Tag: WOD

5 for Friends 12/1/19

~ Malcolm Flex ~ 1 Comment

Quote: “A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.” Winston Churchill, a feeling as the days get shorter; it is often a simple reminder to know what view am I looking at the world. 

Currently reading: Extracted by R.R Haywood What can I say other than I love time travel! Because it often rides so close to being just another story, except for the science fantasy McGuffin, which can save or destroy everything that matters to the characters. A team-up story of three capable and brave in fictional British history who are extracted out of the timeline to prevent their deaths and hopefully prevent an even worst disaster. 

Article worth a read:  What I learned from my first powerlifting meet Lifehacker’s Health editor, over the last year, has become one of my favorite creators to read weekly. With this article and has been refreshing to see and be reminded of the beginner mindset and why this mindset is especially valid, as I come closer to another event and training with absolute beginners. 

Small Purchase: There is not much that comes to mind as a small purchase that has been worth sharing. With it being Thanksgiving, I am just going to note that after all the family gatherings, the most valuable investment in my week was heading up to Coolstuff Games with a friend and jumping into a 3 vs 3 Throne of Eldraine Draft. $12 that paid for 3.5hours of fun and catching up with one of my best mates.  

What am I working on:  The countdown continues as I’m delving into another Mud Run, and getting ready for the slog. So the work out of the day to ensure I am getting the explosive work in. 

12min AMRAP
12 Cal Bike
12 Deadlifts (155/105)
9 Hang Power Cleans (155/105)
9 Strict HSPU

5 for Friends 11/19/19

~ Malcolm Flex ~ Leave a comment

Quote:  “Be a practical dreamer, backed by action.”- Bruce Lee
This is the foundation of my life philosophy that captures sometimes big hairy audacious goals sound nice, but they still need to be grounded enough so I know how to take the first step.

Book currently reading: The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life by Mark Manson
Late to the game this was a refreshing read of the stoic approach to my own life, that has a modern sensibility, well very plainly states how we care too much about matters outside of our own control.

Article worth a read: Stop using public USB ports
That’s right, according to LA county district attorney advised against using the default data cable to charge your phone at these public ports, due to the risk your data could be compromised.
The silver lining to the doomsaying, the comments section did mention you can always use a charge only cable to ensure no data connectivity is an option.

Small Purchase: By no means is this an endorsement of this specific branch, but I took advantage of finally seeing a chiropractor. There was a chain called The Joint that accepted a walk in who commented on there isn’t so much as an apparent skeletal issue, which is a relief, but confirmed I do sit like a goblin while I hack away on my keyboard.
And for $29 for an assessment and adjustment is just the kind of arb
https://www.thejoint.com/

What am I working on:  One more competition down; Critical Fit put on another great annual tournament at Gett-it where the team I drafted got to experience their physical limits and go beyond, in an obstacle course relay race that was my wildest elementary school dreams. The stipulations of the draft with 5 friends who wanted to captain was to form a team with 1 male and 1 female with less than a year of weightlifting/training experience. Mostly to keep from doing exactly what the top 3 performing teams did which is like gamers optimize teams for the challenges.
Moving on with this team work kick in the next couple weeks the gang will be heading down to South Florida for a December Tough Mudder! So to train I broke down the demands and keeping my training geared towards building explosive pulls and stabilizing.

Warm-up 2min bike
5 Romanian Deadlift
5 Hang Power Cleans
5 Front Squats
5 Push Press

Mobility
10 Good mornings
10 PVC Windmills
10 Toy Soldiers
10 WGS
10 Cossacks
10 Scorpions
10 Crash Victims
:30 Pigeon
Weightlifting
Thruster (5-5-5-5-5)
building E2MOM
Metcon (AMRAP – Rounds and Reps)15min AMRAP
4 Bar Muscle Up
8 Deadlifts (135/95)
12 Alt. Pistols

Training model notes

~ Malcolm Flex ~ Leave a comment

Over the last few weeks I have been in touch with some of the best trainers I know to keep up with the corner stones to build a training routine for the fall, from the ground up.
I hope some of my notes are helpful to others

  1. Total body training requires: Knee dominate movements i.e. squat
    a. Zercher squat, rear foot elevated split squat, front squat
  2. For every squat (knee dominate) exercise do a hinging/ hip dominate
    a. Kettle bell swing, glute/ham raise, glute bridge, single leg RDL
  3. Upper body movement, use horizontal and vertical press
    a. Push ups, single-arm press, push press, OH press
  4. Upper horizontal/vert oull
    a. row, pull up
  5. Core – Spinal Stability i.e. Carry heavy
    a. Farmer walk, OH carry
  6. Training All planes –
    Frontal, Transverse, Sagittal
  7. Use Bilateral and unilateral variations
    ex. zercher squat > SL RDL 5 x 4 SApress >Bench Press 3 x 8 Neutral pull ups > Farmer carry…

Worst than losing

~ Malcolm Flex ~ Leave a comment

“Success is stumbling from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm.”
– Winston Churchill

Today marks a week and a day where I have spent a ridiculous  amount of time contemplating how bad should I feel. With what you ask? Not competing in an event that I’ve dreamed about but knew I wasn’t going to personally: to nominally win, improve my understanding of an experience or practice, or to leverage my personal brand to create future opportunities. These might sound very ivory tower definitions (other than winning for the sake of winning) but there is more to the story.

