Property Investments, Landlording, CrossFit, Nutrition & Safety

I recently bought 2 weightlifting DVDs from World Class Coaching. They had been recommended by one of the Crossfit Journals I got in the full back catalog I received as part of the Crossfit Certification I went on a few weeks ago. The 2 videos are:

• The Fastest Lift in the World aka the Snatch
• The Most Powerful Lift in the World aka the Clean

Note that the site actually says it’s the Clean and Jerk but there is no Jerk component to the 2nd DVD wihich is a bit of a shame, however I have to say that the videos are excellent. I’ve never seen such attention to detail and the lifts broken down so thoroughly and comprehensively with loads of teaching aids, coaching points and learning progressions.

The videos show world champion lifters going through the motions, slowed down footage, comparisons of unloaded, loaded and competition weight lifts all shown at the same time. Details of where the bar should move and the curve it takes are shown, as are instructions on where the bar should touch, how your body should move and how the feet should jump etc. If you have never been shown these Olympic lifts, these 2 videos will give you all the information you need to know to learn it.

There is 1 gotcha though, the continuous drone of the comentator does get a little monotonous and it’s been edited to remove most the pauses in the comentory. This means that it can be a bit full on at times and I had to stop and rewind in many places to understand what was really being said, as a small lapse of concentration means you can miss an important progression. Oh and “the science bit” at the end is laughable in it’s user unfriendliness!

Still they are highly recommended weightlifting DVD’s

I had my Gladiators try out today. It cost me a packet, due to the fact that I had to take an unpaid day off and had to pay for a London – Manchester train ticket. However, this is the sort of thing that makes life worth living. Money comes and goes but memories from once in a life time events like this last forever. So without further ado, here’s what happened:

The day started at 9:30pm at the The Armitage Sports Centre in Manchester. A good job I allowed plenty of time because GPS takes you to a place where there’s not parking and no easy way to get to the right place! There were about 90 people there and we were split into sections of 30 for the Gladiator tryouts and then further down to smaller groups of 4 each. We were told that they had seen 200 people at Glasgow and that only 30 had got through to the video interview. With further trials at Birmingham and London, I reckon they called for audition about 10% of the 5000-6000 people that applied. I was number 5109 and the numbers ranged from 1000 to 6000 that I saw.

Just to be clear (as a few people have been confused) this is a tryout to appear as a *contender * on Gladiators, not as an actual Gladiator! I may be fit and lean these days, but I’m certainly not a muscle bound hulk. Having said that, with a backsquat of nearly twice my bodyweight, Crossfit has seen fit to make me strong enough to be able to pick up and carry off any of the gladiators, male or female (I should be so lucky, lol!).

I had been tipped off by my mates at Crossfit Manchester who had been to the Series 1 Gladiator auditions, about what the exercises were for them. Further this had been confirmed by someone who went to the Glasgow gladiator trials a few days ago. Actually they had changed a bit from what I was told, but here is a list of what we had to do. They wouldn’t tell me how the points system worked but I was informed by a Series 1 contender that it works like this, I can’t verify it unfortunately:

• 1 point for taking part
• 5 points for doing modestly well
• 10 points for excelling

Obviously with my constantly varied, if not randomised functional fitness regime that is Crossfit, I was quite looking forward to them all and anticipating doing better than most. Anyway, here are the tests (you start at a random station) and how I did on each one:

Test 1 – Mini assault course: jump and forward roll over a hurdle, hop scotch across some lines, round a cone, bounce a ball 5 times and replace it back on its stand, 2 footed jumps over 6 low hurdles, a duck under a bar and sprint to the end. I was trying too hard and approached the hurdles faster than I should and end up stacking it completely and wiping out the hurdles. 2 bruised knees, a bruised hip, friction burns on both knees and an elbow: and not a good start for my trouble. I think the time was fast, but I don’t know how much I got marked down for stoofing the hurdles.

