God’s Workout

The superfit walk among us. They saunter or strut, depending on whether they’re showcasing their magnificent agility or their oxlike strength. They ignore the chatter in the health media over treadmill technique and pedometer steps. They scoff even at seemingly rigorous practices like Mysore Ashtanga yoga and marathon training. They are America’s self-styled fitness elite, adherents of a punishing online exercise regime called CrossFit, which orders its followers to cultivate a distinctly martial — not to say paranoid — ideal of “physical preparedness.”

CrossFit has 450 chapters in 43 states (and several other countries). The network has a message for the merely healthy: “Your workout is our warm-up.” Every day, its members consult CrossFit.com like a Book of Common Prayer, receiving instructions for their workout rites and periods of rest. Performing caveman feats like hauling, clambering, trudging, snatching, hurling and deadlifting, CrossFitters deliberately overwhelm and distress their bodies, executing near-impossible stunts with as much weight as they can bear. A Workout of the Day, or W.O.D., might include 50 kettlebell swings, 3 800-yard dashes in rapid succession and 10 pull-ups. Then repeat. No breaks. No weight machines. All you need is a body built for discipline and a mind that can justify so much apparent self-abuse.

The spare site is the foundation of the CrossFit ministry. It resembles not so much a gym as a system of alleys, a rough-hewn underground network designed to train a super-race that wouldn’t be out of place in Marvel Comics. On a typical day, some 200 people post responses to the workout. (This looks fun, if by fun I mean painful and heinous . . . cry from pain . . . my hands are toast . . . lightheaded and dizzy . . . whoop, whoop!) It’s an exercise phenomenon custom-made for this moment in Web history: CrossFit couldn’t exist without lots of speedy, uploadable video; social networking; and an expansive platform for international, demographically varied community interaction. Many of the official demo videos feature women, and even among the rank and file, women are everywhere. A scan of members’ posted ages shows that participants are between 20 and 60, with many in their 30s. (There’s also a kids’ program.)

Even if handstand pushups have no place in your life, there’s something eye-opening and even inspiring about the site’s aggressive ambitions for the human body. Like urban-gymnast traceurs and other daredevils who have come into their own on digital video, CrossFitters offer themselves as evidence that people are capable of more than merely giving up sugar for Splenda and taking the stairs occasionally; according to the CrossFit creed, they can and should also be prepared to fell trees, tame bulls and carry families of four on their backs. Olympians, soldiers, police officers, firefighters and devoted fitness amateurs convene on the site, reveling in max squats and circus-strongman stunts, which they repeat as many as 100 times per workout. This is exercise not for vanity or for longevity but for an imagined moment of heroism that may never come.

CrossFit’s founder, Greg Glassman, is referred to by his disciples simply as Coach, which contributes to the program’s cultlike vibe. A former gymnast who put his longtime training program online in 2001, Glassman is known for his impatience with exercisers who fear injury: “There’s nothing about crashing that makes you drive faster, right? But you’re not going to learn to drive real fast unless you’ve wrecked once or twice.” In brazen, inventive, hortatory speeches and prose, he leans on the conceit of “forging,” blacksmith style. His Web site is “forging elite fitness,” and his message board is “forging elite community.” CrossFit represents a ministry for Glassman, who is intent on drafting and redrafting his program — so intent, in fact, that he has said he works out inconsistently.

The enemies in the eyes of the CrossFit crowd are “Stairmaster chumps” (who log long, drowsy hours on the machines but huff and puff on actual stairs) and myopic “specialists” — athletes or exercisers who neglect versatility in order to refine one or two skills. The CrossFitters’ critique has chastened at least one specialist. An essay by a triathlete named Tom Demerly titled “How Fit Are We?” appeared on a biking blog, conceding that if triathletes “found ourselves in a jam that required overall physical fitness to survive, we’d probably be in trouble.” Further admitting that he could barely do a single pull-up, Demerly went on to praise the fitness of a CrossFit type he had met named Joe Sparks, who “gave a demonstration using a 50-pound kettlebell making it look like he was maneuvering a tennis ball.”

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Corps beefs up fitness standards to help portly Marines slim down

By Craig Gustafson

Put down that bag of chips, maggot, and give me 50!

Gen. James Conway, commandant of the Marine Corps, didn’t say those exact words when he issued a shape-up-or-ship-out message to all Marines, but he might as well have.

The nation’s top Marine has created a rigorous fitness test to gauge combat readiness and has ordered strict enforcement of body-fat standards that he said have become lax in recent years.

“Tendencies toward increased weight have become a dangerous trend over the last decade in our American society. But Marines are different,” Conway wrote in an Aug. 8 message.

About 100 Camp Pendleton Marines got their first look at the new test during a demonstration yesterday. They repeatedly lifted 30-pound ammunition boxes above their heads, crawled on their bellies through a mock battlefield, lobbed fake grenades and, of course, did push-ups.

