and relax at the pool. That did not happen, because the event was much larger than I expected. In fact, I was pretty shocked at the number of athletes and spectators in attendance. As I stood there taking it all in, I had to devise a new plan for this article.

I knew that there was no way I could cover every WOD at each station, which meant that there was no way to accurately write a sports article with a play by play. So I opted to tell the story with photos. I made up my mind early to shoot as many as photos as possible, showing the diversity of the field and talent at this obviously popular event.

1. The event Benefited the Children's Hospital of Central California.

2. One of the male athletes at the competition.

3. The women's competition was full of fierce competitors.

Sponsors for the Event that I know of as of this writing are:

Wod-Club, Progenex, Sierra Running Company, Verizon Wireless, WODshirts.com

Life as Rx, Blonyx, Wodclub, Fresh n Easy Markets, Strength Wraps, SMR

Maverick Athletic Company

Here are just a few more of the photos from the day, I shot over 1700 and was left with around 450 usable photos, which I loaded into the gallery below.

{gallery}stories/FTF2012{/gallery}

I did my best to cover as much of each WOD as possible, trying to catch each athlete during at least one portion of their WOD, but I have no idea if I did. To be able to accomplish this I stayed stationary during most of the day and only traveled around when I felt that I had photographed most of the athletes in that area. This meant that I was not able to cover most of the outdoor portions of each WOD, other than running.

With me being the only one shooting that day I could only cover so much, hope you enjoy, and hope that if I missed any athletes, they understand.

Oh, I don’t have the official info on which athlete won what, but when I find out I’ll update this post.

* During the finals, I shot some video as a last minute thought using my 7D. The first is a portion of the Men’s Final and the second of the Women’s Final.

If you have an event, and you want to advertise it for free, just register on the site and click the ADD event link located at the top of the page, if your interested in having us cover your event for this blog, shoot me an e-mail lfischer@bilderz.com and we can talk.

See you in the hills, or at an event.

Lance

The photo gear you buy and use depends on your subject.

lfischer@bilderz.com (Lance Fischer) — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 16:21:06 -0800

I often get asked about what type of camera equipment someone should buy or use at an event. Of course my answer is always the same, it depends on what your subject is. They give me a bewildered look and I have to explain.

Here is a brief outline of how I choose what gear to buy, and what I should bring along for one of my assignments.

I find out what my subject will be, weddings, sporting events, portraits, nature etc. and what medium, video or stills.
I determine if I have previous experience shooting that subject. If so I skip to 4.
If I have no experience, I do a search on google and find top photographers/videographers in that field. I search their galleries, find what type of equipment they use to achieve those photos, learn their techniques and go from there.
If I don’t have the equipment, which is more often the case then not, I decide if I can get away with using what I have. If I can’t I might have to buy, but that all depends if can afford the purchase. Another determining factor is if I will be able to use the new gear on future assignments. (If this is a paid gig, it is best to know this BEFORE agreeing to the job)
If I can use the gear in the future, and it’s within my budget I’ll usually make the purchase. If it’s gonna be a one time thing, probably not.
Once this is done I’m well on my way to having great photos, no matter the event.
Of course knowing lighting, framing, Photoshop, Lightroom, and Final Cut doesn’t hurt

So what gear do I use? Well it changes frequently. Until last year I was using two Canon Mark II’s, and two Canon XL2’s Mini DV camera, plus a bunch of lenses. When I decided to upgrade to newer stuff, I found that the Canon 7D could shoot photos as well as video. The problem, was that the 7D wasn’t really designed to be used as a full functioning video camera, so I had to purchase additional gear to make it work properly. Since I shoot photos and video, the 7D was an easy choice. If I were just shooting photos I would probably opt for one of the higher end Canon’s like the EOS-1D Mark VI.

Below are a couple photos of typical setups I use when shooting different types of events.

1. My typical setup for events like sports. I love the 70-200mm lens and use it a bunch. If I'm doing weddings I have a bunch of external flash units that I use.

2. The above photos are a typical setup for tripod mounted video shots.

3. This rig is when I need to shoot video hand-held with the 7D.

4. Just some various lenses and an extender for longer shots.

There is a bunch of other stuff I might use on any given shoot whether it is video or photo. Some examples are, flash units, lighting, White balance tools, Exposure Meter, Camera Boom, External Mics, Camera Stabilizer, and of course lots of CF flash cards.

Just remember that depending on the event, my equipment bag can change drastically.

See you in the hills or shooting an event.

Lance

CrossFit the next Globo Gym?

lfischer@bilderz.com (Lance Fischer) — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 16:17:15 -0800

Any venture whether it be fitness related or not, must grow, or it becomes stagnant and eventually dies. CrossFit is no exception, and as anyone can tell you, is growing by leaps and bounds. In just a few short years it has catapulted onto the fitness stage and taken the world by storm. From major endorsement deals, to commercials now running on national TV, it is everywhere. The question is, at what cost?

