J.T. Kalnay's Blog, page 4
July 31, 2013
Dear CrossFit, Use The Pool!
Can’t do a handstand? I’ll bet you can in the pool!
Can’t do a pistol? I’ll bet you can in the pool!
Can’t do a great air squat? I’ll bet you can do a spectacular water squat.
Do you have a broken foot because you foolishly swam in between a mommy dolphin and her babies? Then the pool is the place for you…
The water supports part of your body weight, cushions your fall, slows things down so you can get some successful reps, and is just crazy fun.
So, CrossFit, in the spirt of constantly varied and finding out what works, get into the pool, work on those movements that are challenging you on dry land, and then do a swim WOD. Here’s one of my favorite swim WODS:
400m warmup, alternating front crawl and breast stroke
8×25 all out (or 8x one length all out)
Swim all out front crawl up the pool, then laze back doing breast stroke or elementary back stroke or side stroke or some rest stroke.
400m cool down.
Do this metcon after working on your skills and you’ll have a great WOD.
I wonder what tomorrow’s WOD will be.
July 14, 2013
Dear CrossFit, The Power of Competition
Dear CrossFit,
There is power in competition, and it comes from many sources. People train to compete. Just like runners, when they send in the check for the local 5k or the big-city marathon, that date gets circled on the calendar. Eating changes, training changes, focus changes, and the day-to-day changes. Because the athlete is going to enter the arena. With friends, with strangers, with family watching, with a public record about to be made. We grind away in anonymity day after day, at work, in relationships, at the box, out on the roads. But on game day, when we the line, when the announcer calls our name and we stand behind the bar while the crowd counts down 3-2-1, something changes.
Yesterday I had the great fortune to volunteer at a CrossFit competition in Norwalk, Ohio. There were a couple dozen competitors there that I knew, and many more that I didn’t know. This was a local competition that produced amazing performances at all points along the athlete spectrum. There is power in competition, and it comes from many sources. The first WOD was Grace. I saw PR after PR after PR in Grace. PR from men in the forties, from men in their twenties, from women of all ages. I had a great vantage point to see the twitchy hands, the warmup sweat on the face, the nervous relentless chalking, the side to side shifting of weight, the deep inhales, and the focus. When 3-2-1-GO was shouted, the intensity, the booming music, the crowd of people cheering on the athletes, the family and friends gathered round to see their athlete compete, on the stage, in the arena, out there, with the other athletes. Momentarily transported from the garage, or basement, or sweaty box, to the field, with their peers. Some seeking to win, others seeking to excel, still others hoping to merely survive.
There’s power in competition. A woman I know well trained and trained with the expectation of brushing against the 6 minute time cap for Grace. She did it in 3 and change. A man I know well, a slender man, who a year ago would barley touch an Oly bar, and whose expectation was 15 reps, did Grace in 3 and change. An avid CrossFitter, who obsesses about his training, and who’s PR was well north of 3, did Grace in 2:32. Another avid CrossFitter,, from the box where I train, a young man who is just realizing his potential, shaved 20 seconds of his Grace PR, from 2:35 to 2:13. A woman who ought to have been at the Games blasted through the WOD in the low ones. It was amazing, breath-taking, sobering, beautiful, and frightening. Frightening, because the competition, the crowd, the clock, the music, the atmosphere, all of it stripped away the “I can’ts” and the “I don’ts” and the “what ifs” and revealed the athletes within.
There is power in competition. Yesterday, a woman I know toppled from the pull up bar and lay crumpled on the floor. Volunteers rushed to her side. They said she was done. She disagreed. She shook her head, rose, leapt to the bar, finished the set, then went back to the bar and deadlifted some more. She wasn’t done, she wasn’t nearly done. Not in that WOD, and not overall. She’s come a long way, and I want to keep watching her amazing journey. She was out there, doing it, looking like she belonged, and inspiring the others who felt like quitting, but couldn’t having seen what they’d just seen.
There is power in competition. In preparing for it, in watching it, and in participating it. Only one or two people arrived at this competition thinking they would “win”. But every PR, every big effort, every pushing through to doing something you couldn’t think you could do, in public, on the hot dusty concrete floor, with sweaty panting competitors at your side was a win bigger than can be understood in the moment.