This is a very Bobby Fisher method, I figured out once I was old enough to experience the life lesson: Either you win or you learn. For those not in the know, the calculated brilliance of the prodigy went beyond the board and also came from selecting which tournaments to put his prowess and prestige on the line for.
This week, I followed the same strategy, and without any fanfare or commotion withdrew from a small time Ninja Warrior feeder competition; an easier affair than expected. The only fallout was telling the few people expected to see me flail about the course. News that I was nursing a minor injury was apparently enough for my thick-skinned coworkers to agree competing shouldn’t be in the cards.

So that should be the end of the adventure. Yes, 8 weeks of training, often twice a day ended with no competition. But, if anything I’ve learned from life is things unceremoniously come to an abrupt end all the time. Let’s all thank George R.R. Martin for making a career of it, so we can be better adjusted. I do however still feel bad about withdrawing. Even with the knowledge that a full time rock climber obliterated the course, and I wasn’t even very obsessed with this competition.
What I may have an issue with is putting in the work, caring, and then having to rationalize away the invasive thoughts that: I did not train for the level of the competition. And, I was aware of that lack of preparation, the entire time. In my opinion an infinitely worse feeling than the sting of losing… Recently I wrote about the frustration I was having with my training process. Breaking it down, I am confident that the foundation work I started on wasn’t long enough nor did I have the schedule to adhere to the aggressive training schedule that I’m used to. Quickly recapping, the time commitment to either go to bed earlier or squeeze in work outs during lunch were on the table, but like many people that overpromise to themselves; I didn’t put enough systems in place to make it easy for me to go from

Wake up – morning run, 1pm (MWF) – yoga, 12pm (TTh) – Barbell complex, evening – plyometric conditioning.

It has been in these last few months I’ve really understood that when motivation is high it is an easy ask for your body to train hard for a few weeks. But, to straddle the idea of always innovating your training or keeping different ways to stay motivated is entirely a myth. Especially when I have to admit to myself this salaryman life at a desk is increasingly making me weaker and more susceptible to the most egregious offense than accepting a loss and that’s accepting mediocrity.

work of the day
Technical work –

5×4 Sumo Deadlift
Met – 4 rounds
10 Handstand Push Ups
20 Sumo Deadlif High Pulls
50m KB Farmers carry

Extra Credit –
500m Row
50 pistols

Train like a ninja, better bring a friend

~ Malcolm Flex ~ Leave a comment

“When someone cares they make an effort, not excuses.” – every coach ever.

The other night while training with codename pixie, I remembered the only thing I could promise almost 10 weeks ago when she agreed to join my gym, “you won’t get shredded like some instagram model, but you will get stronger.”

In the passing weeks my prophecy has been fulfilled. But, then again the only way to fail my one simple measure of succeeding would be to just never show up. Something that I’m sad to say has happened a lot in the last dozen years spent training would be fighters and former athletes. (One day I would be excited to write more about the days of training with fighters that we seeking infamy and the mindset it requires.) Back to the topic of the day: The workout for this day was a first; where our different goals for training had some layover: She had a photo-shoot and me with my own super serious ninja training that can’t be neglected. Hah, or more accurately I was just excited that the pixie had been diligently training and finally has built up to working in with my workout.
Hopefully the WOD makes enough sense: Enter the pain cave and challenge yourself with things you hate… and add just a bit of complementary movements. Since I’m the person that writing the program and know I’d give up pizza before doing an entire work out of sled push/drags.
Warm up five minutes of jump rope and PVC pipe cleans
Row: 500meters; 350meters; 200meters
Dips: 21; 15; 9
Sled pushes 70lbs x 4
2 x 15 toes to bars
2 x 20 decline sit-ups
3 x 3 minute rounds of bag work
Stretch

In closing this was a much more fun workout than usual, mainly because having a friend catch up with your higher volume of training give you hope to keep pushing yourself. Also it helps to remember when bringing your friend along to train in your regularly scheduled crucibles address physical dysfunctions first (they maybe unaware of), then use all the sweet fitness gypsy methods to get them up to snuff before adding a bar or bounding drill to their workout. So, that looks a lot like working on mobility, unilateral(I.e. Lunge) and eventually bilateral(squat) exercises to learn how coordinated the person is. Of course we all want our friend to do pistols and handstand pushups, but apparently making sure their able to move in such dynamic ways
I strongly believe weight training should be used in these process for most clients that are looking to accomplish a goal. Because the caveman logic I use is get strong first; reap the rewards of being able is compared to that was