Test 2 – Medicine ball throw: on your knees and throw a 5kg medicine ball (3kg for the ladies) from your chest as far away from you as possible without coming off your knees. You’re not allowed to turn round and throw it over your head behind you, which certainly would have been easier. I was the only guy from my group of 3 guys and a girl to get the ball across the second and furthest line. I also picked up a bruised palm whilst landing on it.

Test 3 – As many Burpees as you can manage in 60 seconds. These were lazy burpees in that they went like this: from a standing position, drop to a squat with your hands touching the floor, jump your legs out behind you to a push up position, jump your feet back to a squat, stand and jump in the air. (I say lazy burpees as I’m used to doing an actual push up at the bottom and clapping overhead at the top). I set a pace and maintained it throughout the minute but I confess to not counting how many I did, I’d estimate 30-35.

Certainly I maintained better form than my 2 group mates and did at least as many as them if not more. The leg burn really kicked in during the last 10 seconds so I think I paced it about right.

Test 4 – 2 footed standing Long Jump. Simply stand with feet together and leap as far as you can. Again I was the only one from my group to make it past the 2nd line.

Test 5 – The Crocodile Crawl was probably the most feared test. It goes like this: you get into a push up (plank) position, they tape up your ankles and you have to pull yourself along with your arms over roughly a 40m course for time. You have to keep your knees off the floor and get one warning only. Apart from being physically hard work (one of the guys in my group couldn’t finish it) you have to take your shoes off and dragging your feet behind you, toes pointed away, has left a cluster of nice friction burns on the roof of my right foot.

Test 6 – Shuttle Sprints: 4 x 30m for time. Simply run back and forth over a 30m track, touching the ground at each end, as fast as you can. I have no idea how I did, but I’m a good sprinter and it felt like a fast time. The guy in my group who I thought was quick said I was faster than him, but he can’t have known for sure either.

Test 7 – Pull ups (chin ups if you prefer) for time. As many as you can do in 60 seconds with palms facing away from you and straight arm down to chin over the bar. The pull up station was a standalone piece of gym equipment with a back rest. This was bad news for me as we were doing it facing into the frame and the “back” rest was right in front, about 10 inches away from my belly. This made kipping pull ups impossible. As a result, I managed a modest 9 dead hang pull ups in 60 seconds. For the women, who couldn’t do a single pull up, simply hanging from the bar for the full 60 seconds scored some points.

Compared to my small group of peers I feel I acquitted myself well. I’d be surprised if I didn’t have the most points out of them and I was certainly less out of breath and less sweaty than any of them. If there were “winners” for each exercise, I reckon I won 4, came 2nd in 2 (pull ups and crocodile walk) and probably last in the assault course. Trying to be objective, if the points system above is accurate, I reckon I got about 46 points out of a potential total of 70. What I didn’t have was a comparison overall and there were some very big guys in the other groups.

So it came down to a simple matter of points mean prizes. The prize in this instance being a Gladiators video audition. Of the 30 in my section 3 lads and 3 girls were chosen and I’m sorry to say I was not one of them. 2 of the 3 guys chosen could have been Gladiators themselves judging by the size of them and simply on appearance they certainly deserved to go through. No one from my group was selected.

All in all a thoroughly enjoyable morning , despite my failure to progress and my bumps and grazes. I discovered a few hours later that I’ve sprained (or is that strained?) my wrist and also my ankle, I’m a right wreck this week. However I’d certainly do it again given a chance and that is indeed a viable option. One of the guys who did get through from my section, had already got beyond this to the 2nd stage fitness tests for the series 1 trials, only to be disqualified for failing the drugs test (he claimed a trip to Amsterdam the month before was the reason!). The point is that it seems subsequent series trials are a clean slate.

Series 3 anyone? 😉

And now for a topic pair of Friday fun videos, the first was Fash’s “oops” moment and the second of the gladiators doing the eliminator from the last series. Is it just me or was that eliminator better?

Someone has asked me to help them get started on the Zone diet eating plan, as they are finding it hard to get their head round the books. I originally sent them the example meal plans you can get off the main zonediet.com site, but the feedback was that they were too expensive for someone on a tight budget.

