WOD

3 rounds for time:
800 m run
1 pood Kettlebell swing, 21 reps
95 pound Thruster, 21 reps
Pull-ups, 21 reps

Time: 29:55

Groceries

Fruit:
Oranges x 5
Apples x 5
Pears x 5

Vegetables:
Broccoli x 2 large bundles
Yellow Onions x 2
Green Onions x 2 bundles
Butternut Squash x 1
Spaghetti Squash x 1
Bell Peppers x 2
Zucchini x 3
Tomatoes x 3
Mushrooms x 1 package
Cucumber x 1
Garlic x 1 bulb

Eggs x 2 dozen

Almonds x 1 box

Total: $58

I feel like my food costs have gone dramatically up this week as I’ve now paid over $100 for the week and the only big difference is changing grocery stores. Going to try going back to Trader Joe’s and see if it goes back down.

WOD

Back Squat:
135 x 5
175 x 5
185 x 5
195 x 5
200 x 5
205 x 5

Hang Clean practice

Alternating:
Hand Stand Push-ups
Pull-ups

Metabolic Pathways and Creatine

The bodies metabolic pathways are what provide energy for any of your physical exertion. There are three of these pathways and they are the phosphagen, glycolytic, and oxidative. Each one is used for a different amount of time to provide energy. The phosphagen pathway provides energy for extremely short intense energy without the use of oxygen. This involves any sort of maximal effort weight lifting or a 100 meter sprint. The glycolytic pathway comes into play after the phosphagen and is still considered an anaerobic system as it does not need oxygen either. This can be used up to several minutes and is considered moderate power exercises. As you could guess the oxidative is aerobic activity, using oxygen, and is for low powered exercises lasting over several minutes. As a reference your body is most likely switching from the glycolytic to oxidative between an 800 meter sprint and a 1 mile run. Below is a graph representing the three systems and their duration.

Understanding these energy systems can provide a lot of insight as to what your body is doing while you perform different actions. All of these systems rely on ATP for energy. The phosphagen system uses stored ATP in your muscles for a couple of seconds before needing to use creatine-phosphate in your muscles. Breaking this molecule provides a phosphate that can be used for more ATP generation.

This is essentially why people supplement with creatine (originally called Phosphagen by the first company to put it out). Creatine is depleted in your muscles where it is stored through high intensity weight lifting and ingesting 2-4 grams a day can provide replenishment. This basically means you refill your reserves for the phosphagen system and you will have more energy providing greater muscle contraction.

Creatine is by far the most widely studied supplement and is also the highest selling supplement today. There have not been any studies showing it to be dangerous and reading on it shows why it would not be. It is naturally occurring in your body and you get it in your diet from different meats, although probably not as much as you use if your a serious athlete. It is definitely NOT a hormone and nothing like anabolic steroids. People that say otherwise simply have no idea about the biochemical reactions that go on in your body through exercise.

My advice is to read as much information as you can about it. Look up different dosages, cycling, effects, possible side effects and if you still think it is dangerous don’t use it. But please stop rambling on about how it is cheating or a steroid. It is no different than supplementing with extra protein that so many people do unquestioned.

I personally use a small 5 grams or less after each workout of the original and straight forward creatine monohydrate and have never had any problems. It’s also good to keep in mind that this is a supplement and not anything that makes you stronger on it’s own. As stated it can provide more fuel for intense exercise, but without the exercise it is of little to no good in muscle development.

Further reading:
Pretty in depth on creatine
Overview of Metabolic Pathways in a Crossfit Journal
Creatine Information Center

WOD

Light warm-up then,

Deadlift:
225 x 5
235 x 5
245 x 5
255 x 5
265 x 5

Been trying really hard to get my strength up. Already did 2x BW DL so the next goal is 2.5x BW. Haven’t made it to my 1.5x back squat though and I suppose BW standing shoulder press is in there somewhere for a goal…

And the second WOD of the day:

The infamous Fight Gone Bad:
Wall Ball: 21-22-19= 62
SDHP: 21-15-15= 51
Box Jumps: 28-24-20= 72
Push Press: 15-13-11= 39
Row (in cal): 20-20-15= 55

Total: 279

This was timed by a friend at the gym who didn’t quite understand that he was supposed to leave the clock running so he would stop the watch on most breaks. This had two obvious results; 1) my score is higher than it would otherwise have been and 2) I definitely wound up resting less during a set to try to stay with spirit of the WOD. So even though these numbers are a bit inflated I feel like I worked harder than the previous two times I’ve done it.

Anna Karenina

“Flawless as a work of art.” -Dostoevsky

So not a whole lot can be said about Anna Karenina that has not already been said. Fortunately, my reactions and feelings to it have not yet been said. I had wanted to read this book for a long time and finally had the time to sit down and attempt finishing it in a descent time frame this summer. Obviously, the first thing noticeable is its 1000 pages in length. Being a slow reader this was an arduous task for me.