“Every single part of my body is hurting. It’s a lot harder than I thought,” Lance Cpl. Jesus Corella of Nogales, Ariz., said after finishing the obstacle course portion of the test in less than three minutes.

It took nearly 10 minutes for him to catch his breath.

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The theme here is that every athlete, and I mean every athlete, can get into a training rut if not enough attention to paid to switching up workouts.  Be it crosstraining, which can be highly beneficial in the prevention of injury, or just a change of pace, say running a trail rather than a track or doing open water swims rather than laps in the pool, adding variety to your training can help keep things interesting and keep your body from getting too comfortable with a particular workout.

One caveat to variety is the potential for decreased attendance towards your specific goals.  Swimmers need to swim to get better.  The key here is to break down your training methodology and identify the core components behind it.  Core components in a schedule of running for a sprinter could be identified as anaerobic conditioning and strength.  Just as swimmers need to swim, runners need to run, but a workout (such as the one listed below) that addressed the specific needs of anaerobic conditioning and strength development would allow for variety while still moving the athlete towards his or her stated goals.

3 rounds of 21-15-12 for time:

95lb thrusters + pullups

LIFE OF REILLY

Take away Michael Phelps’ limbs and who do you get? Craig Dietz.

by Rick Reilly

Christy Appleby

I don’t care how liberal you are, how caring and open-minded. If you were swimming the mile in the Pittsburgh Triathlon last month and got passed by a guy with stubs for arms and legs, it had to be deflating.

But I’m here to ease your pain. The guy who Michael Phelpsed you is a marvel, a phenomenon, a wonder. He’s the unsinkable Craig Dietz. Literally. You can’t sink him. “I’d love to dive and see what it looks like underwater,” says the 34-year-old Dietz, “but I can’t. I’m too buoyant.”

So instead he had to be content with finishing 273rd out of 308 swimmers, beating 35 able-bodied people in the Allegheny River as part of a three-man relay team he called Bob.

STARE IF YOU WANT. HE’S PAST CARING.

“Get it?” Dietz says. “Bob? It’s like, what do you call a man with no arms or legs in a ditch? Phil! Water-skiing? Skip!”

Don’t blame me! This is how Craig Dietz is! He teases himself to put you at ease. Except when he tries to freak you out. One time in college, at a Duquesne frat’s haunted house, he put fake blood all over his four stubs, had his buddy fire up a chain saw and came hopping out with the buddy chasing him. The sorority girls nearly fainted.

Stare at him if you want. He’s past caring. He’s got too much to do. He works as a lawyer for the city of Pittsburgh. He bowls, skis, hunts (bagged an eight-point buck once), fishes, kicks butt at mini golf, plays volleyball (hits the ball off his head), jams on the drums, has a girlfriend and drives his own van (with a fake license plate that reads, look, mom! no hands!). Mostly, he makes you feel like a worthless, prechewed slab of meat, wasting your able-bodied life eating Cheetos and watching Tila Tequila.

When Craig was born with stubs where his arms and legs should have been because of a genetic fluke, even his dad never dreamed he’d do all this. “I went through a tough time,” says Gary Dietz, a retired telephone worker from St. Mary’s, Pa. “I was lost. I just kept thinking, What’s gonna happen to this poor little guy?” Gary found solace in the bottle, until the family doctor told him to snap out of it—and cut back on the booze. From that moment on, “anything I wanted to do, my dad made it happen,” Craig says. When Craig wanted to ride a trike like the other kids, Gary got an old one from the junkman, bent the arms so Craig could steer, reset the seat so he could push off the ground with his stub and set him loose. Nothing has stopped them since.

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Anytime you’re competing for something there will be others trying their best to beat you.  That’s the nature of the game.  The key to enduring in a competitive environment is to take each day, each exercise, each mile, each rep, as a single entity.  If you’re running a marathon, mile 5 doesn’t know you just ran mile 4, and doesn’t care that next you’ll be running mile 6, 15, or 20.  By breaking down larger tasks into a series of small ones, and then focusing specifically on each one, it is possible to minimize the tendency to feel overwhelmed.  10 strokes is easier to swim than 1/2 mile, so concentrate on 10 strokes at a time.  Nothing outside those 10 strokes exists.  Not the next 10 strokes, or the 80 strokes you’ve already completed.

An overweight 40 year old just swam 20 miles across the Catalina Channel; more people have been in space than have completed this task.  Imagine what you can do if you put your mind to it.

Swimming for his life

Greg Farrier used to be a great swimmer. Then he quit. Now, he’s trying to swim home from Catalina. Will he quit again?