I agreed then to summarise the zone diet and to put together some example cheap recipes, starting initially with breakfast to get the ball rolling. If you are struggling to get started on the zone, or just find it all too confusing and want zone help, hopefully this post will assist you. It’s not meant to be an exhaustive regurgitation of the Zone and it’s not ideal either due to the budgetary restriction, but this is what I came up with, what do you think?

Key Principals of the Zone Diet to Remember

1) At each meal, balance Protein, Carbohydrates (carbs) and a small amount of Fat. It’s this balance that helps you not feel hungry.
2) Examples of Protein: meat, fish, most cheese.
3) Examples of Fat: olive or vegetable oil, nuts, seeds, butter, cream cheese, mayonnaise, salad cream.
4) Examples of Carbs: vegetables, fruit, bread, pasta, cereal, rice, juice (if not diet), most sauces.
5) For carbs, try to eat mostly vegetables and some fruit. Eat bread, pasta, cereals, rice and potatoes very sparingly only.
6) Semi Skimmed milk is a great combination food, it is Protein, Carbs and Fat in perfect balance.
7) In most cases, you can count cheese as a source of protein AND fat.

Eating Plan

1) Eat 3 meals and 2 snacks per day.
2) One snack should be last thing as night, this is very important as it puts your body in the right state for when it does all its healing whilst you’re asleep.
3) Don’t go more than 4-5 hours without eating.
4) Don’t wait till you’re hungry before you eat, if you do you are more likely to over eat.

Example Breakfasts as cheap as I can make them

1) 2 oz sliced ham (protein), 1 large apple (carbs), a teaspoon of mayonnaise (fat), 1/3 pint of semi skimmed milk (protein, carbs and fat).
2) 2 eggs (protein), 1 slice of toast (carbs), 2/3 teaspoon of butter (fat), 1/3 pint of milk.
3) 3 oz of any meat, ham, chicken, turkey, beef etc (protein), 3 small fruits, e.g. satsuma, kiwi, and peach, 3 macadamia nuts (fat).
4) Cheese on toast or cheese sandwich: 3 oz cheddar cheese (protein and fat), 1 slice of toast/bread (carbs), 1 small fruit, e.g. apricot (carbs).
5) 3 oz low fat cottage cheese (protein), 1 large apple and a Satsuma (carbs), 9 almonds (fat). Drop the almonds if you get full fat cottage cheese.
6) Bacon and egg butty: 3 rashers of bacon and 1 egg (protein), 1 slice of bread and a good squirt of brown sauce (carbs), 1 teaspoon of butter (fat).
7) Can you come up with a 7th breakfast that balances protein, carbs and fat?  Post one in the comments below.

Note the above assumes you are using real meat you’ve prepared yourself. If you get the pre-sliced packs of reformed sandwich meat from the supermarkets (which is not recommended), increase the weight by a half again, e.g. 3 oz instead of 2 oz.

Examples of a Snack (remember to eat one no more than an hour before bed):

1) A really simple one is just a cup (1/3 pint) of semi skimmed milk.
2) 1 oz of cheddar cheese and a small fruit, e.g. peach.
3) 1 oz of any meat, a small fruit and 3 cashew nuts.
4) 1 oz of cheddar cheese and a small glass of wine!

I know I said these were breakfast ideas, but once you get out of the habit of breakfast only being cereal or toast, then breakfast becomes just another meal in the day. Which means the above examples work just as well for lunch too.

When I first started to watch this, I thought it was going to be rubbish, but it’s one of the funniest things I’ve seen for quite some time:

This one is good too, foreign sirens:

As I mentioned last week, I applied for Gladiators series 2 on Friday. The application took about 3 hours to complete starting from scratch, including finding all the bits so of personal and medical information I needed as I needed it. E.g. name, address and contact number of my Doctors.

Half the application detailed typical stuff around personal details, although there were a few oddities such as asking for educational achievements. I’m not sure how that’s possibly relevant, unless there’s some potential for more entertaining TV there?

