Fitness Standards

Organizations whose members are expected to engage in physical activity as an essential aspect of affiliation – the various branches of the military, law enforcement agencies, fitness methodologies like CrossFit – necessarily impose standardized fitness benchmarks, minimum requirements which every prospective member must satisfy. When a significant portion of your professional identity is predicated upon your ability to catch (or kill) bad guys (bad guys, mind you, whose primary objective is to avoid capture), you’ve got to be able to run, jump, support your own body weight, and adequately perform all the other physical activities that might come up in a day’s work. The various fitness standards are an attempt to ensure candidates are up to par in their respective areas.


They vary wildly, of course. Different jobs call for different levels of competency. Also, certain organizations, like the Army, are always looking for new recruits, so their standards aren’t quite as rigorous when compared to the Navy SEALs’ standards. There’s a high demand for entrance into the SEALs, and they do their best to dissuade casual applicants; while it would certainly be nice if the Army were populated entirely by SEALs, it isn’t realistic. Thus, the Army has “relaxed” standards.

I wonder, though, if any of these benchmarks are suitable for the general public. Should the average adult be fit enough to become, say, a police officer? A marine? A SEAL? Let’s take a look at a few.


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Joel displaying power output on a kipping pull up during "Helen". Why do we kip? POWER!! FxD/T=Power

WoD:
"Fran"
21-15-9
Thrusters (Men use 95#/Women use 65#)
Pull Ups

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"Like Absolute Death"

"On a 500m row, you should feel like absolute death afterwards." - Rachel Medina




WoD:
Row 500m

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"Strong People Are Harder To Kill"

Robb-
I have had loads of clients lives changed from Paleo eating and CrossFit. Much of it do to your site and work. I have been stoked to get to see lives changed for real. As for me personally, when I adopted paleo (Oct 2008 after your cert at GSX) in place of decent success from the zone, and I too was pleased. Much leaner, much stronger, performance took huge leaps after being flat lined for some time. I noticed sleep quality increased and common allergies went away. This was cool no doubt.
However in April of this year I contracted the very rare Group A Streptococcus blood infection leading to streptococcal toxic shock syndrome. This is the same shiz Oprah did her big “Super Bugs” episode on. (this actually aired while I was in the hospital leading to a near breakdown by my wife and family) The first double hand transplant recipient lost both hands from this nasty stuff.

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Joel finishing his last lap of "Helen". Joel finished with a time of 8:54, not bad for his first time!

WoD:
"Annie"
50-40-30-20-10
Double Unders
Sit Ups

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Relieving Stress

The prevailing way of living in our Western societies is to plan out our lives, both for the long term and on a day-to-day basis.

We have planners and digital calendars that map out our lives, sometimes to the minute. We feel we’re in control, with plans like this.

But it’s an illusion, as I’ve said before.

We cannot control our lives to this degree, no matter how we try. Things will always come up to spoil the best-laid plans, and the more detailed our plans the more of a guarantee that something will go wrong.

And what happens when the plans go wrong? We are stressed out, because things get out of our control and don’t live up to our expectations. This is one of the greatest sources of stress for most people, actually.

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WoD:

"Helen"

3 Rounds

Run 400m

21 Swings

12 Pull Ups

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A Week Of Benchmarks

This week we will be holding off on the Max Effort and trying to PR on CrossFit Benchmark WoD's

WoD:

"Grace"

30 Clean and Jerks for time

Men use 135#, women use 95#

What Do You Believe In?

I believe in an adherence to standards. Chin over bar, squat below parallel, full extension, and chest to deck.

I believe in competition. Do better than your last performance, the athlete next to you, OPT, Everett, Jolie, etc.

I believe in pride. If you accomplish, brag.

I believe in camaraderie. Encourage others and find delight in their achievements.

I believe in the pursuit of information. The more you know, the more you grow, even if it proves you wrong.

I believe in eating your meat and veggies. Like Momma used to say.

I believe in heavy olympic and basic barbell lifts. If you're not doing them, you're not doing CrossFit.

I believe in having a coach. You may think you're doing it right, but you're not.

I believe your excuses are not welcome. They're demotivating and generally useless.

I believe in doing fun new things. Run, hop, cartwheel, jump, swing, dance, climb, play.