Although I can not say that I felt it to be as flawless as Dostoevsky did, once finishing it I was left with a eerily calm demeanor and sense of awe. The book ended on a such a good note, that is to say the last 150 pages I read today. The ending describes the book’s leading protagonist in his spiritual awakening and leaves that warm fuzzy feelings I personally welcome in a lot of books, but only when done well.

The book in it’s expanse covered a wide range of topics and more or less went over any theme you could think of at one point or another. The biggest qualm I had with the book was personal and completely unrelated to quality. Having the main character, Anna Karenina for those who couldn’t guess, be such a loathsome little creature is something that really puts me off. This is only the second time I forced myself through a book like this, the first being The Great Gatsby. For those of you who love that book and think it is romantic, I do not care, Gatsby sucks and should have just shot himself.

However, a great book should invoke feeling and produce meaningful thought and this book certainly does that (I admit The Great Gatsby does too). There are multiple story lines taking place and the central line revolving around Levin is fantastic in my point of view and I always found myself getting bored when reading over Anna’s hoping the next section would switch back to Levin. Anna and Gatsby alike are both predictable and dull in their passionate, selfish, to hell with anyone else attitudes.

I also understand that this is one of the first examples of stream of consciousness writing and to that degree it was great. Anna’s thoughts during her final chapters were beautifully rendered and the psychology that takes place is definitely at the height of realism. It is obvious that Joyce and Salinger both learned a little from Tolstoy.

Finally, as good as it is in summation, I think that the length alone could count a lot of readers out. I have read some of Tolstoy’s other works and have always enjoyed them. In fact, after having read The Devil, The Death of Ivan Illyich, Family Happiness, and A Confession and Other Religious Writings I think a reader has a general understanding of the ideas that will be presented in Anna Karenina and need not search this novel for anything new. If however, you are looking to read one of the world’s classics that is quoted and sited perhaps more than the Holy Bible, by all means go for it, you will certainly be rewarded in a number of ways.

WOD

Today was Clean & Jerks

Did some warm-ups

Snatch 95 lbs x 4

C&J 115 x 3
Clean 135 + Push Jerk x 2
Clean 155 + PJ x 5
C&J: 165
C&J: 155

Front Squat: 155 x 5
FS: 175 x 2

I am aiming for a Bodyweight C&J and I am at 170 right now. Just 5 lbs more! I need more practice on the catch phase of the clean and getting the jerk stronger would both help. The front squat part feels good.

Glycemic Index

I mentioned in the Diseases of Civilization post that avoiding insulin resistance can go a long way in preventing a great many chronic illnesses. The best way to do this is by controlling blood glucose levels through diet, as insulin is released to clear glucose from your blood. The glycemic index has been created to do just that. It is an index that measures the effects of your carbohydrate consumption on your blood glucose levels.

It is on a scale of 0-100 with the higher the number being, the higher your blood glucose levels rise after eating. This means that you want to try to eat low glycemic foods rather than high glycemic foods. Anything under 50 is considered low by researchers and anything over 70 is considered high. As a reference point white bread is given perfect 100 score. You can checkout out glycemicindex.com to figure out the GI of most foods.

As with anything, the GI of a food is not the total picture and focusing only on a food’s GI will not give you perfect health. Like I said before, the main point is controlling insulin sensitivity and some foods may have a low GI but still produce a powerful insulin response. The main culprit of this are dairy products which have low GI scores but an insulin response on par with white bread. Simply avoiding most processed foods and starchy vegetables like potatoes is the best way to do this without trying to remember the exact number of anything (GI, calories, insulin response).

WOD

Had two shorter workouts today. One around 11:30 am and the other after work at about 5:30 pm.

First workout was 30 muscle-ups on a bar, paced at 1 every 30 seconds.
Total Time: 13:45

Next time I will pace this faster and aim for 3 per minute.

Second workout was:
800 m run
1500 m row
800 m run

also did some pull-ups, push-ups, and ab work

1st Muscle-Up!

So last night I was able to find a good tree with a high enough branch to hang up some gymnastic rings. It would be my first attempt at a muscle-up on rings as I normally just do them on a straight bar. Well it took three tries, which was not bad at all, and up I went.

The muscle-up is great upper body exercise, using both the pulling and pushing muscles and is arguably one of the best exercises for generating huge amounts of strength relative to body weight.

Further Info from Crossfit:
Full pdf from Coach Glassman
Video Demonstration from BJ Penn
Greg Amundson doing a WOD involving muscle-ups: Just for the record this guy is 6′ and 200 lbs so saying that as you get bigger you get slower or that it is harder to do pull-ups is only a myth. It just gives people an excuse to not work hard in areas other than lifting weights. This guy is incredible with a 335 lb bench press (for those who care) and a sub 18 min 5k, he has scored the perfect score on the marines PFT mutliple times in a row.