Blog Archive

Audrey Tannant Business Development Manager Crossfit Vancouver / Madlab School of Fitness

DISCLAIMER: Yes, I’m obnoxious. Vegans deserve love, too. (maybe).

Recently, I contemplated dating a vegan. But it was not meant to be. There I was texting him with chicken BBQ-ing on my deck, prosciutto in the salad, and a chub of salami and goat cheese looking delicious on my table. There is no room for a vegan in my life (probably for moral, as well as practical reasons).

UNTIL NOW??

That’s right – they’re making real MEAT without real meat!!! WTF??

Check it out: $380,000 of research and development went into producing this TEST TUBE BURGER – a burger made from 20,000 strips of lab-grown meat tissue combined with lab-grown animal fat.

Read More Here. And Here. Or HERE.

If this becomes a consumer viable product in the near future, I may be able to broaden my scope of datable subjects to the vegan community – the thought just blew my mind!

Lesson Plan for Monday, August 26th:

Warm up:  Two times through

10 rolls to v-sit with forward reach
20 hollow rocks
10 burpee

Strength:  This strength piece is the leaderboard for today.  2 parts, 35 minutes cap.

A1. Front Squat (5,5,5,5,5)

A2. Strict Pull-up 5 x M.E.*

I put the asterisk next to “Max Effort” to indicate it likely shouldn’t be a true max effort but one where you stop 1-3 reps shy to maximize the number of pull-ups you’ll do across all 5 sets.  Score is heaviest weight front squatted plus TOTAL number of pull-ups.

WoD:  300 Double-unders

Save 10 minutes at the end to go for this little test.  It’s one of the more advanced markers we’ll be using in the pocket coach for your fitness rating.

Bill 

Its back! Did you miss it? I did. This stuff works great on these olds bones (and my dandruff).

Epic Nutrients Mighty Omega Fish oil is now back in stock. Patty had to climb a mountain and fight a cave troll for this to happen but we got it!

Lucas Parker – Loves Mighty Omega

Why buy this fish oil? Check out epicnutrients.com. The site is excellent at educating readers about fish oil and tells you what sets Mighty Omega apart from the rest.

We are selling it in our vending machine which now has a credit card swiper thing!  The Pro Shop is selling it as well.

The cc swiper will also come in handy for all you folks when you go to buy your own skipping rope.

Mucho Amore,

Sheppy

Lesson Plan for Friday, August 23rd and Saturday, August 24th:

Friday

Warm-up: 3 rounds

10 kettle bell swing
10 box jump

Tech:  Hang Power Clean (3,3,3,1,1,1)

WoD:  3 rounds

15 hang power clean (135/95)
15 burpee

 Saturday:

Warm-up: Turkish Get-Up – max reps in 5 minutes (24kg, 16kg)

Tech: Warm-up WoD movements and set up stations

Partner WoD: 30 minute AMRAP

30 wall balls (20, 14)
20 burpee box jumps (24″, 20″)
10 strict pull-ups

Bumpy and Bilbo

Who is he?

He was an MD and researcher from McGill University.  Dr Selye’s research in stress and the resulting “General Adaptation Syndrome (1936)” continues today as a cornerstone of exercise science.

How do I know this?  I read it in the CrossFit Journal. Lon Kilgore wrote an article about the father of adaption research. Read it here CFJ – Adaptations.

“Selye’s 1936 paper was titled “A Syndrome Produced by Diverse Nocuous Agents” examined structural and functional changes in organisms, single-cell to human, after exposure to “nocuous” (harmful) stresses such as injury, cold exposure, intoxication, drugs and—most important for our purposes—exercise.”

So how does it work?

Stage 1: Alarm – When the body experiences stress as it never has before (think about your first Tabata squats) your “internal equilibrium” is upset. All cell activity turns to survival at all costs by diverting its functions to the fortification and maintenance of the cell structure and integrity. Amazingly the proteins that do this stay around long after the stress is over.

Want proof? Go poke Andy Sack in the butt cheek (do it). Those cells have had some integrity restructuring.

Stage 2: Resistance – Dr Kilgore thinks this stage should actually be called adaptation. This can happen in a matter of days, weeks or months.

“During this stage, the organism starts producing more metabolic and structural elements that are required to enhance its ability to withstand another exposure to the damaging stress. That makes sense: resistance to stress is developed. While the alarm stage is absolutely crucial to initiating fitness gains, the resistance stage is where fitness gains actually occur”.

I always say you only get stronger and fitter when you are not working out.

It is during this stage that we need the proper amount of rest, sleep, and excellent nutrition. These elements are crucial for successful resistance.

Stage 3: Exhaustion – In this stage the organism experiences so much stress that it, worst case scenario, dies. Recovery is impossible. For us at Mad Lab here this stage can mean something like over training.

I’ve always loved this article. My understanding of what a cell does during exercise in order to survive and adapt to future stressors filled me with a sense of wonder and excitement. Please give it a read as it goes into much greater detail than I do here.

“It should be understood that if exercise is to drive adaptation (fitness gain), the work done in training must continually progress in load. No increased load leads to no improvement in fitness.”

Think about that next time you are lollygagging a workout.

Le Shepherd

Lesson Plan for Thursday, August 22nd:

Warm-up: Coaches choice.

Strength/skill:  Two similar pieces today.

1.  Max strict handstand push-ups.

2.  Max kipping handstand push-ups.

Please remember to add to your data on the white board from Tuesday.

WoD:  20m walking lunge for max weight.

For this use a barbell in the front rack.  If you’re going to go heavy you may want to treat this like a widow-maker and warm up with some heavier weights for shorter distance.  If you’re not very comfortable with going heavy with this movement yet get in at least 5 rounds of 20 meter weighted walking lunges.

Billy and Benny

The 100 bottles of wine are going to a happy home: The winner is Julie Robbilard, a brain scientist from UBC.

When the draw happened, Bill, Julie’s coach, ran outside to let his client know of her good fortune. Julie was out with friends that night. “I was pretty sure Bill was just drunk texting and that it was meant for someone else. Why would he ask me to call him on a Saturday night? Probably not to discuss my power cleans,” Julie said.

“I called back and he told me about winning the wine raffle and I honestly couldn’t believe it. I’m not usually lucky with these kinds of things, so it was an awesome surprise,” added Julie, who immediately started thinking of all the ways she could put the wine to good use. “I pretty much spent the rest of the ride home planning a giant party at my place.”

As for how long she expects it to take her to get through the wine, Julie joked: “I guess it depends on how many people show up to my party.”

Lesson Plan for Wednesday, August 21st:

Warm-up:  Spend a few minutes opening up the hips, knees and ankles then go for a light-ish 1 mile run.  Don’t kill yourself here as we’re going to do some more intense running to follow.

Test 1:  400m Ball Run

Test 2: Max continuous hollow rocks. (if your number is very low get in a few sets here)

WoD:  5 rounds

200m Ball Run (20/12)
12 pull-up