Taken from Rich Vos

Joel carrying the weight back during "Throwing Grace" last month

WoD

Shoulder Press

5-5-5-5-5

then

5 Rounds

10 Double Unders

10 Back Extensions

10 Handstand Push Ups

Early April Fool's

WoD:
10 Rounds for time
10 L Pull Ups
10 Ring Push Ups
10 Knees to Elbows

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Primal Blueprint

WoD:
One-Legged Squats
Go for a heavy single if possible, if not, practice the skill

then

10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1
1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10

Knees to Elbows
Box Jumps (Men use 24'/Women use 18")

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Train The Way We Fight

WoD:
Squat Clean
1-1-1-1-1-1-1

then

"Tyler"
5 Rounds
7 Muscle Ups
21 Sumo Deadlift High Pulls (Men use 95#/Women use 65#)

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Anabolic Diet

Miss eating pasta and breads? I don't recommend it but here is an alternative, the Anabolic Diet


Chris pressing out of a 30# Weighted Muscle Up

WoD:
Max Rep Pull Up

then

100 Overhead Squats (Men use 95#/Women use 65#)

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This Is Gonna Hurt

WoD:
Weighted Dips
2-2-2-2

then

"Death By Tabata Row"

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Music

Most gyms you walk into have music playing to motivate the people while working out. A study from Ohio State shows it might do more than that. Read here.


Joel's got a lot to smile about, after PR'ing on the Deadlift for a triple he finally got a 300# Deadlift!

WoD:
Run 800m
21 Shoulder Presses (Men use 95#/Women use 65#)
Run 800m
21 Push Presses (Use same bar)
Run 800m
21 Push Jerks (Use same bar)
Run 800m

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Adrenal Fatigue/Wendler 5-3-1

I had two questions that are sufficiently related that I can tackle them in one post. One relates to training, the other to adrenal fatigue Here are the two questions:

1-

I noticed you posted on coach rut’s site about doing the wendler 5-3-1, which i had heard of before. i looked it up, and i noticed the similarities it had with the layout of MEBB program with the rep scheme and all, except that the wendler progresses with sub-maximal weights while in MEBB, its always a max-effort.

would you mind commenting on sub-maximal progressions vs. max efforts for improving strength (which do you think is better?). and do you think the wendler 5-3-1 could be mixed with metcons similar to MEBB programming?

2-

Hey Robb,

Awesome entry. It’s like it works, indeed.

Question: I’ve got a client (and this holds true for myself as well) who I suspect is suffering from major adrenal fatigue. Way too many hours working, way too little sleep, way too much stress. Is there a way to quantify this/get some kind of cortisol measurement we can track? Going by feel is tough–some days he reports he feels great but performance is dragging; by same token I occasionally feel great on 3 quad americanos spaced out over the course of the day but fear that might be overkill and would love a way to quantify it!

So, I’ll tackle my training first, then the adrenal fatigue issue as the two are related. For the past several months I’ve been following elements of both CrossFit FootBall and Coach Rut’s Max Effort Black Box. I’ve ifting days. It progresses folks in a very measured way that generally keeps one within ones means, but it DOES have Some Max effort elements to it (in answer the question above). It is just a different format than the MEBB. Both approaches attempt to control volume and intensity with an eention roughly how I have structured the training.

Taken from RobbWolf.com

WoD:

Deadlifts

3-3-3-1-1-1

then

21-15-9

Pull Ups

Swings (Men use 55#/Women use 35#)

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Death By Tabata Row

Oh yes, it's coming soon!


WoD:
Front Squat
5-5-5-3-3-3

then

5 Rounds
5 Power Cleans (Men use 155#/Women use 115#)
15 Push Ups

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Smart Alcohol

Read from Mark's Daily Apple about the smartest choices when choosing an alcoholic beverage.



Chris at the bottom of an Overhead Squat at the 2009 Dirty South Qualifiers

WoD:
Shoulder Press
5-5-5-3-3-3

then

Row 2000m

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Snatches and Pulls

WoD:
Thrusters
2-2-2-2

then

3 Rounds
15 Hang Power Snatches (Men use 95#/Women use 65#)
20 Pull Ups

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FILTHY FIFTY!

For Time:
50 Box Jumps
50 Jumping Pull Ups
50 Kettlebell Swings
50 Walking Lunges
50 Knees To Elbows
50 Push Presses
50 Back Extensions
50 Wall Ball Shots
50 Burpees
50 Double Unders

Greyskull Elite

Greyskull Elite recently resigned their affiliation, read why here



Joel had only done 1 Muscle Up prior to this WoD. He knocked out 30 in 21:33. Way to go Joel!


WoD:
Weighted Pull Ups
3-3-3-1-1-1

then

7 Rounds
10 Sumo Deadlfit High Pulls (Men use 95#/Women use 65#)
10 Ring Dips

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30 Muscle Ups

Kathy cranking out her Single Unders

WoD:
Snatch
2-2-2-2

then

30 Muscle Ups For time

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MEBB Changes!

Coach Rutherford has made some changes to his MEBB template. In addition to the Effort Tier, he has added a Volume Tier and a Speed Tier to his template. Of course, look for these changes to be coming to a garage gym near you soon!


An example of Volume would be doing 20 Rep Back Squats and Speed would be several sets of 2 reps af 50% of a 1RM

WoD:
Weighted Dips
5-5-5-3-3-3

then

4 Rounds
Row for one minute
Rest for two minutes

Score is the total number of calories burned

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