So this morning, as I think about what I witnessed, I feel that urge, the tug of the box, the lure of the weights sitting in the barn, the irresistible draw of the path out behind the farm, where miles and reps and sweat await. Why? Because of the inspiration of the athletes who stepped out there and did it yesterday.
There’s power in competition. Sign up for one. A local throwdown, a 5k that raises money for charity, a short triathlon. Sign up, compete, for yourself, and for everyone you will inspire.
I wonder what tomorrow’s WOD will be.
July 5, 2013
France’s NSA-like Data Gathering Program
I suspect that over the next few days and months we will discover that every country with the means is engaged in NSA-like a monitoring. Is this a surprise to anyone? Did we really expect that given the opportunity to listen in, that anyone who could listen in wouldn’t?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-23178284
June 29, 2013
Dear CrossFit, When Did 400 Pound Plus Deadlifts Get So Easy?
Dear CrossFit,
As the strength portion of today’s WOD, I did some easy deadlifting and added it up at the end. I stopped after a nice easy deadlift that felt about 90% of max. Here’s the video. When did 415# get so easy? (Isn’t it cool to watch the bar bend?) Thanks CrossFit!!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NkGY9CPUjLQ
Oh yeah, the rest of the WOD was:
12 minutes, AMRAP, 15×24″ box ups, 5xT2B
6 rounds in 12:12. Some of the T2B actually counted.
Then worked on bar muscle ups, am getting a little closer every day!
June 28, 2013
CrossFit Open 2014
It’s almost July 1st, which means that Games athletes are peaking for the Games and the rest of us are trying to design our program to get ready for the 2014 Open. Here’s some data about the last three Opens.
Workout Times:
4 minutes once
7 minutes 4 times
10 minutes 4 times
12 minutes 2 times
once each of 15, 17, 18, 20.
Exercises that have appeared in every Open:
burpees, double unders, box ups, muscle ups, toes to bar, wall ball shots, 100# thrusters, chest to bar pullups.
So, what does all that mean for your training for the 2014 Open?
You ought to consider doing couplets and triplets that range from 7-12 minutes long and that include either T2B or C2B, thrusters or WBS, boxups or burpees. You ought to get strong enough to go ground to overhead at 135# multiple times, and you ought practice double unders and muscleups. That may not sound like anything revolutionary, but ask yourself, how often do you work these absolutely fundamental movements?
When in doubt, do burpees, do thrusters, do box ups, and get on the pullup bar.
I wonder what tomorrow’s WOD will be…
Free Audiobooks (The Topsail Accord, The Point)
Amazon just gave me 3 promotional copies of the audiobook versions of The Topsail Accord and The Point to distribute. If you are driving to the beach, especially if you are driving to the Outer Banks of North Carolina or to the beaches near Wilmington NC, you may enjoy having the contemporary “romance” novel The Topsail Accord on your player. If you are going to be driving the Pacific Coast Highway, especially if you are driving in the Santa Cruz area, you may enjoy having The Point on your player.
The Topsail Accord
http://www.amazon.com/The-Topsail-Accord-ebook/dp/B005WF0AR6
The Point
If you’re interested, send me an email at jtkalnay@gmail.com. I will give the promotional copies of The Topsail Accord to the first three people who identify my most recent eBook fiction release by sending me a link to the Amazon version of the eBook. I will give the three promotional copies of The Point to the first three people who identify my most recent audiobook release by sending me a link to the audible.com version of the audiobook.
I will provide the codes for the free downloads and the instructions for how to redeem your free copy in a return email.
Hope you’re having a great summer!