And that really is the rub with these applications I think. At the end of the day, this is a TV show that’s longevity is dictated by its ratings, which basically means they want entertaining competitors. I predict that as the show goes on, the competitors selected will become more and more extreme in an attempt to forestall the inexorable ratings slide.

The second part of the application was all about personality and so obviously is the hardest bit to fill in (insert personality related joke here!). These were the pertinent questions:

• What clubs do you belong to?
• What was your greatest sporting achievement?
• What would your Gladiator name be?
• If there was a film of your life, which actor would play you?
• What is you ambition in life?
• What is your proudest achievement?
• What are your three greatest fears?
• What would winning Gladiators mean to you?
• What’s the most embarrassing thing you have ever done?
• What is your biggest regret?

They are all pretty tough, you don’t want to come over as too obvious, e.g. putting down Brad Pit as the actor to play you, or picking a Gladiator name that has been used before, and yes I did check the history of American gladiator names to be sure!

As with the ESA Astronauts application, if there’s demand for it, I will post my answers up here once there is no need for me to be coy, i.e. I either get through or don’t. So if you want to see them, let me know…

STOP THE PRESS:

I’ve been invited to try out in Manchester next Wednesday!!

I’ll let you know how it goes…

At the risk of sounding like Bill and Ted, day 2 of the Crossfit Certification at Manchester was another totally awesome day. The day started off with a lecture from Todd on the 3rd set of the 9 core Crossfit movements: Deadlift, Sumo Deadlift High Pull (SDHP) and the Medicine Ball Clean, followed by practice outside.

After was an open floor Q&A session with Coach Glassman. I’ve read a few things online about Coach, but Greg is in reality a most unassuming man. This is me with Coach, he was very gracious to pose for so many pictures.

For someone who heads up an international exercise movement with an estimated 300,000 followers, he’s surprisingly modest about his achievements. I took several key points away from the session, which covered a whole host of topics:

• Glassman is not precious about the Crossfit way / WoD (Workout of the Day) He actually hopes one day someone will show that they have a better, more efficacious approach than the WoD!
• There were various conversations about other approaches and variations of Crossfit, for which Greg was completely happy to entertain the idea and watch the experimentation of people doing it. Of course his reaction was simply this: If some other approach is better, let’s see it do well at the Crossfit Games. Then I’ll take notice.
• He admitted to making mistakes with the WoD’s on occassion. E.g. 400m of 10 lunges + 15 reps of 35kg Push Presses. Sounds tough but doable? It took Greg Edmundson (a Crossfit poster boy) over an hour to finish it! Coach described it as “An Abomination!” lol 🙂 (I can laugh cos I didn’t have to do it.)
• There was talk about the future of Crossfit and where it can go and Greg made the point that they have more ideas than they have staff to cope with them.
• I was also surprised to learn that Crossfit Inc has only just turned a profit for the first time this year. Bare in mind that Crossfit, it terms of what Greg Glassman has been doing, is coming up 30 years old now! That’s one hell of a gestation period.
• On a Crossfit note, Glassman really stressed the point that the heavy days, e.g. the 5 x 1 rep Dead lifts etc, are *really* important to the Crossfit methodology, and shouldn’t be considered easy or rest days. They really should be absolute max strength days.

One thing that I really came away with was simply this: Greg Classman has a great manner about him, he’s an unassuming but capable orator, who engenders trust and loyalty in those that listen to him.

After lunch was a lecture by Nicole Carroll on nutrition and recommended Crossfit diet: The Zone Diet. In case you can’t guess, I’m the not the pretty one on the left! 😉

The Zone diet stuff was nothing new to me, I’ve been on it for 18 months after all, but it was interesting to see some of Nicole’s slight variations on the Zone prescription in terms of things like the frequency of cheat days and the minimum blocks to prescribe for small people.

There followed the main workout activity, which included 5 stations:

• Push Press practice
• Medicine Ball clean practice
• Kipping pull ups and rope climb technique
• Muscles ups
• And the main workout of the day: 30 – 20 – 10 each of Thrusters and Burpees. To coin a phrase from Crossfit Manchester coach Karl Steadman: That sucked a fat mans arse!

