Squat Squat Squat

Arguably the best exercise someone can do. I recently read an article in the Crossfit journal about squatting heavy often. If you been following my blog lately you would notice that I have got away from it concept in order to work on my Olympic lifting. And I now realize that this is only hurting me as an athlete. If you were to break down each Olympic lift (Clean + Jerk, Snatch),you'll notice squatting in each exercise. For instance, the clean, the receiving position is caught in the bottom of a front squat and the receiving position for the snatch is in the bottom of an overhead squat. So with this information you would see that if my squat whether front, back of overhead squats got stronger, it would transfer over to my Olympic lifts. I understand that there is more to Olympic lifting then just the receiving position but more squatting doesn't mean less time spent on other aspects of the Olympic lifts. So if you only take one thing out of this little blurb is that "YOU NEED TO SQUAT" and squat heavy often.
Your probably saying that I'm going to either burn out/ fatigue faster or overtrain but there are concepts, like Westside programming that will help fight against this. You can also incorporate chains, bands and specialty bars to keep weeks constantly varied.

So on to today's WOD
Strength
Dynamic Front Squat w/ green bands - 8x2 @185lbs

MET-CON
10! (10, 9, 8, ...., 2, 1)
- Push Press @ 95lbs
- Box Jumps (20")
- Toes to Bar

PERSONAL
Hours of Sleep: 7.5
NOTE: Been feeling better with my energy. Thought I was able to push harder and faster through the Met-Con than the last couple of days. I feel like I need to consume more water throughout the day and do mobility work daily. But overall feeling better. Taking tomorrow off, except for mobility.

Changing It Up

Want to first off apologize for the time off between the last post. Just moved again and currently working with SUNY Cortland Football team as the assistant athletic trainer. As the team goes through pre-season camp and double sessions it will be interesting to see how well the guys respond with recovery, proper nutrition, and the recommended hydration. I will let you know how they are doing at a later date. So far as a did make an appearance to their dinner last night, but was not impressed with the choices of food or beverage selection of some players. Athlete crushing ice cream, sucking down large quantities of soda and grilled cheese. Its not all of them but it seems like there is a common tend between new guys (freshman) and lineman (OL/DL). I believe it would be better if there was some way to educate them on proper nutrition and hydration.
Been feeling kind of sluggish lately, whether its due to the increase stress at work or overtraining but I decided to back off on the volume a little and focus more on strength of my Olympic lifts then the Met-con work. I'll still do met-con work a couple times a week but without the strength piece. Once pre-season is over for football and I have more time and feeling more myself then I'll pick back up where I left over and increasing my workouts in a day in order to get ready for the Beast of the East.
On to today's WOD

Strength
Power Jerk + Jerk:  175lbs 1+1, 170lbs 1+1
Mid Hang Snatch (upper thigh): 135lbs x3, 125x3
Mid Hang Snatch High Pull (flat footed): 3x6 @ 115lbs

TABATA: Knees to Elbows

PERSONAL
Hours of Sleep 7.5
NOTE: The snatch high pull was done with lighter weight in order to get the bar as high as possible. Body is feeling sluggish but only sore in my traps probably due to the cleans done yesterday.

Crossfit Finals Event completed

Today wanted to try the Crossfit finals event all the way through. I added a different twist de to lack of some equipment. It was pretty tough but completed it but didn't time it which I was happy about. I would of like to compare my time to the elite crossfitters.

Workout

Strength
Low Box Squat with Bands - 10x2 @ 205lbs & Green bands

Met-Con
- 20 Calorie Row
- 3 Rope ascents
- 30 Wall Balls
- 20 Toes 2 Bar
- 30 Box Jumps (20")
- 20 Sumo Deadlift High Pull - 95lbs
- 30 Burpees
- 20 Shoulder to Overhead - 135lbs
- 30 alternating seat row 70lbs each

PERSONAL
NOTE: Feel pretty good foot I would say is about 90% which hopefully is good by the weekend. Workout was great. the only thing is that a couple pieces of equipment were in different rooms so I was able to rest between some of exercises so it wasn't exactly like the games but was able to get a successful lift in.

Long Exciting Weekend

First I want to thanks the people at Life AsRx for putting on a very successful competition. It was a blast met new people and learn a little about myself and where I need to go in my training in order to become the best. And speaking of the best Crossfitters. Congratulation to Rich Froning Jr. for winning the 2011 Reebok Crossfit Games. I watched most of it and the overall preparedness that Rich displayed this past weekend was unbelievable. The workouts these athletes completed at the games was unreal. And you can bet on it that I will be trying some of these workouts in the upcoming months.
Back to my competition. Was guaranteed 2 workouts with a third one if you were in the top 14 individuals. After the first 2 workouts I was sitting in 10th place which I was pretty happy about. Since there were 70 competitors at the competition. After the third workout though I dropped down to 12th, so I missed out on being in the top 10 but I'm happy with at least making the final cut. Giving the chance to competition with the top athletes there.
Here are the workout I had to complete:
Workout #1
21, 15, 9
- Kettle Swing @ 70lbs
- Dumbbell Thrusters with 40lb DB in each hand
Placed 7th in workout

Workout #2
In 8 Minutes
- Row 1000m
- Find 1RM Clean and Jerk
NOTE: These were treated as 2 workouts in the scoring. In the row placed 2nd, in the clean and jerk placed 28th

Workout #3
15 min AMRAP
- 15 OHS @ 135lbs
- 30 Toes to Bar
- 30 TRX Push-ups
- 200 Double Unders
- 30 Pull-ups
- 30 Pistol Squats
- 15 Shoulder to Overhead
Completed up to 3 Shoulder to overhead so didn't complete 1 round

Overall thought it was a great experience. Definitely going to help me prepare for the Beast of the East coming up in October which I would like to do very well at. Looking back I need to keep working on pressing movements along with increasing my overall strength in all the lifts. I think I'm going to spend majority of the time this month working on strength  and increasing the volume in workouts. Once September hits going to start ramping up the number of workouts in the day and start teaching my body to recover faster for multiple workouts in the day. Great weekend and look forward to the next one. Stay tune for workouts this week.