185 LBS Touch n Go Power Snatch x 2 reps

The last week of working out has been more geared towards the following competition I took place in during my week in California. I headed out to the OPTathlon in San Diego, where I got to hear some great speakers on different variant topics ranging from programming for crossfit sport specific athletes, energy system training, viewpoints on successful crossfit gym owners who intergrate OPT methodology into their programming, and so forth. I also was very intrigued on the topic of Heart Rate Variability, which is now being used to measure the success rate of some professional fighters, and now even into the traditional sports world.

I headed out to California on Thursday, and returned on late Monday Night, and just was crushed with so much information, that it was almost overwhelming. I have been following James and Optimum Performance Training for over three years now, and has been a huge inspiration to myself and also my productivity inside my CrossFit Realm. The 5 days of being out in San Diego were truly remarkable, and also mind numbing at times of how smart and intelligent these group of people are from different realms of physical fitness background.

Heart rate variability (HRV) is a physiological phenomenon where the time interval between heart beats varies. It is measured by the variation in the beat-to-beat interval. Basically, the speaker Joel Jamieson, who is the author of the book 8weeksout, talks about the benefits of using HRV for training elite level athletes or even clients, as you can go by their heart rate and how high or low it can be, as this will tell you whether they should train hard today, slow down the training today, or take a complete rest day. It will be something I will be looking into getting the technology for this type of training and implementing into my gym and clients.

JOE JAMIESON, the inventor of BIOFORCE HRV.

CJ Martin, owner of CrossFit Invictus talked about how he runs his program and gym with being a CrossFit advocate and also a Optimum Performance Training advocate at the same time. He talked about his success with athletes in sending them to the CrossFit Games, but also how he breaks up his group classes into diff phases and how he categorizes them into different abilities and also GOALS!

Patrick Ward, Nike Sports Performance Expert, was probably the most influential on me during this conference because he had the dream job of working with elite level athletes every single day, which really intrigues me for a future point of reference. He also had some great information on heart rate variability.

On Sunday,we had to compete in the OPTathlon, which has been an ongoing competition every year for the last three years, where they test the same five events, and then add in another event as an unknown circuit. I knew it was not going to be my best events, as it involved jumping on two events, and a body weight measurement that just did not play into my favor. I weighed in at 204 lbs, which is the heaviest I have ever weighed in my crossfit career. I have been thinking over the last day of how to drop some weight, and now am working with Dr. Mike Molloy on getting me down to about 195 lbs, which is a good crossfit weight. I took some pictures, and will be dialing in on my nutrition over the next 6 weeks, and hoping to see some sort of difference within that time, and have a change in weight of about 5 lbs, and some more lean mass again back to my body.

OPTathlon Events:
First Workout: Max Clean and Jerk in 10 Minutes
Got to 280 lbs…
Second Workout:
Standing Triple Jump
22 feet or so
Third Workout:
Row 500 meters, rest 1:30, row 500 meters
1:29.1, rest 1:30, 1:34
* I was disappointed in this because I saw how other people were, and I just did not push hard enough on this part of the workout. I almost just went along with the motions, and was not even tired at the end. My big problem as of late is not being able to go into that pain environment, which I will be fixing, and which I did in the next workout.
Fourth Workout:
AMRAP 8 Minutes of:
8 Thrusters @ 115 lbs
8 Chest to Bar Pull Ups
8 Lateral Burpees
Rounds: 5+ 7
*I was happy with this, since we have not done any of this type of work in 4 months since the Regionals, and also I weight about 22 lbs heavier from that time. I still have it in me to compete with the top in the crossfit world during conditioning and suckfest workouts.
Fifth Workout:
Max Overhead Toss @ 16 lbs
32 feet
Sixth Workout:
3000 Meter Run
Time: 12:25
Happy with this, as I have done no running, and I am 25 lbs heavier from any sort of running I have done in the past.

Overall I think I finished 25th out of like 65 guys or so, and was a poor performance, but I know what I have to do in the long run, and in time will hopefully feel better.

Monday, October 8th, 2012