Later Todd talked again about general Crossfit methodology, the ways to combine the 3 main types of workout: Weightlifting, Gymnastics and Mono-structured (running, rowing etc). It included topics on the 3:1 work to rest day ratio vs the 5:2. Also an example of how to scale a WoD for different ability levels of Crossfit client.

Ultimately that was it. There were photo sessions and plenty of time for questions of all kinds to all people and I don’t believe anyone went away with anything they wanted to ask unanswered. All together, the weekend was great, and that’s all I can say about it. If you get the chance, you should go on a Crossfit cert. This is the Crossfit Manchester crew with all the Crossfit Coaches: Greg, Nicole, Todd, Jimmy and Andy:

WTF am I doing up at 3am on a Sunday morning when I should be tucked up in bed fast asleep? I’ll tell you:

After being woken up by the cat puking up on the landing floor, my head is buzzing with all things Crossfit. Spending a full 9-5 day at a Crossfit Certification being lectured and coached by some of the best Crossfitters in the world, has a tendency to do that to you. It was always going to be good, but there were 2 great surprises.

First was that it wasn’t Annie who came over, but Nicole Carroll who has more excitable energy than any human has a right to:

The second a great surprise was that despite what I had been told last week, Crossfit Founder, Coach Greg Glassman himself flew in at the last minute, just an hour before we started.

Now I’ve seen both Carroll and Greg on the many videos that are on the main crossfit site, but seeing them in the flesh and hearing them give the lectures first hand is a totally awesome experience, one that I won’t forget for a long while. On top of that were Andy, Jimmy and Todd (one is Navy Seal Officer, the other a US Marine Corp Captain I think, but I forget which. Nice guys to know!)

There are 70 people on the certification, from all round Europe: Ireland, Sweden, Switzerland, Germany, Italy and even as far away as South Africa. Plus the trainers from almost every affiliate in the UK. The day started with the obligatory introductions and then we got straight down to a “What is Crossfit and Why do we do what we do?” given by Greg Glassman, and if anyone should know, the guy who invented it should! If you don’t know, the core elements of Crossfit are:

• Functionality
• Intensity
• Variance

2nd up was Nicole Carroll who took us through the first 3 of 9 core Crossfit exercises:

• Squat – Front Squat – Overhead Squat
• Shoulder Press – Push Press – Push Press
• Deadlift – Sumo Dead Lift High Pull – Medicine Ball Clean

Afterwards we went outside and worked through the squats with PVC pipe.

After lunch, an afternoon lecture from Greg again on “What is Fitness” included a great run down on: the history of Crossfit; how Greg started off as a “Bike riding, weight training, gymnast.”; the creation of the Thruster; and the invention of the infamous Crossfit Workout named Fran.

Another lecture on the 2nd set of 3 core exercises followed another stint outside in surprisingly glorious British sunshine with the poly pipes.

Lastly the obligatory workout was done for time, in teams of 3:

• 200m run
• 30 air squats
• 30 kettlebell swings

3 hours down the boozer in the evening topped off a great day. Although my 3 hours sleep tonight is not going to help day 2 that’s for sure.

I suspect I’ll be blogging about Crossfit even more in the future.

EDIT: See here for Manchester Crossfit Certification Day 2

Gladiators UK 2008!

Thank you for taking the time to fill out the Gladiators application form.

Your application referance [sic] No. is 5106

If you have not heard from us by the end of October 31st then unfortunately your application has not been successful this time.

I’ve applied for series 2 of Gladiators, woot!  🙂  If not an ESA Astronaut, then maybe a Gladiator Slayer?  Some of the questions were tricky, but I’ll blog about that on another post.  Back to Friday fun:

I‘ve always wanted to know how to do the Jedi Mind Trick:

Next week I’m attending the first ever Crossfit Instructors’ Certification being held outside of America, and I have to travel exactly 1.1 miles from my front door to get to it at Crossfit Manchester!