First of two parts

To read Part 2, and see a slide show, click here

CATALINA ISLAND — The Bottom Scratcher chugs into Doctor’s Cove just before midnight.

Maybe it’s the hour or salt air or three hours sloshing through 5-foot swells, but all 28 people aboard have grown quiet. Gone are the easy chatter and smiles flashed back at Pier C in Long Beach Harbor. This could be a long, cruel night.

“I’m not going to beat around the bush,” says Greg Farrier, 40, applying Vaseline to his underarms. “I’m nervous. I’m not sure I’m a lock to finish.”

Once he was a world-class swimmer: a member of the Mission Viejo Nadadores in their heyday. He swam alongside world-record holders and Olympians. He rose to the top 1 percent nationally. He was edged out of the Olympics by future gold medalists Jeff Rouse and David Berkoff.

Then he quit. Burned out on endless laps, 4:30 a.m. wake-up calls and near misses. For 20 years, it’s haunted him – if only he hadn’t quit.

“I always wonder what could’ve been,” he says.

He graduated USC. Got a job. A wife. Three kids. He got bigger. Less athletic. And bigger still. Until one day last year he asked himself: What if?

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Ashley

Dave Werner
CrossFit North

There is always another reason to celebrate or skip a workout, and many times it is different individuals or groups who are playing the part of the temptor without realizing you’re bombarded by this sort of thing on a daily/weekly basis.  Take control and be the one to dictate when you can afford to indulge and when you need to maintain consistency to achieve your dietary/physical goals.

These days I find nutrition to be a much easier animal to deal with than previously.  My guidelines are simple.  If it looks like something I’ll likely puke up during an intense bout of exercise, I don’t eat it.  By following the zone diet (concentrating more on ratios and timing than getting uber specific with blocks) my desire to wretch has been greatly reduced, and I’ve got the energy to throw myself into a workout at the conlcusion of the workday without carrying around any extra weight.

For those unfamiliar with the principles of the Zone diet, here are some quick guidelines as found on www.zonediet.com

An often implemented component of the crossfit system is Tabata Protocol.  Simply put, this consists of 20 seconds of your most intense possible work output followed by 10 seconds of rest.  Repeat for a total of 4 minutes (8 rounds).  Your score is the least number of reps performed during any round (so it doesn’t help you to go easy at first and finish hard).

How to use it

The beauty of this methodology is that it can be applied to just about anything.  Calisthenics, rowing, running, swimming, etc.  Often times at Crossfit we’ll use it as a final dose of pain after a brief rest following the main workout (Tabata pushups, airsquats, situps, c2 row, pullups, etc.).  It can also be applied to multiple exercises and/or in an abridged form.  For example you could perform 2 min of pushups, 2 min of airsquats, and 2 min of situps, all in Tabata style for a comprehensive ass-kicker.

The science

As appeared in Men’s Fitness, May 2004 (probably the only worthwhile article appearing in that magazine)

The Tabata Protocol–named after Izumi Tabata, Ph.D., a former researcher at Japan’s National Institute of Fitness and Sports in Kanoya–is an interval routine developed by the head coach of the Japanese speed-skating team. (It’s called a protocol because Tabata and his team took the speed-skating coach’s workout and studied it to quantify just how effective it really was.)

In Tabata’s study, the researchers found that guys who used the routine five days a week for six weeks improved their maximum aerobic capacity (a measure of your body’s ability to consume oxygen–the more oxygen you can take in, the longer and harder you’ll be able to run) by 14%. What’s more, it also improved anaerobic capacity (which measures your speed endurance, or the duration you’re able to sprint at full effort) by 28%. So the Tabata Protocol is the rare workout that benefits both endurance athletes and sprinters–hard to accomplish. Consider: A study of traditional aerobic training–running at 70% of aerobic capacity for 60 minutes–for the same number of weeks showed an improvement in aerobic capacity of 9.5% and no effect on anaerobic capacity.

Drugs Offer Promise of Fitness Without Effort

Can you enjoy the benefits of exercise without the pain of exertion? The answer may one day be yes — just take a pill that tricks the muscles into thinking they have been working out furiously.

Researchers at the Salk Institute report they have found two drugs that do wonders for the athletic endurance of couch potato mice. One drug, known as Aicar, increased the mice’s endurance on a treadmill by 44 percent after just four weeks of treatment.

A second drug, GW1516, supercharged the mice to a 75 percent increase in endurance, but had to be combined with exercise to have any effect.

“It’s a little bit like a free lunch without the calories,” said Dr. Ronald M. Evans, leader of the Salk group.

The results, Dr. Evans said, seem reasonably likely to apply to people, who control muscle tone with the same underlying genes as do mice. And if the drugs work and prove to be safe, they could be useful in a wide range of settings.

They should help people who are too frail to exercise and those with health problems such as diabetes that are improved with exercise, he said.

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