breakfast oats 4 block meal

Had this this morning.

Oatmeal -1 full cup -3 blocks carb
1/2 cup or 100gm of grapes - 1 block carb
Large 28g Scoop of protein powder - 4 blocks protein
12 almonds - 4 blocks fat

This is my favourite meal of the day at the moment - it leaves me fullest for longest so far on this nutrition approach. I have a feeling that with the workouts I am doing I will need to start to up the fat blocks by x2 or x3 soon - but at present I want to see how the 4 block affects me. It certainly leaves me feeling a might hungrier....this may be my insulin levels "resetting" or it may be that I do indeed need to add in more fat. Yum!!

Post workout snack - 2 blocks

Just finished today's WOD  and has the following as a 2 block snack:

14g of protein powder mixed with water
apple
6 almonds

Today's lunch

Scrambled eggs (4 large eggs - 4 protein blocks)
Bacon bits (10 tsp full - 4 fat blocks)
1/2 cup kidney beans (2 carb blocks)
1 slice minus a little of rye bread (2 carb blocks)

The kidney beans went lovely with the eggs and the bacon.

Add some hot sauce for good measure to the eggs.

In the Zone!

Trying out the Zone Diet following having read some rave reports from Crossfitters on how the diet has improved their performance and body composition. To be honest, once I got the measuring system of Carbohydrate, Protein and Fat "blocks" into my head, it is wonderfully simple.

Here is a 4 block lunch I made today: Grilled Pork loin with pan fried mushrooms in butter, bacon bits and brussel sprouts.

4oz Grilled Pork loin (4 blocks of protein)
1.5 cups brussel sprouts (2 blocks of carbs)
Mushrooms - (1.5/2 blocks carbs)
bacon bits (2 block fats)
butter (2 block fats)

I was pleased that the size ratios of the different items pretty much resembled what I would have put together anyhow. We tend to eat a similar diet in our house anyhow, watching the carbohydrate levels and qualities and making sure that we get good amounts of proteins and fats.

sumo deadlift high pull

Martin does a great job here of getting his hips to generate upward lift for the upper body/peripheral limbs using explosive hip extension. This is his first use of the sumo high pull in a workout and his co-ordination is excellent. As he develops his technique and strength, he will need to push up through the hips more explosively and with dynamic control of his core to generate upward impetus for the lift.

The sumo deadlift high pull is a superb example of the fact that effective effort in moving loads in the peripheral limbs HAS to be generated from the centre or core.

pull ups using a resistance band to develop strength

Martin worked at the studio on his first 12-9-6 WOD.

The full rep range for a workout like this would be 21-15-9, but I wanted to scale it

appropriately for him, as the sumo deadlift high pulls and the pull ups are new to him.

On the pull up front, Martin has 2 good dead hang pull ups, so we used a resistance band to

allow him to up the rep range and keep better form in order to keep a bit more pace through this WOD.

Once Martin has developed a his dead hang pull up to around 10/12, then I plan to start teaching him

how to do a kipping pull up.

Steve's first proper WOD

Today I ran a WOD for my client Steve. The aim of today's session was to work a little bit more intensely and spend more time doing the workout itself than simply learning new skills. The last few sessions have been focusing on basic compound movements like deadlift and push up, while we have also started developing Steve's strength by using static holds on the rings.

Being in his mid forties and unused to exercise, let alone Crossfit metabolic conditioning workouts, I nevertheless wanted to give Steve a more substantial taste of the feeling that comes from working a number of compound moves together quickly for time. I was also very keen, for my part, to get the scaling right for him. When I first started Crossfitting, I of course overdid things by not scaling correctly. The result was for a while fatigue and longer recovery times.

The workout I put together for him was based loosely on Crossfit's recent "Bunch of Stuff" workout. Before Steve arrived, I had undetakien the workout myself in a modified format, as we don't yet own a rowing machine. By doing the WOD, I decided these things:

Leave out the dips for him for the time being
Cut the rep range pretty substantially

As it turned out and you will hear in the video, Steve took alot less time than I had suggested. I figured he should be aiming for under 17 minutes and he made it all in 9:40. I had scaled more than I thought, but - and this is crucial - FOR BEGINNERS IT IS WAY BETTER TO SCALE TOO EASY THAN TOO HARD!!!!

During the workout, we quickly changed the ring static holds for static plank holds at 15 seconds x2, as the elbows to knees and subsequent jumping pull ups really tired Steve's arms and he had no confidence to hold still on the rings at that point.

Above all, he KEPT GOING. I was really please that the workout had a great effect. He managed to keep a fairly consistent pace and had some left in the tank to speed up a little at the end. As you can see from the video, he was tired and breathing hard, but also happy and he began to recover quickly during a cuppa and a post workout chat. Awesome stuff Steve!

Also, it's been great to start working on some of the Crossfit basics with Steve's wife, who came to the studio seeking some nutritional and exercise advice. The session before Steve's today we started looking at proper squat technique, a push up progression from the knees and beginning upper body strength training using some Get Me Ups.

Steve's WOD was:
25 Sumo deadlift high pulls
20 up and downs
10 knees to elbows
15 jumping pull ups
15 seconds static plank x 2
10 Turkish get ups alternating arms