Interestingly I’m not entirely sure how I feel about it though. One the one hand, it is in itself an exciting event. The Crossfit certification is bringing together Crossfitters from across Europe and I believe as far afield as South Africa, which in itself will be great. Getting couched by Crossfit HQ trainers like Annie Sakamoto will also be totally awesome. Or course getting my Level 1 cert will be a great achievement (assuming I pass) considering my lard arsed past.

However that is tempered by several things. First there’s the fact that I already enjoy excellent Crossfit coaching from Mark and Karl, the www.CrossfitManchester.co.uk Level 2 Crossfit coaches. So I strongly suspect whereas for many who attend who have only been Crossfitting off the website, I probably have less to learn. That’s not meant to sound condescending, but I simply wouldn’t have stayed at Crossfit Manchester for the last 18 months, if I didn’t think that the quality of the coaching was among the best I could get. If I had just been going off the website myself, I’m reasonably sure that myself taught technique would probably be appalling.

Additionally there’s the slight trepidation of 2 full on days of workouts and the slight fear that I won’t be up to the fitness standard, especially judging by how much I still ache from Barbara on Saturday! Finally there’s the disappointment at the news that Greg Glassman himself won’t be attending, which we’d all be told he would be. Whilst I have no doubts that the coaching will be world class, it would have been great to shake the hand of the man that invented Crossfit and personally thank him for the life altering changes it has had on me.

Still it’s going to be great I’m sure. In preparation, Crossfit HQ has sent me all the Crossfit Journals all 70 of them! I’ve already read the last 2 years worth, but some of them have some great articles. As someone who has suffered 15 years of knee pain, had been told by Doctors to stop doing exercise till it was better and was extremely worried about any form of exercise when I started Crossfit, the following article snippet was particularly apt (my highlights):

By Mark Rippetoe – He has 28 years experience in the fitness industry and 10 years experience as a competitive powerlifter. He has been certified as an NSCA Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist since 1985 and is a USA Weightlifting Level III Coach and Senior Coach, as well as a USA Track and Field Level I Coach.

Anyone who says that full squats are “bad for the knees” has, with that statement, demonstrated conclusively that they are not entitled to an opinion about the matter.

People who know nothing about a topic, especially a very technical one that requires specific training, knowledge, and experience, are not due an opinion about that topic and are better served by being quiet when it is asked about or discussed. For example, when brain surgery, or string theory, or the NFL draft, or women’s dress sizes, or white wine is being discussed, I remain quiet, odd though that may seem.

But seldom is this the case when orthopaedic surgeons, athletic trainers, physical therapists, or nurses are asked about full squats. Most such people have absolutely no idea what a full squat even is, and they certainly have no concept of how it affects the knees, unless they have had additional training beyond their specialties, which for the professions mentioned does not include full squats. Because if these people knew anything about squatting, and the difference between a full squat and any other kind of squat and what they do to the knees, they would know that “full squats are bad for the knees” is wrong and thus would not be making such a ridiculous statement.

….

Now, this is not to say that doctors, PTs, and nurses haven’t been exposed to knee anatomy. They have, but they have not, as a rule, been exposed to correct squatting, and thus they have no idea how the movement is related to knee anatomy. The fact is that the knee and hip anatomy actually dictate correct squatting technique. Smart as these people are, you’d think that they could figure this out, and thus derive correct technique, the way we ignorant, uneducated lifters have. But I guess you’d be wrong if you thought that.

Hahaha, Rippetoe is famous for his no nonsense blunt approach to life and this article is indicative of the great quality content the Crossfit Journal contains. It used to be delivered as an emailed pdf each month, but they have just changed this to a subscription based website.

On the subject of knee pain though, I never did get a satisfactory answer as to the cause of mine from the several consultants, x-rays, MRI’s and exploratory surgery I had. All I know is that for 15 years I’ve been unable to kick a football, or walk down stairs without fearing my knee would give way and I’d fall over. But within just 3 months of Crossfit, all that went away. I’ve had np knee pain for over a year now and I have no fear of any knee effecting activity or exercise. All hail the mighty Crossfit, and bring on that cert! 🙂