In this short article, I am not going to give hard facts, nor am I going to single out any individuals. With time, maybe the sources of some of the tidbits of information I have heard about will agree to let their stories be heard, but until then, lets just call this entire article a bit of speculation and rumor.

Instead of writing this article in the regular format, I thought I’d pose a few questions regarding topics that have been milling around the net lately and my thoughts on them.

Will the Reebok partnership ruin the small affiliate? Well this is a hard one to answer. I wrote an article last year giving my thoughts on the partnership and gave a prediction of sorts as to what would eventually happen. In that article I explained that Reebok was a manufacturer and I doubted that they would be in the gym business.

I also explained that because of their business model, if they did decide to get into the “gym” business, they would only open a few “Reebok CrossFit” branded gyms to promote new “CrossFit” products. Those affiliates would be located in larger metropolitan areas, and the small guy would be left alone. Well from what I hear, this has been happening, but on a much larger scale than I predicted.

* As of this writing there are 43 Reebok branded affiliates with a goal of 150 by the end of 2012 – See article on CNBC.com

Now I really don’t know what this means overall, but I do get a feeling that some of the smaller affiliates out there are not so happy. Scuttlebutt is that affiliate rates have gone up, and this is effectively closing out the little guy, especially in less populated areas.

Is this part of the plan? Does Reebok want total control over the entire CrossFit empire? Do they have a hand in influencing pricing, and if so is, it an attempt to force out the small “Non-Performers” to keep the Reebok brand solid? Don’t know, once again, I am just hypothesizing. But this brings me to number two.
Does the explosive growth of CrossFit and number of affiliates lead to a lack of overall quality? Ok let me be the first to say this, I am all for entrepreneurship and I don’t knock anyone who wants to get out there and live the dream.

That being said, and please don’t get offended if this is you, but you are no more qualified to teach any type of exercise or sport, after a few short certificate courses, than I am watching E.R, then attempting to perform surgery.

The people who should be teaching are the ones who have been there and done it with CrossFit, or those with years of experience in many of the different disciplines in CrossFit (Olympic Lifting, Gymnastics etc.). These are the gurus that can lead you in the right direction, tell you when your making mistakes and stop you before you hurt yourself.

I’m not talking about those people; I’m talking about the people who have an entire two months of CrossFit under their belts who choose to plop down some cash for a certificate course, then decide to open an affiliate, and coach.

Now this is where it gets crazy! CrossFit allows them to do this!

So on any given day, you never really know what your gonna get at any given CrossFit because there is no consistency. Affiliate number one, may have years of knowledge with its trainers, while affiliate number two down the street may be staffed with people who wouldn’t know a proper squat if it bit them in the ass.

Now, I am no expert in any of the lifts and I readily admit it. For advice and technique I look to the experts online, and try to replicate what I see, but guess what, I don’t teach the stuff because I am not an expert, not yet at least.

From what I’m hearing, the sentiment around the net is that the explosive growth of CrossFit and expansion of affiliates is creating an inferior product. Now I’m not saying this is true, but if it is, here is how it could ruin the brand as a whole.

I’ll use a fast food chain as an example. Lets say McDonalds let anyone who had a few thousand bucks open a restaurant. Lets say they gave them a couple eight-hour courses on running a restaurant and then sent them on their way, with no real future oversight.

This would be great at first because you’d have a McDonalds on every corner. But soon the problems would start. All the food would taste different at each location, costs would be different, the buildings would look different, and quality would vary from location to location.

After a while people would stop visiting the chain altogether, because they wouldn’t know what to expect. At one location, you’d get the real deal and at the other, something totally unexpected.

In my opinion the same could go for CrossFit. If a client were to get burned by visiting an unqualified affiliate, they would be apprehensive about spending money at another. Which brings me to my third and final question/observation.
Does the Reebok-CrossFit recognize this problem and look to standardize affiliates?

If so will CrossFit eventually become a new newest GLOBO gym?

Who knows, but it is an interesting question. On one hand, standardization would mean that every affiliate would be highly trained to teach CrossFit. Any athlete anywhere would be able to enter any gym around the world and know exactly what they were getting. They’d get expert advice from highly qualified individuals at each location.

But due to the new affiliate requirements, I could only guess the costs to own an affiliate would rise, due to the cost of training and oversight required by the “Mother ship”. This would effectively force the little guy out, because they just couldn’t afford fees associated with the new CrossFit model.

The crazy thing is that if CrossFit doesn’t do some kind of oversight, I imagine that they will someday reach the fate of a fast food chain gone mad, like in the example above.

It seems if you look at it with open eyes, they are damned if they do and damned if they don’t.

Once again, I have no hard facts, and my answers to the hypothetical questions are pure speculation. For the fun of it, I thought I’d create a few polls to see what you think.

If you have something to say, please don’t be shy, put it in our comments section below. Remember, you don’t have to sign in, you can always comment as a guest.

See you in the hills.
Lance