Niall's Blog

I saw a lot of this lift at the CrossFit NorCal Qualifier over the weekend. One of the workouts was:

For time: Row 500m 30 Burpees 10 Shoulder-to-Overhead (Men: 165#, Women: 95#) It's up to you to decide on the technique to employ for the shoulder-to-overhead movement (shoulder press, push press, push jerk, etc.). Efficient technique will be rewarded.

Of course, the push jerk is one of the most efficient ways to get a weight overhead - because you use the hips and legs to drive the weight up, instead of just the shoulders. According to the CrossFit Journal, an athlete skilled in the push jerk can lift 70% more than they can press. That is a dramatic increase. While I've worked the press a bit, especially with kettle bells, I have minimal experience with the push jerk. Yesterday's push jerk WOD, then, was welcome practice! One of the sticking points for me is shoulder flexibility - I find it very hard to keep my arms locked out overhead with the weight centered over my spine. I need to work on both the flexibility - with more shoulder dislocates - and on the movement itself. Since I don't have a rack, I of course need to clean the weight up off the floor before I can jerk it. I found this excellent video on both power clean and then push jerk technique:

Niall O'Higgins is an author and software developer. He wrote the O'Reilly book MongoDB and Python. He is the co-founder of BeyondFog, Inc which makes Strider Brilliant Continuous Deployment. Strider is a hosted Continuous Integration & Deployment service for Node.JS and Python.

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Although I enjoyed both the taste and ritual aspect of coffee, around six weeks ago I decided I was too dependent and that it was having a negative effect on me. Specifically, I felt like it was sapping my energy and leaving me with a kind of brain fog around mid afternoon that nothing could fix. Drinking more coffee wouldn't help at all. I had also noticed that the acidity of coffee was contributing to indigestion. I guess I was drinking two large cups of strong drip coffee per day on average, sometimes more, sometimes less. I would also drink green tea in addition to this. Aside from the morning dependency (MUST have coffee before starting work), the mid-afternoon mental slowdown I'd experience sometimes, and the increased stomach acidity, I didn't have any greatly negative experiences - unlike other people who have trouble sleeping, get very anxious, and so on. I could drink many cups and not have any real problems. I never drank coffee immediately before a work out so I'm not sure if it was helping my performance much. It seems that there is no clear cut story about the long term health effects of coffee or caffeine. There are plenty of studies on both sides of the issue - some report that caffeine contributes to high blood pressure, increases stress, leaches calcium from the body, and so on. Others point to increased athletic ability, protection against cancers and protection against Parkinson's disease. I found this post on the CrossFit Santa Cruz blog which seems to reach a similar conclusion. I didn't find it hugely difficult to give up - I simply decreased initially to a single shot in the morning for a week, then I dropped it off completely substituting black or green tea, and then gave up completely. I suppose its been over a month now since I last had coffee. I don't have any particular urge to drink it, I'm happy enough with herbal teas and the occasional black or green tea when I feel like it. I don't notice a huge difference in how I feel apart from a reduction in what I call brain fog, and of course not craving coffee in the morning. I don't think coffee could have been helping my CrossFit performance that much - since quitting coffee my Fran time has dropped by a minute and a half. On the other hand, I'm not implying any causality in that - I'm sure my performance would have improved if I hadn't quit coffee. Overall, I feel like being dependent on any substance for a long period of time is not good, that its healthy to break these mild addictions. Its rewarding just to know I can, and also not to have any pressing need to either brew a cup or pay someone else to brew one for me. I think I'll stay off coffee for the foreseeable future - I feel more free without it.

Niall O'Higgins is an author and software developer. He wrote the O'Reilly book MongoDB and Python. He is the co-founder of BeyondFog, Inc which makes Strider Brilliant Continuous Deployment. Strider is a hosted Continuous Integration & Deployment service for Node.JS and Python.

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Through CrossFit, I've recently heard about the benefits of training with gymnastics rings. Today my rings, which I purchased from RingTraining.com (affiliate link) for a pretty reasonable price, arrived - and I've been using them a bit. To get an idea of the kind of strength training you can do with rings, check out this example of the very difficult Iron Cross skill: The three main exercises I'm interested in performing (or at least, trying to perform) are ring pull-ups, ring dips and the muscle-up. Pull-ups on rings can supposedly be a bit easier on the shoulders than static bar pull-ups, and since the rings move, can require some core strength to stabilise the body. Some people train pull-ups solely on rings because of the shoulder relief they can offer. Doing dips on the rings is quite a bit harder than doing them on a standard, static gym dip-frame, again because the rings move and you must work a lot harder to maintain stability. I find my arms shaking after doing just a couple of ring dips - something I've only had happen after a few hundred reps on the static bar. The muscle-up is like a pull-up followed by a dip. According to CrossFit, its roughly equivalent in terms of exertion to three pull-ups and three dips. It can take months or more to develop the strength to do it - I'm certainly not there yet. For more info on the muscle-up, and other skills, check out BeastSkills.com.

Niall O'Higgins is an author and software developer. He wrote the O'Reilly book MongoDB and Python. He is the co-founder of BeyondFog, Inc which makes Strider Brilliant Continuous Deployment. Strider is a hosted Continuous Integration & Deployment service for Node.JS and Python.

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So it was Friday and the WOD posted on CrossFit.com was ``Nicole'':

Complete as many rounds in 20 minutes as you can of: Run 400 meters Max rep Pull-ups

I live near the Inner Sunset in San Francisco, around a mile from Kezar Stadium. Kezar is a fantastic training resource - it has a decent running track (one lap is 400 meters), lots of space, bleachers to run up and down on, etc. Perfect for the running part of Nicole, but what about the pull-ups? Unfortunately, there is no Par Course or similar, no pull-up bar or jungle gym. However, there are plenty of trees! Inspired by this photo of fellow CrossFitKMSF-er Lake: I thought I'd look for a suitable tree as close as possible to the running track. It turns out there is a pretty decent one near the starting point. So, I managed to get in eight rounds in 20 minutes, doing the pull-ups from this sturdy tree, 13-10-10-9-10-10-10-5. Not too bad, and lots of fun! Definitely going to do more training at Kezar - next time I'll hang gymnastics rings from the goal posts, I think.

Niall O'Higgins is an author and software developer. He wrote the O'Reilly book MongoDB and Python. He is the co-founder of BeyondFog, Inc which makes Strider Brilliant Continuous Deployment. Strider is a hosted Continuous Integration & Deployment service for Node.JS and Python.

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