IGX

Grandpa's Spells wrote:LOL @ "Daddy, why does our town smell like gin?"

The main ingredient is stupidity!

Stillwater wrote:It seems Carl has been busy since DD kicked him to the curb.

http://100milemovie.com/

Yet when you talk to them, when you talk to Brian or Carl or any of those marathoners, it’s almost as if you were the abnormal one. Why wouldn’t you want to run 26.2 miles? 100 miles? Why wouldn’t you want to test the limits of your body against the limits of your mind?

Kazuya Mishima wrote: Dirt Diva put her fucking cellphone number on her blog page.

If Chris McCormack came to you and said “I want to win Kona this year (again)” how would you train him?

I’d tell him I can’t train him. An athlete like that is such a specialist that it would take me 2-3 years just to get him moving correctly enough to handle what I wanted to do to him. If I had 2-3 years and we could change his nutrition, and put some size and strength on him, all the while he still could move efficiently, then I would never let him do an unnecessary mile or minute of training again. Unfortunately, he probably wouldn’t be able to wrap his head around that, and have a break down, and secretly go out and swim/bike/run real long. I can’t give you his code for training because they are all different, but I can tell you he would not only not survive with me but would not win Kona if I only had a year.

The article has inspired (instigated?) quite a firestorm amongst the forum-folks of Slowtwitch, their major beef seeming to be the argument that until people who are utilizing CrossFit and CFE as their training regime start placing higher at Tri’s, then they’re going to stick with their LSD. That, and it seems they don’t like tattoos very much.

sanchezero wrote:didn't carl say he wouldn't/couldn't run more than 13 miles?

Much discussion is given about the best way to 'game' certain workouts. With the rise in popularity of events such as the CrossFit Games (and the popularity of CrossFit in general), many people seem to be equating 'best workout' with 'best strategy for a particular workout', instead of best effort put forth on a particular workout.

Let's look at a very basic example, the CF workout 'Helen', which is done for total time:
400m Run
21 Kettlebell Swings
12 Pullups
Repeat 3x

If competition was important to me and I absolutely had to beat Kelly and Angel (it's an ego thing...), I would be reluctant to go too hard on the running as I am a total hack runner. By dogging it on the run, I'll remain relatively fresh for the things I'm already good at, most likely resulting in a lower overall time. This is great if my goal is to beat Kelly and Angel. This is not so great if my goal includes not being lame at things I'm already lame enough at.

Now, knowing that I am a hack runner, what physical improvements to my running do I receive from being a big baby on the run (Hint: lower total time/better score does not always equal direct physical benefit)? [WTF??? Work capacity...neuroendocrine response...intensity...slop...aaaaack!] How do I expect to become better at running hard and recovering if I never subject myself to that at the very time I should be...in Training!

And there lies a bit of a disconnect in many people's training. The gaming of workouts has become standard practice for many of us despite the fact that we have no desire to be 'Best CFer On Earth'. Instead, the focus should be 'How can I bring my weak points up?'. The answer is to put forth the best effort possible on the things you are not good at, even if it means you blow up later on. That's what practice is for. Does it really matter if you struggle in training? Will your world end if you don't finish first, but you really give it your all on something that is difficult for you? My guess is that you will find the final product to be much more capable and complete if the stopwatch or scorecard is not your only reference while training.

The Bastard Son of the Shafman wrote:They're going to run 100 miles never running over 50?

I don't bother following CFE much, Twight's claim that the you lose the adaptations for ultra-endurance work slowly, and that it negatively impacts performance eventually is propped up quite a bit by Issurin's work.

The Bastard Son of the Shafman wrote:They're going to run 100 miles never running over 50?

I don't bother following CFE much, Twight's claim that the you lose the adaptations for ultra-endurance work slowly, and that it negatively impacts performance eventually is propped up quite a bit by Issurin's work.

The German Rowers ease off the throttle

Eighty percent of the training volume among elite German rowers was performed at a lactate concentration under 2.0 mM!( a value at or only slightly above resting levels) Only one or two percent of the training volume was at "RACE PACE". (Remember in competitive rowing, the events last 5.5 to 8 minutes, so race pace is above VO2 max.) From what I knew of their training back in the 50s and 60s, I had assumed that the Germans (and the Soviets) trained at brutal intensities, and those who didn't survive were replaced. Had the Germans become wimps? Well, actually at the exact time of these tests in the late 80s , they were the dominant world power in rowing with multiple world champions ranging across the boat class spectrum. So, whatever they were doing was working.

Why?

Why had German rowers, (and the Italians, another world power) adopted this training philosophy. Well, I dug up something interesting on that issue written way back in 1968 in a major rowing publication. Back in the early and mid 60s the German's training approach had indeed been much different, with a greater emphasis on high intensity intervals. What they found was that, to a great extent they did reach high performance levels with this training program. But, they were not seeing progressive improvement from year to year among their elite athletes. Every year they came up to the same level, fell back down in the off season, and repeated the process the next season. Then they changed the composition of the training to a higher volume, lower intensity (fewer killer intervals at max speed) and the long term progress began to occur. This makes sense when we consider the "Waves of Change".

The Bastard Son of the Shafman wrote:Ohhhh.....that 100milemovie blog is priceless.

If Chris McCormack came to you and said “I want to win Kona this year (again)” how would you train him?

I’d tell him I can’t train him. An athlete like that is such a specialist that it would take me 2-3 years just to get him moving correctly enough to handle what I wanted to do to him. If I had 2-3 years and we could change his nutrition, and put some size and strength on him, all the while he still could move efficiently, then I would never let him do an unnecessary mile or minute of training again. Unfortunately, he probably wouldn’t be able to wrap his head around that, and have a break down, and secretly go out and swim/bike/run real long. I can’t give you his code for training because they are all different, but I can tell you he would not only not survive with me but would not win Kona if I only had a year.

The article has inspired (instigated?) quite a firestorm amongst the forum-folks of Slowtwitch, their major beef seeming to be the argument that until people who are utilizing CrossFit and CFE as their training regime start placing higher at Tri’s, then they’re going to stick with their LSD.

Fuck those douchebags.