June 26, 2013
Five Supreme Court Justices Agree on Prop 8 Decision
In the second eagerly anticipated decision today, the Supreme Court issued a 5-4 opinion on this STANDING case (which could also be considered a state/federal rights issue). Prop 8 is a STANDING case, DOMA is a TAX case. Although the facts involve gay marriage, understanding what the actual question was before the court may be the only way to understand the votes. Here’s a link to the opinion:
http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/12pdf/12-144_8ok0.pdf
The 5 are: Roberts, Scalia, Ginsburg, Breyer, Kagan
The 4 are: Kennedy, Thomas, Alito, Sotomayor
Recall that in DOMA the 5-4 went:
(5) Kennedy, Ginsburg, Sotomayor, Breyer, Kagan
(4) Roberts, Scalia, Thomas, Alito
DOMA Unconstitutional Say 5 of 9 Justices
In a very interesting TAX case, five members of the Supreme Court have decided that the Defense of Marriage Act is unconstitutional. The five members who joined the opinion were: Kennedy, Ginsburg, Sotomayor, Breyer, Kagan.
The four who disagreed were: Roberts, Scalia, Thomas, Alito.
Here is a link to the opinion.
http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/12pdf/12-307_g2bh.pdf
Scalia (1936): Reagan
Kennedy (1936): Reagan
Thomas (1948): HW Bush
Ginsburg (1933): Clinton
Breyer (1938): Clinton
Roberts (1955): W Bush
Alito (1950): W Bush
Sotomayor (1954): Obama
Kagan (1960): Obama
Supreme Court Decides On Defense Of Marriage Act
In anticipation of the SC decision on DOMA, I tried to temper the expectations of many rational thinkers by reminding them of some of the history of the SC.
In 2013 we look back and wonder how the Supreme Court reached such poignantly wrong decisions like Dred Scott v. Sanford (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dred_Scott_case) and Korematsu v. United States (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korematsu_v._United_States).
We may even pride ourselves that in our times decisions like these could never be made. Perhaps today’s decision will be one that future generations look back upon and wonder how the unenlightened savages of 2013 could have ever thought such things.
We will know in a few minutes or hours whether this SC will live in infamy the way the Dred Scott court and Korematsu courts do.
Are Wall Ball Shots Harder For Shorter People, Part Three
Shorter people are almost universally certain that wall ball shots are harder for them than they are for taller people because the shorter athlete has to throw the ball farther. Is this correct?
Well the first two posts in this series (links provided below) have certainly generated a lot of interest. What this series of posts is intended to do is to examine the physics and biomechanics of wall ball shots to answer the question, “Are wall ball shots harder for shorter people?” As my research has progressed, the question has evolved into “What is the ideal height/weight/lever length for wall ball shots?” I have made my determination and will reveal all, in due course. But first, we need to prepare your mind for the conclusion and analysis.
This third post asks you to perform five different WODS over the next five weeks. Yes, there is a long road to travel to understand the answer to this question. First do an “air Karen”, which is just 150 air squats. Time yourself. About a week later, do a 2# Karen. Find a two pound ball (or other object), and do Karen again. Time yourself. How did your time compare to 150 air squats? Finally, about another week later, do Karen Rx. Time yourself. How did your time compare to 150 air squats? To 2# Karen? Fourth, do 150 thrusters with the 2# object. Finally, do 150 thrusters with the Rx ball. When you have all this data assembled, your mind may be ready to accept the next post in this series…
WARNING
Bracketing, Going Heavy, Going Fast, and Exercising Are Inherently Dangerous Activities Where You May Be Seriously Injured Or Die. You should not depend on any information in this post for your personal safety. Your personal safety depends solely on your own good judgment, your own good choices, the quality and care of your equipment, and your abilities. There are no warranties, express or implied, that this approach is beneficial, or safe, or that the information in it is reliable. Your use of this post indicates your assumption of the risks inherent in exercising hard and is an acknowledgement of your sole responsibility for your own safety. The user of this approach assumes all risks and responsibilities associated with the practice described herein and absolves the publisher and author of blame for any accident, injury, or harm that may occur through use of this information. Those unfamiliar with the techniques and equipment required to perform any of the exercises described herein are advised to not perform these activities or to seek professional instruction. If you do these workouts in this way you are likely to throw up, may be injured, and may die. You expressly assume all the risks associated with using this information.
Consider recording yourself during these three attempts and saving the recordings for subsequent analysis.
The first post encouraged you to find the bottom of your squat so that you would know how far the ball would travel.
The second post encouraged you to find the release point of your shot so that you would know (a) how far you were carrying the ball and (b) how far you had to toss the ball.
